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Sony is going up or round five in the portable digital music player industry. The company was left behind in the dust when the industry leaped from CDs to MP3s. Rio, Creative, iRiver and most notably Apple came into the industry and quickly took strong market position, in an arena that Sony basically invested, portable audio. Well Sir Howard Stringer is not going to let the audio business that created the Walkman brand name just lay down and die, a top Sony executive said that they are prepping to launch new products for the market and try to up seat Apple Computer’s iPod.

The company is developing a new music player that will go on sale in the U.S.  and other markets prior to March 2007, alongside a companion download service and software, said Takao Yuhara, senior vice president of Sony, at a briefing with reporters in Tokyo. The player will be “typically Sony,” he said, drawing on the company’s strength in areas like design and long battery life.

It is certainly a good move to either drastically alter or abandon their Connect music service but we hope that the Network Walkman USB stick is not the grand solution, because that is not going to up seat the iPod. If Sony really wants to succeed they need to be a pioneer and offer some sort of watermarked MP3 files so they can play on all players but can tracked to prevent illegal transferring.

Read [PCWorld]

Nokia rounded out the N series with two moe N models, the 73 and 72, both feature rich multimedia phones.

The Nokia N73 is a stunning multimedia computer with powerful photography features and integrated stereo speakers with 3D sound. In addition to providing the standard range of Nokia Nseries multimedia experiences, the Nokia N73 includes a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics offering photo quality up to 10” x 8” (25 x 20 cm), auto focus and support for uploading your photos to the Flickr.com photo community via the 2.4 inch screen. A one-touch selection sends photos via email, Bluetooth connectivity or MMS, print or upload them onto an Internet community.

Music fans can tap into the Nokia N73’s integrated digital music player with playlists and equalizer or tune into the FM radio, or simply enjoy productivity features like email, office applications, organizer, synchronization with a compatible PC and browse the Internet with the Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map. Available in 3G or quadband EDGE/GSM networks.

The Nokia N72 has high-performance multimedia at its core, wrapped in a beautiful pearl pink or gloss black package. Powerful yet stylish, the Nokia N72 is equipped with a 2 megapixel camera (with flash) and integrated digital music player, with dedicated capture and music keys as well as an FM radio and support for Visual Radio. Press the music key for direct access to your music tracks. Record music from your CDs, create playlists and transfer your music onto your Nokia N72 with the Nokia Music Manager, a part of Nokia PC Suite.

The Nokia N73, is based on S60 3rd Edition software on Symbian OS, are expected to be available in July 2006. The Nokia N72 is expected to be available in June 2006.

Read more on the N72 [Nokia]
Read more on the N73 [Nokia]