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Twinbird’s MP3-loving Zabady costs ¥21,000 ($180) and can handle boring old audio CDs as well as disks burned with new-fangled MP3 and WMA files; just not the type with DRM slapped on. The most useful feature is a USB port inside the sealed case that allows the Zabady to play back tunes from a connected drive of up to 2GB.

We’ve seen a few bone-conduction devices before, including a cellphone, a sports headband and an industrial safety helmet, but this is definitely the first we’ve come across that sends the good vibes by Bluetooth.

Sony Japan has been busy of late on the Walkman front, so it’s no surprise to see yet another new lineup announced in Japan this morning - the 1-seg digital TV toting, credit-card sized NW-A910 series.

Let’s stick to the basics - NHC’s 34g Ecolong plays MP3 and WMA, comes in a choice of white or camouflage designs, makes a single AAA battery last 85 hours and is as ugly as sin.

Sony Japan has just posted a short video and press release detailing its latest fuel cell - a device that uses not ethanol or methanol this time, but glucose extracted from grape juice and sports drinks.

What looks like the latest attempt by Sony to knock the iPod off its throne appears to have kicked off in Japan this morning with the launch of a new website called Rolly World.

Not many DAPs come with line-in recording for converting music from external sources to MP3 files, least of all cheap-looking plastic models that weigh just 37g.

We all know how feeble tiny speakers can sound, especially those of the kind used on certain mobile products, so it’s heartening to hear of a new technique from Panasonic that claims to get high-fidelity bass notes from compact speakers.

Most so-called ‘designer’ gadgets for women are thinly veiled attempts to flog existing products at the end of their life-cycles, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see a decent-looking - albeit technologically old-hat - feminine flash Walkman from Sony in Japan.

The marketing suits who gave the latest DAP/speaker combo from Sofmap the name ‘DigitalOlive’ presumably wanted to drive customers away with their wackiness, which is a shame as it looks to be a capable little product.

Here in Japan, we’re slap bang in the middle of rainy season, so the newest waterproof MP3 player from Century Japan fits the bill perfectly.

Learning a new language isn’t always the most fun activity for many people, especially during the endless hours of repetitive listening to tapes or CDs needed to learn how to understand the spoken word. Fortunately, a novel study aid from Japanese firm Imajinsha aims to make the time-consuming donkey work a little easier with its new polyglot pen.

Reports from Japan say the first incident in a predicted wave of iPhone-centric street robberies has occurred a full two days before the US launch of Apple’s world-changing, famine-ending, disease-curing ‘Jesus phone’ that is destined to be all things to all men.

Trading on nostalgia never hurt any company with an eye on the bottom line, which is obviously what Digital Cowboy had in mind when it created its ‘iPod shuffle Randoseru Carrying Case’ - a faux leather shuffle cover in the style of an elementary-school satchel.

We’ve seen SD memory cards appearing in everything from toy robots to high-definition video cameras, but Logitec’s latest device represents the first time for one to appear in a devious conversation-recording add-on for domestic phones.

Although Japan has a reputation as a pretty sophisticated high-tech wonderland, there’s no shortage of garbage products designed to appeal to the wallets of the gullible or the plain bored, so the latest bizarre gadget barely caused us to wrinkle an eyebrow.

Clarion Japan’s newest in-car satellite navigation system may just be the most advanced driver aid seen since the last episode of 24 and its host of BS technologies. The MAX9700DT is both a full entertainment system and a GPS unit, but costs more than many second-hand cars.

We’ve all seen dozens of tedious attempts at piping internet connections through the home using existing electrical wiring and power sockets, but this is the first-real world product to use the concept to deliver music through the same channels.

With increasing hard drive sizes and falling costs per gigabyte, it’s inevitable that uncompressed digital audio, which has been the preserve of bearded audio buffs until now, will become more mainstream. Players like Sony’s new NAC-HD1 are part of that trend.

Ever wanted to have an alarm clock that can play the ringtones from your phone to wake you up in the morning? No, thought not, but that hasn’t stopped Citizen Japan from producing a clock which does exactly that.