Samsung is updating its portable media player with the successor to the Samsung YP-P2, the Samsung P3. The device will be formerly announced in January, joining the media player race alongside the iPod, Toshiba U103 and the non-existant MySpace PMP.

Subtle changes include its rectangular aluminum body and three inch 480 x 272 touchscreen. You can expect it to have Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, FM and many of the other typical photo, audio and video capabilities found in portable media players. Storage capacity will range from 4GB to 32GB with varying prices which will be announced at a later date. Expect this to hit store shelves in early 2009.

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Less than a week remains until Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Dictator Bill Gates square off in a head to head debate at the All Things Digital Event over in New York City. What can we expect out of the big two. A cordial convo or a raunchy romp?

There will no doubt be lots of mud thrown over the whole PMP competition between the Zune and the iPod as well as talk about a possible Zune phone compared to the upcoming iPhone. We’d love just to see these guys go at it. Tux can be the ref. — Andrew Dobrow

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A few days ago we talked about the Slideon concept PMP design and its sleek slider style. With the first version fresh in our minds, the Slideon.v2 improves on the already gorgeous MP3 player.

v2 features a huge wide-screen, which is as big as a normal iPod. The slide design means no obtrusive buttons to get in the way and change the track or volume when it’s not wanted. It features two buttons and a middle slider control, which is touch-sensitive. It’s much thinner than the original concept and all around, much more usable. — Andrew Dobrow

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With the ever-changing mobile phone market becoming a breeding ground for slider phones, it’s no surprise that a PMP player would eventually be designed in the fashion of the slide design. Hell, Apple’s doing the opposite for the iPhone, right? The Slideon MP3 Player is a concept design from Ian Murchison.

The Slideon is designed to integrate the sleekness of the slide with the portable media crowd, with the controls all hidden under its sleek geometric screen. The Slideon would feature flash-based memory and a battery that can be charged through the headphone jack. (more…)

Sometimes, the days of holding a good old CD case in our hands as we listen to an album makes us yearn for simpler times when MP3 players only held a few gigs of data. This concept by David Friedman mixes the modern technology of digital displays, high powered PMP systems, and the days of old jewel CD case, to offer up a solution for those nostalgic times.

The digital jewel box would synchronize with iTunes and display album art and linear notes as you listened to your music. Just like the days you used to go out and buy an album on Tuesday, only to come home and pour over the liner notes as you listened to your newly acquired album. The concept would also double as an infrared remote, allowing you to control the song and to preview the next albums track list. — Andrew Dobrow

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Sources are saying that Microsoft might be giving up their dreams of the Zune posing heavy competition with the iPod and have moved on to brighter pastures. While Zune sales still remain moderately okay on the whole scheme of PMP products, the Zune has proven to be a disappointment as many predicted. It’s being rumored that Microsoft is working on a 3D audio process that could change the face of how we hear our music.

The process would work by having a series of speakers which focus on target locations, so that you wouldn’t need headphones to get the full surround sound effect. A Microsoft development team is currently working on an algorithm for speakers that might do exactly that. Optimally, the speakers would be embedded in computer monitors and would target areas which would create virtual headphones. This would be done by having sound waves that diminish greatly only inches from the focal point of the sound. The ultimate goal is to allow workers to be able to listen to conference calls or video without disturbing other workers at all. It will be interesting to see if this ever comes to light. — Andrew Dobrow

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Japanese company TurboLinux will start selling their Wizpy Portable Media Player (PMP) in 2 weeks, ITmedia took it for a review and answered a lot of our questions. What’s so special about this not-too-attractive PMP is that apart from the usual 4GB FM radio, voice recorder, music, video, picture, text viewer that we see in the market, it has a Linux operating system on it with which you can boot any PC as long as they can boot from USB drive (CD/DVD-ROM or HDD).

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