«Gremlin ameaça domínio do iPod»

Este é o título de um texto do Wall Street Journal, republicado no suplemento económico do JN de hoje.

O texto reproduz este artigo de Walter S. Mossberg e Katherine Boehret, que anuncia um novo sistema, capaz de disputar com o iPod o mercado da música digital (embora tenha uma série de limitações, identificadas no texto):

«How do you dislodge Apple's mighty iPod music player, and its popular iTunes music service, from their total dominance in the digital-music market? Numerous hardware companies and music services -- most backed by Apple's historic rival, Microsoft -- have tried, and failed, with all sorts of approaches. Some contenders were cheaper. Others had built-in features the iPod lacked, like FM radios. Some had more capacity, or greater battery life. Others relied on monthly subscriptions instead of per-song fees. But the public has mainly yawned, and none of these approaches has gained any traction. On Wednesday, a small New York City company called MusicGremlin Inc. rolled out a fresh approach to denting the iPod hegemony: the wireless music player. Its new $299 Gremlin portable player has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, so it can download songs from an accompanying subscription service directly, without requiring the use of a personal computer. Not only that, but Gremlin users can wirelessly exchange entire songs right from their players, legally, as long as both the sender and receiver are subscribers to the MusicGremlin Direct service, which costs $14.99 a month. This process, called "beaming," allows you to share songs with your Gremlin-toting pals, no matter where they are, without ever using a computer or a CD burner. You can even peer into other users' Gremlins to see what they're playing and what they've downloaded, and pluck any song you like from their devices, if they give you permission.»

fonte: «Mossberg Solution: A Gremlin challenges the iPod», June 14, 2006, Wall Street Journal