Ninja dogs need not apply. This sweet 8gb iPod Nano you’re feasting your eyes on will only be attainable by the most skilled assassins in Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. Of course, this is all based on machine translation, so you’ll have to forgive us some misinterpretation.

It appears that there will be three different ways that folks can enter for their chance at the Nano. For one, there looks to be a specific difficulty setting that will apply to this giveaway, meaning that players who partake in the game while in this difficulty setting can upload their high score for entry. Second, players can collect certain in-game prizes (or tokens, we’re assuming). Third, there’s an online survey that can be filled out.

Seems fairly easy to us, and there will be a total of 15 Nanos up for grabs. The contest period began on March 21st and ends on April 16th. Again, we’re not certain this applies to folks outside of Japan, so keep that in mind.

via http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/03/24/team-ninja-to-award-high-scoring-ninjas-with-branded-ipod/

SanDisk on Tuesday introduced a new MP3 player it intends as competition to the iPod nano — the new Sansa Fuze MP3 player. It’s coming in April in 2, 4 and 8GB capacities for $79.99, $99.99 and $129.99 respectively.

The flash-based Sansa Fuze features a 1.9-inch color screen, and has the ability to play MP3, WMA, secure WMA, WAV, Audible and Overdrive files. It can also play MPEG-4 video and display JPEG videos (it doesn’t work with protected files from the iTunes Store, however).

The device also features a built-in FM radio tuner and a slot for microSD cards, so you can add additional content on the fly. It has a voice recorder, as well. SanDisk will offer the 4GB Sansa Fuze in colors including pink, red, blue, black and silver (the 8GB comes in silver only; the 2GB comes in black only). The device incorporates an internal rechargeable battery that plays audio for up to 24 hours and plays video for up to 5 hours between charges.

The Sansa Fuze includes Windows software, and also supports the Mac and Linux computers in MSC mode, which enables the device to work as a mass storage peripheral, where you can drag and drop audio or video files.

via http://www.macworld.com/article/132461/2008/03/sandisk.html

Since there is no Linux version of iTunes, Linux users have to fall back on gtkpod, Amarok, Rhythmbox or Banshee to sync their iPOD. However, in the later version of iPOD, which include iPOD Classic and iPOD nano 3rd gen, there is a change in the firmware that resulted in conflict between iPOD and the syncing software. While it is possible to transfer songs from Amarok (and other software) to the iPOD, the iPOD just don’t register any songs in it.

If you are having this problem, here is a fix for it.

Installing the libgpod

Go to ftp://64.22.103.45/packages/ubuntu/gutsy/libgpod/ and download the following packages:

• libgpod2_0.5.3+actually0.6.0-0.1_i386.deb

• libgpod-dev_0.5.3+actually0.6.0-0.1_i386.deb

Once you have finished downloading the files, click on them in the order above to start the deb installer. If you have previously installed the older version of libgpod, it will prompt you to overwrite. Click “Continue”

Install Amarok

Next, if you don’t have Amarok in your system (especially in Ubuntu), install it.

sudo apt-get install amarok

or System -> Synaptic Package manager -> Amarok

Configuring your iPOD

Now, mount your iPOD.

Open a terminal, type

sudo lsusb -v | grep -i Serial

You should see something as shown in the screenshot.

The 16 characters long hash is your iPOD FirewireGuid. Record it down.

Open up your Nautilus (or any file manager), and navigate to /media/ipod/iPod_Control/Device/ (replace the /media/ipod/ with your iPOD path), look for a file called SysInfo. Open it with a text editor (or kate, kwrite, nano etc) and add the following to the file

FirewireGuid: 0×000A27001301221F

Replace the 16 characters after the “0x” with the one you have recorded just now.

Save it and exit.

If the SysInfo file is not found in the iPOD folder, open your text editor, paste the line onto it, name it as SysInfo (without any file extension) and save it in the /iPod_Control/Device folder.

Configuring Amarok

Open your Amarok.

Go to Setting -> Configure Amarok. On the left, click on Media Devices.

On the right, click “add devices”

Under the dropdown, choose “Apple ipod media device“.

Enter a name for the device and the path to the device (such as /media/ipod)

Click OK and exit the configuration window.

On the Amarok main screen, click on Devices on the left sidebar and you should see your iPOD mounted. You can now transfer songs to your iPOD.

via http://maketecheasier.com/how-to-sync-amarok-with-ipod-classic-3rd-generation-ipod-nano/2008/03/10

Apple and Nike have announced that they are now in talks with several gym equipment manufacturers to add support for iPods in their products.

This would allow iPod Nano owners to track workouts, set goals and upload the information to a Nike Web site using the tools provided by the companies.

Apple said that they expect to see the result of their talks by this summer.

The two companies provide Nike+ technology which uses a wireless system embedded in Nike shoes to transmit data to the Apple iPods.

via http://news.techwhack.com/7220/ipod-gym/

Rumors flying again.  It seems that a blogger is saying that a local newspaper add for Circuit City is showing a purple iPod nano.  

I particularly think that this could be a mistake.   Take a look at both of these snipits.  One of the newspaper add and then one from Apple’s website.

Here is where I have drawn my conclusion from.  Take a good look at both pictures.  If the advertisement was an image from Apple it should have a different picture in the purple iPod nano.  

If you notice in the two pictures.  All of the pics are the same for the corresponding color iPods.  EXCEPT the Purple and Pink.  They seem to have the same picture.  Every color should have it’s own pic.  That is why I think that the news paper add just got the color wrong.  

 Well, I could be wrong.  That is why this is in the rumor section.  Let’s see if we can see a Purple iPod nano soon.  

via http://ipodtouch4all.com/2008/03/03/ipod-nano-gets-a-grape-flavor/

Today was my weekly Team in Training run — I’m training for and planning to run a marathon to raise money for blood cancer research — and 6.61 miles into the run, my iPod Nano froze on me for the first time in the month that I’ve had it (yes, it let me down after I raved about it in my last post). I was really upset that I was not only going to lose my run data, but that I wouldn’t get the mileage credit for the Articulate miles challenge. I ended up doing another 2+ miles for a total of 8.78 miles.

So on my drive home from the run, aside from being bummed, I started thinking about how to fix this. I thought that there had to be some way to hack into the iPod to recover my lost run data — or at least simulate the run based on similar run data.

Sure enough, I was right: My run data was lost during the iPod crash, but I was given the opportunity to tackle a fun technology challenge.

I got home and started doing some Google searches to research the topic before I just started digging into my iPod’s hard drive. I found a couple resources with the info I needed — “MadeUpName’s” method outlined on runpl.us and WalkBlogRun’s method here — and pieced together my own approach that did the trick beautifully.

Here’s how I did it — proceed with caution and at your own risk to your data and software:

The Setup

Hacking your iPod’s run data requires that you create and edit XML files, so before you can do that, you need to confirm two things (both were already the case for me):

1. Make sure iPod is set to be a disk (check the Enable disk use box on your iPod Summary tab in iTunes).
2. Make sure you can see hidden system files & folders in Windows (XP how-to | Vista how-to).

The Backup

As is the case whenever you’re editing pretty much anything — especially files that help drive your iPod and iTunes software — always make a backup first since you never know what might happen:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer.
2. Navigate to this path (yours may vary):
   G:\iPod_Control\Device\Trainer\Workouts\Empeds\<unique ID>
3. Copy the entire contents of that folder to your hard drive (2 folders — latest and synched, and 5 files — best, calibration, settings.plist, lastWorkout.xml, and preferences.xml).

The Hack

Now that you’ve backed up the key files, you’re ready to get down ‘n dirty. It just so happened that, in my case, the run I did today was the same run I did a couple weeks ago (February 16) in terms of location, mileage, and rough pace. So that made copying the run data fairly easy. Along with that, I also wanted to ensure my last workout and workout summary data were correct.

So there are 3 things you need to do:

1. Create or copy your new run data (the XML file named after the date & completion time of your run — e.g., 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml — that’ll begin with the <sportsData> tag inside the file) to your latest folder.
2. Update your lastWorkout.xml file.
3. Update your preferences.xml file.

Those last two files are used to display your run summary data in both iTunes and in your iPod. Here’s what the screen with that info looks like in iTunes:

So here’s what I did for each of the above steps:

1. Copying run data.

The first thing I needed to do was to re-create today’s lost run data file by duplicating the data for the last time I did the run and update it with today’s date:

• Opened the synched folder and located the data file for the last time I did this run (2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml).
• Copied 2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml to my desktop.
• Opened 2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml with Notepad.
• Located the two references to the date & time of the run — in the <time> and <startTime> tags — and changed the values to today’s date (run start time was the same today and last time I did the run):

Note: I left all other run data the same in my run data file, but you’ll see that you can update all kinds of data to match your estimated values for your run, including these:

• <duration>
• <distance> (in both km and miles)
• <calories>
• <pace>

You’ll also notice in the middle of your run data file that your iPod records your run distance every 10 seconds. Pretty cool stuff.

2. Updating lastWorkout.xml.

Next, I needed to copy key portions of today’s run data to the lastWorkout.xml file, so here’s what I did:

• Opened up both 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml and lastWorkout.xml in Notepad.
• In my run data file, copied from the beginning of the <time> tag to the end of the <lifetime> tag; this includes all the relevant data you need to paste into lastWorkout.xml.
• Pasted this data into lastWorkout.xml, overwriting the existing values, of course.
• Saved lastWorkout.xml.

3. Updating preferences.xml.

Finally, I needed to do some basic math to update my total run data to reflect today’s run:

• Opened both 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml and preferences.xml in Notepad.
• Incremented my <TotalWorkouts> value by 1 (from 11 to 12).
• Updated the <TotalCalories> value by adding the <calories> value from today’s new run data file.
• Updated the <TotalSeconds> value by taking the <duration> value from my run data file, minus the last 3 digits since your run data files measure to the thousandth of a second (in my case, the <duration> value was 4236763, so I took 4236 and added it to 30529 to get 34765, which, when converted to hours, checks out to be my correct total: 9.6 hours).
• Updated the <TotalDistanceMiles> to include today’s mileage.
• Updated the <TotalWeightWorkouts> value to 12.
• Left everything else — like <FarthestMile> and <TotalMarathon> — the same since my longest distance still stands at 10.02 miles (last Sunday) and since I haven’t yet run a marathon.
• Saved the file.

So that’s it! You’re done with the hard part.

The Confirmation

The only thing left to do is to confirm that your hacks worked as expected (you did back up your original files, right?). Here’s what I did to confirm:

1. In iTunes, ejected my iPod.
2. Unplugged my iPod and went to the Nike+ screen to confirm my latest run and new totals were reflected.*
3. Plugged my iPod back into my computer & confirmed latest run & summary data were reflected.
4. Synchronized my data and uploaded the run to my Nike+ site (I had to login to my nikeplus site again).

* At first, my summary data was showing up in iTunes, but not in my iPod, so I did a force reset using the method suggested by Apple, and after that, the new summary data appeared as expected.

Success! I learned a fun hack and can now rest assured that my run data — at least the mileage totals — remains (mostly) accurate.

Have fun and remember: If you use this method to fabricate run data, you’re cheating no one but yourself.

via http://gabeanderson.com/2008/03/02/how-to-hack-your-nano-nike-run-data-when-ipod-freezes/

Think Secret has updated a previously written article with more information about the third-generation iPod nano which is expected to be released later on today.

The rumour site claims that the nano will feature a high resolution screen with a resolution of 320 x 240 and will be contain flash-based storage that will top out at either 12GB or 16GB.