The iPhone may be the ultimate merging of music and phone technology, but its strength is also its weakness. Speakers connected to the iPhone would also pick up interference. DLO has released new speakers that addresses that very problem: portable speakers that are shielded from interference. More details in the full article.

Have you ever experience hearing a really good song but never caught information about it? Well, that won't ever happen again with Polk Audio's I-Sonic Entertainment System 2 which has the ability to "bookmark" songs on the radio.

Good thing about this is that, it's going to be sold in March by Apple itself. Read more on the upcoming speakers in the full article.

iPhone owners, rejoice! Altec Lansing has just released an announcement that on they will be selling their T612, fully compatible with the iPhone, on February 2008. This gadget is said to prioritize incoming calls when an iPhone is docked in the speaker system.

More details on the T612 and its compatibility features with the iPhone after the jump!

Even after implementing the option to set maximum volume limits on their iPods, Apple has patented another application in an attempt to save the iPod-listening population's hearing. According to the patent, this feature will automatically turn down the volume once it determines that the user is exposed to potentially damaging noise levels. More details in the full article.

Thanks to the iPhone Firefly media service, you can stream your iPhone media library - audio (preferably) or video - over to iTunes on your computer, your neighbor's computer, or your buddy's computer. You'll need to sort through the settings to get the service to work, however, because while it looks like a simple, three-step process, it has hiccups (like many a hack and tweak).

First and foremost, anyone interested in streaming their media to an iTunes host will have to navigate to a site using the iPhone's Mobile Safari (we know, it looks like it's starting to become a fad). The address is the Read link below. This site has the files required to install Firefly on your iPhone's Installer.app.

Failure in this section often results to a web redirect or a download failure. If you manually enter the address at the Read link below, it should solve most of your problems. Once you run Installer.app, you now have the option to install Firefly. Do so, and prepare for the next step.

For this step, you'll need to consult your computers settings. Whether on Mac or PC, you'll need to run iTunes and set it up correctly. Head on over to the program preferences, enable sharing if you haven't already, enable "Look for shared library", and then configure your system's firewalls to accept proper incoming connections (easy peasy on Mac OS X Leopard).

Techies might want to get real down and dirty with ports and all for this one, but for a test run, a simple general permission is alright. Some firewalls come with application gateways, so you'll have to allow iTunes to communicate with other system processes or daemons in order to function.

With the firewall ready, your iPhone should now be letting its library be known as "shared", so try and navigate to that shared library in iTunes. You really can't miss it - it's labeled by the name of your iPhone. When you select it, you'll have to log in, so if you haven't messed with your media password, it should remain as "dottie" - even for Apple Software 1.1.1.

When you play a song, it should play through the speakers of your computer. Of course, not all situations are flawless, so don't hit yourself on the head if nothing is coming out of your speakers but static. This issues will need to be straightened out with a full-fledged guide - one thing we don't have our hands on yet. Stay glued to this space in case one comes up.

So you loved the first Guitar Hero games - and it's a bet we're willing to take that you're gonna love Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - and you grew attached to the soundtrack (from playing the level so many times) that you just have to have it. Well here's your chance to download the complete albums (plural, meaning from all the games) from the iTunes store.

iTunes is now offering features tracks from Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and finally, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Almost all the songs will be available, and a new version of Anarchy in the UK performed by the Sex pistols will also be downloadable as a separate track.

The series will also feature custom-created playlists featuring tracks chosen by artist and by genre, including a guitar-themed playlist. The tracks are available through the iTunes Store, following the read link below. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) itself will be available on November 23 but you don't have to wait to listen to the soundtrack.

Good things are finally coming their way towards Apple iGadget fans: Steve Jobs already announced the newfangled wonderful things in Apple's media event, and what a bunch or wonderful gadgetry they are.

After giving themselves a pat on the back about iTune's success (600 million copies of iTunes distributed, 95 million TV shows sold, 32% digital-only music releases), Jobs started announcing the newest additions to the Apple family, beginning with the little things, such as the addition of a red-colored shuffle among other new colors. It will have the same specs such as 1GB memory and will be on sale for US$ 79, and will be available shortly.

Next up is the new iPod Nano. It turns out that the rumors of a smaller, stockier Nano is true: it's the very same cuter iPod Nano whose pictures were circulating the net a few days ago. It has a 2-inch screen, the same QVGA resolution as the existing Nanos, enhanced user interface (with the same cover flow browsing as iPhone!), and 3 new games.

The new iPod Nano's battery life is more than alright: it can play for 24 hours only with audio, and 5 full hours of video playback. There are two storage flavors available: 4GB and 8GB. The 4GB flavor will be priced at US$ 149, while the 8GB will have a tag price of only US$ 199.

Even more good news? These cool new babies have already been shipped and will be in stores starting this weekend.

That's not all! More good news after the jump!

Looking at reports and data coming in, the folks down at Engadget believe that a new iPod is due to come out, and soon. They believe it should be out sometime on September or October (pending Steve Job's decision not to mess up their theory).

The conclusion of a new iPod coming out comes from some timing in the marketplace and info from retailers.

For one thing, it's been a while since the iPhone came out and there's sufficient passage of time between the recent release of the new iMac and the coming holidays for the market to be ready for another pretty Apple product.

Info from retailers also suggest a new iPod. Not only are iPods seeing a price drop but shipments are also declining. With the holidays coming up, this strongly suggests that they're preparing the market for something new under the same product line. It's also been brought up that a new iPod might cut down iPhone sales so a new version might not be questionable, but Jobs once commented that if there's any cannibalizing to be done in sales, it might as well be from Apple itself.

So don't go buying yourself an iPod just yet. Who knows? Maybe the next version will actually be the iPhone without the Phone.

  

If you've been keeping tabs on Apple's war against DRM, you probably already know that users can now download DRM-free tracks from the iTunes store. But what you probably didn't know is that while you're able to download all the high-quality music you want, sharing it with others might not be such a good idea, as you could probably end up sharing your account info along with your playlist.

And no, we're not kidding. Try these simple steps to see that we're dead serious about this.

1. Launch Terminal.
2. Go to one of your iTunes plus downloads. Try downloading a song (an iTunes plus single of the week would do).
3. Use the UNIX "strings" command to take a gander at the text in your data and grep to search for your own name. (strings 01 Ooh La.m4a | grep name)
4. Similarly, you can try to open all the strings in TextEdit. (strings 01 Ooh La.m4a | open -f.)

If you did it correctly, you'll be able to find your own name embedded in that music file you've just downloaded - which would pretty much leave a direct trail to you should you torrent the songs you've just downloaded. So think first before making any rash decisions about illegal file-sharing - you may be giving away more than just free music.

Newsflash: you might want to upgrade your digital audio player to support the AAC format. After all, this is the format to be used by Apple in selling their non-DRM music from EMI from now on, with lots of major music labels expected to follow suit on the months to come.

AAC is known to be the better digital audio format in terms of sound quality compared to the more popular MP3. Yesterday, Apple and EMI announced that they will be selling non-DRM tracks for US$ 1.29 per song. Such songs will be available in the AAC format.

Will your digital audio player support AAC? As of now, Microsoft, Nokia, Sandisk (e200 line), and Sony already include AAC playback on their devices. Those that don't have AAC format support are players from Creative, Toshiba, Cowon, Philips, etc.

Thankfully, upgrading your digital music player to support AAC can be done via firmware update. Just check your manufacturer's support if you want an upgrade.