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iRiver

Fitness sensor earphones gather health data, deliver music

LAS VEGAS--The last time we caught up with Valencell, the company was hoping its PerformTek fitness-monitoring sensor technology would be available to consumers last fall. It's taken a little longer than expected, but the tech has been licensed to Iriver and will be available in March in the form of the $199 Iriver On earbuds.

As we've seen at CES this year, everybody and their grandmother has developed some sort of wearable fitness technology. What sets the Iriver On apart is that it's integrated with a device you already wear while exercising: earbuds. There's no bracelet to wear or dongle to clip on; you just monitor your heart rate, distance, cadence, speed, and calories burned while you rock out.… Read more

Crave giveaway: Iriver Story HD e-reader

It's been awhile since we've given away an e-reader, and we have a nice one on tap for you this week: the Iriver Story HD, which has the Google e-book store integrated into it.

The Story HD's key feature is its higher-resolution (768x1,024 pixels) e-ink display, which the company touts as the world's "highest-resolution 6-inch e-reader." While it's the same E Ink Pearl display that's in all the leading e-readers these days, the added resolution--Iriver says it has 63.8 percent more pixels--does provide for added detail in images and slightly sharper text. (Reader our full review here).

So, how do you try to win this Iriver e-reader? Let us enumerate the basic rules. Please read carefully; there will be a test. … Read more

Speck launches FitFolio case line for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iRiver e-readers

Speck's FitFolio is one of our favorite iPad 2 cases. Now the company is bringing the line to the e-reader arena, with FitFolio cases for the Kindle, Nook, Kobo Touch, and iRiver Story HD.

The FitFolio for Kindle 3 is already available for $29.99 (in multiple colors), but the cases for the other e-reader models aren't set to ship until next month, company reps told us at an event last night in New York, where we got a sneak peek at all the new cases.Two other Kindle 3 cases, the WanderFolio (see above picture) and BookShield … Read more

Iriver Story HD review: A pixel-packing e-reader

Products like the $139 Iriver Story HD are a challenge to review. Why? Well, because it's a perfectly decent, reasonably priced product that has one glaring drawback: it doesn't have any significant advantages over its closest competitors, the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo Touch Edition. So, why buy it?

Iriver would like to have you think that the Story HD's higher-resolution (768x1,024 pixels) display should be a mitigating factor in your choice. That has enabled the company to tout it as the world's "highest-resolution 6-inch e-reader." Except for the additional resolution, however, it's … Read more

CES: Iriver opens chapter on high-resolution 6-inch e-reader, the Story HD

Last year at CES, Iriver showed off its first e-reader, the Story. It didn't make much of a dent in the marketplace, but this year the company's come back with the Story HD, a new e-ink-based product that it's calling the world's "highest-resolution 6-inch e-reader."

Iriver says the Story HD, which sports an electronic paper display made by LG, offers XGA (768x1,024) resolution and has 63.8 percent more pixels and faster page turn, thanks to an advanced processor from Freescale Semiconductor based on ARM Cortex technology. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and … Read more

Iriver announces Smart HD PMP

LAS VEGAS--Iriver fessed up to plans for its latest portable media player, the Smart HD. The touch-screen player is due out in Korea at the end of January, and includes a 3.5-inch screen, along with Wi-Fi, a calculator, a voice recorder, a Web browser, FM radio, music playback, and a slew of supported video formats (MKV, Mpeg4, XVID, WMV, and H.264).

The Smart HD will actively transcode most HD videos down to the screen's 480x320-pixel resolution. There's no word on whether the Smart HD will include TV output capabilities to make HD video resolutions worthwhile.

Details … Read more

Roundup: new 2010 e-book readers

While Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Readers, and the Barnes & Noble Nook remain the most popular e-readers in the U.S. market, literally dozens of companies are putting out new e-readers this year--and they're all on display at CES.

They range in price from less than $200 to more than $750 and one even includes dual screens. Which ones truly have a chance of breaking through with consumers is debatable, especially if Apple should go ahead and announce a slate device later this month. But here they all are.

As always, feel free to comment, and let us … Read more

Get a 5GB iRiver MP3 player with FM for $34

Looking for a feature-packed MP3 player without the iPod price?

Buy.com has the iRiver H10 5GB MP3 player (refurbished) for $33.99 with free shipping. The player works with Windows Media Player 10 and supports MP3 and WMA, as well as Secure WMA for online downloads and services.

The iRiver H10 is supersleek at 3.7 by 2.1 by 0.6 inches and 3.4 ounces. This model is a few years old but still has a 1.5-inch color LCD screen for viewing photos and a swappable battery that the company claims delivers about 12 hours of … Read more