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To: Ron C who wrote (6571)	8/2/1999 12:51:00 AM
From: NY Stew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Lyra starnews.com But another product, appearing in September, may be just as significant for Thomson, even though it weighs only 5 ounces, fits in a shirt pocket and will cost about $200: the Lyra MP3 player. MP3 -- short for Motion Picture Experts Group-1 audio layer 3 -- has become the hot technology for transmitting music over the Internet. MP3 is a method for compressing music so that it takes up less storage space and can be transmitted more quickly. A song that might normally take up 40 megabytes of hard drive space takes up just 4 megabytes after undergoing MP3 compression. Even so, the sound remains close to CD quality. Thomson's Lyra player will let people transfer MP3 music from their PCs to the Lyra and listen to it as they would a portable tape or CD player. But instead of tape or disc, the music is stored on a computer memory card, like those used in many digital cameras. Lyra is an exciting product for Thomson because it's an area where Thomson is one of the first into the business, company spokesman Arland said. It's partly an image thing, said Arland: "RCA getting into this space says something to the industry." Thomson hopes it also says something to the young people who will be the target market for Lyra, people who may see RCA as a stodgy brand their parents buy. But the Lyra may be just the start. Why not put MP3 players and memory cards in boomboxes? Or stereos? Or cars? Or in televisions?