This funky looking device is Yamaha’s Tenori-on, a sci-fi looking musical sequencer that lets you create sounds and songs by merely fooling around with its buttons. Designed by Professor Toshio Iwai at the University of Tokyo (the same guy that came up with the “Electroplankton” game for the Nintendo DS) the Tenori-on is an aluminum frame with 16 x 16 rows of rubber padded LED switches arranged within.

By pressing one you not only create a noise but a burst of light as well, food for both your ears and eyes. The device recognizes how long you depressed the button as well as the angle of you holding it, both of which can effect the sound and light streams that are subsequently created. There are a couple of other buttons and a jog dial which allows you to alter the tempo, beat, effects and so forth.

Nikon has announced two new Style series cameras that bundle a range of software features that make it easier to take perfect snapshots every time. The 12.1 megapixel S700 ($379.95) and 8.1 megapixel S510 ($299.95, pictured) digital cameras will include Optical Vibration Reduction image stabilization which allows the shooter to take sharp photos even if they are being attacked by a swarm of bees or bouncing on a trampoline.

With VR stabilization your photos can be snapped at shutter speeds up to three times slower than would normally be possible. You can also take better photos in reduced light situations with the cameras higher ISO capabilities, have red-eye correction, compensate for excessive back-lighting or the times your flash isn’t bright enough and with the cameras’ Face-Priority auto focusing feature you can take a photo that will have up to 12 different faces clearly defined in your image.

In a sign that shows how powerful the branding of Apple’s iPod is and how much hurt the car manufacturing sector has come to, Apple and automobile manufacturer Volkswagon AG are now in discussions about making a so-called “iCar” that would be the ideal mode of transportation for any iEnthusiast. Apple CEOe Steve Jobs and Volkswagen’s prexy Martin Winterkorn have already met to talk about ideas for their collaboration and will be having more sessions to spitball ideas for their lifestyle ride.

So what kind of features could an iCar have beside the port for your iPod and iPhone? What about smart technology that lets you download iTunes to the car’s stereo? What about a dashboard that has a user interface like the one in the iPhone? The mind boggles at the possibilities but one more idea that we would like to mention are car commercials along the lines of Apple’s “I’m a PC and I’m a Mac” series. How about “I’m an SUV and I’m a iCar?”

SanDisk today announced it would begin making available an 8GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory card for use in mobile phones. The cards should be available for use by the end of the year, though no specific price points have been set.

The 8GB SanDisk Memory Stick Micro cards are effectively the largest capacity M2 cards in the world at the moment, according to SanDisk. The cards will allow consumers to listen to more than 2,000 digital songs, store more than 5,000 high-resolution pictures, and view up to 5 hours of MPEG-4 videos.

Shure is known for its quality, somewhat pricey sound isolating earphones. The trend continues today as the company announced the new SE110 Sound Isolating Earphones, available next month for around $100.

As the entry level model for Shure’s SE series, the SE110 offers many of the features Shure users are familiar with. This include a sound isolating design which Shure says blocks out some 90 percent of ambient noise, a fit kit to ensure a more solid sound isolating experience and a stylish, compact design.

SanDisk today unveiled a multi-card ExpressCard adapter for use with notebook computers which sport ExpressCard slots. This new device is priced at around $30 and should be available in September.

The SanDisk Multi Card ExpressCard Adapter slides into the ExpressCard slot of a laptop computer without need for software or drivers to install. The adapter supports six card formats: SD, SDHC, MultiMediaCard, MMCplus, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo and Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo.

NBC was an early-adopter of Apple iTunes, being the second major company back in 2005 to sign on with Apple to provide video content for the download service. Now, a short two years later NBC has announced its intentions to end their relationship with Apple and discontinue providing content for iTunes citing that they are unhappy with iTunes pricing policy and piracy control, or lack thereof.

NBC has over 1500 hours of TV and movies currently on iTunes, and according to a NYT report the two companies are in negotiations which may mean that NBC could be doing a little bit of muscle-flexing might not really upset enough yet to want to pull all of its content.

Along with yesterday’s release of the new video Walkman’s from Sony, they also released a smaller, non-video line of Walkmans which were somewhat overshadowed in the announcement. Although the new NWZ-B100 series do not have video, they do have a 3-line color LCD display to show functions and tracks playing.

The small Walkman supports playing MP3 and WMA audio files and is compatible with Microsoft’s PlayForSure music service. It also has a FM tuner with the ability to set as many as 30 preset stations, and it can record the radio broadcast directly to the player as MP3′s. It also has a microphone built-in should you want to record your own, personally sung songs to the player for future easy-listening.

Today’s the day Sony decided to unveil video Walkmans to the US for the first time with the NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series Walkman media players. Both players support an open platform for downloading and saving music and video content to coincide with Sony phasing out its CONNECT music service.

The players come in capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB and in colors of black, pink, red and silver. The higher end NWZ-A810 model has a 2-inch QVGA (320 by 240) LCD, comes packaged with some high-end noise isolation earbuds and has a battery life that supports video playback of up to 8 continuous hours. The NWZ-A810 is targeting a little bit younger crowd with a 1.8-inch LCD and features an FM tuner and a little more battery life for continuous video of 9.5 hours. Both models promise to provide an impressive 33 hours of continuous music playback.

Today Nikon announced its intention to release a couple of new additions to its LIFE line of digital cameras. Both models are targeting consumers looking for a simple point and shoot model that will take good pictures, despite their photography skills. The COOLPIX L14 and COOLPIX L15 are packed with a nice feature set and differ only slightly in their features.

The L14 has a 2.4-inch LCD and takes 7 megapixel shots while the L15 increases the LCD size by 0.4 inches and the megapixels by 1. Also, the L14 model only boasts the ability to take an unprecedented 1,000 pictures on a single pair of AA batteries since the L15 must be using up more of its power on the bigger LCD and some full-time image stabilization.

Venturer Electronics has announced a simple, entry-level HD DVD player expected to ship in the coming months to consumers in North America. The Venturer SHD7000 features 1080i video output through and HDMI connection along with Dolby TrueHD sound to round out the home theater experience.

Also included in this player is a built-in Ethernet connectionwhich allows access to the internet to download bonus features from the studios and can sometimes unlock pre-recorded content available on the discs. The player will also upconvert regular DVD’s through the HDMI connection.

Even though the size of hard drives are continually increasing so does the media that you store on them, requiring you keep buying more drives and bigger capacities to store all of your awesome-quality high-def content. A real pain however is having to go through the process of powering down your computer, opening up the case and connecting one of these new hard drives just so you can format it or transfer some data to it. Also, I’ve found that sometimes there just isn’t another SATA or IDE connection available once I get the case cracked open.

The folks at Tripp Lite have made this a whole lot easier with this set of cables designed to let you connect your SATA or IDE drive external through a simple USB 2.0 adapter. The U238-000 USB 2.0 SATA/IDE Combo Adapter allows for individual or simultaneous connection to a drive to configure it or transfer data without having to install it, turning any internal hard drive into an external USB storage device.

Syntax-Brillian is gearing up to unveil its 65″ high-defintion television next month at the CEDIA Expo in Denver. The new Olevia 665H HDTV is making news since it features Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) technology as apposed to LCD, plasma or DLP. The LCoS television works similar to DLP except it uses liquid crystals instead of reflective mirrors to produce the picture. The technology allows for higher resolution images than from LCD or plasma, and at a lower cost to manufacture.

The Olevia 665H LCoS features true 1920x1080p resolution with a 4ms response time which is ideal for watching fast moving video such as sporting events. It’s also packed with connectivity so you can get all of your high-def content hooked up, including 1 ATSC/NTSC tuner, 2 HDMI with HDCP, 2 component, VGA, 2 S-video, 2 composite and PC Input supporting HDMI.

Harman Kardon today unveiled for European markets the Cinespecial 29, a two component home theatre system. It’s priced at €1,299 and should be available in October.

The Cinespecial 29 consists of the Harman Kardon DVD 29 DVD player and the AVR 350 A/V receiver in a new industrial design. The DVD 29 can play DVD Audio, supports HDMI and can upscale to 1080i. The AVR 350 has two HDMI 1.2a inputs, an automatic calibration system and offers expanded iPod integration.

One of Nikon’s newest CoolPix digital cameras sports the added convenience of letting one wirelessly transmit digital images for viewing by others. The Nikon CoolPix S51c is priced at around $330 and should be available in September.

The Nikon S51c offers up 8.1-megapixels of resolution, a standard 3x zoom and a three-inch LCD monitor, among other features. What is very interesting though is the wireless sharing, which allows you to connect through an Internet “hot spot” to email to someone a picture you’ve taken. This is done through Nikon’s online Picturetown service. Photos can also be published online for others to view and also sent to the email addresses of a Blackberry device for viewing.