New Clie Handhelds from Sony

A Commentor writes: "Sony has release two new handhelds including a super slim high-res color model, which has 16M and "AV Remote Control feature". It is also covered at news.com." Looks like Sony will continue to hold the coolest Palm clone crown.

Comments

Re:Remote Control

[Sc00ter]

the IR for data transfer and the IR for controlling your TV are in different parts of the spectrum, that's why you Visor and most Palms for that matter don't do a good job at controlling your TV. You can get an IR transmitter for a Visor that fits into the springboard slot that's in the correct part of the spectrum.

Weird Memory Stick stuff

[jvmatthe]

From the page on the N760C:

A standard 8 MB Memory Stick® media is included with your CLIÉ(TM) PEG-N760C handheld. This is adequate for storing a few, non-secure, music tracks at a time. To carry more than a few tracks at once, or to download and play secure music (ATRAC3(TM) audio content) requires a larger MagicGate(TM) Memory Stick® media (sold separately).

This makes me wonder a couple of things.

• With language like "non-secure", which probably sounds to the uninitiated like something bad, how serious is Sony about pushing secure content? After all, they do own the rights to a ton of music. Wording like this makes me think they're planning to lock it all up and make the general public think they're doing the right thing when they rent their "secure" music from Sony.
  
• Since they've clearly got "secure music" in mind, will we see a day when their stock MP3 player won't play "non-secure" music? If they did so, how open is the Sony hardware to creating third party players that would play "non-secure" music.
  

I mean, to me it looks like they want to (a) start sell^H^H^H^Hrenting their "secure" music while (b) tying the use of that music to increasing hardware sales (of MagicGate Memory Sticks) and then (c) use scary language and possibly locking up their hardware specs (Warning! Wild speculation!) to prevent the unsaavy from playing "non-secure" music.

Again, just wild speculation there.