Sansa News

It's been another year of bloodletting in the music industry. CD sales continue to decline. Brick-and-mortar record stores are rapidly losing business. Major labels now live in fear of being supplanted by computer companies. ... Product developers from the Milpitas-based electronics company, SanDisk, insist that there's still a place for packaging and liner notes in the era of digital downloads. Their solution? It's called slotMusic, a tiny microSD card (about the size of your smallest fingernail) with a 1 gigabyte storing capacity — enough space for a full album, liner notes, and even music videos. [News Source]

A top story from this week. Fall Out Boy's Folie a Deux will be available on "slotMusic, a new form of DRM-free MP3 music on a microSD card [News Source]

Because everyone on your Christmas list already has an MP3 player of some kind, whether it's a dedicated unit or a phone that also gives virtual foot massages, you can safely explore a few digitized gift ideas.

The biggest rock 'n' roll album of the holiday season is Fall Out Boy's "Folie a Deux," and you can buy it on a slotMusic card for $15. The DRM-free cards come pre-loaded with the album, a remix of "American Suitehearts" and three behind-the-scenes videos shot on a recent European tour.

A slotMusic card is a microSD card that you plug directly into any device with a microSD slot, which includes a host of phones and MP3 players. You can also download the content to your home computer with the included USB adapter. Because it's a plug-in, there are no passwords or need to download content from a Web site. [News Source]

The Sansa slotMusic Player made it onto my "Techie gifts under 50 bucks" because of the price, but what you're getting for $20-$35 is actually not bad at all. The player is about the size of pack of gum, and feels pretty solid in your hand. If you remove the cover, which is interchangeable, you'll find a place for a single AAA battery that powers it for up to 15 hours. Having a battery ... [News Source]

Fall Out Boy's Folie a Deux will be available on "slotMusic, a new form of DRM-free MP3 music on a microSD card [News Source]

A top story from this week. [News Source]