Did the folks in lab coats huddled around the first VCR realize they would completely revolutionize movie and television viewing? Perhaps not. But after living with the new pocket-size, 3.5-ounce Audible player from Audible Inc., I'm convinced it heralds a new device category that'll one day be called the VCR of the Internet.
A clear scion of cheap processors and cheap memory, the hand-hugging, dark-gray Audible player includes a 20-mips digital signal processor linked to 4 Mbytes of flash memory, which provides enough horsepower and storage to handle two hours of audio programming. While transmitting audio across the Net is hardly new, the portable player cuts the PC umbilical cord, freeing you to carry Internet audio anywhere by storing and playing both freely available RealAudio recordings and commercial titles downloaded via Audible's Web site.
Audible offers 15,000 hours of listening material, spanning best-sellers, sports, history, literature, fiction, religion, self-help, comedy, technology, management lectures, seminars, public radio programs, and more.
Unlike most VCRs, the Audible player is simple to use. Drop the player into a PalmPilot-like docking slot, fire up the transfer software, and pick and choose the programs to send to the player from among those you've downloaded. A separate application downloads and saves audio programs to your hard disk or loads them directly to the player. Last, a software desktop player lets you listen to downloaded programs using your PC.
In everyday use, the Audible player is as addictive as nicotine. When I run for the train, I now leave the cassette player behind and grab my player and headphones instead. During my last commute into New York, I listened to a few Groucho Marx short stories, a selection of a GartnerGroup conference, and a chapter from a current best-seller. While traditional Walkmans are strictly serial devices, skipping between programs on the solid-state Audible player is lightning fast. To return to any part of a program, you can define one of up to 16 bookmarks.
Come to think of it, maybe the player isn't the VCR of the Internet, but more of an Internet Walkman. Hello, Sony?
Audible player: US$199. Audible Inc.: +1 (201) 890 4070, on the Web at www.audible.com/.
This article originally appeared in the February issue of Wired magazine.
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