Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player was made originally to compete head-to-head with Apple’s iPod. It hasn’t been especially successful in the market, although it’s a very good product.

Now Microsoft is trying to go mano-a-mano with Apple again, this time with the iPod Touch. The key upgrade to the new Zune, expected this fall, is a touchscreen. Details are sketchy at present, but it is known that the new player, called the “Zune HD”, will feature an HD Radio tuner, high-definition video playback, and an organic light emitting diode (OLED) screen, which should give the Zune very good battery life.

The Zune HD will also be the first-ever Zune player to include the Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. The browser will have an onscreen keyboard, like the Touch.

HD Radio has better sound than standard radio (at least I’m told — I’ve never tried it). Zune HD also has wi-fi capabilities, which will offer live streaming from the Zune store, which Microsoft says has more than five million tracks available.

Microsoft didn’t give any more information at the announcement of the Zune HD, including pricing information, available colors and the like. As soon as we hear more, we’ll pass it along, of course.

My oldest daughter is heading off to college this August, and this has raised a number of concerns. The foremost one, of course, is terror: how the heck will my wife and I pay for it? That’s still to be determined. A related cost issue: a computer. It’s pretty much a necessity these days. Well, Apple has found us a way to get her a computer and a great gadget for free.

Under this deal, Apple will provide a rebate for an iPod Touch if you buy a Mac now through Sept. 8. The catch is that you need to buy both the Mac and the Touch at the same time. You will need to submit your rebate request online by Oct. 8, then Apple will issue a check for the price of the Touch.

Now, I am not a big fan of online rebates. Apple should have provided some type of program that let you get the free Touch at the same time you buy your Mac, instead of having to buy them both and then get a rebate who-knows-when. Still, getting a free Touch is a good deal, and somewhat mitigates the cost of a Mac.

If this is going to be a college computer, I recommend getting a smaller Mac laptop; for instance the MacBook with the 13.3″ screen. That size display provides a good compromise between portability and screen real estate. Macs are wonderful computers, and will work well throughout your child’s education. They’re generally more reliable than Windows machines and easier to use (and I’m also a PC fan — no flame wars, please).

The Touch will be useful in a college setting, too. Since the Touch isn’t a cell phone, it only has wi-fi capability; since most colleges are wi-fi enabled, however, this shouldn’t present much of an obstacle toward getting online. And the apps, games and other functions of a Touch make it a useful addition on campus.

Anyone who follows this blog, or gadgets in general, or owns an iPhone (that should cover about 75 percent of the planet), knows that the new iPhone, 3G S, is out. Early reviews are glowing (except for the pricing snafu. More to come on that soon.)

For those who aren’t ready to shell out for a new iPhone already (my hand high in the air), there’s also good news; the software the powers the iPhone has also been enhanced. It’s the 3.0 upgrade, and while more evolutionary than revolutionary, it’s still something to get excited about.

The most important, most-requested, most-anticipated feature is cut-and-paste. Yea! Now you can actually do what’s been available on every other smartphone on the planet almost from the beginning.

The camera is also much improved. The resolution hasn’t been increased (that would take new hardware, like that found in oh, say, iPhone 3G S), but new  software has cut down markedly on picture bluriness, and it handles low-light conditions with much greater aplomb. That doesn’t mean it will replace a Canon Digital Rebel, but it’s much more useful in a pinch (still no video, however; that’s another 3G S perk).

Spotlight Search has been added to 3.0. It’s a universal search tool that can find stuff in e-mail, documents, contacts, applications and so on. Early reports indicate that it’s fast.

Another much-requested improvement is a Landscape mode for e-mail. Pre-3.0 software limited e-mail to Portrait (i.e. vertical) mode only. One significant limitation of that mode is that it makes the onscreen keyboard more cramped. Being able to turn the iPhone sideways should improve my texting speed by a good bit (that may not end up being an advantage, however!)

There are a number of other enhancements, but I saved the most-fun one for last. For an annual $99 fee, you can have access to MobileMe and “Find My iPhone.” This application tracks the location of your iPhone wherever it may be. If some cretin steals it, it will find the phone in minutes, allowing you to disable the phone and even wipe the data if you wish (MobileMe syncs your iPhone information, so you can easily re-install it on a new phone). If you leave it at the mall or a friend’s house, or under the cushions of your La-Z-Boy, you can send an alert to your phone which will beep, allowing you (or anyone nearby) to find it. Too cool.

I’m not saying this will salve the wound of not being able to get the iPhone 3G S immediately, but it will help tide the less fortunate among us over for awhile.

There’s a lot of unhappiness out there over the pricing of the new iPhone 3G S. The phone, which has some substantial upgrades over the 3G model introduced last year, is not available at the $299 price (for the 32GB phone) for current 3G owners. Instead, they will have to pay an extra $200 to get the new phone (which I reviewed earlier.)

The reason is subsidies and contracts. AT&T, the U.S. carrier for the iPhone, only makes money on it with a tw0-year contract. If AT&T sold the iPhone 3G S for the $299 price to current owners with a year to go left on their contracts, it would lose money on each phone it sold.

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong; I’m only explaining the rationale behind AT&T’s decision. There’s substantial anger over this policy in the iPhone community, especially since Apple changed the rules; original iPhone owners were allowed to upgrade as soon as the 3G came out, and still received the subsidy price. AT&T has made a business decision, and customers will just have to live with it — or switch. There are viable alternatives out there, like the Palm Pre and the Android.

It should be noted, however, that the older iPhones are being sold at significant discounts; so if you can live without video recording and 8GB of storage, you can get an iPhone 3G for as little at $99. That’s a great bargain for the gadget that I’ve called the greatest of all time.

Apple has released details of the newest iPhone. This is obviously big news for you iPhone Phanatics out there (and yes, my hand is raised high, too). I’ll get into more details an an upcoming blog entry, but wanted to give you a quickie overview.

First, the new version is called the 3GS (the “S” standing for “Speed”). It seems to have most of the stuff that iPhone users of previous models have missed. Let’s start with video. The iPhone can now shoot video (and about time, too!) Also included is video-editing software and the ability to easily upload video to YouTube.

The camera has been upgraded to 3 megapixels, which will make for much sharper pictures. You can also focus on different parts of the image through a touch method. In all, the video and photo upgrades alone make this a worthy upgrade.

But there’s a lot more than that. Capacity has been increased, from a top end of 16GB to 32GB. I personally haven’t come close to maxing out my storage yet, but for those of you with hundreds of applications and thousands of songs, this is great news.

The new iPhone is also much faster; Apple says it’s at least double the speed of the current 3G. That means faster downloads of applications and e-mail, and quicker loading of Web pages. Woo-hoo!

The new 3GS will be sold for $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). That means no price increase for a better phone. Well done, Apple. In addition, the current 8GB 3G is now being offered for $99. Wow: an iPhone for a hundred bucks? Awesome.

More will be coming on this in the days and weeks ahead, but I wanted to whet your appetite.

I reported in March that BlackBerry gadgeteers would soon have their own iPhone-like App Store. I’m happy to report that it was a short wait, as App World is officially open for business.

First, note that there are some limitations to using App World. The one that will concern the greatest number of BlackBerry owners is that App World is open only to those with 4.2 or higher software and BlackBerries with trackballs or touchscreens. As Walt Mossberg said in his review of App World,  that will leave millions of BlackBerry owners with trackwheels out in the cold. Why the oversight, RIM (makers of the BlackBerry)?

The other thing to notice is that you’ll need a PayPal account to pay for your applications. That may be something not everyone is ready or willing to do. I’ve used PayPal for years and found it to be easy and secure, but others have had bad PayPal experiences or just prefer not to leave sensitive information with a Website.

I don’t have a BlackBerry so I can’t review apps personally, but various Internet reviews state that there are plenty of apps available, and most seem to work well. They are, on the whole, a bit pricier than iPhone apps, with the lowest price point being $2.99 (there are free ones, however).

Although this may seem to be a negative review, that’s not really the case. Just being able to have applications available on your BlackBerry is great, and will add a lot of value to your phone. We’re in the applications-on-phones era, and there’s no going back.

Have you ever tapped your toes to “Help!” or “Love Me Do” and imagined yourself up on the stage with John, Paul, George and Ringo?

Now you can take that a step further, with “The Beatles: Rock Band”. Coming out Sept. 9 of this year (09/09/09), the game will be available for multiple game consoles, including Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii.

The game itself will set you back $59.95 for each system. Special-edition guitars will sell for $99.99 each, and a “limited edition” bundle will cost $249.99. The limited edition bundle comes with a bunch of additional hardware, including a mic stand and mic, and a new set of Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums, according to Engadget.

It’s the first time any of the Beatles’ music has been available for a game system. Games like Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band have been incredibly popular over the years, and the latest trend is to specialize in versions from specific groups, like Aerosmith.

OK, my kids love the idea of writing about their gadgets, so here’s another one: 12-year-old Patrick reviews his Sony PlayStation Portable handheld game console.

“I got my PSP in 2006. The first game I ever got was Daxter, one of the best games available for the PSP.

The first time I saw the PSP I thought the analog stick was a speaker. Well, it turns out that it’s not. The PSP is the first portable game system ever to have an analog stick on it. The analog stick is a huge upgrade from the D-pad. It really helps you move around better.

I didn’t expect the graphics to be very good, but I had my hopes. So, I loaded up Daxter; when I saw the in-game graphics, I just said “Wow.”

The graphics for the PSP are incredible. There exactly like the ones on the PlayStation 2 (PS2). I have many games and all of them have wonderful graphics. They look so life-like.

There were two things I wasn’t impressed at all by: The sound, and the brightness of the screen. Even with the sound all the way up it was hard to hear, but thankfully Sony fixed the problem by coming up with a sound enhancer. The screen is so dark there’s almost no way you can play it outside on a sunny day.

Sony has come out with the PSP slim, which is lighter, but still had some issues. With the new release of the PSP 3000, all the issues are fixed.

The battery life is very long; on one charge; it’s run for about 1 ½ days. The fact that you can store music, pics, videos, watch movies also impressed me.

I wish they would put a camera ability in there so you could take pictures. With the newest update you can get the PlayStation store, which you can get loads of demos from. You can also download games directly to your PSP. Online play isn’t very good, because you can only go online if you have Wi-Fi near you.

Overall, the PSP is a wonderful system. If you’re looking at handheld game systems, you should definitely get this instead of the Nintendo DS or Wii or something.”

Thanks, Patrick!

High-definition video used to be prohibitively expensive for anyone not named George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. Now, almost everyone can afford an HD recorder, thanks to companies like Pure Digital Technologies, which offers the Flip Video MinoHD 4GB camcorder.

The MinoHD is one of a number of camcorders in the Flip line, but it’s not much more expensive than the standard definition camcorders, and the advantages of high-definition make it a worthy upgrade for the few extra dollars. With the proliferation of plasma-screen and LCD TVs, you’ll enjoy your videos more if you can see them at the higher resolution.

The MinoHD is simple to use; it’s truly a point-and-shoot camcorder. If you’re one of the types that likes manual control of your gadgets, and actually understand terms like shutter speed, aperture setting and the rule of thirds, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere. If you just want a camcorder that you turn on, hit a button and start recording, give this one a good look.

The video from the MinoHD is flexible in that it can be used on both Macs and PCs. You will need a computer with a USB 2.0 port, so remember to check that first; older-generation computers will often not have USB 2.0 capability. It will work with both Vista and XP on the Windows side, and Tiger or Leopard on Macs. All of those operating systems have some built-in video editing ability, so with the camera and a computer, you’ll be all set. If you’re looking at making a Hollywood epic, you’ll need to invest in higher-end software like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut on the Mac side.

Who knows: with a little work and the MinoHD, you could end up watching your blockbuster next summer!

Netflix, the Internet-based movie distributor, has figured out a way to deliver movies to you without going through the mail. It’s called the Netflix Player, and is made by a company named Roku.

The Player delivers movies to your TV set through your broadband Internet connection (if you’re on dial-up, you’re unfortunately out of luck). Through an onscreen guide, you decide what movie you want to wach. Pick the movie, start the download, then start watching! You set up a Queue, just you like you do with your normal Netflix service (note that you need an Unlimited Netflix account to use the Player. They start at $8.99 per month.) Netflix says it has more than 12,000 movies and TV shows ready to go, with many of them in HD.

The Player, which retails for $99, comes with multiple inputs, so you can hook up an HDTV, plasma, or an old barker of a set with ancient analog outputs.

I haven’t used the Player. I have, however, used Netflix often in the past, and found their service to be top-notch. If you’re a movie addict, it’s definitely worth checking out. It beats ordering movies online, then having to wait several days for the little red envelope to show up in your mailbox.