Neuros - Portable MP3 player, FM radio, Digital Recorder

KenMaier writes "Interesting new product in the portable MP3 player space -- this portable 'Neuros' from Digital Innovations comes with either 128MB or 20GB storage, built-in FM radio and a built-in digital recorder. Two interesting features -- you can record 30 seconds of music you hear and it will 'fingerprint' the song and tell you the title and artist. Also, a built-in wireless feature lets you beam music from one Neuros to another. Not really clear on the speed, but transferring 20 GB sounds like it might take a while. If anyone owns one of these care to post a review?"

Comments

Neuros?

[Anik315]

So what's the the plural of that?

Re:Neuros?

[Timesprout]

Neurosis

Re:Neuros?

[rmolehusband]

Neurosis?

Re:Neuros?

[cioxx]

box - boxen
neuros - neurosen

Re:Neuros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neurosen you dolt

box - boxen
child - children
mouse - mousen
fish - fishen

Re:Neuros?

[Anonymous Coward]

octopus - octopi

neuros - neuri

Re:Neuros?

[oniony]

'Thats'. Or maybe 'thatii'.

Re:Neuros?

[vikingking]

It's like moose The plural is Neuros. Trust me, I know. :)

Re:Neuros?

[flippet]

Neuroses, surely... hmmmm...

From dictionary.com... "Any of various mental or emotional disorders, such as hypochondria or neurasthenia, arising from no apparent organic lesion or change and involving symptoms such as insecurity, anxiety, depression, and irrational fears, but without psychotic symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations."

Did they think of that?

(Boxes, dammit!)

Phil, just me

Re:Neuros?

[richie2000]

Just like e-mail. One e-mail, twenty thousand spam e-mail in the inbox. If you want to make sure it's plural, use e-mail messages.

Re:Neuros?

[himself]

The plural of Neuros should be "neuroses."

Re:Neuros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very OT, but what the hell...

(Boxes, dammit!)

From my experience, "Boxen" and "Boxes" have two seperate meanings. "Boxen" is the plural when all the machines have identical configurations. For example, our application servers are all jumpstarted with the same configuration so we call them "boxen." For any group of machines with differing configurations, the term "Boxes" is applied.

Re:Neuros?

[Captain Gingersnaps]

In my exprience, "boxen" is what nerds say when they're trying to be clever.

Re:Neuros?

[someonehasmyname]

Neurosis rocks.

Re:Neuros?

[flippet]

I think you've got something there... a bit of pokin' around seems to suggest "boxen" first started in the same way "virii" started, but now seems to mean something.

All the same, it still looks silly, in my opinion... :)

Phil, just me

Beautiful...

[Zemran]

but I wish it could be built into my mobile phone...

Fingerprints

[jukal]

you can record 30 seconds of music you hear and it will 'fingerprint' the song and tell you the title and artist

It seems that they are either using freedb or something similar. Here's a clip about what the freedb.org's database is:

What is CDDB? The original CDDB is a database to look up CD information using the internet. This is done by a client which calulates a (nearly) unique disc ID and then queries the database. As a result, the client displays the artist, CD-title, tracklist and some additional infos.

Take a look at this DVD artist/title programmer submitted to Openchallenge to see how else you can utilize freedb.org.

Re:Fingerprints

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, no. CDDB is a database of track lengths. If can only recognise CDs, but the CDDB database also holds the name and artist of each track on the recognised CD. CDDB has nothing to do with the audio itself.

Re:Fingerprints

[pwarf]

Similar in functionality, but the key here is that they claim they can do it for an arbitrary 30 second clip from radio or an unlabeled MP3 rather than a static arrangement of data on a CD.

This sounds much harder, but also more useful. I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it works well for anything other than Billboard hits and very popular oldies. Still, it could be nice.

Just for the record, the player can also record longer clips by pressing the record button twice.

Also, someone said something earlier about not knowing how long the wireless transfer would take. Well, from the site it seemed that it was transfer via FM radio at the speed you'd normally play it at. So, neat for wireless playing on a car audio system or the boombox at home/work, but not a major file-transfer tool. (You could still broadcast to another unit and record the FM broadcast on the other unit.)

The site said recording was to MP3, but didn't specify bit-rate. Anyone know? Other MP3 players that recorded have done so in such low rates that they would only be useful for recording speech.

Also, they have a survey about what other audio formats you'd like to see supported. It wouldn't hurt for all you Ogg Vorbis devotees to go skew the results of the poll. ;)

Re:Fingerprints

[jukal]

Er, no. CDDB is a database of track lengths. If can only recognise CDs, but the CDDB database also holds the name and artist of each track on the recognised CD. CDDB has nothing to do with the audio itself.

Ohh. I have posted so many misguided comments lately that maybe I should just shut up. :) Would not it make the submission of new entries to freedb.org more easier if there was some utility program which would make an md5sum (or something similar) of the first 30 seconds of each audio piece. Or maybe there already is on online database like this too? That way, you could recognize individual songs more easier. Naturally, there would be the problem that the checksum might differ a bit case by case depending of audio quality, etc.

Re:Fingerprints

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should shut up. MD5 is designed to produce very different checksums even in case of single bit differences in the checksummed data, which makes MD5 and similar algorithms completely useless for pattern recognition purposes.

Re:Fingerprints

[jukal]

MD5 is designed to produce very different checksums even in case of single bit differences in the checksummed data

If your CD-ROM drive is producing single bit differences, then you need a new drive. Yes, my comment was badly phrased as I only mentioned the differences in audio quality in the last sentence. Maybe I should have said that it would work only before you rip the original CD (or DVD) . Here's a related story, where the guys produced md5sums playing the same stuff using different drives. So, yes, from original media it would be possible to produce matching md5sums - even when played using different drives.

Re:Fingerprints

[jukal]

MD5 is designed to produce very different checksums even in case of single bit differences in the checksummed data, which makes MD5 and similar algorithms completely useless for pattern recognition purposes.

Ohh, and if you are talking about ripped media, such as MP3, you naturally should not create a checksum about the audio piece as is. You should maybe first make a profile of it, to kill the differences, and then make the md5sum. But I think you really need something exact like md5 - if that information is going to be provided through a publicly accessed database to reduce the load caused to the server.

Re:Fingerprints

[IamTheRealMike]

This sounds much harder, but also more useful. I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it works well for anything other than Billboard hits and very popular oldies. Still, it could be nice.

Well, be pleasantly surprised then :) Me and a friend were playing with Shazam (which i guess must be what it uses) and the accuracy was stunning. We tried it with pop hits, obscure jazz singles, trance and it got them all. I'd not heard of most of the jazz tracks for instance (though it's not saying much). It worked very well indeed.

Re:Fingerprints

[ealar dlanvuli]

link?

Re:Fingerprints

[balbord]

[snip]
The site said recording was to MP3, but didn't specify bit-rate. Anyone know? Other MP3 players that recorded have done so in such low rates that they would only be useful for recording speech.
[/snip]

From the site:
"
Recording
64-160 kbps
MP3 format
"

http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/prod_20gbspec.asp

Re:Fingerprints

[ibennetch]

This is done by a client which calulates a (nearly) unique disc ID and then queries the database.

Given a nearly unique disc ID; why do I sometimes get the wrong match or have to choose - I don't use this service (I use freedb) much but I've gotten at least three that were just plain and utterly, completely wrong and many more that give me prompts to choose between several (sometimes they're essentially the same choices, others they're unique).

My question is; how's this happen?

Re:Fingerprints

[Anonymous Coward]

Shazam only gets the ID2/3 tags. It does NOT have any digital fingerprinting. Idiot.

Re:Fingerprints

[stm555]

As far as the fingerprinting goes, there is a project that has going on for about a year now (that I know) to start fingerprinting music that gets played on radio stations. I used to work at the radio station at Texas Tech University (ktxt.net, Your Only Alternative!) and we were one of the first twenty five stations in the nation to get hooked up with a system to do our charting automatically (to CMJ) by this system (from Audible Magic - www.audiblemagic.com) that listened to what was basically an audio stream and identified the songs. During the testing period they would call when they heard a song that didn't get identified. The calls tapered off pretty quickly, and we play some fairly obscure stuff, so I'm guessing that the fingerprint database must be getting rather large. I'm glad that they are making the fingerprint database available to the average joe!

Now I can start ripping all those compilation tapes my sister made.

Re:Fingerprints

[floki]

The specifications say:

Recording

- 64-160 kbps
- MP3 format

Re:Fingerprints

[JoeBorn]

I'm one of the architects of the Neuros, so I thought I'd throw in my $.02 We don't use either audible magic or Shazaam, but a technology that is very similiar to both of them. The database is twenty some thousand songs, which sadly, is very comprehensive to pretty much anything you hear on the radio. It's something we'll be adding to quickly over time so that the identifications can expand beyond radio to include much more. For reference, freedb and CDDB contain millions of songs, but as mentioned previously they use toc information from the whole CD and thus don't work for our application. Joe Born CTO Digital Innovations, LLC jborn@neurosaudio.com

FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Mwongozi]

That's possibly the coolest feature. It will broadcast the music on low-power FM, so that any FM radio in your house can pick it up.

Beats wires...

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Anonymous Coward]

It also has an FM radio tuner built-in, but the FM transmitter appears to be what "KenMaier" mistook for the "wireless feature [that] lets you beam music from one Neuros to another". It kind of does that, but only as an analogue FM broadcast which the other Neuros can tune into, if I'm not mistaken.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[semaj]

It also has an FM radio tuner built-in, but the FM transmitter appears to be what "KenMaier" mistook for the "wireless feature [that] lets you beam music from one Neuros to another". It kind of does that, but only as an analogue FM broadcast which the other Neuros can tune into, if I'm not mistaken.

You are - "MyFi allows you to broadcast the music on your Neuros through any FM radio. Like the one in your car. Or your kitchen. Or your coworkers boombox".

Sounds pretty much like a normal FM broadcast to me! :-)

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that contradict my impression that it doesn't really beam the digital data to another Neuros?

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[semaj]

It doesn't - I'm sorry, I misunderstood your post. I read the first post - "It will broadcast the music on low-power FM, so that any FM radio in your house can pick it up." and assumed everything else was in relation to that.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[pwarf]

"Corrections" of things that are not wrong are one of my pet peeves. The poster you claim is mistaken is not. You correctly note that the MyFi feature is essentially "a normal FM broadcast [low-power, of course] broadcast."

However, that's consistent with what he said. Note that he said "only as an analogue [spelling? - analog?] FM broadcast" not "only other Neuros can tune into." The previous poster is noting the limitation on the desired ability to transfer songs between units. As mentioned in the site

You can also transmit songs from your Neuros to your friend's using MyFi. Find an open frequency and tell your friend to tune their's to the same. When you press play, the music on your Neuros will play through your friend's. If they like what they hear, they can use Neuros' integrated recording feature to capture a sample and identify it using the HiSi feature.

The text on the site that was more confusing was probably, "You can beam music to another Neuros tuned to the same frequency. This and lots more Neuros features here."

I don't mean to be harsh about it, but don't claim people are wrong unless you are sure they are. It's rude.

Also note that while they are plugging the 30-second sample capability, they claim you can record songs from the radio, and not just clips. The emphasis on clips is probably to avoid the wrath of the RIAA.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[pwarf]

Rereading my post, I realized I overreacted. Sorry, semaj.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[mithras the prophet]

External FM transmitter adaptors are widely available from Radio Shack and the like.

A survey of reviews will inform you that most people are quite disappointed in their sound quality:

• Dr Botts
• Comments on several models
• another one

Basically, the impression I get from comments I've seen about these it that they work OK if you have no other option, but if you can at all manage a miniplug-to-RCA, or even a cassette adaptor, they'll sound better.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Hawaiian Lion]

Sorry to break everyone's hearts... but this technology's been around for awhile, here's one of the newer wireless FM adapters you could buy today: Wireless Music Adapter

I haven't seen much advancement in these devices, particularly since the FCC limits their broadcasting to a miserable 7-10 feet (clear).

So expect to be able to put your Nueros next to your home radio and get clear reception, but don't plan on starting a weekly neighborhood radio "Slashdot Talk" with your new toy.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: "analogue" is the British spelling.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[TCaM]

Ok, am I the only one here who remembere 'Mr. Microphone?'

http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/toy s/ ty1047.php

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[semaj]

No apology required - I understand your sentiment. I did however apologise to the original poster for my misunderstanding of the thread - I thought he meant that only other Neuros' can tune to the FM broadcast, and not standard radios.

Oops. Ah well, panic over for a while. :-)

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Surak]

The biggest advantage here is being able to pick it up on your car stereo. Cassette adaptors suck (trust me), and most car stereos don't have a line-in jack conveniently mounted on the front panel (ARE YOU HEARING ME, CAR STEREO MFRS??)

(And before you think "well, just mod the car stereo" realize that this isn't always practical in a lease vehicle. ;)

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Hawaiian Lion]

Don't expect a clear signal on your car stereo using Nueros. The Nueros unit has an FM transmitter, not digital radio. So you're still dealing with an analog signal and the sort of loss associated with that.

From my experience with cassette adaptors... some suck, others don't. But on average they do better than an FM wireless transmitter like Nueros's built-in feature.

Of course your best bet is simply to buy a car deck that comes with input jacks

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[ealar dlanvuli]

Honestly, do you really believe that the switch to digital radio will fix that? Those are bandwidth issues not signal issues.

(makes one wonder what are we going to do once everything we do is in binary)

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[MooseGuy529]

Yeah, it's cool! The thing that I see that sets it apart from the RadioShack models is the ability to scan for an open frequency and transmit. That's FREAKING AWESOME!

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[ibennetch]

Honestly, do you really believe that the switch to digital radio will fix that? Those are bandwidth issues not signal issues.

(makes one wonder what are we going to do once everything we do is in binary)

Interestingly enough; a digital signal is either there - in all of the orignal transmitted quality - or it's not. In TV it's called the Cliff Effect and is part of why digital is becoming popular. Ever have a radio or TV station where the signal was full of snow and static? That won't happen with digital signals.

So, once devices such as this transmit a digital signal; it may be poorer quality ( = lesser bandwidth, say 64kHz compared to 128) than a "real" FM transmission station, but you'll recieve the signal in as high of quality as it sent out, thanks to the Cliff effect.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Darnit]

This sounds like a very good idea! Some uses for it that I can think of:

1) biking/walking - u and ur friend (in my case, wife) can list to the music on the nueros and only have to buy one mp3 player. She has a cheap fm receiver. If she doesn't like the music she can hit you to change it or change the station she listens too. This works both ways. Maybe she'll carry the mp3 player.

2) Similar use in car - buy one or two of these and put them in you car with different types of music. The kid(s) can listen to something different than the parent(s).

I'm not too worried about sound quality. I mainly just would like music/voices/something other than wind noise while I'm walking/riding/driving.

I didn't see a price anywhere though.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[ealar dlanvuli]

No I haven't heard snow for about 10 years now... it's remarkably easy to remove with proper hardware (naturally said hardware/software costs about $40 so most radios don't have it).

I've seen digital tv, and the clif effect makes part of the picture totally unviewable, instead of a light snow effect.

I think I've become cynical in my old age, people still think CD's are the end all for music reproduction (Simply because they are digital), and I see it happening to more and more mediums.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Darnit]

I see the prices now:

128MB version is 250 USD and the 20GB version is 400 USD. Nice to see the the backpack for the 20GB version can be added on later if you can't afford it now. This means that as larger HD's are available you can upgrade. This also means that people will hack together their own "backpacks" with large hard drives.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[ibennetch]

I think I've become cynical in my old age, people still think CD's are the end all for music reproduction (Simply because they are digital), and I see it happening to more and more mediums.

Now you've just made my curious - you *imply* that you don't agree that CD's are the end all for music reproduction - what is? or haven't we reached the end-all yet? I agree with what I think you're saying; that is, most people are striving for that next bit of technology (HD-TV or digital radio, portable MP3 players, etc) regarding those as the end-all - Obviously there will continue to be improvements to things throughout the future (although getting away from analog NTSC video has taken like 50 years aside from the addition of color, which was a relavitely minor change to the standard as it didn't improve the picture quality/resolution). However, the standards for improvement are changing. What's the next step up from cd-quality portable mp3 players? bigger drives, less lossy compression...but nothing huge. the transition from cassette to mp3, on the other hand, is huge.

just my $0.02

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[PunchMonkey]

That's possibly the coolest feature. It will broadcast the music on low-power FM, so that any FM radio in your house can pick it up.

Yeah, this is great. I'm going to pick this up and tell my friends it has next generation bluetooth that works with virtually any car stereo. ;-)

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Anonymous Coward]

Point of order:

Last I checked, you are still legally allowed to record something off of the airwaves for personal use.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Clover_Kicker]

>Don't expect a clear signal on your car stereo
>using Nueros. The Nueros unit has an FM
>transmitter, not digital radio. So you're still
>dealing with an analog signal and the sort of loss
>associated with that.

I don't know about your car, but when I'm driving down the highway at 120 km/h, there's enough engine noise/road noise that I've never really felt the need to spend more $$$ on higher fidelity audio.

Can anyone really hear the difference in sound quality when they're actually driving the car?

My car didn't even have a tape deck when we bought it, so the cheapest way to get a CD player into it was /w an FM transmitter. It sounds OK, I'm sure the crappy factory speakers hurt the quality as much as the FM transmitter.

Fortunately, my truck has a tape deck, so I've got my old discman plugged in with a cassette adapter. Again, quality is "good enough" for me, and the price is right.

Re:FM radio is a *transmitter*

[Computer!]

Now you've just made my curious - you *imply* that you don't agree that CD's are the end all for music reproduction - what is?

Not that you asked me, but vinyl is. Sure, it's not portable, and not permanent, but it's still the best-sounding format availible. Not everyone can find words for the difference, but almost anyone can hear it. Most people say CDs sound "flat" next to vinyl records. I've also found that vinyl has better low-end response. Plus, when you buy an album, you're really buying something real, not just a container for data. Not to mention the "cool factor". Oh, and records tend to be about %20-%50 less than a comparable CD.

FM Broadcasting

[marc_gerges]

That sounds like a serious gadget. Will instantly upgrade my home stereo, the alarm clock, and my 30 year old classic car radio to MP3 capability. Granted, it's not cristal clear quality, but for many applications it will do nicely.

Same for your UK mobile

[semaj]

What you want is Shazam - assuming you're in the UK that is! :-)

You dial a number, play a bit of music down the phone and you get an SMS message back identifying the artist and title, pretty nifty. It costs about 50p though. They add the "tagged" tracks to a personalised list on their site where you can buy them online and other neat stuff.

Re:Same for your UK mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's useless since you'll have to provide your own music. It's just a "music indentifying service", not a player. What I dig with various flashbased or HD-players (when they get vorbis) is that you can rock out to your favourite tunes.

So "thanks" for the ad, but no thanks.

Linux?

[e8johan]

Looks nice! Can it run linux, it seems to have the required HW. I wounder if it has a bitmapped screen, or some custom. I'd love to run bash from it and have an IrDA keyboard...

Re:Linux?

[z)bandito(_X]

specs

the slashdot insanity filter makes it hard to properly format this data so use the link above

Display 2-inch (diagonal) liquid crystal display with orange LED backlight 128 by 128 pixel resolution .21/.28 dot pitch 4 level gray scale Size and Weight Height: 5.3" Width: 3.1" Depth: 1.3" Weight: 9.4oz. Environmental Requirements Operating temperature: -4 to 125 degrees F Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet Audio Up to 30 minutes of skip protection Maximum output power: 60mW rms (30 mW per channel) Frequency response: 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz MP3 format (up to 320 kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR) Upgradeable firmware enables support for future audio formats Recording 64-160 kbps MP3 format Input and Output Full speed USB 1.1 3.5mm stereo headphone jack 3.5mm stereo line-in jack 2.5mm stereo RF jack (for external antenna) MyFi FM Broadcasting 33 channel selection Mono and stereo modes Maximum range: 20 feet Frequency response: 15Hz-20kHz Transmission strength: 250 microV/M-2 at 3m Earphones Earbud type earphones using Neodymium transducer magnets Frequency response: 20 to 20,000Hz Impedance: 32 ohms Wall Power Adapter AC input: 100V to 125V at 0.4 Frequency: 50 to 60Hz DC output: 9V at .8 amp Power and Battery Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery Playtime: 10 hours when fully charged Full charge time: 8 hours Car Power Adapter DC output: 9V at 1.0 amp Full charge time: 8 hours

Re:Linux?

[e8johan]

As the firmware is updateable, all we need to know now is what CPU it uses and have a memory map. Lets have tux on this gadget too!

Re:Linux?

[z)bandito(_X]

you know, getting modded down for proving the information and a link to the source, when the original poster couldn't even click the story to see a picture and answer their own question, is pretty rediculous...

Re:Linux?

[Zemran]

They say "Neuros was created as an open platform"... so I do not see why a Linux Synchronization Manager could not be developed. It is up to the Linux users that want to use this device to deliver the Linux side of this unit and from what Neuros say, I would expect them to help in any way they can.

Re:Linux?

[e8johan]

I don't want a Linux Sync Manager, but rather, I want to run Linux on the actual device!

Re:Linux?

[Mr D. Logan]

As was posted in the forums on their site: "A more complete listing of the tech specs will be forthcoming, but briefly: we use the TI TMS320DA150 DSP beyond internal RAM, we have 2Mb external SRAM, and 128KB flash (32KB flash on the HD unit) We have an NPC real time clock on the backpack we use the Philips PDIUSBD12 and the LCD controller is from Samsung (KS0741) which drives a 128x128 4 bit display"

It's a little pricey...

[Sheetrock]

but all in all, a pretty nifty gadget for people who are into that sort of thing. The fidelity is decent for something its size, and while transfers take a while it's really neat to be able to hum a song you've got stuck in your head and have it tell you what it is (depending on your singing voice, I suppose).

I don't know how fast it is in beaming from one unit to another, but as the article mentions I wouldn't assume it's that fast -- just guessing, but maybe on the order of swapping one or two songs rather than several CDs within a reasonable amount of time? Much faster, and I imagine we'll be seeing the Napster debacle all over again...

Re:It's a little pricey...

[Anonymous Coward]

you are missing the point, the format for transmissions is FM audio, not digitally...
It cannot be DAB as it would have to generate its own multiplex and we do not YET use DAB for everything... there are no issues related to napsterism...

Also, humming a tune will almost certainly not work for its identification by fingerprint, as what you are able to re-produce of a song will not be the artifacts that are used to generate the "fingerprint"...

Re:It's a little pricey...

[Kenshiro]

> The fidelity is decent for something its size

You own one, then?

By fidelity, I assume you mean that of the built-in
headphone amplifier? Or do you mean the fm xmitter?

Re:It's a little pricey...

[Sheetrock]

I don't actually own one myself (and I'll retract the pricey comment, because I'd heard the unit with the HDD was going for a few hundred more) but I'm referring to the FM output. Then again, I've gotten used to the transmitters you can hook your portable CD player to for the car, and kind of assumed the general lack of quality of the signal had to do with the limitation of the output wattage the FCC assigns to try to prevent consumer equipment from stomping on a neighbor's reception of a radio station.

Make sure to vote!

[10Ghz]

They have a survey with one question being "What music format would you like Neuros to support besides mp3?". One choice is Ogg Vorbis.

Re:Make sure to vote!

[httpamphibio.us]

"Remove wrapper, open mouth, insert muffin, eat." -- Instructions on the packaging for a muffin at a 7-11.

The entire muffin? That sounds like a lawsuit just waiting to happen...

Re:Make sure to vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

where??!
I am,
1. dumb can't find it
2. too lazy to look

Re:Make sure to vote!

[sc00p18]

It's right on the front page here. There appear to be a few different polls though, so if it doesn't show up the first time, try reloading the page.

Radio, wall of sound

[richie2000]

I like the feature where it can transmit music/whatever to any radio receiver - it scans the frequency range, picks a non-used frequency and starts transmitting radio. It seems to be too low-power to start your own radio station, but it should work within a normally sized home or dorm. Post a notice on the dorm's bulletin board and go DJing! A neat solution. Should work with your old car stereo too.

Re:Radio, wall of sound

[gl4ss]

too bad that this feature(very nifty feature though) can limit it's availability in several countries.

why? because it's a transmitter capable of transmitting on fm frequencies you need a license for.. how unused frequencies or not they may be. and just being capable of doing this might be enough for getting ban on sale..

Re:Radio, wall of sound

[Anonymous Coward]

How will this work if you are using this to transmit to a Car Radio while on the move, i.e. as FM frequencies may be used in one area but not the next? Does it constantly re-scan for these???? Does anyone know this?

Re:Radio, wall of sound

[Anonymous Coward]

>this might be enough for getting ban on sale..

Not sure where this applies. You'd need a license in the UK, depending on the frequencies, if you wanted to use it, but owning (but not using) that sort of thing is legal here.

Re:Radio, wall of sound

[gl4ss]

well, AFAIK (and i'm definetly not expert), here, in finland you wouldnt be able to sell them assembled, ready for use&etc. because people would use the feature thinking they can do use it, since it's a feature included in a machine that's sold to them.

though probably they would be able to sell a kit to make one(fm transmitter) for education/whateverfreaky purposes.

kinda like how you can't buy receivers for police bands& etc, but it's (very) easy to convert one to receive in that band, and the same place can sell the necessary things to 'mod' it..

Re:Radio, wall of sound

[ibennetch]

In general these types of devices are just stuck on a particular frequency, and generally it's at the very low end of the FM broadcast radio band (88.5 - 89.9, I think) and there's little interference there because that area of the FM broadcast band was set aside for non-commercial stations - mostly college stations and PBS/etc. The transmitters I've seen in the past they've always had a switch to manually selecte between two or three frequencies. Apparently this just finds *any* frequency that is avalible, and I assume it's actively scanning for new frequencies as one drives. scroll down to my-fi

Shipping Date

[kaptkudzoo]

Its not availiable until January 2003

Re:Shipping Date

[Anonymous Coward]

They must of forgot about that Christmas holiday.

Re:Shipping Date

[vikingking]

If I recall, January = CES in Vegas

Oh boy...

[Annoyed Coward]

Phew... So many applications... Lets start a project to integrate them all and make a complete application. :-D

Stop it!

[arestivo]

Could you please stop releasing new MP3 players every other day of the week.

Some people would like to be able to decide which one to buy, open Mozilla to order the one they chose and when /. opens, as the default page, not see Yet Another Cool MP3 player available.

usb

[RobertTaylor]

20gig version (or 128 with backpack) with USB connection = :(

Re:usb

[jubajuba]

Yeah. USB 1.1 "at full speed" ... Gonna wait a few hours on that one.. No'siree..

Design and size...

[httpamphibio.us]

The 128mb version is still a little too big, and the 20gb version is obscenely big... despite the size issues it actually appears to have been made by a professional designer with a moderate amount of taste. Something most of the millions of mp3 players don't have the fortune of having.

Re:Design and size...

[Anonymous Coward]

size is due to the transmitters that are built in. comparing size/weight to the iPod is apples & oranges...

apples still win! ;-)

Re:Design and size...

[httpamphibio.us]

I never mentioned the iPod. Too big is too big, period, it doesn't matter what features it has.

How in the name of the lord....

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Can someone request a review for something that in not even on sale yet!!!!!

Until I can buy it, it is vaporware.

Fingerprinting

[spacefight]

I wonder how this really works logically

Neuros records directly to MP3 format. Next time you synchronize with your PC, Neuros matches the "digital fingerprint" you've recorded to a proprietary online audio database and provides you with the title and artist of the song.

I mean it looks to me that these guys have some copy (or interface to it) of a database containing every existing record published by the music industry. Can this be true? Or has the MI a proprietary and already licensed fingerprinting algorithm/database?

Re:Fingerprinting

[tlianza]

I mean it looks to me that these guys have some copy (or interface to it) of a database containing every existing record published by the music industry. Can this be true?

It's possible that the "fingerprint" includes the radio station and time the recording was taken, and what they actually look at is a database populated by radio stations about what songs they aired during the course of the day.

There have been other products that tried to do this type of thing. Checkout this keychain-type product that people could use to identify songs they heard on the radio when they later hooked up the device to their computer. There is a more complete story at wired here.

Re:Fingerprinting

[Anonymous Coward]

MoodLogic does something like that. The idea is to extract some information from the mp3 stream, and compare it to a database of "identified" songs. Eventually, the database is filled by the very users of the application, with whatever additional information they can provide: year, genre, mood, tempo, etc... This allows the client to build playlists of related songs. You must either pay for this data or provide data of your own to benefit from this service, however.

Transfer speed not an issue

[flakac]

Not really clear on the speed, but transferring 20 GB sounds like it might take a while...

Why does this really matter? So it might take a while to transfer the music, but it'll take significantly longer to listen to it. Your average user will probably transer music as necessary -- no need to shoot the entire collection over in one shot.

Re:Transfer speed not an issue

[TrancePhreak]

Well, what if you want to listen to something suddenly and it's not there... This happened to me sometimes when the 32/64MB MP3 players were the only option. But now that I've had a HD based MP3 player for a few years, I tend to load it up and be set for a good amount of time. I recently got the Jukebox Zen with its FireWire connection and it was really nice to not have to wait. By the time I was done queueing all the music up, it was finished. (~15 mins for 12GB) However, if you have a smaller amount of music than your unit stores, the time it takes to transfer everything wont really matter because you won't be doing much swapping.

Re:Transfer speed not an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The wireless transfer speed Neuroses is 1x since you have your friend (re-)record your FM broadcast

Re:Transfer speed not an issue

[tchapin]

I recently bought a Creative Nomad 3 jukebox. It's got 20GB, analog/digital in, USB 1.1 & firewire hookups, two line-outs, a headphone jack, and space for two batteries (brings it up to 22 hours).

All for $250 (counting a $50 rebate (link to a pdf)).

At first, I started syncing over USB, man was that slow! For $30, you can pick up a firewire card, pop it in, and wham! stuff transfers super-fast.

I love it. Sure, it's a little bigger than an iPod, but that doesn't bother me. The interface is pretty darn good, you can create playlists on the device, I've got tons of battery life, the sound quality is great, and I saved a bunch of money. What's not to love?

Well, there is one thing that sucks about it. The Creative software that comes with it. Ditch it and get the Notmad Explorer software from Red Chair. It's a lot more streamlined, and syncs ID3 tags correctly with the device. It's cheap and totally useful. Todd

System requirements

[Zayin]

OS: Microsoft® Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP

This really annoys the h#!! out of me... Most mp3-player manufacturers do this. What is the problem with just making a player that acts as an USB hard drive? Why do we need Windows to transfer files through USB?

Re:System requirements

[PenguinOpus]

I'd be a bit surprised if it did _not_ show up was a USB storage device. I'm guessing the reason they require Windows* is because their host app has a lot of synchronization smarts that they advertise (and can't deliver on Mac/Linux).

Re:System requirements

[IamTheRealMike]

This really annoys the h#!! out of me... Most mp3-player manufacturers do this. What is the problem with just making a player that acts as an USB hard drive? Why do we need Windows to transfer files through USB?

Relax! Then go read this. The Neuros is based on (in their words) "an open platform". Unlike the iPod, their database and menu systems are open and based on XML (schemas coming in a few weeks apparently), so even though their synchro software is currently Windows only, making a Linux version should be a snap.

This is a pretty cool MP3 player. It looks good, has some nify features, and is open. Sounds like a serious contender to the iPod to me (at least for anybody semi-geeky).

Re:System requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ignore the size and weight part.

Re:System requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a serious contender to the iPod to me (at least for anybody semi-geeky).

Not if it has a USB 1.1 port (which is all it seems to have). Unless it has USB 2.0 or firewire, it's as dead as as dodo.

20GB and a USB 1.1 port???? WTF were they thinking????

Re:System requirements

[curunir]

A lot of times manufacturers will require Windows because they don't want to have to support linux/mac users, not becuase their product will not work with those OSs. Go online and find out from users whether it will work with Linux.

For example, I recently purchase the 128MB Nike mp3 player (best form factor for exercising...the new philips one, not the sonicblue model). They claim that it is only compatible with Windows/Mac. However, all it does is represent itself as a Windows drive (haven't tried it on the mac). When I boot into linux, I just mount it the same way I'd mount a USB HD. Then you just copy the mp3s to it like you would any FS. You can't copy files off it (DRM, I guess), but otherwise it's a fully compliant external USB HD.

Operating temperature

[uncle_ben]

Otherwise this baby sounds like a cool gadget, but the operating temperature on the 20gb version is limited: Operating temperature: -4 to 125 degrees F It's way colder than -4 outside at the moment. Not really ideal for northern people.

Re:Operating temperature

[uncle_ben]

Uh. F == farenheit. Well. It's still -20 in celsius. There are still times when it's colder than that here in Finland =)

Re:Operating temperature

[FinalCut]

Do you have to keep the player out in the open? Seems to me if Im that cold Im wearing a coat/gloves, etc.. Once you turn it on, put it in your pocket - its not -20c in your pocket (if it is you need a new coat). The initial poster complaining about operating temp may just be the most critical person I have seen of this item. Are you just looking for something to complain about - cause if so just look at the 20gig version - it looks really large and unwiedly with that backpack on it.

Re:Operating temperature

[Clover_Kicker]

>Do you have to keep the player out in the open?

Something like this would be a sweet car MP3 player, and I for one would never remember to take it inside on winter nights. In .ca that would be a problem for a device that doesn't like -20 degrees C.

The old discman in my truck sometimes doesn't like cold mornings, i.e. it skips a lot. The discman is OK after warming up for 5-10 minutes, but I don't know if I'd abuse a player with an internal HD like that :)

Re:Operating temperature

[FinalCut]

that makes sense, I hadn't thought of it as a car player. And your right having it in the car could pose a risk. As the device warms up - condensation could occur, and that could cause any number of problems internally. Thanks.

What would have been cooler...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is if you could force the player to transmit on a specific frequency.

So that you could transmit on a popular frequency. Become a DJ for the night!

fingerprinting!

[krazyninja]

Sonicblue introduced the fingerprinting functionality in its Rio series of players. It used Moodlogic database. That database had a good number of songs...But with this Neuros database, being proprietary, it has to be seen how much of use it can be, unless it has a large database it has. It is possible that they have a deal with some other fingerprinting companies.....

USB 1.1

[CharlesV]

Seems like any new device coming out should be either firewire or usb 2.0. 20GB over USB 1.1 just seems unacceptable.

Re:USB 1.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like any new device coming out should be either firewire or usb 2.0. 20GB over USB 1.1 just seems unacceptable.

Agreed, especially since USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with 1.1, so they wouldn't be losing customers over it.

gameboy??

[12013]

hmm, and here i am thinking this stuff should have a nice design.

where did they get their product designers?? NINTENDO?

The thing looks like an old gameboy...

128mb version?

[chamenos]

who's going to choose the 128mb version over the 20gb version? sounds like the former is pretty redundant.

Re:128mb version?

[Jamesie]

"Easily upgrade your Neuros by exchanging the backpack that comes attached to your Neuros 128MB for the 20GB HD backpack. Now you will have 2 units - super portable and huge capacity." http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/product.asp?catal og%5Fname=DigitalInnovationsCatalog&category%5Fnam e=Neuros+Gear&product%5Fid=4016000 Do any of the new hd players have a compact flash slot too? would like to use one as an image bank sometimes.

Re:128mb version?

[IamTheRealMike]

Er, me? I don't know about you, but I don't have 128mb of MP3s. I don't pirate music on principle, so all I have is my CD collection which while quite large, I don't want to listen to all at once. 128mb of compressed audio is fine for me. And I can always upgrade it later.

Anyway, transferring 20gig over USB1 would take a while, but very few people have FireWire or USB2 enabled machines, so it's kind of a moot point anyway.

Re:128mb version?

[Jamesie]

Ack! Why didnt I preview!

From the neurosaudio.com store - "Easily upgrade your Neuros by exchanging the backpack that comes attached to your Neuros 128MB for the 20GB HD backpack. Now you will have 2 units - super portable and huge capacity."

Do any of the new hd players have a compact flash slot too? would like to use one as an image bank sometimes.

Re:128mb version?

[timmyf2371]

...but very few people have FireWire or USB2 enabled machines, so it's kind of a moot point anyway.

Very few people have Firewire or USB2 at the moment, but why not make devices like these future proof? So that 18 months down the line, it isn't relatively obsolete when all new computers come with high-speed serial connections as standard.

Tim

The new frontier of spyware

[pesc]

Having a closed source appliance with wireless network built in takes the conecpt of spyware to a new dimension.

Do you have ANY control over what kind of information this device shares with its real masters (remember, you are not its master, merely its owner)?

The fingerprint feature comes in handy in this scenario. Now the **AA knows exactly what music you are stealing ;-)

Wait till the RIAA hears about this

[Elitist Snob]

you can record 30 seconds of music you hear

Oh my god! With that kind of technology, and 6 of these things, you can copy a whole SONG without paying! It'll have to be outlawed immediately!

Re:Wait till the RIAA hears about this

[yerricde]

With that kind of technology, and 6 of these things, you can copy a whole SONG without paying!

Actually, the Neuros player lets the user record longer segments by pressing the record button multiple times. It just has a 30 second "quick record" function.

(To ACs who would claim I didn't get the joke: Yes, I got the joke, but I wanted to clear up misconceptions about the device's capability.)

Re:Wait till the RIAA hears about this

[MikeBabcock]

Presumably you can record as much as you like, but it needs 30 seconds worth to form the digital signature used to identify the song (that's what the section you quoted was about, after all).

But but but...

[haeger]

This weekend I bought a CD. It was copy-controlled and as such unplayable on my Linux-machine. It had some windows-player that was supposed to play the cd if I had put it in a Win-machine. But naturally it wouldn't let me create mp3's from it.

My question (that's actually related to this topic) is, "What should I use the portable mp3-player for?".
Since all record companies are doing their best to prevent me from transfering my legally purchased music to this player, what is it good for?
Won't the mp3-players be as useless as a betamax-player for the general public, as the copy-controlled cd's becomes more and more common?

That raises another interesting question. How long will Sony or any other large company that makes mp3-players stand for this? If people can't use the players then they won't buy it, which would hurt Sony's sales.

I'm sure someone can write some insightful comments about this.

Oh, and I returned the CD. I'm not buying broken products. And I made sure that the store understood that the failed sale was due to the record companies bad customer policy.

.haeger

I play Hattrick

Re:But but but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that the content companies have been hell-bent on searching for a way to effectively invalidate the Betamax decision for years. Never mind that Betamax allowed the video rental market to flourish or that video rentals now make movie studios as much (or more) profit as theatrical runs of films. The studio execs' mindsets are far too rigidly wedded to the old business model of profiting from scarcity to seriously consider doing anything differently.

The same goes for MP3 players. The RIAA hated the SonicBlue Rio decision and fought like hell to have the Rio banned as a copyright infringement tool (they lost that decision a few days before the DMCA was signed into law, ironically.) So now, rather than embracing the new technology, they're looking for other ways -- technological ones in this case -- to get around a legal decision that didn't go their way.

These idiots have a long and very consistent track record of opposing and badly misunderstanding technology (copyright on sound recordings; cassette tapes; VCRs; DAT decks; portable MP3 players), so I'm hardly surprised that things are coming to this.

-Ferris

Re:But but but...

[matt_hope]

Won't the mp3-players be as useless as a betamax-player for the general public, as the copy-controlled cd's becomes more and more common?

sigh The copy protection that is being added to CD's is woefully inadequate to prevent it being ripped without serious backing from every CD drive maker on the planet (or alternatively every digital music player in the world...).
The existing set of CD players have to be able to recognise the bitstream on the CD as music (i.e. sufficiently close to the redbook that they will output a decent enough audio signal). Therefore a sufficiently intelligent combination of hardware/software will also be able to do the same.
And it doesn't even have to be that intelligent...They just have to recognise bad/conflicting data and assume/be told that it is to be interpreted as cd audio with the necessary interpolations over bad data.
Copy protection requiring hardware agreement in a non closed (i.e. no paladim) world is unlikely to work - see the sites showing you how to hack out the copy protection on minidisk..the reason this is not a terriby big deal on mini disk is that the transfer medium is a physical so passsing around dupliates is expensive and time consuming compared to kazaa/ gnutella / lan parties / warez medium of choice.
CD copy protection has a very short life span in my book because there is very little likelyhood that the DMCA could realisticly be applied to hardware/software that corrects 'damage' because that is all that can be done in the existing framework - damage the data.
Now if they comeup with a solution that replaces CD's with DRM built in it's a different proposition - still breakable perhaps depending on the algorithms and implementation (and of course on the legal system backing it up). But there's no way to bolt on DRM to something like CD's, and things like DVDA don't seem to provide much more to be honest. Your mp3 player will have a lifespan longer than its avaerage lifespan methinks.

pixo os?

[pcp_ip]

It looks like this thing is running a pixo OS - almost identical to the one the iPod uses.

Re:pixo os?

[Anonymous Coward]

woo-hoo. i hope apples updates the ipod firmware to do the fm broadcast stuff

Re:pixo os?

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be an interesting trick. i hope they update the firmware to make my johnson 8 feet long.

Trademark adjective

[yerricde]

It's like moose The plural is Neuros.

Correct. Trademarks don't pluralize because they're adjectives. The plural of "Xerox copier" is "Xerox copiers", and the plural of "Neuros player" is "Neuros players".

you just record it like this

[addaboy]

You take a cd player and plug it in to the line-in of your sound card. Now you can record it, copy protection or not.

FCC part 15: Don't always need a license

[yerricde]

it's a transmitter capable of transmitting on fm frequencies you need a license for

Part 15 of FCC rules states that some low-power unlicensed intentional transmissions in the 88-108 MHz band are permitted. For instance, in the NES days, there was a peripheral called "GameSounds" that plugged into a game console's audio output and transmitted the sound over the FM band so that anybody with an FM radio within 20 feet could pick it up.

Re:FCC part 15: Don't always need a license

[RAMMS EIN]

That's good for USAmericans but note that the original poster wrote ``in several countries.'' These countries likely have different regulations, possibly banning this device. BTW, those polls are cool! Vote on them all!

Re:FCC part 15: Don't always need a license

[Ozymandias_KoK]

That's true, but he didn't give any examples, and only expressed it as a possibility. As your post, "likely have" and "possibly banning" are rather vague, don't you think?

Not disputing that either poster and / or both couldn't be correct, but just shitting a guess doesn't do any good here.

built-in is worth something

[abe ferlman]

There's not much more to say about that, if it fits in my shirt pocket and I can listen to it in the car without fiddling with wires, that's very convenient. I'm intrigued.

Not to mention you don't have to spend the extra $30 at radio shack.

Re:built-in is worth something

[karnal]

Actually, I think the ultimate bonus would be that you could use it in ANYONE's car.... Think of it...

I used to have all sorts of weird set-ups in my car to accomodate different formats (cd when I had a tape deck, minidisc when I had a cd player etc...) but this would be cool if you wanted to share your collection on a road trip with someone else's car.

As long as the signal doesn't drift, tho. I've tinkered with the FM transmitters, and the only thing I've really liked about them was convenience. Speaking of which, rental cars these days should all come with CD players, standard.....

The RIAA will love this!

[knewman_1971]

Hmmm. Let me see...you can digitally record from any source, including FM radio.

You can then "beam" an mp3 to anyone else who has one of these cute little boxes.

Oh yeah! This is gonna be on the RIAA's list.

On the other hand, I'm still scratching my head that they haven't made a fuss about the Archos player/recorder.

Nice looking but...

[Noemon]

It's a nice looking piece of equipment, well, until you put the 20GB attachment on it. Some things I noticed from the specifications though.

1st, as mentioned already, the device is USB1.1. Can you imagine synching your 20GB of music? Ooof.

2nd, you cannot transfer music from one neuros to another, but you can broadcast using FM, music from one Neuros to another. The receiving neuros then has the ability to record a 30 second snippet of that music. This isn't WiFi or Bluetooth, this is pure analog FM.

Beyond that, the built-in FM broadcaster is quite a convenient feature. As is the ability to create playlists right there on the device.

.sigless by choice

USB 1?

[knewman_1971]

WTF?

I had an Archos Jukebox 20, which was very cool. Nice form factor, good controls, very friendly. It even hooked up to my RedHat 7 box with only a kernel recompile.

But transferring 20 Gigs over USB 1 was an all night affair.

This thing SERIOUSLY needs USB2 and/or Firewire.

Radically OPEN!

[locarecords.com]

What is cool is that this seems to be an open platform so you can writes MODs to the player to get extra functionality out of the player. Now this is revolutionary stuff.

I love my iPod but adding the ability for users to write extra mods to provide more functions would be amazing. You can just imagine the websites springing up with 3rd party extras...

So full-marks to the designers. Using the an open XML database is a wicked idea and providing it is as easy to code to as they claim I can see this being a serious selling point!!

Re:Radically OPEN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that radical... Update your Archos to a RockBox today with these folks open source mods.
http://rockbox.haxx.se/

Re:Radically OPEN!

[JoeBorn]

As one of the architects of this product, I feel obliged to clarify the open point. It is definately the vision for this product to support MODs, and much of that will be available day one. However the XML portion of the database is only supported by the application, which translates it into the database format used by the device. While we'll be publishing the documentation on the device's database, that database is a semi-proprietary format, simply due to the constraints of the device. In any case, we'll be working to support easy coding at both levels, but be patient, this is a work in process. Joe Born CTO Digital Innovations, LLC jborn@neurosaudio.com

Re: [OT] pixo os?

[PotPieMan]

The iPod uses RTXC, as detailed here.

But you're right, the Neuros OS looks similar to the iPod's.

Not all of the record companies

[autechre]

If the people who allegedly want to sell you the music that you currently like are trying to make it as difficult as possible for you to enjoy said music, maybe it's time to go somewhere else.

You see, smaller bands and record labels can't afford to intentionally alienate listeners. They're trying as hard as they can to get their music heard, and they don't have a mighty fortress of cash to sustain them through the sort of foolishness in which companies such as BMG are engaging.

Check out http://www.cmj.com for what's current in college radio. Listen to a non-mainstream station. Listen to MY station :) Find your local independent music store; most cities will have at least one.

For the record, I get 10-15 or so CDs a week from various small labels (and distributors who work with labels too small to distribute their own stuff). I've NEVER had a problem with copy protection. I'ver certainly never gotten a copy protected CD from an unsigned band that I saw at a tiny bar.

Oh, and

[autechre]

Before anyone jumps in with how artists who are unsigned or on small labels suck...all musicians of substance start out that way. Only those that are created for commercial purposes (Britney, N'Sync, etc.) start out with a bang. I saw OK go open for They Might Be Giants a few times over the course of a year (and also play a local tiny bar, the Ottobar) and bought their self-released 3-song CD before they were ever signed to Capital. Radiohead got their start on college radio. The Butthole Surfers had eleven albums before they hit commercial radio.

Blah, blah, blah...you get the point. Basically, I know that less mainstream artists aren't in it for the money, because they don't have that much money. Most of them aren't as motivated to come up with something bland that the majority of the CD buying population is guaranteed to enjoy.

Try it; I think you'll like it.

Re:Oh, and

[Captain Gingersnaps]

OK, good post on independent vs. mainstream/commercial music.

But effectively, you're saying that if I don't like the CD format used by my favorite artists' record labels, I should change my taste in music?

Re:Oh, and

[Computer!]

if I don't like the CD format used by my favorite artists' record labels, I should change my taste in music?

You should probably change your taste in music anyway, just because most major label acts are pretty terrible. Besides, what's the point in buying music you can hear 10X daily on the radio anyway? There are other reasons to like indie bands:

• The artists are more accessible. That means they answer emails, say "hi" at shows, take requests on stage, and are generally better connected to their audience.
• The shows, merch, and albums are cheaper. Full-length CDs often sell for $10 or less. T-shirts are $12. Tickets are $10 at the door.
• Shows are smaller and more intimate
• Not as much "rock star attitude"

Re:Oh, and

[yusing]

Before anyone jumps in with how artists who are unsigned or on small labels suck...

There isn't anyone *that* stupid tuning in to /., is there?

Re:Oh, and

[Captain Gingersnaps]

And sushi is too expensive, you should like Wonder bread and baloney sandwiches instead.

There's no accounting for taste.

Re:Oh, and

[autechre]

No need to change your taste in music. If you name some popular bands that you like, I'm sure I can supply a nice list of smaller acts to get you started (if the popular acts are very recent, I might need to do some listening, as my "regular" radio has been broken for about four years).

I'm a music director at a small radio station. Suggesting music that people would like is one of the things that I do :)

So close...

[pXgray]

Okay, this thing is pretty cool. In fact in my mind it definitely gives the iPod a run for its money on the PC platform. Unfortunately, until the Neuros has USB 2.0 or Firewire, I would never buy it. Transfering 20 GB of songs to a player over USB 1.1 is masochism.

Back to the Drawing Board:

[frunch]

Where's the:

• Scroll Wheel
  
• Firewire / USB 2.0!!!!
  
• Small form factor (5 x 3 x 1.3 is ok, I guess)
  
• Quick charging time (8 hours??!?)
  

At this point, I wouldn't give up those features for an FM radio or wireless broadcasting. You can get both of these things at Radio Shack for really small and really cheap and attach the wireless broadcaster to your iPod easily enough.

The ability to record off the radio or line-in DOES sound pretty sweet though...

Re: [OT] pixo os?

[Anonymous Coward]

pixo developed the embedded ipod software for apple. check the "legal" menu item on your ipod.

J

SONICblue's response

[yerricde]

How long will Sony or any other large company that makes mp3-players stand for this?

Sony is a major USA record label as well.

SONICblue's response, on the other hand, can be found here.

Why haven't Sega and SONICblue merged yet?

Recording

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know of a portable digital device that has decent RECORDING quality?

I've been looking at MP3 player/recorders for sampling sounds around town - problem is, they all have terrible recording quality. They either encode to Digital Speech Standard (DSS) so they only work with speech, or they have a frequency range of 500 - 3.5khz, which is useless for recording music or sound effects.

Something like this is perfect, but January 2003 is a little late...

Re:Recording

[pfb]

The Archos Jukebox Recorder 20's spec sheet says that it supports

"MP3 (selectable 30 to 160 Kbps) Real-Time Encoding"

I'm not too sure what you think is good quality but I don't think 160 is terrible

Canada, EU, and Japan

[yerricde]

``in several countries.'' These countries likely have different regulations, possibly banning this device.

Canada, the EU, and Japan probably all have an equivalent to Part 15. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The RIAA will love it

[znaps]

With the wireless P2P song transferring facility, it'll have to be banned, so....get'em while they're hot!

Did anyone notice?

[Derg]

I noticed a feature that seems to help compensate for the lack of usb2.0 or firewire. the PC Library contains a listing of all MP3's on your comp, and if you select it to transfer, the next time you synch up your device, its automatically downloaded. This keeps you from having to dump all 5k songs at once, just keep the ones that you want. This sort of also eliminate the need for the 20gig model however, as you dont need to keep all your mp3's on the device, only transfer them over when wanted...

just my $.02

One step closer -

[idiosynchronic]

- to the holy grail of delayed digital audio recording and playback in one appliance unit. Really folks, how hard can it be to make something that turns itself on a at preset time, catches broadcasts in through a built-in antenna (or a jack from an outside source), records them to some media, even an analog casette tape, and then shuts itself off again? Its called a VCR when attached to a TV and has been around for over a decade! How hard can it be to make the radio version? And I'm sick of having to fuss with the computer in order to do this crap. There are some good programs out there that will let you do these things, but the inherent wekness is the computer itself. There are too many tasks and other things I want my computer to do and worry about instead. 50% of the time I do set the computer up, something happens and the program isn't recorded as I want. There has got to be an XML or Linux geek out there who can program something like this for a dedicated one-step applaince. Unfortunately, I'm not the geek.

Re:One step closer -

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought a cassette deck in a while, but they used to a have a "timer" switch which, combined with one of those 24-hour timer wheel devices, would cause the deck to turn on, record, and shut off at predetermined times. Provided you had put in a blank cassette and pressed play/record. Just like a VCR but with LESS technology.

Re:One step closer -

[myz24]

I actually have a script written to do exactly that. It was actually created to schedule and Real Video broadcast of sporting events at my University. And, if you don't like real media, it could easily be modified to start any program that could record from the audio card and encode it. It uses atd to schedule events and has proven extremely reliable (as most things in Unix/Linux do). atd is nice because it retains events even after reboot. If you're interested, drop me a line at ruedu-slashdot@hannah.homelinux.net and I'll see if I can get a copy sent off to you.

My question is...

[ASeed]

How many Euros does it cost the Neuros??
(it would be nice the answer was "NoEuros")

missed xmas?

[asv108]

Obviously if the player is not going to be available till after Jan 03, they were trying for this holiday season but missed, which is not a good sign especially in a lousy economy in a mp3 portable market that is already saturated with competitors. I looked at the company page, these guys are going from CD Cleaners to Mp3 portables? CD Cleaners are a dumb product, but I love the marketing strategy of these companies.

I hate how every time I go in to EB, they try to push a "game doctor" on me. Like I'm going to Pay $30 for a device to clean CD's when I can do it myself for little or no cost.

heh

[unclelib]

You all are forgetting that this was a friggen advertisement.

Just wait

[clubin]

until the RIAA hears about this new, decentralized, peer-to-peer music-theft feature.

I suspect another wrinkle in their collective panties.

(note: this is supposed to be funny, not insightful, but who knows)

Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be really something if they could make a low cost (3-5 hundred) portable mpeg,mov,avi,divx, ect player with a video out. Why stick to mp3? i could even have a little screen to watch stuff on in the car. i know they have portable dvd players, but im talking about one with a built in hd. just a thought

Re:Idea

[evilempireinc]

The new Archon jukebox actually does all of this, though its screen seems to be only the size of the ones on digital cameras.

Ipod

[Mo B. Dick]

I was going to buy an Ipod, but after seeing this, who the hell would want to do that? You get just as much hd space and more features, for $100 less.

Neuros vs. Archos... FIGHT

[khayyin]

I did'nt have the time to check ALL the replies to see if this has been pointed out yet... but, I would have to say that for $100 cheaper you can get an Archos Jukebox FM 20 and just buy a little portable FM transmitter from radio shack if you really need that functionality. The two are comparible in size and weight... Neuros is 5.3"x3.1"x1.3" 9.4oz and the Archos is 4.45"x3.11"x1.18" 10.23oz. They both have 10hr li-ion batteries and both have 20GB harddrives. They are both appealing to the eyes in different ways and both can recieve FM transmissions and record them. The Neuros can broadcast to FM, which the Archos cannot do... and the Archos can record from ANY analog or digital source which I dont think the Neuros can handle. Oh and the Archos uses USB2 as opposed to the Neuros which uses USB1.1, but it can "beam" info to another buddies Neuros.... Its hard to say really, depends on if you need the FM broadcasting ability... but like I said, for aprox. $50 at radio shack you can get a little transmitter for use with the Archos. I think its pretty clear which one I am going to buy ;p

Re:Neuros vs. Archos... FIGHT

[Anonymous Coward]

I got excited for a minute about this one... then I realized that it was only 'almost there'.
1. The archos 15GB is half as much as the neuros 20GB model ($200 on pricegrabber). And smaller. And available now.
2. For the same price I could get a nomad zen. Or an ipod with less space. Both smaller and with firewire.
3. With the 20GB backpack, the neuros doesn't look so slick anymore...

On the subject of usb1.1, I'd prefer firewire any day, but it seems to me that I could upload most of my music in two or three all-night sessions and then I wouldn't need to transfer much after that. Is it really worth $200 for that faster connection or built in fm? I think I'll get an archos and an fm transmitter and I'm taken care of.

Re:Neuros vs. Archos... FIGHT

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you running open source Rockbox on your Archos players?
http://rockbox.haxx.se/
Rockbox - In the true spirit of Open Source....

New Hardware Boycott

[NoTildeQuestionMark]

If it can't be ported into the back of my head, then forget it.

pirating

[boarder]

Just as a reply to your statement about pirating music and relating that to not having 128MB of mp3s... You don't have to pirate music to have way more than a few gigs of music.

1) You can mp3 your CD collection legally and have way more than that 20gig.

2) Now, if you want to stay on the safe and conservative side of the law just in case congress outlaws the backup of our CD's, you can go to www.emusic.com and legally download all the music they have for a small fee. I've paid $30 and have downloaded 4gigs of mp3's... and I'm slow about downloading stuff from them. You can easily download over a gig per day. Not only is it legal, but it compensates the artist and the label and the creator of the website.

The last thing is that just because you have all of your CD collection on your portable player doesn't mean you have to "listen to it all at once." I always have my full collection with me so I always have a full choice of what I listen to. If I'm in the mood for something in particular, it's there.

Almost sounds good.

[endquotedotcom]

One of the main features of the iPod is that you can mount it like a regular disk and just drop whatever you want on it. On the 20GB model this is a major feature, because really, do you *need* 20GB of music in your pocket (~340 hours at 128k!)? But you might need 10GB and an offsite backup of some data, or something.

Looks like this doesn't do that. Also looks like they totally stole the UI of the iPod (okay, it's a good UI, now come up with another good one). It's also damn ugly.

And why do I want to take my high-quality digital MP3s and send them over the comparatively crappy-sounding FM band to listen to them? If they really wanted to make this a home stereo component, there would be a digital out. For the car, just use a tape adapter or a line-in.

Plus the whole Windows-only thing is silly. Why do I want "synchronization software," especially from a company I've never heard of? Keep it simple.

This thing *almost* sounds really good. Almost.

Gads, it's a monster!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the [physical] size of that thing. Sure, it looks pretty but it's over 5" long and 3" wide. I'll stick with my Archos 15. It ain't pretty and the interface sucks rocks but it's about as small as you can get without paying thru the nose.

But the article is misleading

[iamacat]

You can beam a song to another Neuros, but only through FM. I tried a transmitter in my car before and couldn't get rid of constant hissing, no matter which frequency I chose.

I guess, at least in densly populated areas, this feature will be good for a demo but useless in practice. And I thought my dream of a bluetooth MP3 player that starts wireless P2P and leeches music matching preset criteria from it's neighbors just came true.

"HiSi" feature is useless

[SlightlyMadman]

From the site (emphasis mine):
HiSi - Hear It! Save It!

A new song catches your ear on the radio. You love it, but you can't count on getting the song title and artist from the DJ. Rely instead on Neuros and its' HiSi feature. Record a 30 second sample of the mystery song to your Neuros by pressing the orange button. Neuros records directly to MP3 format. Next time you synchronize with your PC, Neuros matches the "digital fingerprint" you've recorded to a proprietary online audio database and provides you with the title and artist of the song. This information is sent directly to your Neuros and is also stored in your Neuros Synchronization Manager PC application.

A proprietary online database? How many such databases are there? Are they free? Will they alawys be free? Is what they're doing even legal or authorized by the RIAA?

This reminds me of a few years ago, when mp3 software started adding in lyric lookups through a variety of online lyrics databases. Shortly after it became a popular feature, the RIAA had all of those sites shut down, leaving that feature useless.

FM Transmitting Capability

[ungulation]

You can get the FM transmitting capability without buying a whole new audio player. I know of one product here that lets the user transmit any audio to a radio. You can use it with any thing that has a headphone jack.

recording bitrate

[NotAnotherReboot]

From the spec sheet:
http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/prod_20gb spec.asp

Recording
-64-160 kbps
-MP3 format

looks to me like you can pick a bitrate between those ranges

Some Flaws...

[mmortal03]

This thing has great potential, but it has a couple flaws in my mind. The rechargeable battery inside is non-removeable, why? And if you buy the 20 gig model and later want to buy or use a 128MB attachment, you can't. For some reason, as read in the FAQ section, the 128MB model is compatible with the 20GB attachment, but the 20GB model is NOT compatible with the 128MB attachment. Why, again? These things should be completely swappable. Without having USB2.0 or Firewire, it will be a hassle to deal with the 20GB model. The recording feature is great, but you can get this on other models. I am intrigued by the 30 second music identification feature, but I don't know how much I would use it; while it is very appealing to geeks out there to play around with, it doesn't exactly strike me as a must-have feature. As said by another /.er, there are many alteratives to the FM radio transmission feature. Also, the unit is comparatively large for this type of player. I DO really like the idea of the interchangeability between the 128MB solid state model and the higher capacity hard drive. That is a must-have feature, that is, if the price difference between buying this and the other attachment is made advantageous to buying two separate players of each type. One will just have to see if it is convenient to exercize or run with the unit within its size parameters. I also am intrigued by but sceptical of the transfer feature between these players: is it a lossless digital transfer, or is the transfer made by the action of simply re-recording the FM broadcast of one of the players to the other, thereby TRANSCODING the recording within the mp3 format? If it is the latter, THAT would be ridiculous.

Sound Quality

[mmortal03]

I love how their FAQ explains the sound quality of their player's music: "What is the quality of the music on my Neuros? Hi Fidelity sound."

Re:Plural of Neuros = Neurox??

[Reece400]

I'd suggest Neurox personnally,,

Reece,

shock protection

[ottothecow]

I have always wondered with theres:

what will happen if it is dropped? how much shock protection does it have? how far can I drop it before it causes perm. damange? and if I kill a drive can I just go buy a new laptop drive? other than that I would love to own a HD based mp3 player

Oggvocacy

[edgarde]

In addition to the Vorbis poll option (keep reloading), an Ogg Vorbis support topic has been added to the Neuros forum section.

Last Post!

[alpg]

We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you
think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow
doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow
messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this
disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided
by law, up to and including nothing.
This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software
packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our
lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the
attack shark at which point we relented.
-- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow"

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