April 4, 2000

9:57 AM

Convergence baby!Sony has released a Minidisc Player/Recorder, MP3 player with USB connectivity, and PalmOS PDA, all wedged into one small unit. Wow, that's enough buzzwords to kill a horse...
posted by mathowie (4 comments total)

What, no speaker phone? I want a minidisc mp3 player recorder that will let me blog while I'm on hold with technical support - is that so wrong?
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 10:04 AM on April 4, 2000

D'oh, since it was announced on 4/1 at minidisc.org, it looks like an April Fool's joke. A friend sent it to me thinking it was real.
posted by mathowie at 10:12 AM on April 4, 2000

Yeah, unfortunately it says it's an April fools joke down at the bottom. And I was ready to buy one of these today too... <sigh/>
posted by Axodys at 10:16 AM on April 4, 2000

I figured as much when it said it plays MP3s. Sony is not going to support that format directly anytime soon. Check out Stewart Alsop's experience with the Sony Music Clip.

I quote from the manual: "The OpenMG technology allows you to enjoy digital music while maintaining the copyrights of its holders." Who cares? Maybe some copyright lawyers buy the thing because of its great copyright protection; I bought it to enjoy music. Silly me. Sony seems so concerned about copyright that it has made getting music onto the Clip a pain. ....So Sony forces you to use the OpenMG program to convert MP3 files to a different format before you can download into the Music Clip. That takes a lot of time. It may help protect copyrights--but again, who cares? All I know is that it's a nuisance.

posted by daveadams at 10:20 AM on April 4, 2000