It may be embroiled in a losing battle with smartphones and Apple's iPod range, but Sony's Walkman MP3 players just wont give up. A new E-Series crop is being prepped for launch in Japan, alongside a set of speaker docks.

The NW-E062 and the NW-E063 are the latest bits of kit to have Walkman branding slapped on the side. with 2GB and 3GB of storage respectively, they happily play all manner of audio formats, including MP3s, WMAs, ATRACs, Linear PCMs and AACs tunes, as well as housing an FM radio. Pick up the NW-E062K and the NW-E063K variants and Sony throw in a 1W speaker stand too (pictured).

The MP3 players themselves measure up at 34.8 x 77.5 x 9.1mm, and weigh 37g. Each has a 1.4inch TFT screen, and feature noise cancelling tech that should block out 98% of ambient sound. Battery life if good for between 24-30 hours, depending on how much you use the noise cancellation features.

Alognside the new Walkman models are a pair of speaker docks, the RDP-NWG400B and the RDP-NWM7. The first of the pair is a Bluetooth speaker with a 20W output across a 2.1 channel setup, while the RDP-NWM7 is a dock with a 4W output.

No word on a UK release at the moemnt, but we'll pass on any details we get ASAP.

Via: The Verge

Christmas, for me, means just one thing: A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector. The wall of sound maestro, for all his horrific lady-killing failings, sure knew how to craft a tight little seasonal ditty.

Scroll down to see Tech Digest's top tips for which speakers, docks and Hi-Fi systems to pop on your Christmas list this festive season.

When you're done here, be sure to check out the rest of Tech Digest's 2011 Christmas wishlists too.

Last night Google launched their online music store in the US which will allow all devices running the Android operating system to buy, store and stream MP3 files.

Google have launched the service with the backing of some of the industries largest record labels behind them including EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal along with 23 independent labels. The only major label missing from the collection was Warner Music group. Even without some of the big Warner bands such as Led Zeppelin, Linkin Park and Prince it is still launching with a catalog of 13 million songs.

It will be a direct competitor to Apple and Amazon with their respective music stores and streaming services. The new music service will also use a cloud based storage system much like its major competitors, giving users free storage for 20,000 songs. The music store is just the latest in a line of innovations by the search engine giant most recently their social network Google+.

A recent study showed that more than half of all smartphones purchases between July and September ran Android, almost 60 million devices. In the same time period IOS handsets accounted for just 15% of all purchased devices, however you cant read a great deal into this as this was the month before the Iphone 4S was released. But for Google this is the perfect time to launch this feature for their smartphone market.

The new music service will incorporate Google+ by allowing users to share songs with their circles who can listen to the track fully once without having to buy it. Songs will come without DRM copy protect so you can share the file with your friends, promoting the more social music aspect that Google seem to be going for. There will also be a free track to download every day.

New artists wanting to get into the industry can get a helping hand from Google, with it's new Artist Hub. Artists will pay $25 to set up their own page and set their own prices. Google will take a 30% cut from all sales.

"It's not exactly innovative, but the reality is that Google will get success in the same way it has in other markets - by making the most of its strengths in search and Android, and it will keep chipping away," said COlin Gillis, technology analyst at BGC Partners.

There were however no talk of it launched outside of the US as of yet, due to ongoing negotiations between Google and record labels about selling the songs outside of the US. Another feature that sounds like it will be US only will be the ability for T-Mobile customers to charge songs to their monthly phone bill instead of entering their credit card information.

It sounds like the service is offering some good innovations the one thing im most looking forward to is the tracks not being DRM protected so being able to share the tracks with your friends. These seemingly small feature will literally allow your friends to search your library and pick the things they like, almost like a google search made by your friends.

There comes a time when we all go shopping for a new sound system or radio, its a bit of an overwhelming experience sometimes isn't it? There are literally thousands of choices from hundreds of different companies. Sometimes you just want something nice and simple, that is where the cardboard radio fits in.

Sold by monsterstuff.co.uk and designed by Christopher McNicholl the cardboard radio is one of the simplest FM radio and MP3 players on the market and looks set to be a perfect christmas present for that one hippy music loving friend we all have. The whole outer structure is made completely of card and is fully recyclable.

It comes with four AA batteries and an audio input cable, making this the perfect portable music system for any office or picnic, when the weather decides to sort itself out. The radio only costs £24.99 and is available right now from monsterstuff.co.uk and is a great combination of environmentally friendly materials and technology.

Sony update their Walkman line today with handful of new players, including the wireless Bluetooth streaming NWZ-A860 and NWZ-S760 models.

The A-Series NWZ-A860 looks much like a smartphone with its 2.8 inch LCD touchscreen, but remains very much a dedicated media player, with an S-Master MX digital amplifier, hpto and video viewers an 16GB of storage.

The afore-mentioned Bluetooth streaming allows the NWZ-A860 to hook up with Bluetooth speakers, headphones, docks and in-car units too.

Also packing the Bluetooth tech is the NWZ-S760 S-Series model, with "legendary sound" through Clear Audio Tech, and 50 hours of continuous playback form a single charge.

The presumably cheaper E-Series NWZ-E560 model packs a 2 inch QVGA screen and FM tuner, and is available in multiple sizes (4GB, 8GB,16GB) and colours (black, red, blue, green, pink).

All of the new Walkman models feature SenseMe, which orgainises your music into different genre specific shuffle channels, a karaoke mode and MediaGo drag-and-drop transfer.

No pricing available yet, with the range due in stores by the end of August.

Sony's Walkman range gets another fitness-orientated Walkman today in the shape of the Sony Sports Walkman NWZ-W260.

Completely wire-free with the player and storage built into the headphones themselves, they're totally water resistant, meaning they're as great for watersports enthusiasts as they are sweaty runners, wh can give them a soapy clean afterward a workout without doing the Walkman any damage.

Drag and drop compatible, you can also get your tunes onboard with iTunes syncing, while the Sony Zappin feature allows you to jump to your "power song" for particularly gruelling parts of your training regime.

Battery life maxes out at 8 hours from a full charge, while a short 3 minute charge is enough to give you 60 minutes of playback.

"The Sports Walkman keeps me going through all of my workouts in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games," said medal-hopeful Marlon Devonish.

"The sound is amazingly clear and helps get me 'in the zone' when I'm training, and I love that it's both wireless and water-resistant so I never interrupt a training session."

Out in july, there's no pricing available yet, nor what storage size options will be available. We'll keep you posted.

Hoping that the PMP fight isn't a long lost battle to the might of Apple's iPod and the smartphone rise are Philips, who today reveal their feature packed GoGear Muse 3 PMP.

A brushed metal player with a 3.2 inch touchscreen running at 480x320 resolution, the Muse 3 introduces two new technologies to the mp3 playing table.

First up is SafeSound, designed to protect your hearing. Analysing your listening habits and preffered sound levels, it'll fire up a warning every time you're doing something that could cause long term damage to your hearing.

The second new technology is the genius-sounding SoundPersonalisation. It brings the concept of the graphic equaliser bang up to date, tweaking tones by swiping fingers towards the four corners of the screen, each one representing either "powerful", "warm", "sparkling" or "vocal" tones.

In terms of file support, the Muse 3 can handle MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, APE, MPEG4 SP/ASP, MPEG4 AVC/H.264 HP, RMVB, WMV9, JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF files, as well as beefing up the quality of compressed sound files with Philip's FullSound processing feature.

Available in two sizes, the 8GB Muse 3 will cost £109.99, while the 16GB will cost £139.99.

Remember earlier in the week we showed you a spyshot of an iPod Nano with space in its chassis for a camera? Well, it looks mighty possible that it may well be the real deal after a very similar Apple patent application has now appeared online.

Uncovered by Apple Insider, the application shows an iPod Nano with a built in camera, as well as a host of other cool sounding new features such as temperature and motion monitoring tools, with stats visisble from a screensaver, which would further increase its usage as a fitness aid. There's also a microphone inside according to the patent, obviously necessary for capturing sound should it be capable of video recording too.

There's also a hint that iPod Nano apps will be on the way too, with games and calendar tools potentially featuring.

It's quite a lot to fit into that tiny Nano frame! With Apple's annual iPod refresh expected to be in September, we're sure we'll have more to share then.

Sony have unveiled a new iPod Nano battling MP3 player in the shape of the NWZ-B160 Walkman Music clip. Desigend to be worn on a lapel or clipped to a shirt whilst exercising, the NWZ-B160 features a drag-and-drop file transfer interface and one-touch bass boost to help you power through your fitness regime.

Available in 2GB and 4GB sizes in a range of colours, a short 3 minute charge will give 90 minutes worth of music playback, while a full charge will give you 18 hours.

"Weighing just 28g and less than 10cm long, the Music Clip boasts an eye-grabbing two-tone finish in a vivid choice of contrasting colour-ways," reads the Sony release.

"Whether you're jogging, travelling, or just hanging out with friends, the latest Music Clip MP3 players from Sony deliver rich sound plus street-smart looks."

No pricing revealed yet, but they'll be in shops before the end of the month.

This September's expected annual Apple iPod event could lead to some good news for fans of the Nano line, Apple's range of tiny touchscreen mp3 players. A leaked shot from Apple.pro is suggesting that the tiny iPod could be once again getting a camera built in.

A shot of what could be the next iPod Nano chassis has appeared on the site, with a circular, camera-sensor-shaped hole cut away on to the top right-hand corner.

If it proves true, it's not the first time the Nano line has featured a camera. The fifth-generation version also sported a camera, which was dropped when the Nano went on a diet to get into its current square form. It's likely that the clip on the current Nano's rear will have to be dramatically smaller or be removed altogether to fit the camera's inclusion, which doesn't nessecarily bode well for those who like to wear it as a wrist watch.

All speculation at this stage, but Apple.pro have a good reputation for delivering the goods when it comes to leaks, having previously correctly identified the current generation Nano's display module long before its official release.

We've teamed up with mobile phone recycling price comparison website SellMyMobile.com to offer one lucky winner a shiny new iPod Touch 32GB (4th Generation).

Slim, stylish, ultra-light and packed with lots of features, the iPod Touch 4th Generation is a great way to listen to your favourite music at the click of a button. With a built in camera and enough memory to hold all your albums, the model is perfect for creating special Christmas memories with your mates.

A price comparison site, SellMyMobile.com promises to get the most money for your mobile phone. All you need to do is type the model of the handset you want to recycle into SellMyMobile.com's search engine. By checking all UK buyers every day, the site is able to provide the most accurate and up-to-date results and prices for recycling UK mobile phones.

To win the ultra-light, ultra-stylish new iPod Touch 32GB (4th Generation), all you need to do is answer this question;

Who is the turtle-neck sweater wearing public face of Apple?

C) Shakin' Stevens

To enter the competition go to TechDigest's facebook page, www.facebook.com/techdigest.tv and leave your answer as a comment on the discussion board.

(Competition closes on Friday 17th December. Only TechDigest Facebook page fans will be eligible to win the prize. Winner will be picked at random.)

After 30 years and over over 200 million copies sold, Sony has ended production on its Cassette Walkmans.

With this rise in popularity of mp3 players like the iPod, Sony believed that there was no longer consumer interest in their once hugely popular product. The last batch of the infamous product rolled off the production line earlier this year, but Sony will be retaining the Walkman brand to use with its latest portable memory based MP3 player range.

The first Sony Cassette Walkman was launched on July 1st, 1979 in Japan. It was marketed as a cost effective way to put your stereo in your pocket and with heavy pop star support, it managed to become a household name around the globe.

In honour of the 30 years of the Sony Cassette Walkman, we have complied a gallery of our top 4 favourite models.

It's party time and you've got an iPod full of tunes but no way of blaring them out to your gang of expectant, drunk friends. The keg's running dry, all the Pringles have been eaten and a riot's about to kick off unless someone starts blasting out Lady Gaga's "Poker Face". "You've got to fight for your right to party", said the Beastie Boys, so why not have one of these top-notch iPhone/iPod speaker systems fighting your corner, cranking it up all the way to 11?

Here's Tech Digest's favourite 10 iPhone/iPod speaker systems.

If the lines weren't already blurred enough between Apple's iPods and iPhones, take a look at the Apple Peel 520, a case developed by the Chinese-based developer Yoisin that turns the Cupertino media player into a fully-fledged, call making phone.

Connecting up to a jailbroken iPod, the case includes a circuit board, a 4 and a half hour battery, dock connector and SIM card to magic it into a functional blower.

It's already available in China, with the Apple Peel 520 now hitting western shores through GoSolarUSA, who are offering it up at the reasonable price of 60 bucks.

No word on whether it'll hit UK shores yet, but expect to see Apple's legal hounds hunting them down wherever they turn up.

Microsoft's much-lauded Zune HD is finally officially coming the UK.

The Zune has had a turblent life so far but has still managed to gain a loyal following, and not without reason the Zune HD is to come sporting a few key features certain other i-prefixed portable media players do not, chief among which is its ability to play 720p HD video over HDMI. Which, as your gasps correctly point out, is awesome.

But the hardware is only as good as the software that's supporting it. And the last Zune desktop software was crap, and it was released on Windows Vista, which was crap, and Marketplace, Microsoft's iTune equivilent was a lumpy over-priced experience, at best you'd probably call it crap.

But we have hope. With Marketplace debuting on Xbox Live this autumn Microsoft look set for a Christmas release, which would be nice.

But here's the most important thing: Will it ever out-sexy the iPod touch? Will Microsoft ever be able to make Marketplace as appealing an ecosystem for app developers? The big thing the iPod touch has going for it is iOS, and Microsoft isn't so much behind in its mobile OS development, rather it's in another era.

Apple is flying around in hover boots and Microsoft is still fiddling around with a bleeding harpsichords. And are Apple going to let their momentum slip? No. You're right, the answer is absolutely not.

For a company who thrive off of their customers' desire for total synergy across their tech devices, it was quite an annoying oversight when iPod and iPhone owners found that Apple's iPad wouldn't be compatible with their speaker docks. The adaptor pins just dont match up, meaning any songs played through an iPad's iTunes are restricted either to headphone listening or the tablets small built-in speaker.

Noticing a gap in the market are enterprising manufacturers WireFreeHiFi, whose Airphonic system offers a solution.

The Airphonic system comprises of two dongles, one for the iPad and one for the dock itself. Wireless pairing the dongles together then allows you to stream tracks from your iPad to practically any iPhone/iPod compatible speaker system.

As the system uses "Kleer wireless audio technology" according to its manufacturer, you'll get far less drop outs than with a Bluetooth device, as well as full CD quality sound. The wireless signal is good for up to ten metres, allowing you to wander about the house, iPad in tow, and still listen to and change tracks and playlists.

Airphonic is available in two versions - one for the iPad and iPod for £79.95 and another which adds iPhone compatibility for an extra ten pounds.

Check them out by clicking here.

Samsung have revealed details of a snazzy new personal media player, the YP-Q3.

Featuring wide-ranging file format support, including playback of H.264 and XviD videos and OGG and MP3 songs, it'll be more-or less compatible with anything you throw at it. It's also packing in an FM tuner if you'd rather someone else directs your listening habits.

Of course the elephant in the room is tomorrow's Apple music launch, which many are expecting to be a brand new iPod Nano model, complete with touchscreen. It's going to be no mean feat for Samsung to match the buzz surrounding what is expected to be yet another Apple circus.

The YP-Q3 will be out later in the year. No word on pricing or release date yet, probably as Samsung are looking to undercut the competition considerably.

Via: Samsung Hub

Sony have updated their Walkman range of MP3 players with a load of colourful new NWZ-E450 models.

Aimed towards the teen market rather than at audiophiles, the NWZ-E450 series comes in five different colours and has support for .lrc files, which lets the device act as a karaoke machine by dropping the volume of vocals on a track.

Optimised for use with Windows 7, the NWZ-E450 make use of the Device Stage UI to make transferring tracks to the Walkman as easy as possible. You can even pop a couple of pictures onto the player, and then use them to customise the device's screen wallpaper, as shown on the Walkman's 2 inch QVGA display.

Playing back both audio (MP3, WMA, AAC) and video (AVC - H.264, MPEG4, WMV), the devices should also provide some pretty tasty sound quality with a VPT, dynamic normaliser and an equaliser to tweak built in too.

Coming in either 4, 8 or 16GB sizes, you'll get 50 hours of audio playback and around 10 hours of video from a single 3 hour charge.

No pricing available yet, but you'll see these in shops come August.

Cycling around may be a refreshing (and healthier) change from driving into work each day, but you cant help but miss the rich tones of your in-car stereo when on your bike. If you're wary that your iPod headphone lead will get caught in your spokes, take a look at the Cy-Fi Wireless Sports Speaker.

Weighing just 4 ounces and measuring in at 12.2 x 10. 2.9 cm, the Cy-Fi sits on your handlebars attached by a robust clip. Compatible with all iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch models (excluding the Mini and Shuffle), it'll wirelessly blast out your tunes at CD-quality as you hurtle down the high-street.

Giving 6 hours of playback from 2 hours of USB charging, the Cy-Fi has a transmission range of 30 feet, and has front-mounted playback buttons meaning that you don't have to fumble with your MP3 player to navigate your tunes.

Available from IWOOT now, click here to grab it, priced £99.99

Sony have just announced two new additions to their range of Walkman MP3 players. The Sony B150 and W250 are budget friendly music players, with the W250 aimed especially at sporty types.

The W250 Walkman in particular is most interesting, thanks to its unique design that squeezes all the controls and on-board memory into a set of earphones, without any irritating wires to get tangled in whilst out on a jog. 2GB and 4GB versions will be available, playing MP3, WMA, AAC and Linear PCM files. The W250 sets are also waterproof, perfect for listening to the music in the bath or if you suffer from a bit of a sweaty head. Featuring a rechargeable battery, you'll get 11 hours of juice out of the W250s.

The B150s are a bit more conventional on the other hand. In a memory stick-style shape, they come with a 3-line LCD display and with familiar hardware playback buttons. In 4GB and 2GB models, again the B150s feature a rechargeable battery with enough power for a cool 18 hours worth of tunes, but you'll be limited to MP3 and WMA file types.

The W250s are expected to hit stores in May, with the B150s following in June. Pricing is yet to be announced.

Check out the gallery below for more images of the new Walkman ranges