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 It’s designed to look like your run of the mill outdated plastic cassette, and is even the same size, so that it fits into your vehicle’s cassette deck (assuming you still have one) for portability.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?

These 45 Nano Cases are made from actual cassette tapes and will fit 4th gen iPod nanos. It doesn’t get much cooler than this. I would buy an iPod Nano just so I can put it in this case. You get 24 color options to choose from.

They gut the cassette, route it and make the Nano fit inside. Anyone rocking a Nano who actually used cassette tapes has to love this. It’s a law.

Remember the joy of owning audio cassettes? Tape unraveling everywhere as your tape deck tries to eat your music, questionable sound quality, the tape being too tight and requiring your finger to advance it…Mix tapes…Good times. Thank god it’s over.

Well, it’s back. But don’t worry, it’s better. The NVDRS Tape is a concept MP3 player that limits you to just 45 minutes of music, or 10 songs. And yes, it really channels the spirit of the cassette tape. You fast forward and rewind by sticking your finger in the cassette hole and twisting, just like you did decades ago.

Let’s say you still have a huge library of cassette tapes for some reason. Maybe you just hate to part with them. Maybe you’re cheap and treat yard sales like your own private iTunes. Whatever. Here’s a quick way to digitize those old tapes into MP3 formats.

It’s the TapeLink from Alesis. The recorder will do more then just make a copy. It will virtually remove all hissing or other abnormalities in sound quality and convert them to MP3’s. Just plug it into the USB cable on your Mac or PC and you’re good to go. The bundled EZ Tape Converter makes transfer easy and convenient. The files can then be retrieved via USB on your computer to store on any device you want.

If you love retro and think that the cassette died way before it’s time you might want to check out this four port cassette USB hub. It goes good with the cassette mp3 player and if you never entered the 21st century and have cassettes lying around, who’s going to notice the difference?

You can even write the name of a retro artist or album on it. I don’t know, say Night Ranger, Journey or Styx. Those who prefer to have an 8-Track hub will have to wait I guess. It will cost you about $23. I love the warning they give on the website, for those who ate too much lead as a kid: “This is not a real cassette tape and attempts to play it in a cassette player could cause serious damage to your stereo and the hub.” You’ve been warned.

I have no idea if this is a concept or some geek’s elaborate prank in order to get girls or something. It could be a modified cassette player, but somehow I doubt it. You would need a few AA batteries at least. All I know is that had the actual iPod and Walkman merged in the 80’s, this would be the result. I suppose it would download music off of itunes, and store it on it’s cassette hard drive. When that casette is full, insert another and begin again. Very bizarre, but a cool pic.

I don’t know who had the idea, but all I can say is that the end result is pretty awesome looking. It’s like wearing a mix tape on your wrist, without the often annoying music of the era. It’s made of sturdy stuff, namely stainless steel and features twin dials. One for hours, one for minutes.

The detail on the cassette face is really awesome and authetic looking. The hands almost look like they are advancing the tape. The only way it could possibly be any cooler is if it played real music, which it doesn’t. It will cost you about $70. Expect an 8-Track watch in the near future.

That’s right, it’s 2008 and Sony is releasing a tape deck. Wtf you say? Me too. I’m not sure what they are thinking here, but I’m betting an 8-Track deck is around the corner. This dual tape recorder has a nice modern look, at least. It also features a CD player and a FM/AM Radio Tuner. It comes in two shades of gray and is available only in Japan for around $145.

There must be a surplus of tapes in Japan that I had not heard of. Either that or they just collectively discovered the magic of the garage sale cassette. Seriously, alot of people still use tapes. Mostly because they are cheap. The tapes, not the people. OK, them too. Still, I would be curious to find out how many of these units Sony is able to move.