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pmps

Portable-media players acting as teaching tools

Every once in a while, my black and shriveled heart is momentarily warmed by a piece of news coming from a tech company. Today is one of those rare occasions. I received an e-mail from Nextar informing me of the company's decision to donate a shipment of its MA715 MP3 players to the One Media Player per Teacher (OMPT) program.

It's always nice to hear about an act of generosity, but I was even more pleased to be made aware of OMPT. The innovative program provides portable-media players, speakers, and solar chargers to teachers in remote areas. The … Read more

Cowon Q5 gets official: not your ordinary PMP

We first got a glimpse of Cowon's super-portable media player, the Cowon Q5, back at CES 2007, but details were pretty foggy on specs, pricing, and availability. However, things are clearing up as the company has announced final pricing and specs for the United States, and the forecast for this PMP looks quite rosy.

First, the Q5 will come in two models: a 40GB version for $499.99 and a 60GB version at $549.99. Both devices are expected to ship by the end of Q2 (sorry, Cowon didn't get any more specific than that), and they … Read more

iRiver's Jack-of-all-trades PMP

iRiver is showing off a few new products at CES, but the coolest among them is the W10, a Wi-Fi-capable portable media player with a 3-inch 480 x 272-pixel touch-screen LCD. In addition to 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB of internal flash memory, this hottie will sport a Mini SD slot for expandable storage. It runs on Windows CE and supports plenty of different audio and video formats (MPEG-4 SP, WMV9, MP3, WMA, AAC, and H.264).

But the niftiest features are the Wi-Fi positioning finder, thanks to a partnership with SkyHook Wireless, and VoIP capability for using the device to … Read more