In a lavishly produced event last night in New York City, the consumer electronics behemoth marked the Walkman portable cassette player's 20th anniversary by introducing the Memory Stick Walkman, a device that can play digital audio files downloaded from the Internet.
But Sony isn't going to directly support MP3, the controversial audio format that has had the recording industry up in arms over fears about music piracy. The Memory Stick Walkman will come with PC software that allows users to convert MP3 audio files into Sony's proprietary, copyright-protected format for playback on the Memory Stick Walkman.
One of the great advantages promised by the Memory Stick Walkman over existing portable Internet audio players is the removable-media concept - making the process of switching the songs on the player much easier. Unlike the Rio and other MP3 players on the market, the Sony Memory Stick Walkman will be able to quickly download music into a Memory Stick -- 1 hour of music can be loaded into a Memory Stick in about 3 minutes, according to Sony.
