Pioneer unveils portable MP3/XM player, recorder

Canadian launch date and price yet to be confirmed

MARC SALTZMAN
Sun

Gadgets
   One product that had much of the show floor buzzing at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was the Pioneer Inno, the first pocket-sized gadget that combines a digital music player with live satellite radio playback and recording. So, not only can you carry all your favourite songs and downloaded audio books, but if you’re listening to a XM Satellite Radio channel you can press a button to “pause” the live broadcast to playback at a later time. The 4.5-ounce Inno can store up to 50 hours of this timeshifted content. What’s more, you can bookmark songs while listening to XM Radio; when synchronized with your PC it will launch Napster, call up the tagged songs and ask if you want to download CDquality versions. While the Canadian launch date and price is yet to be confirmed, the unit will debut stateside for $399 US by April.
   Games
   When Bethesda Softworks’ anticipated The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (www.theelderscrolls.com ) comes out this March for the Xbox 360 and PC, you best not be making any plans until, say, summertime. The latest in the decade-old role-playing game series lets you traipse around 16 square miles of a fantasy world to interact with more than 1,000 lifelike characters. Players must accomplish a wide range of missions while battling creatures, perfecting spell-casting skills and collecting loot in underground caverns. Not only does Oblivion look gorgeous, but this singleplayer adventure also features real-world physics (e.g. arrows fly through the air with an arc influenced by force and gravity) and randomly-generated locations, such as a forest that looks different every time the level is loaded.
   Gear
   Another CES awardwinner is the Samsung HLS5679W, the world’s first LED light-sourced DLP rear-projection HDTV. This 56-inch television replaces the colour wheel and lamp-based image engine with a LED lightsourced single chip that offers a host of advantages including a brighter picture, increased colour gamut reproduction, shorter turn-on time (seven seconds) and improved longevity. But few of the gawkers at the Samsung booth likely cared about the technical reasons for the sharper picture as show attendees couldn’t take their eyes off the stunning video loop of nature footage. Due out in April for $4,199 US (no Canadian pricing confirmed as yet), this true high-definition set (1920 x 1080p) offers two 1080p HDMI inputs and an integrated ATSC and NTSC tuner