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An FM radio with creative license

For those who like manually tuning in FM radio stations instead of using the automatic scanner, this stick-shift FM radio is the way to go.

According to Tokyomango's translation of the vendor site, you shift left and right to change stations and up and down to adjust the volume. You just throw it in park to turn off the unit.

The product page also shows a couple of output ports on the shifter radio, although it's hard to tell what they are. Ideally, one of them is an audio-out port, because I'd imagine the sounds coming out … Read more

Exclusive: Slacker Portable Player slide show

If you're curious about the new portable device made to work with the Slacker Personal Radio service, check out our slide show of the Slacker Portable Player, where I've posted a handful of up-close and personal shots as well as some more info about the player. And if this particular device doesn't float your boat (it is awfully large for a flash player, after all), you'll be pleased to note that Slacker is talking to other device manufacturers about making both its free and premium services available to non-Slacker portables. How freakin' sweet is that?

Radio free world

The radio revolution we've been harping about has officially gone global.

The "DRM Radio" from Scottish electronics maker Morphy Richards supports the new Digital Radio Mondiale standard (a different kind of DRM, not digital rights management). That, according to Electronista, means that "short-, middle-, and long-wave radio transmissions from around the world are translated into digital broadcasts, producing FM-quality audio streams regardless of where the listener happens to be."

If you can't find anything worth listening to on those frequencies, you can always use it to get local broadcasts in digital and analog form. … Read more

News Roundup: Unbox for Tivo goes live, Friendster + Google, Web radio deathwatch?

TiVo users get unboxed. TiVo users looking to spend their hard-earned money on digital downloads of movies and TV shows online can now do so without leaving the couch. Last month's announcement of the partnership to bring Amazon's Unbox service to TiVo owners has been fulfilled, and now TiVo users can pick from more than a thousand pieces of content to download straight to their set-top box. ( News.com)

Friendster makes Google its ad, search supplier. Google has unseated Yahoo for advertising supremacy at Friendster, one of the oldest social networks that still has 37 million registered users. … Read more

Listening to the radio without any ads

Crave noted recently that radios, of all things, seem to be blazing new trails in audio technology on a daily basis. And this latest product out of Sweden is a perfect example.

The "PopCatcher MusicDock MD-601" is kind of an automatic TiVo for radio, scanning only for music and skipping over any advertisements, DJ chatter or anything else between songs. It then records the tunes on what it claims are "perfectly cut, high-quality MP3 files" on whatever media player is docked in the device.

The problem, according to our cousins at Crave UK, is repetition. In … Read more

A radio built for construction sites

Makita is a name most associated with such things as power tools and table saws, not usually portable gadgets. But just to show that it's not all blue-collar, the Japanese company has developed a radio specifically designed for construction sites.

Think of it as kind of the Toughbook of radios. The MR100 has a lithium battery and weather-resistant casing to survive harsh conditions, from extreme cold to hot and humid climates, Akihabara News says.

If you want one of these just for personal use for some strange reason, be aware that this isn't meant to be carried around … Read more

Radio features 37GB hard drive

Years into the MP3 and podcasting revolution, it's interesting to note that some of the more interesting audio technologies of late involve radio.

Olympus Japan is the latest to play Marconi with its VJ-10 digital radio, which Newlaunches says has a computer-sized 37GB hard drive. The capacity is so large, in fact, that Olympus is marketing the device in Japan as a radio server that it says can record up to 2,500 hours of programming.

There's no satellite reception, though, which seems to make the $335 price a bit high for a AM-FM tuner. But at least … Read more

Keeping radio free

We've had it with monthly subscriptions. It's the reason that we haven't gotten rid of our our old TiVo box, which we purchased with a lifetime subscription in 2001, even though it sometimes seems as if we can store only two or three shows on its tiny hard drive.

And as much as we like the idea of satellite radio, we're too stubborn (cheap) to pay any monthly fees for it. All of which is why we're intrigued by the idea of the "Acoustic Energy Wi-Fi Internet Radio."

Sure, we can tune in … Read more