SnoopTunes is a small, bullet-vibrator-like device that was conceived by a 16-year-old girl. It plugs into your iPod and give it wireless sharing capabilities, like the Zune. As long as your friend has one, it allows you to shoot over anything from your iPod.
It looks pretty sweet, although the only way you can get one is on eBay for $60, which doesn't instill a ton of confidence in the product. What do you think, will this catch on? Would you buy one if your friends had one? How long until Apple sues the pants off this poor girl and keeps her from going to college and pursuing what is sure to be a successful career in gadget design? –Adam Frucci
Product Page [via SnoopTunes]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
For now at least, Zune hacks appear to be far outweighing the Zune cracks, although we doubt neither are making Microsoft very happy these days. The latest on hack front comes to us courtesy of Zune Boards member Marshilboy, who whipped up a little something that does away with the Zune's guest sync feature, instead letting you sync any Zune as if it were the "home" Zune. That also does away with the need to erase everything on your Zune and start over from scratch should you ever somehow completely mess things up with it. Of course, as with all such hacks, it's probably not be the best idea to start modifying software you're dependent on unless you know what you're doing, so proceed at your own risk.

[Thanks, Mike] 
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 An article by the Sydney Morning Herald has said that Microsoft is urging it’s Australian customers not to buy the Zune yet. The move comes after a retailer by the Mwave began selling the units through their online store. The reason behind the move is because Microsoft believes that the users will not get the best possible [...]

Following on the heels of the pudgy Archos 704 Wi-Fi, this Archos 204 is a PMP for people who actually want the word "Portable" in that acronym to mean something.
Like the 704, the 204 has a hard drive (20GB) storage, and can play back MP3, WAV, WMA, and JPG photos. Unfortunately, this one plays only audio and is in Europe only for 179 Euros. Otherwise, we'd recommend either the iPod or the Zune (if it were released) over this one. – Jason Chen
Archos 204 Announced [PMPToday]

Some sites have reported on interesting rumor that unfortunately has very little weight to it at all. There are reports that a possible 2nd gen Zune could be out early as August… Now really? Microsoft still have to reach the million customers target which they set to reach by mid 07. And they are going to [...]

This is horribly irresponsible rumor-mongering, but we over heard this tidbit about the Zune over at GDC. Apparently, if the person was correct and our ears didn't fail us, the next-gen Zune will be available in August. Unfortunately for the first-gen Zune team, the next version will feature gaming, which is supposedly making them feel dejected over working on a product (1st gen) that will be "abandoned".
Couple that with this quote from the Zune Release manager over at Zuneinsider about Microsoft NOT abandoning the Zune, and you have a potentially juicy rumor. – Jason Chen
And Now a Word from the Zune Release Manager [Zune Insider]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio
iPhone, ZunePhone and ZenPhone, oh my! With Apple's iPhone still causing seething "gotta have" mentality among its ardent fans way before release, the Microsoft "Zune phone" that is circling the rumor camps hard has nothing on the Creative ZenPhone. That joke aside, maybe all the top DAP makers and ODMs will design a functional cellphone / DAP unit soon, although we're not sure about the RF prowess of DAP makers. Anyhoo, this potential two-piece odd looking phone / easy chair massager controller device (the Xmod) is being chalked up as the Creative "ZenPhone" right now. Creative, who predicted they would attack Apple's DAP market share and fell off that wagon just a tad before settling, may indeed unveil a ZenPhone in the future. That being said, it's hard to say if this first peek is for real from Creative -- or some Singaporean's fantasy right now.

[Thanks, Vizion] 
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Filed under: Portable Audio
It looks like those legions of iPod owners who have been taking Apple's advice to hold off on upgrading to Vista can finally dust off their month-old DVD cases and get their upgrade on, as iTunes 7.1 has officially been released with "a number" of the compatibility issues accounted for. According to the release notes, however, a few known problems still remain, with the most serious being the nasty possibility that your iPod gets corrupted when you go by the book and select "Safely Remove Hardware" from the taskbar to, um, safely remove your hardware. Instead, users are advised to choose "Eject iPod" from the iTunes Control menu or "Restore" if they're reading this just a little too late. Other remaining quirks include sporadic address book syncs, messed up text and graphics (resizing the window should do the trick), and annoyingly, continued lack of support for any 64-bit editions of Windows, be it XP or Vista. Meanwhile, in other news, the ten Zune own...

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
While earlier reports of Zune screens cracking from battery pressure didn't exactly prove to be widespread, that hasn't stopped others from supposedly finding new cracks of a different sort, although the cause of them remains unclear. As the shot above courtesy of Cliczune.com shows, at least one of the cracks appears to have occurred on the LCD panel itself, with the Zune's screen protector remaining intact, which would seem to preclude damage as a result of direct impact. What's more, according to Cliczune, another of its readers reported hearing a popping noise just before their screen cracked, and yet another reportedly sent their cracked Zune back to Microsoft for repairs, only to have the newly replaced screen crack a week later. That said, the problems still appear to be relatively few and far between, so if anyone's had some unfortunate Zune experiences of their own, feel free to let us know about 'em. 
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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Microsoft certainly has its basket full with peace disturbance complaints and even a potential doubleshot casing dispute with Apple -- perhaps distracting it from properly integrating Zune TV show uploads with Media Center. Zune software doesn't read Media Center's proprietary DVR-MS files, perform .wmv conversions for Zune playback, nor does it list hand-encoded episodes as TV shows in the library. This means your patience is in for a workout when it comes to getting TV shows and movies onto your Zune from a Windows Media Center PC. Newly released ZuneTVWatcher beta acts as a liaison by monitoring your recorded TV show folder and automatically converting files to a .wmv format, meaning way less manual labor on the user's part. While third party conversion apps tend to incorrectly label shows as "Videos" on the Zune, ZTVW sets the metadata to group them as "TV Shows," and also syncs to delete shows from the Zune when removed from ...