The S in the new Sony Walkman S Series apparently stands for sensing. When Fujio Nishida talked about it, I thought the thing actually sensed your mood by some kind of magical sensors (which actually would have been amazingly cool) to play songs to match them. Unfortunately, you have to select the mood you are in from a list of eleven, which include themes like "Energetic", "Relax", "Upbeat" or "Hot as a Horny Bunny".

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Sony's S-series Walkman is their new high-end digital audio player that is not only their slimmest player to date, but has active noise cancellation and the SensMe music suggestion engine. Sony bundled 3.5mm EX headphones with the S-series players, as well as a pass through cable that connects to an in-flight entertainment system and uses the noise cancelling capability of the Walkman. In addition Sony released their midrange E-series and entry-level B-series Walkman players.

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In order to prove how far Sony has come since ATRAC3 and long-playing MiniDiscs, a new ad attributed to the company shows a NYC subway map traced in its entirety by black Sony earphones, accompanied by a Network Walkman. As if it wasn't enough to try to retake ownership just one iPod-saturated public transit system, a search revealed similar designs for both the London Underground and Sydney's Metro. That last one makes sense, since Sony retained the Sydney office of badass ad agency Saatchi and—repetition is key to messaging—Saatchi for the inspired work. One prob though: As any seasoned straphanger will tell you, you kinda need the colours, or else all the lines run together. [The Cool Hunter]

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If, for some unknown reason, you did want to jump on board the new Sanity music store, you'd need an MP3 player that supports DRM WMA files and sports Microsoft's Plays For Sure badge. Sony's latest Walkman, the NWZ-B130F would be a very good place to start.

For just $69 of your hard-earned dollars, you get a device with 2GB of memory (there's also a 1GB model for $49), 16 hours worth of music playback, an OLED screen, FM radio with recording, voice recording, drag and drop music interface and Sony's awesome 3-minute charge for 3 hours' playback.

Considering a 2GB iPod Shuffle costs $89, this is actually a really good value piece of kit and well worth the look for those seeking a budget MP3 player.

[Sony]

It's the third birthday of Sony Ericsson's Walkman phone label, and to celebrate it's launching three new music-based mobile phones. The W302 and W902 (left, centre in the image) are both candybar handsets, with the 302 having an FM radio, and 2-megapixel cam, and the 902 with a 5-megapixel cam and apparently matching the high audio quality of the W980 phone. The W595 is a slide phone with built-in stereo speakers so users can "share sounds with their friends" (read: annoy passers-by with irritating tunes) but it also has twin jacks so you can share music privately. All four phones are quad-band GSM, have "shake control," come in a selection of colours and will hit the streets at the end of the year. Press release below, which also details some new accessories like wireless portable speakers.

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Sony Ericsson's upcoming "Alicia" Walkman phone has a very interesting circle on the outside of its flip-casing. This video lets us in on its secret—it's a display? If we're interpreting it correctly, the front surface might have two displays, one small square one on top of the larger circular one, which also acts as a control pad for music, weather, and other apps. Hmmm, a portable music device that has a square on the top and a circle on the bottom. Where have I seen that before? Oh right, the Zune. [Se-nse]

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Sony's E020 Walkman, the flash-based MP3 player for kids who like to coordinate their gadgets with their outfits, will finally hit U.S. shores in mid-June. The E020 features a coloured three-line LCD screen and a built-in USB jack with drag-and-drop MP3 transfer system (no SonicStage this time around, thankfully). Its selling point is its swappable faceplate, which lets you change the music machine's style to suit your mood.

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The Gadget: The Sony Ericsson W890i is a slim, Walkman-branded follow-up to the W880i. It offers up Walkman Player 3.0, a 3.2 megapixel camera and Sony's great UI, all in a candybar form factor that doesn't dominate the pocket. While this is currently a Europe-only product, Sony Ericsson phones tend to wash up in the US eventually.

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The major difference between the A820 and the A720 Walkmen is Bluetooth (and a 16GB flavour). Unfortunately, the Bluetooth was fairly crappy in the model I fussed with, unless you enjoy the odd rhythm of skipping music. I tried the player in my back jeans pocket, front jeans pocket and front jacket pocket, and got the same in-and-out jolting stream. (Even in line of sight w/ some Bluetooth speakers, range was 10 feet then totally dead.) The bits that made it to the headphones sounded alright though. UI is the same as the last gen of players, though I'm not really a fan of the button layout on this set.

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Sony's NWZ-A720, A820 and A820K Walkman players all look alike, but the 8-series has added Bluetooth to sweeten the deal. It's quite similar to their NW-A829 and NW-A828 brothers that were announced in Japan, in fact. And yes, they have noise cancellation.

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