In searching for a portable MP3 player, I ran across this monster. No clue as to when or if it will be released for sale or the cost. Rather odd, as this story is dated last January. It seems the April
15 deadline has passed and no joy. They offered a 425 dollar gift certificate
for 375 dollars towards the purchase price when released. However, they
apparently have some working models, as they were stuffed into gift bags at
the 2004 Academy Awards. The Dimensions are (approx.): 6.3" x 4.2" x
1.5"
What makes it interesting, is that it uses a 60 gigabyte removable hard drive for storing anything from music to television shows. Then another good idea is you can produce a fully functional MP3 player from it's dock on the left side. The device allows the transfer of files from the main hard drive to the player so that's pretty handy. The little unit won the 2004 Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Award at CES.
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The 4-inch diagonal transflective TFT LCD with 640x480 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio screen can display DivX, MPEG and many other formats. Tight Audio LLC. is trying to secure a 5-inch version for production, but as of now the 4-inch has been chosen. It also has capabilities to decode high-definition video signals via on-board component video inputs. Tight Audio Systems also integrated a Tivo type feature, which allows you to record TV programs with an additional adapter. As for audio playback, the Taz I supports MP3, Monkey's Ape, and OGG Vorbis formats |
You can visit over at Tight Systems website for some multimedia type presentations. Additional encapsulated hard drives will be available in various sizes from 20 GB all the way up to 80 GB and beyond, they slip into the right side. According to Tight Systems, they're small and durable and it's no problem to travel with multiple hard drives.
Here is some additional information from their site: About the size of a domino, mini-taz is a fully functional, stand-alone mp3 player that docks (and disappears) into the left hand side of TAZ I. Mp3 music files can be easily transferred from TAZ I's massive memory (drag and drop on the TAZ I touchscreen) to mini-taz for ultra portability. With an SD/MMC memory card slot, mini-taz memory is limited only by the size and number of SD/MMC cards TAZ I owners choose to use. Mini-taz' SD/MMC card slot will also serve as an SD/MMC card reader for TAZ I.
Source: MobileMag
