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Thanko's FMP3 Watch touts an FM transmitter.
It's no secret that FM transmitters are dodgy at times, but if you were wading through the endless supply of MP3 watches on the market in an effort to find one a notch below hideous, having that feature built-in certainly wouldn't hurt. The king of all things USB has upped the collective ante once more, as its FMP3 Watch not only musters a bearable design scheme, but it also offers up a nice laundry list of specifications to boot. Aside from telling you the time and day of the week, it also boasts 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB of internal memory for MP3 / WMA playback, headphone out, an integrated voice recorder, USB connectivity, volume controls, eight-hours of battery life (three if beaming over FM), and the obligatory FM transmitter to stream your tunes to one of several FM options. If you're anxious to get your wrist into one of these suckas, all three flavors are available right now, and can be had for ¥12,800 ($108), ¥16,800 ($142), and ¥19,800 ($167) from least capacious to most.
[Via EverythingUSB][Engadget]
5:05:47 PM 
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Slate on iTunes' New Better Bitrates: 256 Not Much Better Than 128 kbps.  In light of the EMI/iTunes announcement, Slate's Explainer, which I am a huge fan of, explores the theoretical audible differences between 256 kbps AAC files and the 128 kbps versions. Christopher Beams says that 256 kbps files, though packed with twice as much data, do not sound twice as sharp as 128 kbps versions. Agreed: the added info isn't as important to your ears. And it is likely, according to quoted tests, you can't distinguish between anything higher than 128kbps sources. That's where things get fuzzy.
Hedging his statement, he says:
But a listener's ability to distinguish sound quality depends on many factors, like age, hearing ability, and attentiveness, not to mention the style of music and where one listens to it. For example, music with delicate timbres--a string quartet, say--might sound noticeably choppy at lower bitrates, whereas compressing an AC/DC song might not be so bad. Sounds right, if a little inconclusive and safe. I'd wish he'd mention earbud quality as a factor, too. Little white iPod earbuds definitely won't separate the two rates, but with an expensive set of speakers or buds the difference comes a lot closer to being apparent.[^]Brian LamAre iTunes' Premium Downloads Worth It? [Slate]
[Gizmodo]
4:59:21 PM
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