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Neuros - Portable MP3 player, FM radio, Digital Recorder 189

Posted by Hemos from the make-the-pretty-noise dept.
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?"
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Neuros - Portable MP3 player, FM radio, Digital Recorder More

Neuros - Portable MP3 player, FM radio, Digital Recorder

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  • Neuros? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anik315 ( 585913 ) <anik@alphaco r . n et> on Monday November 11, 2002 @06:50AM (#4641540)
    So what's the the plural of that?
  • but I wish it could be built into my mobile phone...

    • Same for your UK mobile (Score:5, Informative)

      by semaj ( 172655 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @06:57AM (#4641563) Journal
      What you want is Shazam [shazam.com] - 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.

  • Fingerprints (Score:2, Informative)

    by jukal ( 523582 )
    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 [freedb.org] 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 [openchallenge.org] submitted to Openchallenge to see how else you can utilize freedb.org.

    • Re:Fingerprints (Score:1, Informative)

      by 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.
      • 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 (Score:2, Informative)

          by 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.
          • 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 [codebunny.org], 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.

          • 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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by pwarf ( 610390 ) <pwarf@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:09AM (#4641596)
      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. ;)
      • 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 (Score:2, Informative)

        by balbord ( 447248 )
        [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 [neurosaudio.com]
      • 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

  • FM radio is a *transmitter* (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mwongozi ( 176765 ) <slashthree AT davidglover DOT org> on Monday November 11, 2002 @06:55AM (#4641559) Homepage
    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...

    • 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:

      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.

      • 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.

        • 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.....
    • 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 [radioshack.com]

      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.

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

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


        • 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

          • 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)

            • 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 [atis.org] 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.
              • 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.
          • >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.
    • 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. ;-)
  • 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.
  • 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? (Score:2, Informative)

      by z)bandito(_X ( 243059 )
      specs [neurosaudio.com]

      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
      • 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!
      • 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...
    • 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.
  • 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...

    • > 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?
      • 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! (Score:5, Informative)

    by 10Ghz ( 453478 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:00AM (#4641573)
    They have a survey with one question being "What music format would you like Neuros to support besides mp3?". One choice is Ogg Vorbis.

  • Radio, wall of sound (Score:5, Interesting)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:04AM (#4641582) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      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..

      • 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.

  • Shipping Date (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaptkudzoo ( 235385 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:05AM (#4641585)
    Its not availiable until January 2003
  • Phew... So many applications... Lets start a project to integrate them all and make a complete application. :-D

  • Stop it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by arestivo ( 459117 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:06AM (#4641588)
    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.
  • 20gig version (or 128 with backpack) with USB connection = :(
  • 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.

  • How in the name of the lord.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dot.Com.CEO ( 624226 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:11AM (#4641603)
    Can someone request a review for something that in not even on sale yet!!!!! [neurosaudio.com]

    Until I can buy it, it is vaporware.

  • 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?

  • Transfer speed not an issue (Score:3, Insightful)

    by flakac ( 307921 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:17AM (#4641623)
    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.

  • System requirements (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zayin ( 91850 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:17AM (#4641625)

    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?

    • 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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:33AM (#4641800)
      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 [neurosaudio.com]. 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).

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

  • fingerprinting! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by krazyninja ( 447747 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:19AM (#4641633)
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CharlesV ( 22919 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:38AM (#4641675)
    Seems like any new device coming out should be either firewire or usb 2.0. 20GB over USB 1.1 just seems unacceptable.
  • 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...

  • who's going to choose the 128mb version over the 20gb version? sounds like the former is pretty redundant.
    • "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.
      • Ack! Why didnt I preview!

        From the neurosaudio.com store [neurosaudio.com] - "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.
    • 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.

      • 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.
  • 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 ;-)

  • 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!

  • But but but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by haeger ( 85819 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:10AM (#4641761)
    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 [hattrick.org]


    • 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.

  • pixo os? (Score:1, Informative)

    by pcp_ip ( 612017 )
    It looks like this thing is running a pixo OS [pixo.com] - almost identical to the one the iPod uses.
  • 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.

  • 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
  • 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.

  • My question is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ASeed ( 195654 ) <albertoNO@SPAMintersaint.org> on Monday November 11, 2002 @11:06AM (#4642559) Homepage
    How many Euros does it cost the Neuros??
    (it would be nice the answer was "NoEuros")

  • missed xmas? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@@@ivoss...com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @11:09AM (#4642577) Homepage Journal
    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 [digitalinnovations.com], 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.

  • 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.

  • Some Flaws... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mmortal03 ( 607958 )
    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.

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