Thanko is well known for it’s crap gadgets, but every now and then they surprise us with something a bit more original and different. Thanko has now shrunk the MP3 player into a form as small as 16mm x 25mm x 22mm, weighing just 8 grams.

And you wear it in your ear adding some extra douche to your personality. A very thin cable will allow you to enjoy your tunes. The 2GB and 4GB models will cost you about $55 and $76, respectively. It could sport better looks, but some users are bound to appreciate it’s tiny size.

Some devices suffer from an identity crisis. Like this guy, the USB Cassette MP3 Player. It’s designed to look like your run of the mill outdated plastic cassette, and is even the same size, so that it fits into your vehicle’s cassette deck (assuming you still have one) for portability. It also sports an SD memory card slot that holds all of your songs in flash memory.

Just drag and drop to transfer your files from a computer. The memory size is only limited by the size of your SD memory card. It will cost you $22 and has all of the usual buttons to control audio playback and volume on one side. So is it just an updated cassette or an MP3 player?

I have no idea why you would want to smell like Justine Timberlake thinks you should smell, but his “Play” cologne for Givenchy tries to take advantage of your love for gadgets by mimicking am MP3 player. The bottle was designed by Serge Mansau, who has created bottles for other Givenchy fragrances.

It features Play/Rewind/Forward touch buttons, but it’s all a fake. Rest assured that you will repel girls with your pop star smell and the poorly designed bottle is not even worth bragging about to your friends, who will dwindle in numbers as they each seek to escape the scented cloud of funk that is you.

Philips just unveiled a bunch of new products, everything from new digital audio players, to all in one remotes, to iPhone speaker systems and landline handsets. There are a few that stand out from the crowd. Like the clip-on GoGear Luxe MP3 player with Bluetooth headset. It lets you switch from music to calls with just a click. It also features a music shuffle mode, a 100 hour battery life, FM radio with 20 presets, and its display shows caller ID and numbers. It retails for $79.99.

The Philips GoGear Mix has a push-out USB connector, a clip-on design, and a 4GB capacity, for $44.99. Other features include an FM radio with presets, WMA support, a full color display, and a 25 hour battery life.

Meet Miffy. This little bunny is all set to give Hello Kitty a run for her money. Apparently Miffy is from Dutch children’s books or something, and has now been made into an mp3 player. The grassy dock is what really sells you on the cuteness.

It’s made by MobiBLU. We don’t have a price or capacity yet, but it should be available this month. Choose this over the evil Hello Kitty, won’t you?

We’ve seen some crazy pill shaped concepts as well as actual pill shaped products, but this may be the strangest. An MP3 player/pill that is actually going into production later this year. You should see it by years end.

It’s for those who love pharmaceuticals a little too much. Which is half of America, so they likely will have a hit on their hands. At this point in our culture, if it even resembles a pill, people will want it. And this pill has no side effects like numbness in the limbs, stroke or even death. It measures 2.7 inches long and is about an inch in diameter. It pulls apart to unveil the controls, allowing you to twist forward and back to skip tracks.

We’re always on the lookout for MP3 speakers, so we had a chance to check out this one from Seattle Sports Co. “Activetrax On the go audio”. It’s designed for camping situations and features AM/FM, weatherband and also serves as an MP3 speaker. It comes with it’s own protective case and can operate by either solar or crank power. So it would seem to be ideal for camping.

As an MP3 speaker, it does the job, but don’t expect high quality sound. It gets pretty loud, but as with most of these type of speakers, the louder you crank it, the more sound problems you have.

iRiver Japan has announced the T5, a pen drive sized MP3 player that takes quite a pretty picture. The DAP comes with a monochrome display, FM tuner and a microphone.

You can get it in 2GB and 4GB flavors and it supports MP3 and WMA playback. The device measures just 78×25×14mm and weighs only 26.3 grams. The 4GB model sells in Japan for $65.

Here’s yet another option to convert music from cassette to MP3. They must be selling these things, because we keep seeing more. Listen, if you are still using cassettes, then you are probably still rocking an 8-track and wearing polyester. Unless you are time-travelling this is no longer acceptable.

Anyhow if you can’t seem to break away from the cassette, maybe the Novac MV-CM001U Cassette-To-MP3 Player can help. Transferring the content on all your cassettes into MP3 format. Just place the cassette into the box, press “Record” and you’re done.

It’s that time of year again. iRiver has teamed up with Speedo to introduce the LZR Racer Aquabeat, an underwater MP3 player. The DAP can handle 3 meter depths and up to 30 minutes of underwater swimming.

The Aquabeat features 2 GB of internal memory and supports playback of MP3 and WMA files. There’s no display, but it has the basic controls like play,stop, change track and volume control. The Aquabeat is available in Japan only for about $145.

iPod haters have yet another option with the release of LG’s new UP3 Neon. Sort of looks like a Trek phaser and a fancy remote in one. You won’t see many new features, but you’ll get a unique design

We’re talking a combination MP3 player and USB drive that offers a touch interface, voice recording and between 2 and 4 gigabytes of data. We think this one is going to be a hit when it arrives on the Korean market for $41.

Much like the Ion Dual, the TapeWriter is a cassette transfer system that converts your old cassette tapes to digital MP3 format on your computer. Just plug it into your USB port, put a tape in and press play. That’s it.

It comes with an integral speaker so you can listen while you are transferring. It will cost you $119.95. But hey, it’s worth it to hear your old music again. Once you get them all transferred, you can toss all those old tapes for good.

Well, this is certainly the strangest MP3 player we’ve seen this week. Too bad they didn’t go all Kermit the Frog with this guy. They may have actually sold more. The Toys R Us ‘Ribbit’ MP3 player comes with five play modes (normal, repeat one, repeat all, folder, repeat folder). And an eight-mode equalizer.(normal, rock, pop, classical, bass, jazz, soft, and SRS WOW)

It also sports a high-speed USB 2.0 interface, play-list function, and support for seven languages. A built-in rechargeable Lithium Ion battery is the power source. Not bugs. You’ll get up to six hours of continuous playback with a fully charged battery.

Coby’s MP600 Video MP3 Player takes some obvious inspiration from the iPod Nano. It features a 1.44″ LCD screen that will play back all of your MTV video files, JPG photos, read text files as well as MP3 and WMA files. You’ll also get FM radio.

The best part is that they didn’t clone the price, which is just over $20 for the 2GB version. The 4GB version will cost you $29.99. So if you’re looking for a cheap alternative for the Nano, you might want to check it out.

Are you ready for an invasion of adorable animals? The invasion has begun with these cute alternatives to all things Hello Kitty. The new Chinese Horoscope MP3 players from EverGreen are big on cute, small on usability. Buy them all and you’ll have an animal for every month.

The controls are on the rear, forcing you to fiddle with an animal’s butt, however on the up side, you get 2GB of storage space, with just five hours of play time.