Petite Pico Projector

You're at a business lunch and you realize you need to show your clients a picture of your marketing plan for their hot new widget. You have a picture of your ad idea stored on your phone, or it's stashed on your iPod. So there you are, huddled around a 2-inch screen as you try to explain the details they can't see.

Now, imagine if you could whip out a handheld projector from your shirt pocket and beam that image so everyone could see it?

Sunny Side iPod

Portable speakers are great for listening to your iPod, but they suck down batteries like a sweaty runner sucks down Gatorade. Just in time for a summer full of long days on the beach is the K3000 ST Solar, a solar-powered speaker system iPod dock. Pass the sunscreen and let's check it out.

United Flight 936: iPodding at 35,000 Feet

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached a cruising altitude of 10,000 feet, and the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign. You are free to use personal electronic devices at this time, and feel free to plug in your iPod or iPhone into our new docking and charging systems."

That was probably the inflight announcement on United's flight 936 that departed from Washington, D.C. in route to Zurich on Monday afternoon. What's so special about this flight?

Harman Kardon Bridging the iPod Gap

Harman Kardon just announced a sexy little iPod dock designed to work seamlessly with HK's new A/V receiver line. The Bridge II is an iPod dock that's compatible with all dockable iPods except the Shuffle. The snazzy number is a complete controller that provides audio, video, and control link information through a single cable. No additional power adapter is required - The Bridge II gets power from the HK The Bridge-ready connected receiver. iPod not included. Keep reading for more details.

iPod in the Sky with Singapore Air

Flying first class has never been this classy. Singapore Airlines, known for their luxurious seating, gourmet in-flight dining, and gorgeous flight attendants is making news again. On their all-business class planes flying from New York and LA to Singapore, your entertainment options are becoming even better. The airplanes have been equipped with iPod/iPhone docks right in the seats. To watch the videos from the iPods or any other inflight option, they've installed 15.4-inch LCD widescreen displays. Panasonic Avionics installed personal portable players in addition to the docks. Singapore also supplies active noise-canceling headphones. What's an important safety feature of this arrangement?

Singing in the...Sink?

Leave it to an Italian design company to turn something as mundane as brushing your teeth into art. Musical and visual art, at that. The WET design firm with a creative flare when dealing with plumbing (get it,... wet?...) has come out with a gorgeous new sink, the X-light Surround, complete with an input for your portable audio player. Talk about an iPod dock -- your toothbrush and Nano, side by side at last. The X-light Surround has built in speakers, visible through the transparent PMMA acrylic polymer surface. Just don't let your Shuffle shimmy into the sink. Wanna see more slippery ideas from WET?

A Future Filled with Unlimited Storage

Limitations in data storage are the only thing holding us back from iPods and personal video players that hold thousands of movies and hundreds of thousands of audio tracks. Hard drives break, and flash drives are slow.

Researchers at IBM's IBC research center in San Jose, Calif. have spent years developing a workaround they call “racetrack memory” that could change all that. Their data storage research was published last week in Science Magazine.

Channeling Vinyl

Still have some old vinyl kicking around the attic that you'd like to offload to the iPod? You've got a few options for converting those soundwaves into bits.

Numark, maker of turntables for pro DJs and consumers, will ship a direct-to-iPod turntable next month that converts vinyl tracks to MP3 files--without a PC in between. The option works with iPod Classic and 5th-gen iPods as well as 2nd and 3rd-gen Nanos. Owners of other iPod models can import music from records into iTunes and then burn CDs or sync with an iPod from there. Bundled EZ Vinyl Converter 2 software for the PC and EZ Audio Converter software for the Mac remove pops and hisses from original recordings during transfer. Gracenote MusicID technology analyzes vinyl content and retrieves artist, song and album info.

It's All about the Music

I was at the CEDIA show this week wearing a path between the restroom and the press conference room of the Colorado Convention Center when I heard what sounded like a live guitar performance wafting out of Room 304. When I walked into the room and found no musicians, I wasn't surprised. It was a CEDIA Meridian event, and I've always loved their stuff.

But then I started looking around for the towering components. Meridian is known for knock-your-socks-off audio, but the price you've always paid (in addition to an arm and a leg) is a substantial amount of airspace for speakers and electronics.

I stopped in my tracks when I realized that the phenomenal, live, airy sound was coming from a tabletop radio.

Apple Announcement #2: iMakeover!

Steve Jobs has done it again. Stealing some thunder from another consumer-electronics confab (that would be CEDIA Expo 2007, where nearly all of S&V's editors are ensconced right now), the Apple Inc. CEO actually made not one but six big announcements today — none of which involves the Beatles coming to iTunes. (See my post immediately below.)

The biggest announcement of the Steve Six: Apple is introducing the iPod touch (below), an iPhone-like redo of its most popular product. Prices: $299 (8GB) and $399 (16GB). Available: later this month!

The other five announcements: