Sony to kill MiniDisc Walkman
(CBS) - We don't know what struck us more from this Japan Real Time report: the fact that Sony has decided to kill the Sony MiniDisc Walkman or the fact that the Sony MiniDisc Walkman was still alive?
"The MD Walkman, a 1990s successor to the cassette version, is about to disappear from store shelves, in yet another reminder of the digital-music revolution that has made the MP3 - and the iPod - king," says Juro Osawa of Wall Street Journal's Japan Real Time.
Last year, Sony Corp. stopped selling the cassette walkman in Japan. Remember those? They've been around since 1979 and annoyed us when those pesky encrypted tapes would get all tangled or rip.
Sony and Philips created the MiniDisc (or MD) in 1991 to make portable music more convenient. The magneto-optical disc-based data storage device stored up to 80 minutes of audio. Though the innovation never caught on in the United States, it proved to be very popular in Japan.
"Japanese people in their 30s and older may remember the excitement when they first saw the MD Walkman in 1992," reminds Osawa. "Only about 2.8 inches wide, the MD was tiny, yet it could pack a whole CD album."
The arrival of Apple's iPod took that novelty and practicality away in 2001 with its hard disk drive which stored music (now, flash memory). And thanks to iTunes, purchasing music became quicker and easier than ever.
The MD isn't disappearing completely though, Osawa reports. Sony still plans to sell voice recorders using the MD because there's demand for them in Japan and Europe.
