Robert Radio announced the MP-Sound 41, a slick looking silver colored and compact portable digital radio with Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) technology. The Electronic Programming Guide lets you program the radio to record up to 12 of your favorite shows for up to a week in advance, so you won’t have to miss anything again. You can also use the EPG to store up to eight hours of recordings directly onto a SD memory card.

Some other features include a full screen display, easy “cassette key-style” navigation, which will give you pause, rewind, fast-forward, record and playback. You also get PausePlus, a clock function with up to 12 different alarms and a headphone jack.

Some of us are old enough to have not only CDs lying around, but cassettes and maybe a few vinyl LPs as well. Or God forbid, 8-Track tapes. Despite the fact that the cover art was superior on those old records, by now it is time to bring them up to date so you can enjoy them more easily and put them away for safe keeping.

The Crosley Songwriter may not help with 8-Track tapes, but it will let you burn an LP onto a CD in style and it takes only minutes. Not to worry, it’s also a three-speed record player, so you can still play your old records if you are feeling nostalgic. The device also burns cassettes into CDs as well. The design is the perfect blend of old and new style and will cost you $400. If you have a ton of rare cassettes and records that are not available on CD, it will pay for itself in no time while you preserve your music.

We’ve covered devices before that will update your old-school cassettes to digital, like the plusdeckEX. The plusdeckEX even has a great retro look, but the Ion Dual Ripping Cassette Deck with USB Output beats it hands down for an authentic 80′s design. This dual-ripping tape deck transforms your old cassette tapes into digital files, so you can listen to them on your MP3 or CD player. You won’t have to worry about those old tapes wearing out from years of play.

The device is compatible with both PCs and Macs and even features normal and high speed dubbing for cassette to MP3 conversion. I understand if you don’t want to admit to still using your old cassette tapes, but it’s time to get one of these and upgrade. Haven’t you lived with your horrible secret long enough?

We all love music. Some of us so much so that we hold on to old media long after it’s time has passed. Take that box of old cassettes you have stashed in the closet, for example. You know who you are. Problem is, tapes degrade over time. Eventually, you either have to buy it anew on more recent media, or convert it somehow.

Enter the plusdeckEX. It mates with your PC via USB and the result is beautiful digital music. A 7.1 channel built-in sound card converts the analog signal from the cassette tape into a digital file format like MP3. It’s just that easy.

Polk Audio yesterday unveiled a new version of its I-Sonic tabletop radio. The new I-Sonic Entertainment System 2 (ES2) is priced at around $500 and should be available next month.

The I-Sonic ES2 combines iPod and HD Radio playback in much the same way the original I-Sonic did HD Radio and DVD playback. The ES2 has a top-mounted dock which works with all iPods with dock connectors. One feature which is particularly interesting is iTunes Tagging. This new universal technology lets you buy songs heard on HD Radio broadcasts by “tagging” those songs into the ES2′s memory. When you dock an iPod the tags are transferred to the music player as a playlist, which can later be previewed through iTunes on a computer for purchase and download.

Voice recorders had a time when I thought they were pretty cool because they had those tiny little cassette tapes. I remember going to the doctor’s office (for routine visits, of course) and seeing many little tapes lying around with different files where the doctors would dictate on them and file them away.

Well, voice records have come a long way, and dictation is not recorded onto little tapes anymore. If you are in need of a good voice recorder for dictation or anything else, Olympus has a sweet …

XM Satellite Radio has a product called inno which is an MP3 player and live satellite radio player in one. The key to this is the live part. With this product you can listen to live satellite radio through XM Satellite Radio and record up to 50 hours with one-touch recording.

This also has a built in FM transmitter, so you can listen to whatever the Inno player is playing using an ordinary FM radio. Also, it’s integrated with XM and Napster which allows you to manage songs, playlists, …