The Urban DJ portable cross fader has been ultimate retro hipster designed into a cassette shape. It has three inputs up top, two for connecting to anything from an iPhone to a cellphone (with the appropriate jack) and one for connecting into... well, I'm not sure what that middle one is for. The bottom has a separate input for connecting into a speaker set or headphones.

Move the slider to mix and crossfade between your two chosen music players. Alas, because all I had on me at the time was one measly iPod, the man sneered and approached the person standing next to me and that guy went on to become one of the most famous DJs in the world. True story.

Available for roughly $48. From Japan. [Gizmodo JP]

The Msplayer has 2GB of flash memory and support for MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, ACT, WAV, and APE audio playback. When fully charged, the battery lasts roughly 9 hours. It comes in white, pink and blue, and costs roughly $40 in China. [imp3]

Much like its direct competitor, the iPod Touch, it comes in 16GB and 32GB flavors and can be used to surf the web. The screen's half an inch smaller, but it's also OLED (rather than the Touch's LED) so you can expect brighter colors and better contrast.

It also comes with digital noise canceling—a first for any MP3 player I've seen. The feature, allows any accompanying 13.5mm EX headphone to block out ambient noise, and basically renders those expensive Bose earphones you just got for Christmas obsolete.

What I like about this is that it's one of those “D'oh, of course!” ideas. I've always hated how the sound gets muffled and crappy (or turns off completely) when your noise canceling headphones run out of batteries—you don't have to worry about that if it's all incorporated into the MP3 player.

We'll have to run it through the standard tests to see if it's all it's cracked up to be, but what worries me most about the X-series, and it's most likely roadblock to widespread success, is the price. Right now it's TBD. Sony has come out with a ton of outstanding MP3 players, but unless it's willing to sell this one for $400 and lower, the X-series probably won't knock the iPod Touch off its perch.

Besides being wire-free, this wearable walkman features quick charging times—3 minutes for 90 minutes of playback, and half an hour for the full 12 hours. Magnetic connectors keep the earphones in a cute heart-shape when not in use.

The W-series doesn't have a display, but lets users sort through their music with a hilariously-named ZAPPIN function—it plays “popular clips” of each song in the library until you select what you want to hear. Hm, sounds less fun than its name.

Ultimately, it's neat looking but I wonder if they'll actually stay on while you're jogging.

Besides using a wiki-based community to contribute content, TuneWiki also displays real-time music popularity lists, the locations of other TuneWiki users based on your favorite songs and artists, and the ability to check out music from other countries with translated lyrics. It's an interesting new app for the (MID-using) international crowd, but will it take off States-side?

TuneWiki brings its Next Generation Social Media Player
to Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices

TuneWiki for Moblin revealed today, at a keynote speech for the Intel Developer Conference in Taipei. TuneWiki successfully ported its award winning software to the MID, based on the new Intel® Atom™ processor.

TuneWiki's social media player is the first to integrate music and video with synchronized lyrics and a social network. The lyrics data and synchronization are contributed by the community, using wiki technology. TuneWiki MusicMap displays the location of users based on songs or artists. LiveCharts allows consumers to access a real-time music popularity list by country or state, and listen to music from other countries with lyrics translated to their preferred language.

“Mobile Internet Devices are projected to have hundreds of millions of users,” said Rani Cohen, founder and CEO of TuneWiki. “We offer the experience of social playback anywhere, and our integrated music solution allows consumers to enjoy music in a completely new way. TuneWiki is committed to becoming the leading media player for Linux powered devices, with current offerings for Android, iPhone, Moblin, Windows and OSX, and with the MID we use a great open source platform developed by SongBird.”

“Mobile Internet Devices represent an innovative platform that enables users to take their entertainment media, social network and Internet with them,” said Pankaj Kedia, director of global ecosystems programs in the Ultra Mobility Group at Intel. “With TuneWiki’s media player optimized for MIDs based on the Intel® Atom™ processor and Moblin-based Linux OS, mobile users will be able to create and share lyrics with their friends and family while on-the-go.”

With TuneWiki and the ‘connect anywhere’ capabilities of the MID, enjoying audio or video will no longer be a solitary activity, but a shared social experience among friends, and the worldwide music community. TuneWiki’s built-in translation capabilities enhance this experience and are an engine of discovery and expansion of outstanding music in all languages.

About TuneWiki
TuneWiki Inc, is the first social media player for mobile and PCs, with the community enhancing the experiance. Additional information about TuneWiki is available at www.TuneWiki.com

The new feature, called MixView, puts a single album, artist or Zune user at the center of the screen and surrounds it with related items. This allows you to start on an artist and instantly find related bands. Double-clicking to any song plays you a 30-second sample, gives you a chance to buy the track or plays the full track if you're a Zune Pass subscriber.

MixView will be free to everyone, even if you don't own a Zune or subscribe to Zune Pass. Besides pulling reccs from their internet store, it will also apply its music aggregating prowess to your existing MP3 library. It'll be interesting to see how this really stands up to Genius come next week. [Wired]

I kid, I kid. As pointed out in the rest of the Bits post, the reason the Zune's so far behind is most likely because it's come out with only one groundbreaking feature in the last two years: Wi-Fi access. Everything else—social networking, FM radio, song identification—is like gravy on a filling, but ultimately boring, plate of mashed potatoes.

If Sohn really wants to capture more of the market, he doesn't need to wait for babies to hopefully choose his product. All he needs to do is make us grown-ups (you know, the ones with expendable income) go “Woah.” [NYTimes]

The guys from TuneWiki also told me that they released a version for iPhone 2.0 jailbreak that's on both Cydia and Installer, and is doing quite well. [TuneWiki]

According to leaked specs, the nine-point pad will offer users the option of instant messaging on Windows Live or Yahoo Messenger in a phone-style typing schema. The device will also use wireless to share media between home networked computers and access an internet-based media pool, called a Public Home Server.

The player is named after Creative's X-Fi audio technology, which restores lost data in compressed music files to create concert-like audio effects. Users can turn to two X-Fi options—Crystalizer makes audio richer and clearer, and Expand repositions the music to sound like it's coming from in front of you, simulating listening to a live performance on stage. Check out the manual:

[epiZENter]

The E020 can be found in 1GB and 2GB flavors, for $69 and $79 respectively, and comes bundled with premium earphones and a handful of faceplates to get you started. Additional faceplates will be sold separately for $12 each. [Crave Asia]

[MAKE via Shiny Shiny]

It'll be out in Japan soon, and I would sort of fancy it as a Christmas present for my kid nieces and nephews, were the little buggers not such tech-literate tweensumers. [Akihabara News]

*Actually, I think I remember Roger Moore, dressed up in a clown's outfit at a circus in East Germany, fiddling around with one of these in The World's Worst Bond Movie Ever Octopissy.

The screen, larger than most other screens in players this size, is the most impressive feature and definitely not too bad on the eyes. If this device reminds you of anything, by the way, it's because Microsoft's Zune was directly taken from Toshiba's hardware, so it'll be interesting to see if anything comes out of that relationship. The device goes on sale September 25th for $113.88. [Sam's Club via InfoSyncWorld]

After some arm twisting from website Digital Lifestyle, Sony brass admits that, yes, it's a digital media player, and they want us to think about it as a "music-focused Wii on wheels." You know a product idea's already in trouble when its company officials refer to their competitors when trying to describe it.

Here's the the teasing clues Sony is doling out bit by bit at its Rolly site, just in case reading a bunch of scrolling words is too tedious for you or might make you dizzy: small, motion, open, communication, freestyle, chill, lucky, abstraction, peace, shuffle, share, music, kurukuru. Got it? [Rolly]

If Microsoft is contemplating bringing out a Nano (the Nune? The Zazo?) follow-up to their repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat, this may be it. But then again, it may not.

The Toshiba Gigabeat U can charge its battery in 10 minutes to get a three-hour playback time, but only if you use the MEPUAA 10 USB adaptor (you have to buy that separately, though, boo, hiss). This DAP can also record FM broadcasts to MP3, share broadcast music also using FM and further damage your eyesight trying to distinguish all the naughty bits looking at tiny JPEG images in its OLED screen.

Here's what it can't do: play music continually for more than 3 hours 20 hours; hold more than 2GB (the U101 only has a 1GB capacity); make breakfast; fire the chauffeur. Specs and release date are after the jump.

1.1-inch OLED screen
96x96 resolution
36 grams
1-bit DAC audio processor
USB AC adaptor MEPUAA 10
Available from April 7, and the 1GB capacity U101 will set you back $118, the 2GB U201 $142. – Ad Dugdale

New Toshiba gigabit U series music players [New Launches]