Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BuzzVA who wrote (8517)	11/17/1999 2:30:00 PM
From: BuzzVA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18366

No mention of EDIG... LAS VEGAS, Nov 17, 1999 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The Walkman is about to face the music. Decades after Sony's portable music player forever changed listening habits, a small army of newfangled digital gadgets for playing music downloaded from the Internet is coming on strong, trying to seduce consumers with a wide variety of quirky shapes and color. The new digital devices still cost more than double a Walkman, use expensive storage cards and provide only limited access to popular songs. But the sheer variety evident at the Comdex technology show this week -- combined with an expected drop in prices -- should start to threaten the Walkman's turf within two years. One is the size of a wristwatch and weighs just an ounce. Another sells in translucent hues of bubblegum pink, ice blue and lime green. Still another converts digital sound to a magnetic tape that can be slipped inside a cassette recorder for playback. 'It's still an emerging market, and people are still trying to get it right,' said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Giga Information Group consulting firm. 'However, they all have the feeling this is the way the market is going to go.' Digital music gadgets first made a splash last fall when Diamond Multimedia introduced the Rio, a device that allows users to transfer MP3 files off the Internet onto their personal computer, and then store them and play them back on the portable gizmo. The Rio and other devices like it can hold the equivalent of one hour of music, the length of one CD. Speculation exploded that MP3 would herald an era of limitless, free music, but limitations quickly became obvious: The music industry thus far has refused to release its music over the Internet until a secure method is widely adopted for making sure they get paid for songs. Music available on the Internet nowadays includes relatively unknown artists and illegally posted songs. Users can still get access to popular songs by transferring music off audio CDs to their computer harddrive, and then downloading them to the MP3 player. Moreover prices of up to $400 for a player, buoyed by a recent spike in prices of memory chips needed to store songs, excludes many everyday buyers. And makers of software needed to download songs off the Internet are still working out kinks. But if variety itself is evidence of a coming boom, the future was apparent at this week's Comdex computer show here. Hong Kong-based Pine Technology Ltd. is selling its D'music series in see-through pink, green and blue starting the end of this month. The $249 model includes 64 megabytes of memory, good for playing about an hour of music. C-One Tech Co. Ltd. of South Korea showed off its 1 ounce digital player, MP Wow, a wristwatch-size gadget expected to go on sale over the Internet in the U.S. in time for the holiday shopping season. A $169 model can store about 4 songs. Another C-One model for sale in January, converts digital audio to a magnetic tape. Called the Butterfly, its sides fold up to the shape and size of a tape that you can play in a cassette recorder. A price hasn't been set. Creative Labs Inc., based in Milpitas, Calif., plans to introduce by next spring, its Nomad 2 digital player that includes a backlit screen for displaying title, track and other information. Prices of $300-$400 feature up to 1 hour of playing time. Sony Corp., inventor of the Walkman that forever changed listening habits, isn't idly watching its franchise fade. The consumer electronics leader introduced at Comdex its MS Walkman, a 2.5 ounce candy-bar size gadget that stores an hour of digital music and includes a small wheel on one side so users can scroll through songs. It uses a rechargable Lithium ion battery that Sony expects to last through 4 hours play. The $400 device, which goes on sale in January, uses a special version of Sony's Memory Stick storage card that eventually will only store copyrighted songs. Sony has good reason to try to protect song profits: It is also one of the world's largest music recording companies.