Recently in MP3 Players & Digital Audio Category

The Slacker Radio streaming application, which lets users play personalized radio and buy songs from V CAST Music while they listen, will be "pushed" out to all Verizon BlackBerry Storm phones over-the-air. Whether you want it or not - though you can hide or move it to another folder.

According to Verizon, "Over the next several days, customers using the BlackBerry Storm smartphone will see the Slacker Radio application icon appear on their handsets' home screens as it is pushed over-the-air. The Slacker Radio icon gives customers one-click access to a free version of one of the most popular personalized radio services available today. "

This version of Slacker Radio also connects to V CAST Music, combining this exciting music application with Verizon Wireless' industry-leading mobile music service. When a song is being played using Slacker Radio and is one of the more than 4.5 million available in the V CAST Music with Rhapsody catalog, a V CAST icon will appear on the screen that will let customers easily purchase that track while it continues playing on the smartphone.

"Verizon Wireless is making it even easier for customers who want to experience music on their smartphones to find Slacker Radio, then connecting them directly to V CAST Music so they can take that music with them wherever they go," said Ed Ruth, director of partner management for Verizon. "This combination is great for both serious music lovers and casual fans who want to listen to music when the mood strikes them."

"With the largest music library of any personal radio app, Slacker Radio makes your BlackBerry Storm smartphone the ultimate music player," said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing at Slacker. "By integrating with V CAST Music, Slacker listeners will now have the ability to easily purchase music as they listen to their favorite stations."

The Slacker Radio application provides BlackBerry Storm smartphone users in the United States with a personalized music discovery and listening experience, pulling from more than 100 expert-programmed Slacker stations, over 10,000 artist stations or a nearly unlimited number of the listener's own custom-created stations. Features include station caching to storage memory, an intuitive interface optimized for touch operation with support for vertical and horizontal orientation, as well as "peek ahead," allowing the listener to see a preview of the next artist and album in their stations' rotations.

Slacker Radio is included with Email and Web for BlackBerry plans, which begin at $29.99 when added to any Nationwide voice plan.

Ho ho ho!

'Tis the season for steep discounts on gadgets goods on the Internet. According to this article in Electonista, online shopping sites such as Buy.com, HP.com, SonyStyle.com, Newegg.com, OnSale.com and RefurbDepot.com all are offering big savings.  

Buy.com has cut prices on everything from MP3 players and digital photo frames to GPS units and notebook computers. Prices are slashed on everything from wireless routers and printers to wireless mice and Bluetooth stereo headphones at HP.com.

SonyStyle.com is offering deals on notebooks, iPod docks, game consoles, digital cameras, HDTVs and more as well as gift cards this holiday season.

Until December 31st Newegg.com is offering specials on their HDTV collection and until December 11th enter to win a $5,000 Newegg gift certificate in the Holiday Wishlist Sweepstakes.

Deals on notebooks, monitors, iPod docking stations, and Bluetooth headsets can be found at OnSale.com. The Holiday Superstore at RefurbDepot.com has great gift ideas from digital cameras to desktop computers at a range of prices.

It appears it just might be a Merry Christmas even with the doom & gloom surrounding the economy. I guess President-elect Barack Obama must be the Messiah, since he's already creating miracles and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. Or it could just be that credit card loving Americans just don't know when to quit spending & charging.

Check this out:

NRF Survey Finds Black Friday Gets Holiday Season Off to Energetic Start
-- Great Bargains, Pent-Up Demand Drove Shoppers to Stores, Web

Though the holiday season is far from over, retailers across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief after shoppers headed to stores and websites in droves over the weekend. According to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year.*

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend*, up 7.2 percent over last year's $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

"Pent-up demand on electronics and clothing, plus unparalleled bargains on this season's hottest items helped drive shopping all weekend," said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. "Holiday sales are not expected to continue at this brisk pace, but it is encouraging that Americans seem excited to go shopping again."

Friday was clearly the busiest day of the weekend with 73.6 million people hitting stores and websites for doorbuster sales. Though traffic did subside after Friday, retailers were also buoyed by two-day sales as 56.9 million people shopped on Saturday, up from 48.3 million last year, while another 26.2 million people planned to shop on Sunday. Thanksgiving Day also continues to increase in importance as the number of people who shopped on Thursday was up 48 percent over last year (16.2 million people vs. 10.9 million people).

Those who shopped on Friday lived by the adage that the early bird catches the worm. The survey found that 23.3 percent of shoppers were at stores by 5 a.m. while more than half (57.6%) were at stores by 9 a.m. Bargains appeared to be so good that people have more of a jumpstart on shopping.

According to the findings, Americans have completed slightly more shopping than they had one year ago (39.3% vs. 36.4%), indicating that traffic and sales over the next several weeks will moderate.

"Though retailers should be encouraged by strong traffic and sales over the weekend, consumers are still being cautious," said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch. "Weekend shoppers indicated that they are still sticking to a budget and thinking carefully before making any holiday purchases."

Though retailers in all categories were featuring big bargains, a majority of shoppers visited discount stores for holiday deals. According to the survey, more than half (54.7%) of this weekend's shoppers visited discount stores. Nearly half (43.0%) shopped at a traditional department store, up 11.1 percent from 38.7 percent last year. About one-third of shoppers visited specialty stores like clothing or electronics stores (36.0%) and shopped online (34.0%).

As expected, many shoppers (50.9%) purchased clothing and accessories over the weekend while 39.0 percent bought books, DVDs, CDs and video games and 35.9 percent purchased consumer electronics. Toys were also big sellers, as 28.5 percent of shoppers bought a toy. Gift card purchasing dropped ten percent with 18.7 percent of shoppers purchasing a gift card over the weekend, down from 21.0 percent last year.

NRF continues to project that holiday sales will rise 2.2 percent this year to $470.4 billion.

About the Survey

The NRF 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey was designed to gauge consumer behavior and shopping trends related to the winter holidays. NRF defines the weekend as sales from Thursday, November 27 to Sunday, November 30. The survey, which polled 3,370 consumers, was conducted for NRF by BIGresearch from November 27-29, 2008. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percent.

BIGresearch is a consumer market intelligence firm that provides unique consumer insights that are gathered online utilizing very large sample sizes. BIGresearch's syndicated Consumer Intentions and Actions survey monitors the pulse of more than 8,000 consumers each month to empower its clients with unique insights for identifying opportunities in a fragmented and changing marketplace.

The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2007 sales of $4.5 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com

Via NRF

Amazon has a special landing page listing all their Cyber Monday deals. Amazon doesn't call it "Cyber Monday" but rather the "Black-Friday-After-Thanksgiving-Sale", so this landing page should be good until Christmas. Maybe they were afraid Cyber Monday was patented, kinda like their one-click ordering patent.

Anyway, here's the current category breakdown on the Amazon holiday specials landing page:

• Black Friday deals in Toys & Games
• Black Friday Deals in Electronics Just Keep Going
• Hot Kitchen and Home Black Friday Deals
• Black Friday Deals in Sports & Outdoors
• Limited Time: Save up to 50% on Home Improvement Essentials
• Exclusive Cyber Monday Deals in Beauty
• Limited-Time Black Friday Deals in Apparel, Plus $10 off $50, $20 off $100 Orders
  

There are some Blu-ray DVD players for sale, including a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player for $199. (under $200). Still doesn't beat the $128 Blu-ray player Wal-Mart was offering on Black Friday (now $199), but it's the best deal on Amazon today.

For the full listing on Amazon holiday specials, head over here.

Researchers recently completed work on a networking solution that will synchronize the myriad personal electronic devices (aka gadgets) people will use in the not-so-distant future. 

The group, called MAGNET Beyond, was composed of researchers from 35 companies who developed an architecture to harmonize devices such as laptops, telephones, MP3 players, games and a variety of sensors.

And why is this networking project called MAGNET Beyond?

No it's not a take-off on Bed, Bath and Beyond, but the name is an acronym for "My personal adaptive Global NET and beyond."

Yikes!

How many researchers does it take to come up with a good acronym?

Definitely not this group! Better luck with the technology.

More at ZDnet.

Don't know why gadget companies want to open up their own unique stores, but Pioneer has opened its second U.S. retail store in Phoenix.

The 3,200 square-foot store showcases Pioneer's state-of-the-art products in a comfortable home environment with six vignettes, each featuring unique themes and different technologies, as well as a revamped mobile electronics section bringing an interactive shopping experience to customers.

Well, I guess I do know, but don't think that Pioneer ranks up their with Apple or Bose as a big draw.  

But maybe I'm wrong.  

Would you rather shop at an all-gadgets retailer like Best Buy or head to a unique manufacturer-only site?

Or are you comfortable doing both?

Mojo Mobility Inc, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm, has developed a technology to simultaneously charge multiple mobile devices simply using a flat surface that doesn't even to touch the charging circuitry of  mobile phones, iPods, iPhones, and other gadgetry.

While NFP (Near Field Power) is not a new concept, the non-contact charging system leverages an electromagnetic induction method. The system is composed of two coils, one for transmitting and the other for receiving electric power.

Mojo Mobility has developed a prototype sheet-type charger equipped with multiple transmitting coils. On this sheet to the right, up to four devices charged at the same time with the ability to produce 2.5W to 4W of power ..

Read

Crazy Eddie take note!
 
The Friday immediately following Thanksgiving has long been known as "Black Friday" because it represents the unofficial beginning of the holiday shopping season, or the day when retailers hold massive sales in hopes of steering their (red) losses into (black) profits.

And from what I've been reading about holiday shopping this year, gadgets may be one of the few bright spots ... 

Among the most heavily discounted electronics items poised to dominate this year's sales are low cost notebooks, according to sources, who note that Dell plans to offer $299 linux model via its website, while Wal-Mart markets a $299 Compaq and Best Buy a $299 eMachines portable.

And do yo think Apple will be sitting quietly ...

... Didn't think so; so check out AppleInsider.

And thanks to blogs.phillynews.com for the image.

Hopefully, these prices are insane!!!!!

Now hear this!

Researchers at Towson University in suburban Baltimore are working on new technology that will allow for closed captioning of radio broadcasts for those with hearing impairments.

(Now this is a good idea!) 

The new system, which could be marketed next year if all goes well, was tested Tuesday night in conjunction with NPR's coverage of the presidential election.

Look for this on your new HD Radio!

More at The Sun.

Just what the world needs!

Sony has launched a new audio CD format dubbed Blu-spec, which apparently allows users to burn discs with the Blu Laser Diode system without losing compatibility with existing CD drives.

(Backwards compatibility is always a good idea with any kind of new product!) 

(BTW, do you think they will try to revive Digital Audio Tape -- remember DAT? -- anytime soon?) 

Sony expects to offer about 60 titles by Christmas and holiday season shopping time, but Blu-spec discs currently are only available in Japan.

(Be great if the Blue Man Group were involved in the marketing and promotion ... I accept no fee for that free marketing advice.)

More at Pocket-lint.co.uk.