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posted by martyb on Friday July 05 2019, @08:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the next-up-will-be-a-Bluetooth-8-Track-player dept.

The cassette player finally goes Bluetooth

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Sony's first Walkman, the portable music player that would forever change the way we consume music. And while the audio cassette long ago fell out of favor for the CD and later digital music, the format's certainly not forgotten. It may not have the same audiophile cache as the vinyl LP, but a a small and passionate contingent of music listeners are keeping the fire burning.

NINM Lab's latest project occupies that same sort of fuzzy technological limbo as past products like the I'm Fine single use camera. It's also got a name to match: It's OK. In this age of political unrest and global disasters, maybe that's exactly the message we need right now. As for a bluetooth cassette player, it's probably true that nobody needs such a thing, hyper specific products are one of the nice byproducts of late capitalism.

A Bluetooth 5.0 cassette player? Aight.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Friday July 05 2019, @10:05AM (1 child)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday July 05 2019, @10:05AM (#863428) Homepage

    Indeed, the Walkman was far from the first tape player, and Sony were far from the first company to make things like that.

    https://lowendmac.com/2013/the-story-behind-the-sony-walkman/ [lowendmac.com]

    The Pressman used microcartridges and was years before the Walkman, but was aimed at journalists.

    "By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million [cassette] players"

    I imagine there were lots of famous brand and even more "nobody brand" items that could do what you remember. But like the Gameboy not being the first ever portable games console, it's the one that changed the standards and people remember more fondly (you don't even remember the brand of yours!).

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kazzie on Friday July 05 2019, @10:47AM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 05 2019, @10:47AM (#863439)

    Likewise, the Iphone was far from the first smartphone, but the popular brand names often swamp their predecessors.