The typical violin is based on designs created over 300 years ago. It’s worked well and has given us some beautiful music, but it’s time for an upgrade. Modern design techniques and 21st century materials can surely improve it.

That’s the idea behind the Gavari Semiacoustic Violin from Austrian designer Gerda Hopfgartner. Hopfgartner was inspired by modern yachts and “feminine curves and sundry corset outlines of the Baroque, Rococo, and Biedermeier ages”. We have no idea what she’s talking about, but we love the results.

If you’re looking for a boring and plain iPod dock and you are prepared to spend a small fortune on it, this one is for you. For $379.99, you can get the “high-end” Wadia 170i Transport iPod dock.

It’s the first product to offer the iPod’s audio output over S/PDIF coaxial (RCA), DVD quality video via component outputs, which is cool, but this thing is super boring design-wise. It’s a simple aluminum chassis. Audiophiles will love it, but not to look at.

Now you can retire from your gig as air guitar rocker and play your shirt instead. This Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt even has its own mini amplifier. When you strum the shirt with the special magnetic pick, it delivers some awesome distorted-sounding guitar chords.

You can’t rock individual notes, but there are 15 different power cords, covering all the major keys. Once you figure out where to activate each of the chords on the shirt’s “frets,” just press your finger there and start strumming.

Most of us have moved on to MP3s and digital music, but some of us may still have old audio tape collections, with awesome music on them. There are many rare tracks on audio tapes that have not yet made the digital jump.

That’s where the USB Tape Express comes in handy. Just hook the device up to your computer via USB, insert an old tape, then run the conversion process with the included software.

Here’s a great Equalizer Music hat, just in time for winter. This equalizer hat features blue luminescent displays in either side, which light up to the beat of your music, so pump up those jams and keep fashionably warm.

Just plug in your MP3 or music player with a headphone jack to show off your tunes right on your head. It will cost you about $30 and will apparently make girls look cute as a button. It’s also a great way to annoy those around you on your commute.

Are these stylish speakers a Must Have, as their name implies? You decide. One thing we know for sure is that these are for girls. Seems like a rather desperate name to us, but what do we know? They are available in several colors and designs.

All of which are full of girl power and cooties. These portable mini speakers should come in handy while on the go with your MP3 player.

The mouse isn’t just for computers anymore. Check out the DJ Mouse from DJ Tech. It’s a multi-axis input device that interacts with the Deckadance Dj software and allows you to live out your DJ fantasy without a turntable or any vinyl.

It features a jog wheel that functions as a ’scratch’ controller, while the software will buffer music so you can interact with it and play it back however you like. It even sports some cool blue back-lighting to make you look awesome in the dark.

Olive has unveiled a new line of stereos today in the form of the Opus. And it has some serious storage capacity and a unique design. It’s official name is the Opus No. 4. This stereo will conveniently save imported CDs in lossless FLAC format and has a touchscreen menu.

It will let you make playlists, listen to online radio stations and more. There’s also wireless playback. The Opus is available in several models to suit your needs. There’s a 500GB model, a 1TB model and an extreme 2TB model.

Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN recently spoke to the Telegraph and announced that Microsoft will launch a streaming music service “imminently”, by the end of July. Bale said the service will be similar to Spotify, a streaming music service that offers both an ad-supported listening option as well as a premium subscription service with no ads. Bale also added that Microsoft is considering extending the service to the Xbox 360, but he didn’t give any other details.

They are still examining a business model. Apparently the service would let users stream tunes for free as long as they listen to ads every half hour or so. It will be interesting to see how this initiative will tie-in with the company’s Xbox 360 and Zune.

According to the Telegraph, music download site 7Digital will be launching a service for BlackBerry this September. It’s based around an application that will be available in BlackBerry’s App World. Customers will be able to download music directly to their phone for 79 cents a song. “Most” tracks will be DRM-free.

RIM CEO Jim Balsillie sure seems excited about it. He sees the market as experiencing the “birth of digital music 2.0.” We don’t know about that, but it sure is exciting for BB owners.

The microKORG is said to be the world’s best selling synthesizer. The new microKORG XL has the same great features and uses a more capable effects processor, has improved key response and a gooseneck microphone for instant vocoding.

You can use a USB cable to connect the microKORG XL to your computer. The three performance edit knobs offer fast, effective editing in performance. and you can use the free sound editing software to organize your sounds and edit all of the parameters from your computer.

Looking for an iPod dock for your mad science lab? The Einstein Sound Master Photon Ball iPod Dock sounds pretty impressive, but in reality it’s just one of those fancy electro-static orbs attached to a dock. Which is cool, don’t get us wrong, but it’s also kind of too much. The colored ball pulsates and flashes to the beat of the music.

It also changes colors and looks all pretty-like. Just sit your iPod in the dock, and think about what it would look like if it had hair electro-rocked by this orb. Some other features are a clock with an alarm, AM/FM radio tuner and more.

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.

CNET has word that Sony’s been talking to some of the big recording labels about putting their music on the PlayStation Network for download, specifically for the PSP. It makes sense. The service already has a growing library of movies and TV shows. It’s just lacking music.

And since Sony is one of the four largest music companies in the world, they should be able to provide a few good artists. It resides in rumor territory for now, but we’d be real surprised if this didn’t happen. The PSP has never really lived up to it’s potential. This could help.

The Alhambra Wi-Fi Internet Radio merges both old and new styles together in an interesting way. This wireless Internet radio receiver will stream your favorite tunes to just about anywhere in your home, assuming you don’t live in a super huge mansion of course.

It’s got an old style interface that some will love while others will hate, but it will blend into any home design-wise and hey, we’ve seen much worse.