Hasta La Gadget!

Apple has quietly released a new iPod Shuffle design that mimics the original’s pack of gum aesthetics. It costs $80, holds 4GB of songs, uses inline controls and boasts text-to-speech.

• 4GB or 1,000 Songs
• Silver or black color options, stainless steel clip
• Controls have been moved to the earbud line
• “VoiceOver” Text to speech artist and track names and battery life in 14 languages
• 10 hours of playback (Down from 12 hours in previous gen)
• The 1GB, 2nd gen iPod shuffle is still around for $50

So what do you think? Is this design better than the last iPod Shuffle? Personally, I really dislike that the new form costs users 2 hours of battery life.

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world’s smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you. The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. The third generation iPod shuffle is significantly smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all of the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle features a gorgeous new aluminum design with a built-in stainless steel clip that makes it ultra-wearable.

“Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone™ Product Marketing. “The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.”

iPod shuffle is based on Apple’s incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. And now, when you can’t remember the name of a song or an artist playing, with the press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life. With the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, you can now easily switch between multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new iPod shuffle comes in silver or black and features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip. iPod shuffle is the smallest music player in the world and is incredibly easy to clip to almost anything and take with you everywhere you go. iPod shuffle features up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Pricing & Availability

The third generation 4GB iPod shuffle is now shipping and comes in silver or black for a suggested price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac® with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS® X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes® 8.1 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later and iTunes 8.1.

*Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. Seewww.apple.com/batteries for more information. Song capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; in 256-Kbps AAC format, song capacity is up to 500 songs; actual capacity varies by encoding method and bit rate.

[Apple]

The Watchmen. In Lego. This awesome project is from Jordan Schwartz (aka Sir Nadroj — think about it). The figures are all "purist" which means that the parts are real Lego parts, simply reassembled (which is probably why Nite Owl looks so much like Batman).

Purist, that is, except Dr. Manhattan, who was brought into existence by Photoshop. We love Rorschach, despite his lack of a trench coat, but the winner here is the Comedian. He looks so mean! And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, buy a ticket today. It’s fantastic, despite the rather curious new ending.

The Watchmen [Flickr via Brothers Brick]

You might think that tool makers come up with a new product and then put it on sale, leaving it there indefinitely. After all, if you’re like me your power tools are vintage models — ancient but still going strong.

In fact, tools are subject to the same incremental updates as any other gadget, and Black & Decker has just released v 2.0 of its SmartDriver, a handy lithium-ion powered screwdriver. What’s new? B&D have added torque control, essential in a screwdriver to stop you from stripping the heads of the screws. There is also a new magnetic screw guide which holds the screws in place in front of the chuck — handy for tight corners.

But better than all of that is the shiny blue blinkenlight, a bright LED that not only illuminates dark operations but makes the SmartDriver match every other ill-designed gadget in my house. Thanks, Black & Decker. Maybe you can add extra-loud ringtones to next year’s model?

The SmartDriver is available now, list price $40.

Product page [Black & Decker via Toolmonger]

One oddity of the jailbreaking scene is that, while the iPhone 3G was liberated months ago, the second generation iPod Touch has remained hack proof. Until now, that is. Nitrokey Slipstream is a solution that claims to unlock the iPod and allow you to install non-App Store software on it.

We say "claims" as the product site looks a little suspicious. First, the team wants money. The software costs $15 and runs on Windows machines only (OS X support is promised "soon"). In addition, there is no demo video, no screen shots, nothing. The only hint of what you might get is a picture of an iPod Touch with the Cydia icon on its screen. Cydia is the jailbreak version of the official App Store.

This may of course be unfounded suspicion, but as ever it seems a little odd that hackers should charge for a hacking tool. It’s like expecting people to pay for a BitTorrent client. Besides, if this hack works, you can be sure that there will be a free version along soon from the iPhone Dev Team.

Product page [Nitrokey]

See Also:

• Pwnage 2.0 Released: Gadget Lab Jailbreaks iPod Touch
• Easy-Peasy Jailbreak Available For iPhone and iPod Touch
• ZiPhone Is Easiest iPhone Jailbreak Yet

Those of you holding out for a full-frame M series Leica may be in luck, although you’ll still have a while to wait. Up until now, the digital rangefinders have had cropped sensors, making them unable to properly use Leica’s stunning array of lenses. However, speaking the the UK’s Amateur Photographer, Leica’s US marketing boss Christian Erhardt said that the company wants to make one, despite the fact that M8 owners "are not bothered by non-full-frame".

There are still technical hurdles, though. The reason we haven’t seen a full frame rangefinder yet is because of sensor limitations. Leica M cameras have their lenses set very far back in the body, close to the film or sensor. This makes them smaller than SLRs. It also means that light from the lens hits the sensor at a very shallow angle.

With film, this was fine — a photon is a photon, and it didn’t matter from which direction it came to hit the silver halide. Digital sensors, though, like their light to come from the front, which would result in severe vignetting on a full-frame rangefinder.

So, while we keep our fingers crossed, so should Erhardt. Last year the former Leica CEO Steven Lee suggested that the company would be making a full frame M8. Leica fired him.

LEICA: FULL-FRAME DIGITAL M CAMERA STILL AN OPTION [Amateur Photographer]