Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Schaff, who managed the development of Apple’s QuickTime platform (among other things) while at Apple, ”...has been appointed to the newly-created position of Senior Vice President of Software Development, effective immediately.”
The quotes from CEO, Howard Stinger and Executive VP and Office in Charge of Technology Strategy, Keiji Kimura mean that someone at Sony realized what [...]
Sony expected to release 4 and 8GB Memory Stick PRO Duo in 2006. [via]
Sony says: we’ll bring the NW-A3000/A1000 over to the States when the software’s done: “It will be ready when we decide that the software is ready—there are no hardware problems.” one executive said. Read our review of the NW-A1000/A3000 here. [via]
Sony BMG, desperate to be done with the rootkit fiasco as quickly as possible, settled the consolidated class-action lawsuit filed by angry customer a couple of months ago. Customers who bought XCP-infected CDs will be given a $7.50 cash award and a free album download, for each disc. Good news for those who bought MediaMax-infected [...]
Unlocking the volume limit for Sony’s NW-A1000 and A3000 devices: a rather long key combination, but hey, turning the volume to 11 rocks no?
Tons of Sony NW-A1000 pics: Read our review of the NW-A1000/A3000 here. [via]
Sony NW-A1000/1200/3000 get WMA support: via a freshly-released firmware upgrade. Protected WMAs are still unsupported though. Read our review of the NW-A1000/A3000 here.
Sony updates their flash models’ names to something humans can remember: about freakin’ time. So now:
NW-E407 → Walkman Core
NW-E307 → Walkman Circ
NW-E107 → Walkman Bean
I hope other companies follow that way too—if the product’s name is stupid, how are the people supposed to discuss it?
From the “don’t you just love them big companies” department: Sony, Philips, Panasonic fined for price-fixing in France: the fines, representing 1% of the companies annual revenus in the county, are €16M for former two (each) and €2.4M for the latter.
The Conseil found that the three manufacturers had colluded with their distributors to fix the [...]
Sony ceases production of DAT decks in December: they won’t stop selling DAT tapes and offering to repair broken units though.