Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand.

January 7, 2001 10:20 PM

Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand. Sony Electronics just announced a player at CES in Vegas which will play MP3's off of a CD in addition to playing normal audio CDs. Sony Music, on the other hand, is part of the SDMI initiative which is trying to stamp out MP3's. "They were pissed." (Via GeekPress)
posted by Steven Den Beste (10 comments total)

Oh mah God...that thing is gorgeous.
posted by lbergstr at 11:12 PM on January 7, 2001

not as beautiful as this
posted by hobbes at 11:35 PM on January 7, 2001

It looks kind of like an UFO, doesn't it? Or is it just me, having just watched Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey?
posted by madsorama at 12:01 AM on January 8, 2001

I'd imagine a perfect mp3 player actually being HAL9000, only he'd have a portable extension, that would work all over the world, it would be just the red eye. He would respond with voice. "I'm afraid I can't play this mp3, Dave - It's pirated, it is against my mission plan"
posted by tiaka at 4:52 AM on January 8, 2001

Saw Motorola's first MP3 / CD player at Target last night. Not as pretty as Sony's, though. Just glad to see these things hitting the market. Even though it's not solid-state the price point ($99) and capacity seem like a better balance to me than the RAM or hard disk players.
posted by harmful at 6:35 AM on January 8, 2001

i already have a player that plays mp3s off cds as well as as audio cds. i've had it for months.
posted by sugarfish at 11:21 AM on January 8, 2001

sugarfish, sure, they have existed for awhile. but the point of the article is that Sony is the first "top-tier consumer electronics company" to introduce such an item.
posted by gluechunk at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2001

i wish i was away from my workstation enough to actually NEED a portable mp3 player. *sigh*

posted by th3ph17 at 1:06 PM on January 8, 2001

Philips isn't "top-tier"?
posted by kindall at 3:42 PM on January 8, 2001

Personally, I kind of like direction of HD based mp3 players, like the Nomad Jukebox. If only they could make it compete with the CD players in size, I'd be sold.
posted by swank6 at 7:32 PM on January 8, 2001