Related
Sony NW-HD1: A New Walkman-Branded Hard Disk Player? [Gizmodo]

Sony takes aim at iPod with new
hard-disk Walkman (MacCentral)

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sony's trying a fourth MJ greatest hits

Sony's PlayStation Portable hits retail
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iPod's Still The Apple Of My Ear, Even
With A Walkman In Hand

New Sony Walkman to Rival Apple Player
(AP)

New Sony Walkman to Rival Apple Player

Walkman 'inventor' threatening to sue
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Apple Expo: Apple intros iMac G5
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Japanese Swap The Sony Walkman For The
Apple iPod

Tokyo's so-called 'gadget city' of Akihabara, where Sony's walkmans once reigned supreme, the most prized gadget is now Apple's iPod. It was perhaps some indication of how Japan's self confidence has faltered along with its economy. By Peter Cave, ABC News

German Walkman Inventor Wins Battle
Against Sony, Fixes Gaze on Apple

German inventor Andreas Pavel has just settled a 20 year court battle with Sony over the origins of the Walkman, a device Pavel claimed to have patented in 1977. While Sony has spent the better part of two decades trying to ignore his claims of invention (despite the fact they paid him royalty fees for the first few years of the device's life), Pavel's near bankruptcy after a 3.7 million dollar court battle was finally rewarded by a confidential agreement in which Pavel was reportedly paid off to the tune of several million euros. Pavel, cock of the walk, is now planning to take a swipe at Apple, whose iPod has become the Walkman of this generation. Even better, Pavel has another patent in the wings: a 1989 US filing for a technology that combines the features of a portable audio player and a mobile phone. That patent will be decided on 'soon.'
Read [Management.Silicon via Blues]

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Sony VAIO Pocket Review [Gizmodo]
Old School Sony Walkmans (Walkmen?) [Gizmodo]

Apple releases Mac OS X v10.3.5
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Apple releases Mac OS X v10.3.9
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Apple comments on MSN Music (MacCentral)

NAB: Apple offers Shake 3.5 (MacCentral)

Apple releases new Power Mac G5s
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MacCentral: Apple Macintosh News

NAB: Apple announces DVD Studio Pro 3
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Fiona Apple Saga Shows Sony's Core
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Apple recalls PowerBook batteries
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Sony XDR-M1 DAB FM WALKMAN

People are saying that terrestrial radio is dead, but don't believe them. They're crazy and they smell. DAB&md ash;a digital radio standard popular with people "in other countries," if we're to believe the media—is very cool and could possibly improve our general listening experience. However, it is not readily available here yet. That said, Sony has introduced a line of portable DAB players including the XDR-M1.

This digital radio has 40 preset stations and an FM tuner in areas that don't have DAB reception. Now, if they could give us DAB over here instead of non-stop commercials for Trimspa, perhaps I'd turn on my radio every once in a while.

Sony launches range of DAB players [Pocket-Lint]

Sony unveils its new WALKMAN

Sony Launches MP3 Walkman

Sony NW-HD5 Network Walkman

Sony has just taken the wraps off their new NW-HD5 hard disk-based music player, a tiny little thing with 20GB of storage. It weighes just 125 grams, which I'm told is less than the weight of a heavily-iced cupcake (I'm not very good with weights, you might have noticed). Sony is also promising an ample 40 hours of bettery life and an easily removable battery. The NW-HD5 will be available in silver, red, and black and will go on sale in the UK next month for £200 (no word of a US release yet, but I'd say we'll get it soon enough).

The coolest trick is probably its new 'Follow Turn Display,' which orients the interface screen depending on which way the NW-HD5 is held. If I know Sony, I'll bet the controls rotate, too, like the Sony Vaio U-Series.

Sony announce the NW-HD5 [Pocket-LintUK]

Sony unveils HDD Walkman

Sony hypes "next-generation Walkman"

Sony hopes to set history with Walkman,
again

Sony Network Walkman NW-HD3 Reviewed

Gizmo Girl has a healthy review of Sony's relatively new NW-HD3 MP3 Player. (And it plays real MP3, instead of "converts to our proprietary format while you wai MP3", which had been the case with all of Sony's previous "MP3" players.) Sony kindly calls it a "Network Walkman", but don't let those words invoke in you dreams of sugarplum IP fairies, streaming audio from one device to another, with rainbow wireless interfaces and candy packets of audio sharing. No, the NW wraps your MP3s so that effectively once they check in to your device, they don't check out. Still, sans file-conversion, the transfer process isn't quite as awful as their earlier players. And it comes in pretty (and familiar) colors. Battery life is apparently quite stellar, and its small stature but high capacity has them swooning.

Gizmo Girl Review [Pocket-Lint]

Real "Walkman" settles with Sony

Sony settles Walkman patent case

Has Sony finally gotten a Clue with the
Network Walkman

I'll be honest I don't think so. I love Sony products I am typing this article on a Sony Vaio and I have a lot of Sony products in my home. I always like Sony products and being my wife is from Japan she is a fan of Sony too. I draw the line though when it comes to buying vehicles as I am a die hard Chevrolet man. Anyway this Network Walkman that may or may not play the MP3 format and supposedly has a 30 hour battery life but only 20 gigs of storage priced at about the same as a Apple 40 gig iPod.

Give me a break Sony if you would have not been so scared that those ripping music was going to hurt your music division. I think they better wake up and smell the roses ripping of music is not going to stop and I bet their entire library is available on the P2P networks. [Engad get]

Sony plans Walkman to rival iPod

Sony Refreshes Its Network Walkman (PC
World)

News: Sony refreshes HDD Walkman design

Sony settles with German inventor of
Walkman

Sony Building Smothered In Network
Walkman

It was only yesterday that Sony's NW-HD5 was officially announced in Japan, and it seems the company has already managed to convert the Sony Building into a giant promotion for the Network Walkman line, called "Walkman Records." This marks a first for Sony, as their domestic (Japanese) Walkman campaigns typically revolved around MiniDisc (and for good reason). The first floor is divided into three sections: "TOUCH," "LISTEN," and "BUY," where I presume you can do each activity. Don't expect to see this at your local Sony store any time soon — as of this writing, Sony hasn't even announced the NW-HD5 for stateside release.

Netwo rk Walkman in Sony Building [AV Watch]

Sony takes aim at iPod with new
hard-disk Walkman

Sony Debuts 20 Gigabyte Walkman to
Silence IPod

Live from CeBIT: Sony Walkman W800 First
Impressions

Sony Ericsson continues to make nice looking phones that I have no desire to own. The W800 Walkman Phone is nice enough looking, but the music application didn't seem very advanced at all. Now I just played with it for a couple of minutes, but I was expecting something more polished. Pressing the music button takes you to the media player, but pressing it again doesn't play the song. Neither does pushing in on the joystick. Instead, you have push the stick to the right (at least I think; I had to rely on visual feedback, which was sparse).

I'm happy to give it another shot in the future, but I was hoping to get something that seemed more advanced than the average media player application you can find on almost any modern phone.

Sony NW-HD1: A New Walkman-Branded Hard
Disk Player?

Item! I have it on good word that Sony is planning on launching another hard drive-based music player, called the Sony NW-HD1. It's all rumor at this point, of course, but according to my source it will be branded under the Walkman name and has "far better styling than the Vaio offer." Sony is apparently shopping it around to various outlets now to see what people think in preparation of an autumn launch. If anyone can grab me a picture of this mythical new unit, I would bake you the most delicious cupcake man has ever baked. Developing!

Related
Sony VAIO Pocket Review, iPod Comparison [Gizmodo]
Sony's HMP-A1 VAIO Video Pocket [Gizmodo]

Sony pays millions to inventor in
Walkman dispute

HOWTO de-obfuscate proprietary Sony
Network Walkman files

* The file starts with a 4-byte signature, "WMMP"

* Next is a 4-byte longword giving the total file-size in bytes. This includes the file header, i.e. it's exactly what you'd see displayed in a directory listing of the file.

* Next is the duration of the track in milliseconds, again in a 4-byte longword.

* The third 4-byte longword gives the number of frames in the file. If you're trying to write a file to the device using your own code, I recommend ripping bits out of XMMS or mp3info to get this number, as I had difficulty locating a library that would calculate it without actually decoding the entire file.

* There are 16 bytes of magic: there's the 0x08 0x9f 0x9e 0xff sequence that occurs in the PBLIST file, followed by 0x01, and padded out to 16 bytes with 0x00. I've no idea what any of this is but it seems unchanging.

* The rest of the file is the obfuscated MP3 data, with no ID3 frames - strip those out before you encode or your file will not play in the device.

Apple hits back at Sony's 'misleading' Walkman marketing (MacCentral)