Financial and Investment News

the Motorola Corporation has bought the relatively high profile digital music company known as Soundbuzz, which provides the systems and content behind a lot of the mobile music stores offered by telco carriers. And yet while the Motorola corporations’ musical plans are largely built on tracks being distributed through carriers, the Finnish firm the Nokia Corp. has gone a step even further than that by committing to launching their own music store in

Australia sometime during the first six months of this year. Meanwhile, the JBL Corporation has unveiled the On Stage Micro. An AC adapter powers the On Stage Micro or it also has the capability to be powered by four AAA batteries, making it easy to take anyplace. When running on battery power it has up to twenty-four hours of playing time. These docks are also manufactured in colors that vivid and enhance any surroundings.

   This is an iPod dock that has a mini jack connection that enables it to connect to other devices such as MP3 and CD players, along with desktop and laptop computers or satellite radio.

   Inside of the JBL On Stage Micro there are two Odyssey transducers and an IR remote, which emits clean and crisp sound and the bass could not be better.

   The best part of the JBL On Stage Micro is the size, with two types of power, terrific bass and sound as clear and crisp as this offers, the size makes it even better. This iPod dock is so compact that it can fit in one hand, and close to the palm in size, which will make it one of the most popular docking stations with high quality audio sound.

California, who has been wanting to impose a stricter set of rules for greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles has been denied.

   According to statements from Stephen L. Johnson who is the administrator of the EPA the reason that

California along with fifteen other states is due to White House policy. This policy is to keep a national standard rather than one set by each state, this occurred in December of 2007 and there was also a bill put into law named the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which will require auto makers to product fuel efficient autos including SUV’s and small trucks. This may not be enough for the State of

California since these automakers will have until the year 2020 to produce these fuel-efficient autos that will be a required 35 per gallon. Incidentially, while we are on the subject of California and legal news, if you are in the greater Los Angeles area and you require a good Los Angeles spinal cord injury lawyer  then The law offices of Bob Mansell may assist you in this regard should you need a good spinal cord Injury lawyer, a Los Angeles traumatic brain injury lawyer or perhaps a Pasadena burn injury lawyer. Now back to the news article at hand…….

   In answer to this refusal to regulate their own standards the California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown jr.  brought a lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency for not allowing the state of

California to make their own regulations. This suit was filed January 8^th of 2008 in the United States Court of Appeals at the 9^th Circuit. Meanwhile, according to the respected online publication ‘The Juror’, it was reported that several days ago EPA officials claimed executive priviledge regarding certain pertinent documents.

It appears that the vaunted Apple Corporation might be mulling taking their iPod line to the next level.

   There has been some rumors circulating all over the world wide web concerning iPod owners being able to have digital downloads of films available to them.

  This appears to be in negotiations of some sort with Apple and the various film studios, to make digital copies of films which will be compatible with the Apple iPods to download. A deal such as this could make using an iPod a whole new experience for the individual iPod owner.

   This will also be found at iTunes for downloads or as a feature on DVD’s when placed in a PC there will be a place on theDVD menu that will tell the viewer what version of iTunes needs to be loaded in order to watch the iPod version of the movie and a serial number that will need to be used to access the digital download at iTunes.

   Having a feature like this will change the use of iPods for some owners who will be able to view the latest movies that are available to download, along with listening to music of all genres.  Meanwhile, in

related news, the overall numbers are in from this past November in the radio industry and they are down from November of 2006 by six percent.

 Among the reasons listed that are taking listeners away from radio is the iPod that can now be found in cars that have docking stations built in, along with other reasons such as availability to radio on the Internet and satellite radio.

   Analysts expect that the percentage rate will decline approximately five percent more over this year, as there is an increase in personal digital music players. This is placing the position of radio operators and commentators in a fragile position.

   With the release of the next generation in Apple iPods and all the new components coming out on the market within the next few months it is likely that the analysts correct. Components such as speaker systems that are compact with docking stations that charge the iPod while being docked. Along with more auto manufactures that will offer built in docking stations to listen and charge iPods while driving as an added selling feature for consumer comfort. This with new features that have been added to the new generation of Apple iPods, which now hold more songs than ever before may help to bring the radio industry down.

According to the Press Release news Wire,  the Maxell Corp has
retooled its entire line of iPod accessories, such as portable
entertainment & connector-compatible gadgets, giving buyers a little bit more practicality
in the applications.  New packaging updates include the
Blow-Away Guy icon to form a more visible, eye-catching
presence on the retail shelves. As it stands now, the
Maxell firms’ portable accessories include such items as FM transmitters,
headphone splitters, speakers, power adapters & even various protective
casings which have been updated for enhanced buyer appeal. Their
Back-Up Battery Pack for MP3 as well as iPods is
now much more sleek in general.  A USB slot has also now augments the P-2 2G so
consumers may hook-up any item which connects with a USB cord.  The P-3 2G Universal Charging Dock &
P-3A 2G Universal Charging Dock with Remote Control now has an adjustable
dock support to fit all different size iPods, taking away the requirement for variable-sized
trays, and a standard AC adapter to permit owners the complete liberty of recharging
their iPod without a pc which is a huge plus for many individuals, to be certain.
They also have the P-4 Digital FM Transmitter, P-5A Digital FM Transmitter with Auto
Adapter, P-6 Headphone Splitter, P-8B Digital Ear Buds and P-18 Portable
Speakers which likewise got makeovers to alter the look of these particular items.
And for the specificic Pod buyer who wishes to protect their player from the elements,
 the firm has added some brand new styles to its line-up of skin cases with
the new P-20B skin cases for iPod nano third rd generation and new P-33 skin
case for iPod touch.  The P-20B features the same shock-absorbing, durable
design of the P-20, but now with a 4-pack variety of sleek colors - clear,
black, blue and pink (new).  For on-the-go use, the P-20B Skins are also
conveniently equipped with a neck strap and belt loop. In addition, their
P-33 skin case for the iPod touch is now being made available in black and even comes complete
with invisible cling-film screen shields.

The Clarion Corporation of America, a
top ranked manufacture of mobile gadgets and technology items, unveiled a feature for the
direct iPod audio control via USB which is internall integrated into many of their newest
multimedia source units. The firm is presenting 6 of their new CD & multimedia units with an easy
direct iPod connection using the basic iPod USB cable. The 3 Clarion DXZ models feature the
 Direct USB iPod control which of course is also an important component in the excellent
premium single DIN VRX785BT and MAX685BT DVD double DIN multimedia units. These premium
CD receivers, the DXZ785USB and the DXZ585USB have Clarion’s signature “SLIDETRAK” HMI control,
 direct USB iPod connection, USB digital media streaming with DRM (WMDRM10) and MP3/ WMA/ AAC playback.
Wow what a nice combination there! As a matter of fact,  The SLIDETRAK control is a perfect fit for scrolling
 through music files from an iPod.  These units are Bluetooth and Satellite Radio capable plus offer CeNET
control.  In addition to all of these totally awesome and rear kicking features, they are additionally able to
 interfacing with the OEM steering wheel controls, have AUX input. Plus, they even have with a 2-year warranty.
You just cannot get much better than that, in my opinion. The top or flagship model, DXZ785USB, furthermore offers audiophile
features like time alignment control, 3 band parametric EQ and 3-way crossover control.  It is
motorized detachable front panel has a highly visible full dot LCD, 2-line
letter display which stands out to illuminate any dash very well.

And don’t forget about the other ones. With all-new cosmetics, the
DXZ385USB is a good looking unit offering MP3/ WMA/ AAC playback, front panel AUX
input and USB port and is likewise already Bluetooth and Satellite Radio ready.  The unit
includes CeNET control with 6-channel/ 2-volt RCA output, a detachable
faceplate and it even comes with a remote control.    Clarion’s new DXZ
line-up will be widely available in January 2008

To launch the the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the firm unveiled Rolly, an MP3 player and also robot. This palm-sized, egg-shaped media gadget moves its “arms”, “shoulders”, and wheels to the beat,
 all while flashing an array of lights. Apparently it can show some seven hundred colors, according to the firm. As it stands now, Rolly features some two Gbytes of flash memory, which will store about 520 128-Kbit/s MP3s files.
In addition, it supports AAC files, which is pretty cool. It is evident that while the Sony Corporation is not giving up entirely on the revival of its Walkman product line, this is evidence of Apple’s supremacy of the portable media player market segment.
As it stands now, The 2 systems act as charging speaker docks for iPods and likewise feature aux inputs
for computers plus additional audio players (and remote controls, for that matter). The CMT-BX20i has a single disc CD player and supports the AIFF CDs and MP3 CDs, and will read ID3 tags and display them on. In addition, it comes with a very handy thirty station
 AM/FM tuner and will be available to buyers in about a month. All in all,  the EC series has 3 distict speaker systems titlting towards the iPod—the MHC-EC98Pi, the MHC-EC78Pi, and the MHC-EC68Pi. The first 2 will be available in about five months or so and the the other will be on shelves in 4 months.
All of the systems have CD players, AM/FM tuners, plus built-in iPod docks, “Digital Media Ports” for connecting additional music such as the Walkman or perhaps some kind of Bluetooth-enabled gadget, for example. A pretty nice mix overall if you ask my opinion. besides the
iPod dock systems is the LBT-ZUX9, a segment of the Muteki product line. Supposed to fill a party with sound due to it’s very high wattage output, it also has a 3-disc changer which plays both AIFF CDs and even a dual cassette deck. In addition to all of this, it is capable of recording to a USB flash drive,
so that you may store your old cassettes as MP3s.
Rolly features Bluetooth for streaming audio from a compatible PC or phone, and the firm says the 2 built in speakers pack a big punch. It will apparently be available in the spring.

In other gadget and technology company related news, Pioneer has produced a multitasking navigation & entertainment system which will permit voice control of iPods as well as Bluetooth-enabled cellular phones.

The AVIC-F500BT aggregates all the things we take with us and also seeks to control them all by changing the existing in-car system as opposed to mandating a complete
changing out of the standard audio. It may be installed through an auxiliary audio input or using an installation module from Pioneer to become a major center for all personal audio and communication gadgets.
The wonderful thing about this of course is the voice control aspect of it.

the Apple Corporation has secured over seventy percent of the market share for MP3 players. That is respectable and impressive by any standard, if you ask me.
What is perhaps less well known, is the ratio of Apple’s investment in the iPod platform relative to its return. In the last 3 and half years or so, the Apple Corporation has added
only a single solitary item to it’s iPod stable, the iPod touch, making some 4 pieces of in all. In that time span, the catalog of
 available content has increased amazingly six-fold, to over four million items, rather staggeringly.
Meanwhile, the quantity of iPod accessories has increased tenfold, to some three thousand or so. The firm then collects fees for the vast majority of those accessories, with 3rd-party vendors
 and various producers paying to add the “Made for iPod” logo to a package or perhaps a fee to use the proprietary Apple connector. We should all be so lucky.
But I guess really a lot of it is skill and some strong business sense thrown in as well for good measure. As it tuens out,
quite a few firms have attempted to duplicate their methods by copying at the product level and placing an emphasis the design of the object itself.
But all of this effort has been largely for nothing as the underlying business strategy and structure as well as system is very difficult to properly
copy. The Sony Corporation, for instance, even with a strong brand. cutting edge product platforms such as the portable transistor radio laid the groundwork for the current era.
But they have not really transformed and morphed that success to this century, at least not yet.  All of this time they have released a rather frantic spectrum of digital cameras which
recorded on all different sorts of media such as DVDs yet now has merely 3 lines to show for the effort. The Apple Corporation
Apple ended its fiscal year on September 30, 2007, with a net margin of almost fifteen percent. To succeed on this level, firms should recognize the consumer whom they are targeting.
Apple knows that it can’t have everyone as its customer. But it is nonetheless ready and willing to eliminate some sections by emphasizing a strong core of individuals which are known as Cultural Creatives.
 These are folks who wait hours in line for the latest iPod or MacBook. With this in mind,
design is used for meaningful experiences which are authentic to the brand. It is not about paring product lines or simple creating making cool stuff. Done well, design can add value to the bottom line.
Design done right goes well  beyond the appearance and behavior of the object itself. It takes the entire product ecosystem into consideration.

The Apple Corporation has opened the new year on an infamous note:
 on the target end of another suit pertaining to its huge lead in the music player space.
An antitrust claim filed December 31 alleges the company is maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market.

As it stands now, the particulars of the  suit claims that the Apple Corp. is purposely crippling the iPod, preventing it from playing back, for instance, Windows Media files, despite the fact that the chips used in the device could do so.
Apple would have to pay Microsoft a licensing fee for Windows Media playback, but anticipates that this particular fee would be under $800,000, or 3 cents per iPod sold last year. As it were,
the firm is not by any means by itself in pricing higher capacity players at more than the cost of parts. Microsoft charges fifty dollars more for its 8GB Zune than the 4GB model, the same difference as the 4GB and 8GB iPod nano. And there is really no law against premium pricing as the law currently stands.

The tech giant is already deep into in a legal war going back several years which states that the firm ties the iPod to the iTunes Store, and so on. The entity has failed in its motion to dismiss that legal suit and litigation continues. An eerily similar class-action suit known as Black verses. Apple Incorporated. was filed in August 2007

They have likewise been involved in litigation with the French consumer group Union Federale des Consummateurs since 2005 because of the iPod being only compatible with the iTunes E-Store. As others have since begun selling DRM-free music, however, those positions against Apple might have weakened, at least somewhat.

iLuv has Launched the Combo iPod Dock-DVD Player….The i1255 is called a “desktop iPod/DVD player” by the firm, and it outputs 5.1 audio from its thin-frame dock. The DVD player also plays CDs, MP3 CDs plus JPEG and Kodak picture CDs.
 It is apparently entirely compatible with the latest generation of iPods released in September. There are no speakers in the mix here, so buyers would do well to think of this as a DVD player which just so
happens to have an iPod dock integrated within it. This item will be available within a few months at the latest, according to the article. It sounds pretty cool to me! Meanwhile,
The i399, which will be available in the current month, is basically a Bluetooth-enabled speaker dock for iPods. Using the “BluePin II”, a detachable Bluetooth transmitter (which is in fact included in the item),
 users can actually stream music. As a sidenote, it includes cool speakerphone capabilities for incoming as well as outgoing phone calls.
Furthermore, it features a blue LED which flashes to the beat of the music—which, while pretty cool, is admittedly not particularly functional but primarily for aesthetics. It
appears that iLuv might have ironed out some of the bizarre details which hindered the earlier model.

 from an iPod docked in the i399 to a pair of Bluetooth headphones, or send music from, let’s say, from a Bluetooth phone to the i399’s speakers

According to an awesome article by Peter Cohen from the ‘MacWorld’ online news resource,
it was reported that the Hitachi Global Storage Technologies division is currently planning to leave
 the one inch hard disk drive market, and furthermore believes that there will be substantially diminishing demand for the 1.8-inch hard drives used in devices such as, perhaps
most famously, the iPod classic. The corporation states the various flash memory storage-based gadgets are basically filling up that particular niche, and also stated that it will make it’s primary focus on various computer drives instead.
Further, they statedfor the record to Macworld (as reported on their excellent site) that the one inch and 1.8-inch hard drive markets are essentially tiny businesses as compared to the hard drive market as a whole. Well,
it certainly sounds as if the firm did it’s research and due diligence in this regard. They have a reputation for being thorough in this area. On the
whole, this information was initially reported last week by the Japanese business media giant ‘Nikkei Business Daily’. This respected publication likewise stated that the Fujitsu Corporation has basically trashed their plans to go into this relatively tiny
 market. So who recieves the “leftovers” now that these big players have left the field? Well, it has been essentially taken by both the Toshiba and Samsung corporations, respectively, which offer products all the way up to 160GB,
which is also the same size as what is used inside the Apple Corporations’ bigger-capacity iPod classic (the smaller iPod classic has an 80GB drive, by the way).
For their part, they do not identify the producers of the various components used in the iPod.
Meanwhile, the other iPod models use flash memory to store files as, essentially, a replacement for hard disk drives. But the real question
for most industry analysts is why has this particular market shrunk or is currently shrinking? Apparently, it is because,
of alterations and modifactions with regards to consumer electronics requirements. You see,
the single inch drives were initially thought of as alternatives to Compact Flash media, yet flash drive capacities now essentially outstrip the capacity of the one-inch drives.
 And the rather gentle design of tiny hard drives is simply not a real match for the durability of flash storage, generally speaking.
Historically speaking, the Hitachi Global Storage Technologies entity was formed back in 2003 when the Hitachi Corporation joined their own operations with that of the other giant, the International Business machines Corporation,
commonly referred to as IBM. The left the storage market totally just 2 years after that. This firms products include many of the two and a half inch hard disk drives used in laptop computers. As stated earlier, they will continue to focus on that market instead