Best Portable player right now?

Won't the database size be dependent on RAM?

As far as Creative is concerned there is no problem, because they didn't market the Zen to be user storage-upgradeable. A lot of us early purchasers are hoping the problem can be resolved in software, but no one is sure.

Of course you'll also get the posts wanting a color screen, video player, integrated handheld computer, video games, mobile phone, hand lotion dispenser, convert into gas-powered scooter, etc.

To be honest, actually reading the comments on a slashdot story is useless half the time. You get about 50 first posts, around 30 useful comments and around 300 trolls. I'm glad that the empeg BBS actually has a non zero signal to noise ratio:)

That small? It looked too wee to be a DC input.

That small? It looked too wee to be a DC input.

Interesting...I don't see a DC power input

I think he means the non-hard drive based portables. You know, CompactFlash, et al.

Does it support recording? The new iPod will soon be doing so.

little details such as a useful battery life

I don't think I've seen a tuner inside any hard disk portable. I daresay there must be one but none spring to mind.

what planet are you living on?

Bruno, Radio died in 1991? what planet are you living on?

I don't think I've seen a tuner inside any hard disk portable. I daresay there must be one but none spring to mind. -rob

as sexy the ipod is the music selection system sucks in comparisson to the empeg.

Keep in mind that the Empeg Car is the only product that has the hierarchical playlist system. Not even the Rio Central has hierarchical playlists. I wish it did.

If any non-US BBS people want to get a Pearl I can look into some kind of group purchase when players are shipping.

So, Rob, which flavor of USB 2.0 will the Pearl support?

If it does then Rob will be out of a job.

Hugo, will there be a connection kit for my Commodore 64?

If it does then Rob will be out of a job.

Yes, "device controller" is a USB slave (just like the empeg-car); "host controller" is what we have in Pearl

The main reason i am going is incase a karma turns up

I heard that the betas were buggy and that the release is postponed until further notice.

I think I've read [...] that the Rio Riot [...] had great software

Argh there needs to be a Rio Karma discussion board/forum somewhere where it's all dedicated to people who are more interested in this.

Of course I probably don't need all of these features, but it'd be cool just to have them in case I ever am bored.

Did I miss the memo on the eastern religion naming fad?

If you get an iPod, I also recommend the Belkin car adapter. It plays iPod through the tape deck, and charges the iPod battery as you drive. I use mine all the time. I have kids, and if they're in the car, I can flip to one of their playlists. Driving alone, I'm back to my stuff.

Design Access designs and develops custom e-learning and marketing communications solutions that solve our customer's business problems and achieve measurable business results

So we've had iRiver, Apple... anyone from Creative want a go?

I think I'll bow out of this thread now and let Karma talk for itself in the near future.

By the way, who's Tony and what is this all about?

By the way, who's Tony and what is this all about?

I want to play around with a Karma.

So will the onboard interface allow for file transfer directly to a connected USB slave device, say a USB mass storage device (doubling as a basic flash-memory MP3 player; you know what I'm getting at) *without* a PC involved at all?

I'd give anything to know what Apple's sales figures have been for the 15GB & 30GB iPods, as compared to the $299 10GB model w/o the dock.

I want to play around with a Karma.

One would assume it will support music-synchronized animations like the car unit?

Here's hoping they crush the ipods!

I've drooled all over all the current ones already. Perhaps some nice angle shots of her nice body and such? Some highlights of upcoming features? I don't know, I just want to see more pictures of her.

I noticed this weekend that the Karma is shown in a recent issue of Playboy magazine . . . And no, I normally don't read the articles, but I was trying to flip to one of the pictorials and the beauty and splendor of the Karma drew me in.

How about a picture of someone with one in their hand?

dig geekhackfilk.com

; <<>> DiG 9.1.1 <<>> geekhackfilk.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 25316
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;geekhackfilk.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
geekhackfilk.com. 81802 IN A 66.92.222.44

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
geekhackfilk.com. 168202 IN NS ns1.pbp.net.
geekhackfilk.com. 168202 IN NS ns2.pbp.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.pbp.net. 76346 IN A 66.92.222.35
ns2.pbp.net. 76346 IN A 66.81.103.69

;; Query time: 15 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Jul 29 19:51:40 2003
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 125

telnet geekhackfilk.com 80
Trying 66.92.222.44...
Connected to geekhackfilk.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /gallery/ HTTP/1.1
Host: geekhackfilk.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:02:10 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) (Gentoo/Linux)
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=822ab1ca2080a5f20ecd6c5500b3be65; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

210c
<html>
<head>
<title>Tony's Photo Galleries</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://www.geekhackfilk.com/gallery/css/embedded_style.css.default">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://www.geekhackfilk.com/gallery/css/standalone_style.css.default"> </head>
<body>

<table width=100% border=0>
<tr>
<td>
<span class="head">
Tony's Photo Galleries </span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">

<table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr><form action="http://www.geekhackfilk.com/gallery/search.php" >
<input type=hidden name="" value="">
<td valign="middle" align="right">
<span class="admin"> Search: </span>
<input style="font-size=10px;" type="text" name="searchstring" value="" size="25">
</td>
</form>
</tr>
<tr><td height=2><img src=http://www.geekhackfilk.com/gallery/images/pixel_trans.gif></td></tr></table>
<!-- admin section begin -->
...
...
...

Rio Karma 40GB Digital Audio Jukebox - Like the iPod and Zen, the Rio Karma crams a jaw-dropping 40GB of space in an extremely portable frame - allowing you to take thousands of songs with you wherever you go! But Rio has put their own stamp on the jukebox genre with cool features, like the included docking station. The docking station has Dual RCA Line-Outs, an Ethernet Port, and auto-synchronization with your PC. Great for sharing Music on a Network or playing over speakers for everyone to enjoy. And that's not all...
Dynamic Playlist Generation
Auto-DJ - intelligently finds, mixes and creates playlists from tracks on command
Support for MP3, WMA, and the increasingly popular Ogg Vorbis digital formats
Up to 15 hours of playback with the built-in rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery
5-band parametric Equalizer with presets
USB 2.0 interface
Includes: Sennheiser MX300 earbuds, USB 2.0 cable, Stereo RCA cable, Ethernet cable, AC power supply, & manual

But what else to select...

True, but my collection has outpaced my local hard drive space.

Please don't repost those pics anywhere else. I got special permission to post them to the empeg BBS.