One of Apple's popular iPod Nano media players gave off sparks while being recharged in Japan in January, the country's trade ministry said, prompting a safety investigation. No one was hurt in the incident and Apple is investigating the cause and checking whether there have been any similar cases, an official from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday.

Company founder Chris Armstrong explains: Four years ago, he set out to his local DVD store to rent a movie. First, he stopped at the ATM to get cash. The store didn't have Twelve Angry Men, the movie Armstrong wanted. He settled for Carlito's Way instead. He then waited in line, paid for his rental, and returned to his car.

One of Apple Inc's popular iPod nano media players gave off sparks while being recharged in Japan in January, Japan's trade ministry said, prompting a safety investigation.

The Fuze is can be used with such music subscription services as Rhapsody To Go, Napster, and eMusic, and supports MP3, WAV, Audible, WMA, MPEG-4, JPEG file types. The player is compatible with the XP, Vista, Mac, and Linux OSes (the latter two under MSC mode). According to Sandisk, the device's rechargeable battery should give you up to 24 hours of audio and five hours of video playback.

To kick off the Consumer Electronics Show here, the company announced Rolly, an MP3 player and robot. The palm-sized, egg-shaped media device moves its "arms", "shoulders", and wheels to the beat, all while flashing an array of lights. (Sony claims it can display up to 700 colors). Rolly has 2 Gbytes of flash memory, which will store roughly 520 128-Kbit/s MP3s files. The player also supports AAC files (but obviously not those with Apple's DRM attached).

Microsoft is touting this function as a means to access spreadsheet data on-the-go, without the assistance of a laptop. Rather than powering up a personal computer, users can access "killer deal-closing slide with just a few flicks of [their] finger," wrote Blair Neumann, a program manager in Microsoft's Mac development group.

Apple Computer Inc. announced Monday that it signed new deals with the companies supplying flash memory components for its popular iPod digital music players ahead of the holiday buying season.

Bloomberg reports that Apple's earnings report later today will focus on Mac and iPod sales which make up for 75% of the company's revenue.

Apple Releases Free Firmware Update for iPod Touch Owners

According to Craig Berger analyst for FBR Capital Markets, Apple has revised both its third and fourth calendar quarter iPhone build numbers "significantly higher" to more than 15 million units. The company also placed orders for an additional 2 million 2G iPhones.