There's good news this week for the 66 million people worldwide (3.3. million in the U.S.) who stutter: the Hollins Communications Research Institute (HCRI) in Roanoke, Va., this week added software developed for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch to participants in the organization's 12-day speech therapy program to help people control stuttering.

The software, available only to HCRI clients, measures and records a person's speech patterns. From the iPhone or iPod Touch screen, users can see the number of utterances (or syllables) he or she makes as well as the percent of the time they used their tongue, jaw, mouth and throat muscles correctly (as determined by the measurement of the amplitude and frequency of their voice's sound waves). If the person deviates too far from the proper levels, the device will vibrate.

It wasn't exactly the day the Earth stood still, but for some Microsoft Zune users, it might as well have been when their mp3 players (specifically, the 30 gigabyte models) all crashed at the same time earlier today, rendering them useless. You see, once the Zune freezes, it can't be reset.

"It seems the issue started to happen as devices passed midnight locally across the world, though times don't seem to be exactly synchronized," according to Huliq.com, a blog owned by Hareyan Publishing LLC, in Hickory, N.C.

Conspiracy theories explaining why this happened hit the Web early Wednesday. A Huliq.com blogger known only as "Iria" mused that the "Z2K9" problem began as the Zune devices prepared to flip over to the new year, the first leap year since the 30GB Zune was introduced. (By the way, Iria suggests waiting for Microsoft to weigh in on the problem before turning your Zune into an expensive paperweight.)

Want to download tunes to your iPod? You may have to pay a premium—at least in New York Gov. David Paterson, desperate for ways to narrow the projected (and ever-expanding) $15.4-billion budget deficit, yesterday proposed taxing just about anything he could to raise much-needed cash, including digital music downloads.

The so-called iPod tax was among  a long list of 88 new or increased fees that the governor proposed to fill in the gaping money hole. If adopted, which is iffy, consumers would pay a 4 percent sales tax on downloaded music and other "digitally delivered entertainment services," the Associated Press reports.

The wait is over.

Apple fanatics have new iPods to choose from -- and software designed to reduce the number of dropped calls and other service problems that have plagued the new iPhone since it debuted this summer, the company announced today.

New quarter-inch thick nanos -- said to be the thinnest ever -- will come in eight colors and will arrive in stores in the next few days, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at a press conference in San Francisco. The fourth-gen nano will be available in 8GB and 16GB models starting at $149.

At one-third of an inch thick, a new iTouch -- the grammatically cringe-worthy "funnest ever" -- is also being touted as super slender. Prices range from $229 for an 8GB unit to $399 for the 32GB music player.

Is a new Apple music player -- or players -- on the way? The buzz around the company's cryptic invitations to a "Let's Rock" event is that it's about to unveil a new iPod, or possibly an upgrade of the entire product line.

September traditionally is the month for iPod rollouts, as Business Week notes in a blog post. The magazine predicts new versions of all iPods. Tech junkies have been speculating about a next-gen iPod Nano, Touch and Classic since summer, according to PC World.

Apple didn’t immediately respond for comment.
 
The rumors may deflect attention from news today that iPhone users in the Northeast couldn't access the mobile Web.