Philips hasn’t been a significant heavyweight in the DAP player market, but they have a new flash based personal media player that is looking pretty swanky.

Available in 8gb, 4gb or 2gb capacities the Philips SA6185 sports a 3.5″ LCD display with a 320 x 240 resolution, built-in speakers, and a 5 hour video life.

Double action search keys allow easy speed control when scrolling through large libraries. You can choose to move through your playlist one song or video at a time or just press and hold down a little harder to SuperScroll swiftly to your desired file.

Other features include Mp3, and WMA support for audio and WMV video file support, all in a 196 x 30 x 214 mm with a .153kg weight. It doesn’t look like the interface sports a touch screen and we doubt it’s anything near the quality of the Apple iPod Touch, but for WMA and WMV fans this is a nice looking possibility…

Philips SA6185 - 8GB Audio / Video Player at consumer.philips.com

Apple just launched a new color for their latest iPod Nano generation. Looks like Valentine’s Day is not far away again as the new color for the iPod nano is pink.

Video in your pocket - It’s the small iPod with one very big idea: video. The world’s most popular music player now lets you enjoy movies, TV shows, and more on a two-inch display that’s 65% brighter than before.

Enhanced interface - Experience a whole new way to browse and view your music and video.

Cover Flow - Browse through your music collection by flipping through album art. Select an album to turn it over and see the track list.

The Apple store offers the 8GB Pink iPod nano for $199.

Engraving is free, making the new pink iPod nano a great gift.

The Apple store features a whole Valentine’s Day gift guide. As with Christmas, almost all products in the Apple store would be great Valentine gifts, besides software or cables.

More details on the Apple Store - apple.com

International fashion house Gucci Group has pounced on the market opportunity inherent for third parties in the success of Apple Computer’s iPod introducing its own designer iPod carrying case.

Gucci Sets Its Sights on Apple - Designer carrying case will cost you almost as much as an iPod.

Available online through Gucci’s U.S. stores, the Gucci iPod case is available in multiple colors and costs almost as much as an $195. The Gucci iPod case is available in this season’s Gucci colors - beige/ebony GG plus with dark brown leather trim, red/green/green web carrying handle, and silver hardware.

So, did you take our word and pick up the free yet most expensive iPod in the world? Yup, Xexoo was giving away iPods free - if you paid for pimping them with 18k gold, which cost you close to $14,000. Well, now all you need Gucci iPod case, complete with GG logo and green Gucci web on the strap. Music for your brand-sensitive ears?

About Gucci:

The House of Gucci, better known as simply Gucci, is an Italian iconic fashion and leather goods label. It was founded by Guccio Gucci in Florence in 1921. Gucci is considered one of the most famous, prestigious, and easily recognizable fashion brands in the world. The House of Gucci belongs to the French conglomerate company Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR). Gucci generated over US$7 billion worldwide of revenue in 2006 according to BusinessWeek magazine and was ranked 46th in the magazine’s annual chart “Top 100 Brands”. For this reason Gucci is the second biggest selling fashion brand after LVMH. Most importantly Gucci is the biggest selling Italian brand in the world. Gucci operates about 425 stores worldwide and it wholesales its products through franchisees and upscale department stores.

News source: ilounge.com & techtilldate.com

On one side the machines are getting advanced day by day and on the other side the data files are being modified too. The new data file extensions are a way to minimize large amount of information into small spaces giving more room to all sorts of data files. At first we had different file extensions for video and audio files but mp4 extension solved this segregation. Now mp4 format is being used in all kinds of electronic gadgets supporting audio and video display compressing the file letting it take less space in your hard drive and allowing more wiggle room to more mp4 extension files.

When digital audio and video was new to the market, file extensions for both of them were different that took more space in a hard drive. Later when gadgets became smaller and storage space became larger, the need was felt to minimize the storage space of files especially digital audio and digital video without compromising their quality. That is when mp4 format kicked in allowing audio and video files to be played with this single format which compresses each file leaving extra space rather than taking it. The mp4 format is similar to Apple’s QuickTime format which supports multimedia files. The only difference between QuickTime and MP4 format is that MP4 format supports QuickTime as well as MPEG file extensions.

As mp4 file extensions take less space in your storage capacity, therefore people felt the urge to convert other file extensions like mp3, AVI, WMV, RM, WAV, MPEG and other digital audio and video file formats into mp4. That is when multiple converter software for mp4 formats was in demand and being downloaded frequently. Apart of their compressing quality, mp4 format files are now being supported by every new electronic gadgets and cell phones in the shops including iPod, Sony Ericsson, Sony Walkman, Wii, Samsung SGH ULTRA Series, iPhone, Blackberry, Xbox 360, Nokia N series, Play Station 3, Zune and many more. The softwares that already support mp4 formats are winamp, iTunes, jetAudio, Media Player Classic, Real Plyaer, QuickTime, VLC Media Player, Zune Marketplace, Nero Burning ROM, 3ivx and some others.

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In the past, iLuv has made some speaker docks that underwhelmed PC Magazine – most notably last year’s iLuv i199, which was a victim of trying to do too many things at once. The new line from iLuv, though still feature-heavy, seems to be focused on simplifying the docks a bit. The i1255 is dubbed a “desktop iPod/DVD player” by the company, and it outputs 5.1 audio from its thin-frame dock. The DVD player also plays CDs, MP3 CDs, as well as JPEG and Kodak picture CDs. The iPod dock is compatible with the new generation of iPods released back in September. There are no speakers included, so consumers should think of this as a DVD player that happens to have an iPod dock integrated. The $150 i1255 will hit stores in March.

The i399, available this month, is a Bluetooth-enabled 2.1 speaker dock for iPods. Using the included “BluePin II”, a detachable Bluetooth transmitter, users have the ability to stream music from an iPod docked in the i399 to a pair of Bluetooth headphones, or send music from, say, a Bluetooth phone to the i399’s speakers.

Full news: PCmag.com

It’s not that the iLuv i199 iPod Speaker System doesn’t work, it simply tries to do too much. The result is a frustrating user experience exacerbated by a clunky remote and unintuitive controls. Sure, it has two programmable alarms that can use your Apple iPod. It can also play MP3s directly off a USB thumb drive. It plays your CDs (including data CDs), too, and it has a radio tuner. The speaker is even Bluetooth-capable. Trying to navigate these features via the remote, however, is a lost cause. That’s because the membrane buttons rarely work, and it is often hard to figure out what button is in charge of a specific function. In short, there are plenty of iPod docks available that are much better, even if they have fewer features.

The iLuv i199 has a striking, polished black contour, but it is probably too bulky to win any design awards. At roughly 15 by 7.8 by 5 inches and with a substantial weight, you’ll need a sturdy bookshelf or a lot of space on your desktop for this one. iLuv also covers the i199 in stickers that are hard to peel off. I sincerely hope that my review unit is an anomaly. If not, be prepared for “sticker shock”—and to use Goo Gone to get rid of it all.

The front face of the i199 has a 5- by 1-inch LCD display with a CD slot below it. This LCD displays the time and date, as well as whatever information it can about the music or radio station you’re listening to. Sometimes this means artist name and song title, other times you get only a track number and countdown clock. Most of the controls are on the top of the device. Open the lid to reveal the iPod dock, USB drive dock, and the BluePin connection (BluePin is the company’s proprietary Bluetooth technology).

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