The shortage isn’t quite as bad as last
year, when there was six week waiting list for the iPod mini, but if you’re fixing to order an iPod shuffle you’re going to have to sit tight for between two to four
weeks. If you can’t wait that long there’s always eBay, where the 512MB and 1GB versions of the player are ‘only’
selling for about $25 or $30 above list price, or you could try and satisfy yourself with one of the dozens and dozens
of other flash-based MP3 players out there...

Pantech and Intel have been talking lately about smartphone development, and El Reg thinks it’s possible they might be planning some sort of joint-venture to create phones based on Intel’s mobile processors. Could also just be a sales call, but Intel is definitely very eager to play a bigger role in the mobile world and we wouldn’t be shocked to see them pair up with an up-and coming manufacturer like Pantech.

Toshiba has introduced new Wireless Stereo Headphones, which support Bluetooth and streamline audio, for example, from a Bluetooth-notebook.


The headphones support
Bluetooth 1.2 protocol and can be plugged to any PC via Toshiba USB Bluetooth 1.2 Adapter, for example. It weighs some 100 g, the effective distance makes up standard 10 meters.
Toshiba Wireless Stereo Headphones will be available in shops in early February at about $100.

With the new "KTVX1000USB" TV Tuner for about
10,000 yen, you'll be able to watch TV and even record it to your laptop!
So, if you are willing to spend a lot of money... go for it!

After the recent atacks from Creative, Dell has a few words about Apple:

It’s interesting the iPod has been out for three years and it’s only this past year it’s become a raging success.
Well those things that become fads rage and then they drop off. When I was growing up there was a product made by Sony
called the Sony Walkman - a rage, everyone had to have one. Well you don’t hear about the Walkman anymore. I believe
that one product wonders come and go. You have to have sustainable business models, sustainable strategy…[The Mac mini]
might take some here and there, but Apple’s market share in the global computer business has really shrunk pretty far.
Where they’ve been making success recently is not in the computer business, but in the iPod music business. So this
might be an interesting new product but I’m not really believing this is going to turn the industry upside down.

He did try to hedge a bit and make it clear that Apple has done a nice job with the iPod and all that, but isn’t
calling Apple out for focusing on digital music and not on selling a lot of computers sort of missing the point? PCs
are becoming commodities, and whether or not it’s a flash in the pan (we’re staying Swiss on this one), Apple is
obviously placing its bets on the mega-profitable iPod as the key to its future, not the Mac (notice how they’re using
the iPod to drive sales of Macs and not the other way around? Notice how infrequently you see television ads for any
kind of Mac?). The big question is: when MP3 players more or less become commodities too, will people still pay a
premium for the iPod? Rollins obviously thinks time is on Dell’s side with this one, and it’ll be a few more years
before we know who is right.