Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Sony Corp. is launching a new lineup of portable music players featuring flash memory chips starting in late March, part of the company's efforts to catch up with the industry leader Apple Computer Inc.

The Japanese electronics giant, which just named a new chief executive over the weekend, said Tuesday it is planning a global launch starting in late March of seven "Walkman" music player models equipped with flash memory chips.

The new Sony players ... support the generic MP3 audio format, which is what most people use when converting their music CD collections to digital files. That's a major concession for Sony, which had tried until recently to persuade consumers to only use its proprietary audio format, called Atrac.

The lineup includes a set of cigarette lighter-sized models, a bit more expensive than the iPod Shuffle but with a much longer advertised battery life -- 50 hours of playback time with a rechargeable battery compared to Apple's 12 hours. And unlike the Shuffle, the Sony players have bright, three-line screens to display song information.