[s-cars] Follow-up on the in-car MP3 player concept: 'Nother Device

[CyberPoet]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://news.com.com/1601-2-982240.html
(commercial-supported "Real video" footage from CNet news)

Samsung's new YEPP 900 MP3 player device (designed to outshine Apple's
iPod a bit) is about to hit the market, and
although the price-point hasn't been set yet, I think it will arrive in
the same price class. The device is a 10Gb device,
the same general size factor as the iPod, but integrates the following
items that the iPod doesn't:
1. FM transmitter. Device has a built-in FM transmitter (seemingly
permanently tuned to 88.5, a problem in my market since
there is a station at that allocation frequency), meaning external
transmitter kits aren't needed.
2. RCA - analog - input. The device has an onboard WMA/MP3 encoder
hardwired into it with a line-level RCA in, so you can
just plug in a conventional CD player and it will handle the encoding
and storage of songs on the device itself (no need to
hook it to a PC if you're not interested). Doesn't specify if the
RCA-input is true stereo or stereo-mixdown-to-mono.

This item will ship with USB 2.0 connectivity (verses the iPods' faster
FireWire and new FireWire-2 standards), and software
for windows (but not the Mac) to permit loading of songs as well as
look-up of ID3 tags of title/artist data of songs encoded.
Item does not have any of the other side-loading apps of the iPod (no
calendar or contact lists, etc), and from the video would
seem to have a separate power plug (does not suck power from the USB-2
connection, unlike the iPod sucking power happily
from the FireWire connection).

Samsung's website doesn't reflect any information on this item as of
yet, and no release date has been officially announced. Also
not covered was the unit's power/time basis (i.e. - rechargable?
playtime before recharge? load-time? battery type?).

Best Wishes,
=-= Marc Glasgow
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