What Will They Think Of Next?: Bring Back the Mix Tape

Anyone who grew up in the '80s or early '90s will have given a girlfriend/boyfriend, potential love interest, friend, or family member that popular gift of a "mixed tape". Yes, before the CD, and then the downloadable MP3 format became popular, the cassette tape was king. People popped them into this cool device called a Walkman, listened to tunes blasting from a square-shaped player hoisted atop their shoulder, and flipped them from side A to side B to get a whole new listing of songs (accessed only by a tedious manual fast forward/rewind process: no song skip with these babies!) Today, about two decades later, a company called fi-hi aims to bring this format back, but with a modern twist.

Called the usB-Side Mix'D Tape, the device is designed to look exactly like a cassette tape. But there's a secret: it's actually a USB flash drive, with a connector that flip-outs from its side. Then, just connect it to your PC and load up all your digital files, including music, as well as documents, videos, or images onto the gadget's 512 MB of internal memory. Now you have a nostalgic "mixed tape" for your love; and you can even add your own personal touch via the two included labels.

Aside from the mixed tape, the device can obviously also be used for sharing other data, or for transferring files back and forth. The inconspicious tapes are also great for storing or backing up sensitive data. A thief might grab USB drives, CDs, and your PC, but whose going to swipe your old tapes and 8-tracks?

Business persons might also find good use for these stand-out flash drives. They can contain promotional materials for distribution (in the same way many companies already use standard-designed USB keys); press kits, or flyers.

The "tapes" work with either PC or Mac, and come with their own little gift box for US$15 ea. at http://www.fi-hi.com/. I must say it's a pretty cool idea, and will certainly be a conversation-starter for anyone who receives them. But buyer beware: in case you didn't realize, they won't actually play in old cassette players!

Blu-ray Set to Take Over in Europe

While sales of Blu-ray players remains relatively sluggish in North America, sales of the format are heating up in Western Europe. In fact, research company Futuresource Consulting reveals that sales of Blu-ray players are actually ahead of where sales were for the standard DVD format when it was at its same point of introduction into the market.

Futuresource anticipates that more than 10 million Blu-ray players will be in use by the end of 2008. By contrast, only 1.5 million DVD players were in homes by the end of the third year that this format hit the market. Going forward, the company sees Blu-ray performance out-doing DVD consistently, with almost double the growth in year 5; closing at just slightly higher in year 6 (45 million units shipping in 2011 vs. 37 million shipped for DVD in 2002).

Naturally, we have to take the Sony PlayStation 3 into consideration, which is purchased as a gaming system first and foremost, with the built-in Blu-ray player as merely a secondary feature (for the majority of consumers, at least).

"The timing of the PS3 launch has clearly provided a big boost to the initial uptake of BD," explains Jim Bottoms, MD Corporate Development at Futuresource. "With a number of hot titles now starting to emerge and console prices continuing to fall, we can expect to see continued strong uptake."

Bottoms also notes that the competitve nature of retailers trying to get as much market share in the category as they can is also helping sales. Not only are retailers exposing consumers more and more to the technology, but product pricing is also coming down, making Blu-ray a more affordable option to the every day customer.

This is impressive news for the Blu-ray camp. Hopefully, in time, we'll experience the same sort of growth in North America. Bottoms is confident that Blu-ray will eventually "mirror the trend we saw with DVD players replacing CD decks." We may be closer to that time than we think.