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Anyone who spends an unusual amount of time in the bath and is tired of having to strain over the sound of gurgling water to catch one’s tunes of choice on the smallest room’s radio will doubtless be pleased to hear of the latest eye-catching waterproof MP3 player from Noritz Japan.

No, it’s not a late April-fool joke – the iPod/alarm clock combination you see above is a real product, announced today in Japan by Logitec, with speakers cunningly disguised as bells.

Cheap portable media players are ten-a-penny these days and most perform about as well as emotional England cricketers on a late-night seaborne jaunt [US readers should click here; it’s worth a read], so it takes something special to stand out, which Sunconnection’s latest Japanese PMP appears to do on paper.

Although it may look like a gag gift, Thanko’s Vonia sports headband is a cutting-edge piece of equipment that uses bone-conduction technology to convey digital audio directly to the bones of the inner ear.

If Sega’s mu-bot headphones were a foodstuff they would probably be ankimo — a Japanese dish made from the liver of a Monkfish.

It’s debatable whether equipping a standard AM/FM radio with a hard drive and the ability to record broadcasts is particularly useful in the era of internet radio, but there’s no denying the new VJ-10 Radio Server from Olympus Japan is a smart little piece of kit.

We all know that portable devices in future are pretty certain to be powered by some kind of fuel cell that uses a volatile liquid as a power source in place of a battery, but it’s a bit of a surprise to see Toshiba’s latest fuel-cell prototype is to be worn on the head.

The latest in a never-ending line of iPod accessories from Japan is simple, but unusual, speaker add-on for the iPod nano that features the popular TruBass technology.

Onkyo Japan’s latest hard-drive-toting home stereo is a feature-packed piece of high-end equipment that should satisfy both the audiophile and the gadget freak in anyone.

A Japanese firm with the bizarre name of Leader Media Techno is selling what has to be the most pointless audio system ever – a tiny speaker for portable players that outputs just 0.8W.

Sony’s black, white, purple and pink headphones might look a bit nerdy at first, seeing as how they come with a carabiner-type hook for attaching them to a belt, but they actually seem quite useful when you think about it.

Podcasters are likely to spontaneously combust when they set eyes on the newest digital voice recorders from Sony Japan.

Simple, elegant solutions to problems are always so much more satisfying than convoluted contraptions that address the issue while creating a dozen more, so it’s a pleasure to see Focal Point Japan’s latest iPod accessory

If you’ve ever used noise-canceling headphones you don’t need us to tell you that there’s no way back – reverting to normal cans is just so, well, primitive.

Japan’s third-largest mobile phone operator, Softbank, chose yesterday to unveil its master plans for an assault on market leaders NTT DoCoMo through its spring line up of handsets.

Apple’s iPhone isn’t going to be available anywhere for half a year and won’t even make it to Japan at all unless a non-GSM version appears. Considering that isn’t happening until 2008 at the earliest, is the “Jesus Phone” even relevant to the Japan market? After all, aren’t the handsets here the best in the world anyway?

What looks like a jellyfish with flowers on its tentacles, smells like a smoking-hot piece of audio gadgetry and tastes like the sea?

That wizpy PMP on Linux steroids that has been doing the rounds recently looks more than a little sweet but Turbolinux is a Japanese company and, therefore, it’s going to keep the goods for itself, right? Wrong…

Security and quality assurance experts reacted negatively to Apple’s efforts this week to blame manufacturing problems that resulted in iPod MP3 players shipping with a virus that affects Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Microsoft’s forthcoming digital music player, dubbed Zune, may make some Hebrew speakers gasp. The name for the device — which will take on the Apple iPod when released later this year — sounds like a vulgarity, specifically the F word, in Hebrew.

Sony’s new Walkman lineup announced yesterday features noise-canceling headphones and other audio-enhancing technology to help the Tokyo giant in its latest attempt to challenge the dominance of the iPod. We were at the launch and you can get a sneak peek at the new players in action after the jump.

After months of prevaricating Napster finally made it to Japan last night, bringing the country its first subscription-based music download service.

Hewlett-Packard and its Watergate re-enactment now own the tech scandal headlines, but during the summer our attention focused on other alleged malfeasance, by the company with the normally shiny image, Apple Computer.

Napster, the remade version of the popular Internet music sharing service, is in talks over a sale or possible strategic partnership, the company said Monday.

A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official has joined the debate surrounding Apple’s proprietary digital music technology by criticizing European antitrust activities, but groups attacking Apple are defending their actions.

Harman International‘s newest addition to the JBL-branded line of audio products is the high-end Project Everest DD66000 speaker system, retailing at a cool ¥3 million and rising.

Gotta love Thanko: who else would cobble together a USB hub with 3W worth of speakers and a double-A battery charger?

As young people increasingly tune out television and tune into online video and chat, MTV Networks is hoping to win their attention with a new broadband service that appears part MTV, part YouTube and part MySpace. Click on for the video report.

Consumer representatives from several Nordic countries are discussing how to proceed in their battle against Apple over the iTunes digital rights management (DRM) policy.

Panasonic product launches here in Tokyo are always glamorous affairs and yesterday’s debut of the new portable D-snap MP3 players and hard-drive stereo systems was no exception. Click on and the full (video) scoop shall be yours.

Shares in Singapore-based Creative Technology surged in early trading on Thursday after the company and Apple resolved a long-running patent dispute.

Panasonic is set to introduce dockability to its D-snap brand DAPs, as well as super-fast data transfer speeds.

Victor is touting its latest headphones as being like jewels that sparkle in the light. The brand is called Be! (That’s Victor’s exclamation point, not ours.)

Samsung has developed a music-playing cellphone with 8GB of built-in flash memory — that’s double the amount of memory in Apple’s largest-capacity iPod nano.

SanDisk cut prices on its mid-range, handheld MP3 music players Monday as it released a high-capacity, 8GB player.

Sun Denshi is about to release a smart little iPod remote-control unit intended for gracing those walnut interiors we all have in our European sports cars.

HHere is some joyful news for Japanese anime fans who want to buy an iPod. It’s the NegiPod, with preloaded contents from Magister Negi Magi. But the price premium means only the most committed will want to buy.

NHC’s ADY-30512 PMP may have only half a gig of memory onboard but it packs a helluva punch for just ¥29,800.

An investigation by Apple into the manufacture of iPods in China has unearthed several violations of the company’s supplier code of conduct. But the factory was found to be in compliance with the majority of Apple’s requirements.

Apple Computer continued to lead the U.S. digital music player market in the second quarter with a 75.6 percent share, according to the NPD Group.