Apparently, we just canâ??t get enough of the new wave of digital music players. The market for these hip and trendy portable music players is predicted to double this year.
The popularity of gadgets like Apple Computer's iPod, which can store thousands of songs in a pocket-sized device, is propelling a spending spree in mobile music players not seen since the early years of the Sony Walkman.
I bought one of the very first Rio MP3 players with a multimedia card slot. I remember that I could fit one album of CD quality music on each flash media card. This was only a few years ago. Now we have the apple iPod, which can stored around 6000 tunes and almost has the battery life to play them all!
According to London-based research firm Informa Media, consumers worldwide will buy 10.8 million next-generation players in 2004, from cheaper flash-memory units to players equipped with hard drives and massive memory, bringing the total installed base to 21.5 million units by the end of the year.
Ok, own up, whoâ??s buying more than one of each?!? But one other concern that is still playing on the industries mind is the potential for piracy on these new digital devices. Going back to the iPod, there is still no effective copy protection to stop you putting music that you do not own onto your digital player.
But then thatâ??s the way we like it.
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