Gizmodo: sony rolly

Sony Rolly Soon Rolling Out in Black Shell, Colored Arms

Kit Eaton — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:33:22 EDT

Seems like Sony's Rolly really is due out soon, and it'll be available in a black body version with a matching black cradle, as hinted at by the FCC filing. If black's too boring for you, then you'll also be able to trick your Rolly out with blue, red or silver replacement "arms". Maybe they're "wings"? Whichever: the little rolling, MP3-playing guy will be out in black from April 19th in Japan for around $400, while a colored arm set will cost around $15. Presumably Rolly will be rolling up on US shores sometimes soon after. [AV Watch]

Sony Rolly Rolls Into FCC, Next Stop Your Heart

matt buchanan — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:30:29 EDT

Looks like Sony's living up to their promise to bring its odd little egg of an MP3 player stateside this year. It's in the middle of its required FCC tour of duty, which means it should be hitting retail here before too long. If the wait's unbearable, the FCC has plenty to tide you over: pictures (including some naughty ones under the shell), manual, a request for confidentiality and ooo, test reports. [FCC, Thanks Mitch!]

Sony Rolly on Sale in Japan Sept 29th, comes with Annoying Video

AddyDugdale — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 04:57:51 EDT

So, Sony's dancing Rolly is finally out today, after all that crazy hype. And I looked at it from all angles, sat through an arse-numbingly too-cool-for-school video &mdash feel free to indulge yourselves below &mdash and thought, do you know what? The egg-shaped dancing MP3 and ATRAC player looks like a small clone of the Miuro robot speaker.

The Rolly is motion-controlled, having sensors that know which way is up. You can fiddle with the volume by turning the player clockwise or anti-clockwise, and you can skip or repeat tracks by either rolling the player forwards or backwards, or shaking it. You can download dance moves to the Rolly, but there will also be software available to allow you to make up your own Rolly moves on your computer.

At $351, the Rolly is around three times cheaper than the Miuro, and it gives you the lumi re to go with the son, but there's something a bit pedestrian about Sony's design, IMHO. Other "Mmmmmm... No!" features include a titchy 1GB memory, although you can hook it up via Bluetooth to play tunes from your computer. Incidentally, you get five hours of battery time using the internal memory, and four and a half if you use Bluetooth.

To add insult to injury, Sony is selling the carrying case and charging cradle separately, for $17.50 and $35 respectively. I can't decide whether I think that Sony will roll this product out worldwide or not, but I would have thought it would sell well everywhere. [Impress through Google Translate]

Sony Trying to Tease Us With Upcoming Egg-Shaped Rolly Music Player

Charlie White — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:05:00 EDT

When we heard the rumor mill cranking out murky info about the Sony "Rolly" music player, all we knew was that it's egg shaped, might have built-in speakers and it has motion-activated features on board. Now Sony has opened up a teasing Rolly website with too many lame-ass and evasive videos on board, further hinting that this thing is motion-activated, button-less, communicates with other players, is small and might shuffle when you shake it. Sheesh, does everyone have to market their crap like Apple does? Our patience is wearing thin with this shit.

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]