The MP3 Players

The Yepp will be one of the first MP3 players to be occupied with WLAN connection. It allows users to access streaming music directly to their MP3 player. The users will be able to purchase online music directly to their devices and even create their personal podcast without PC.

{ via MobileMag }

The users may upgrade that Zen Micro players that have the firmware v1.02.05 or earlier, or Zen Micro PlaysForSure firmware 2.00.12 or later.

The new firmware fixes:

• Prevents battery drain when the player is charged with an AC adapter already plugged into a live power outlet
• Restores proper functionality after disconnecting the power adaptor or transferring content using Zen Media Explorer
• Redirects playback properly when skipping to the beginning of a WMA track
• Allows you to quickly charge your player from your computer’s USB port when player drivers are not installed. Slide the Power switch towards the Lock icon before charging your player.

The enhancements of this version are:

• Improves the look of the volume control bar
• Improves the appearance of the Lock icon
• Adds a 4GB option in Removable Disk Mode (for 5 or 6GB players only)
• Adds support for the Russian language

{ Info; Download }

Major Japanese record companies, including Columbia Music Entertainment Inc., Avex Group Holdings Inc. and Toshiba-EMI Ltd., have agreed to provide songs for the service. However, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. has yet to agree on contract terms with Apple, it said.

Apple has sold nearly half of billion songs in 19 countries since the launch of iTunes in the United States two years ago.

{ via Reuters India }

JNC recently released their SSF-F300 Series of flash memory based MP3 players. The series includes three models, SSF-F302, SSF-F305, and SSF-F310 with the capacity of 256MB, 512 MB and 1GB repectively.

The player supports playback of MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV and ASF formats and direct MP3 encoding. It will be the smallest MP3 player with built-in speaker in the market. According to the features list from the official website, it has the dimension of 58W x 24.6H x 22D mm with the weight of 28.5g.

What so special of this player in the overflooded portable audio player market? Its feature list says the word. The player has an 1.8″ HDD with 20GB capacity and with an 260K colors TFT LCD. It is the first HDD-based player that provides BBE sound effect to enhance output quality. Other features included are:

• Supports MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC, WAV, MPEG4
• FM Radio Receiver and Recording
• TXT (Text), JPEG** (Image) File Viewer
• Supports USB-OTG
• 103.7 X 60.8 X 14.3 mm
• 145g

BBE sound effect is licensed by BBE Sound, Inc. BBE Sound Inc. has provided BBE High Definition Sound technology to many of the most well-known manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic, Aiwa, Alpine, Pioneer, etc.

{ via iMP3.net (in Chinese) }