They love Walkmans in Japan. So much so that Sony’s Walkman line has temporarily passed the iPod for sales in Japan again, according to researchers at BCN. Players like the S640 helped Sony slide past in August with 47.8 percent of sales where Apple dropped to 44 percent. The Walkman overtook the iPod briefly a year ago, but these new figures mark the first time that Sony managed to hold an overall lead for the month.

The iPod nano 8GB and 16GB were still the top sellers, but it was the variety of Sony players that ultimately overwhelmed their numbers.

Looks like Samsung is readying a new Android handset, the Gem, which also recently appeared in a leaked roadmap for Verizon. The entry-level handset has been listed in a buyer’s guide from Best Buy. The Gem is most likely a cheaper alternative to the Galaxy S-series Fascinate, which is due sometime in the next week or two at Verizon.

The buyer’s guide points to Android 2.1 along with TouchWiz 3.0 and Swipe for the virtual keyboard. The handset also has a 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and a microSD slot.

RockStar games has announced that it will be launching a version of GTA for the Apple iPad, Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars HD. That should make some iPad users very happy. Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars HD will be available on the iPad on September the 9th for $9.99.

That seems a bit expensive, but then again it is a GTA game. At least Chinatown Wars HD comes to the iPad with brand new, updated high definition graphics.

This DIY meat smoker is a must make. Real men need meat. And they need to know when it is done. Simple as that. And so this meat smoker will alert you via a text message whenever your meat is ready. Peter Rauch decided to use a proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller which can modulate electrical power to a heating element.

It even has a touchscreen display that allows you to adjust the controller, while a J-type thermocouple located in the top of the smoker delivers a voltage signal for the feedback loop to control the temperature. When you combine meat with tech, the results are delicious.

Whether you call it the HTC Emerald, or the MyTouch HD from T-Mobile, it will be hitting the market on November 3rd. That looks about right, but we wouldn’t rule out a delay for a few days either. Hey, roadmaps can be blurry.

Whatever day it arrives, November is right around the corner, just like your local T-mobile store, so you won’t have THAT long to wait. Patience you must have.

Apple’s latest iPod nano is cute, even if it is just a wee bit small for it’s own good. The built-in clip will do it’s job, but Griffin is offering the new Wristlet casing for added protection. It’s a one-piece wrist strap protective casing for the iPod nano.

It will protect your iPod nano from scratches while helping you not to lose the tiny device. The Griffin Wristlet will be retailing for $19.99 and is currently available for pre-order.

Well, the Samsung Galaxy Tab has just gotten all official and already there is talk about the next-generation tablet from Samsung. According to the head of product planning for Samsung, the next software upgrade for the Galaxy Tab will be Google’s Gingerbread. There will be no Honeycomb update for the current Galaxy Tab.

Honeycomb will be used in the next-generation tablet which will be arriving sometime next year. The operating system is optimized for a different type of tablet.

We haven’t seen this one since April, but the sWaP NOVA keychain phone will finally hit the UK this October. It claims to be the smallest smartphone in the world at 68.5mm x 38mm x 16.2mm in size, while weighing just 43 grams.

That’s a touchscreen display and at that size it’s a good thing they include a stylus. Battery life is just 82 hours of standby time and 150 minutes of talk time. It can be charged via USB and you can still browse the Web via WAP.

Toshiba’s StorE TV+ media drive looks forward to connecting to your TV, and filling up its 2TB hard drive with shows for your viewing at your leisure. It features 802.11n as well as 10/100 Ethernet and even has a tiny LCD display on the front to make things easier to view.

A wide range of formats are supported by the StorE TV+ including Ogg and Flac audio and MPEG 1, 2, 4, H.264, VC-1 codecs, AVI, WMV, MKV, MOV and MP4 for video playback. Both DivX and XviD are missing from that list for some reason.

Panasonic has launched its new HJC120 and HSC200 headphones. Both are certified for Apple’s iPod and iPhone and both models offer a built-in microphone and remote. They can also access the VoiceOver function of the iPod shuffle, which is nice.

The remote control is water resistant for extra protection. The HJC120 is a canal type of headphone with an ergonomic design and a 90mm OctaRib speaker, while the HSC200 has a water resistant speaker housing with 12.4mm speakers for more dynamic sound.

Generally when we catch photos and details on new products via the FCC the things are seen in maybe one blurry shot like we had with the Griffin PartyDock not long ago. The FCC has been at work on the iPod touch for it to get the certifications to hit stores in the coming weeks.

The FCC has taken the new iPod touch that was unveiled yesterday, torn the gadget into pieces, and filmed the whole thing. This is something rather new that I haven’t seen the FCC do very often with the complete teardown. We usually have to wait until iFixit and other sites like it get the gadgets to see a teardown.

Creative has been unveiling several new wireless speakers systems over the last week or so. The latest offering from Creative will land this month in Singapore and should make its way stateside eventually. The speaker system is called the Creative T12 Wireless Speaker System.

The new speaker system is a 2.0 system and is compatible with all Bluetooth devices including the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. The system can also pair to other iPods with an optional transmitter or to notebooks with another optional transmitter.

When it comes to digital photo frames Sony already has several offerings. Digital frames are very popular and are one of the best ways to show off all the pictures you take without spending time and money printing them all out.

Sony has added three new frames to its lineup. The new fames include the DPF-XR100, DPF-VR100 and DPF-D830. The XR100 and VR100 are very similar with the notable exception that the XR100 is a portrait mode frame. Both can show AVCHD format video and have 10.2-inch LED backlit screens. Both of these frames also have an internal image processor that will scale pictures up to 256MP to fit the screens.

If you are a computer geek that likes to upgrade your hardware frequently, you are probably like me and have a number of older HDDs sitting around with data on them that you don’t want to delete. The problem is if I need data off those old drives I have to open my computer and dig around for another SATA cable and power cable to get the thing running.

Sharkoon has unveiled a new computer case called the Bandit that has a very cool feature. That feature is an integrated SATA docking station on top. You can take any SATA HDD and just plug it into the integrated dock to access data from the HDD. The case also has an integrated memory card reader.

Philips and O’Neill have teamed up to develop some new durable headphones. They are so tough that they have been tested on the toughest O’Neill team riders. These super durable headphones are aimed at those who live on the edge.

The Stretch shown above are the toughest of the offerings, inspired by the heavy-duty materials of wetsuits. They are impact and crack-resistant, made from TR55LX, with a surface hardness six-times greater than the polycarbonate in other headphones.