You know that the world has changed when Optimus Prime can transform into an iPod. While the movie took some artistic liberties with the design of Prime (hot rod flames?) Takara’s line of music Transformers pushes the envelope even further than that. Not only has Optimus lost all of his color but his trailer section now transforms into an iPod docking station. The tractor part of the Autobot still morphs into the same classic Prime we all remember so at least the old school fans won’t be completely aghast.

Takara is also offering an updated version of the Decepticon Soundwave except instead of transforming into a Walkman-style tape player he now can turn into a MP3 player. The tricky thing of the new Soundwave is that the player will dispense your tunes in either mode so you can transform the guy and listen to …

HandHeld Entertainment, despite making portable media player after portable media player over the years, continues to not be a name rolling off the tongue when one thinks of PMPs. HandHeld looks to be at it again though, announcing the beginning of sales today for its new Zvue 260.

The Zvue 260, like many other Zvue players, lacks internal memory. It instead uses external SD memory cards for storage of media content. This particular player, priced at less than $100, comes with a 1GB SD card out of the box. This card is enough to hold up to six hours of video or 500 MP3 songs.

Ion Audio gets how important it is to back up your vinyl collection to a digital format. The company announced today two new USB turntables designed to help convert your LPs into MP3s.

The Ion Audio iTTUSB05 ($150) and iTTUSB10 ($250) turntables come with a USB port for single-cable connection to a Mac or PC and allow for playing albums while at the same time copying them. Both come with software for copying music off the vinyls, including a program for converting tracks directly to iTunes. Other features of the new USB turntables include dust covers to protect the record, stylus and slip mat; built-in pre-amps eliminating the need for an audio receiver with phono-in jack; integrated RCA cables; and 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM playback speeds.

No, you’re not looking at the latest Tamagotchi or Transformers toy; this is a portable audio player called Digital Olive and from Sofmap. It’s hard to get an idea of how small this one is from the photo but the Digital Olive measures 80mm x 140mm and weighs 275 grams, so it’s lightweight enough to pack around in your pocket. You can separate the two speakers if you like from the center unit where the main controls are located. The back of the center unit flips open and that’s where your SD card slides into (it also accepts USB connections too.) It takes 4 AA batteries to power up, supports MP3/WMA files and comes in pink, black, silver and blue color choices.

You’ll need to import this one from Japan when it starts to go on sale July 24th for 5,980 Yen (~$50 bucks.)

via …

Engadget showed us a much better image of the Beosound 6, Bang & Olufsen’s latest MP3 player. The company recently announced the product and doesn’t have an availability date yet but we do have some intel on its specs: the dimensions of the candy bar-shaped gizmo are 3.5″ x 1.7″ x 0.5″; the screen is a 64k color LCD measuring 1.8″; it’s got a 24 hour battery life; 4 GB of flash memory; supports MP3 and WMA files; and it has a USB port opening on its front panel bottom. B&O is also tossing in a leather case and a pair of A8 headphones to sweeten the deal. The price should hover around 400 Euros or a little over $800 in our dollars.

I wasn’t aware that Packard Bell was all that into portable media players, but they seem to be trying to go “all-out” with their new MP3 player called Funkey Town.

The specs on the Funkey Town DAP are nothing real special. It plays WMA and MP3′s, comes in 1GN or 2GB capacities and has a small LED screen. It does have a silicon anti-shock coating for grip and to help endure drops, but I don’t know if that really makes it all that funky.

It also has a hook and a neck strap for carrying it around and connects to your computer through a built-in retractable USB connector. The Funkey Town is retailing only in Europe right now and going for about £33 ($66 USD).

via Pocket Lint

If you’re really a hardcore music listener or someone that spends a lot of their time getting wet how does a waterproof MP3 player sound? Century’s N0-73262 Dolphin straps to the side of your head (on your goggles) or to your arm (the option is for swimmers that don’t want to throw their MP3 player in and out of the water.)

It measures 60 x 21 x 21 mm and has 2 GB of memory, enough different music choices (WMA, MP3 format support) to keep you in the wet stuff until your skin resemble a prune. The Dolphin also comes with four pairs of waterproof ear plugs, a waterproof earphone, USB cable and armband. It’s on sale in Japan for about $160 US.

Now you’ll have something to listen to on the swim back home, right?

via SlashGear

RCA has a new line of MP3 players called the Pearl series that come in 256MB, 1GB or 2GB capacities and feature a different configuration than many of the latest MP3 players.

The Pearl MP3 player has a built-in USB connection which allows it to connect directly to your computer sans any cables, similar to a USB flash drive. All three players have a Micro SD card slot which will allow you to expand the memory to multiple Gigs even if you purchased the smallest capacity player. And like the retro-style direct USB connection, this player is not rechargeable and runs off of 1 AAA battery.

The RCA Pearl also has some more of the standard features found in portable MP3 players like direct voice recording, encoding directly to MP3, plays mp3, WMA, WMDRM-9 and Audible files, has a small LCD display can give up …

The Mickey Mouse head shaped iRiver Mplayer has finally launched in Korea. The Mplayer features a design with functional ears to control tracks and volume with a 1GB internal capacity. It’s priced at around $59 and is now available for purchase, but unfortunately only in Korea at this point. We’ll watch for this to hopefully make the jump to other countries in the coming months.

via AkihabaraNews

That Mickey Mouse MP3 player we talked about earlier this month looks like it’s turning out to be something real as you can see on the iRiver Korea site. Apparently it will go for around $50 and will have a 1GB memory capacity. The ears, as we suspected, do control the volume and track but it doesn’t look like the Mickey shaped device will be coming to too many destinations. Disney had iRiver make it for retail sale in Korea and for the Hong Kong Disney theme park only, at least at this point in time.

The device is 3cm tall and will come in colors of black, white, blue and the ever popular pink. The features of this player aren’t too impressive and the only thing that really stands out is the fact that its shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head, …

This small Disney Mplayer MP3 player inspired by Mickey Mouse features the shape of Mickey’s head and ears in a spherical design. The ears look to be actually functional controlling the volume with one and moving ahead or back in tracks with the other, possibly by twisting them.

The features here are pretty simple but the design is sure to catch on. There is no screen interface on this little device and by additional photos it appears to be quite small, maybe just 2-3 inches in diameter. There also doesn’t appear to be anyway to start it, stop it or charge it, but maybe plugging in the headphone jack just makes it go since it most likely is targeting kids. The headphone jack is located in the top of “head” between the “ears”.

This Disney Mplayer is expected to be available in parts of …

Audiovox has an affordable MP3 player with a 512MB capacity for only $19.99, losing the frills found in many of the latest media players and providing bare-bones portable tunes.

The Audiovox MP6512 supports MP3 and WMA (and protected WMA) files, has a nice OLED display that shows the track playing, and a fairly small case measuring 2.4 inches long and .8 inches thick.

Transfer the music files via a USB connection to your computer, and I guess I was a little off with the bare-bones comment. The MP6512 does have an built-in equalizer with presets for rock, jazz, classic, and pop.

Throw in 10 more dollars and you can get a 1GB version with an FM tuner with the MP6610FM.

via ChipChick

TurboLinux has announced that its media player / OS host, the TurboLinux Wizpy, will be going on sale worldwide in June to primarily English speaking countries including the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, India and Singapore.

The Wizpy has features similar to an average media player with a 1.7″ OLED display and supports Ogg, MP3, WMA, XviD MPEG4 and JPEG files. It also has an FM tuner and can direct-record sound inline to MP3. The TurboLinux Wizpy is more than just an average PMP, though.

This media player, which is already available in Japan, contains a PC-bootable version of the Linux operating system. By connecting the Wizpy to a PC through a USB interface the user is prompted to boot up and run the Linux OS straight from the device. Personal settings are also saved back to the …

Twinbird is known for it’s waterproof gadgets and the latest they’ve brought to the market is an MP3 player with some pretty cool underwater-able features.

The SD ZABADY is the latest from the company and provides a measly 128MB of internal storage for your audio media, however it does have an SD card slot capable of handing cards up to 2GB. It has an LCD screen to show what’s playing and for navigation, connects and transfers files via USB 2.0, and has built-in speakers.

The design of the Shiro AS digital audio player probably makes it pretty easy to keep a grip if you can only avoid the urge to play catch with it. This soccer ball-inspired MP3 player is spherical shaped with a design pattern similar to a soccer ball complete with navigation buttons and an OLED display built right into the pattern.

The actual features are nothing real special. It plays back MP3, WMA and WAV files, has a FM tuner and can support voice recording through a mic built into the device. It also functions as a USB storage device with capacities from 256MB to as much as 2GB, all transferred through a USB 2.0 connection. A rechargeable battery also gets juiced up through the USB cable giving up to 10 hours of playback time.

The design of this soccer ball MP3 player is …