Sony has finally retired the Walkman cassette player, citing lackluster demand for the outdated device.
The company says they produced their last batch of the device in Japan in April and once that inventory clears out, the Walkman will be retired to the history books.
A Chinese company will still produce some units after Sony’s supply is exhausted but it is hard to believe they will continue to produce for the foreseeable future.
Sony began selling the Walkman in 1979 and has seen 220 million units sold over the past 31 years.
Walkman sales have been in steep decline since the introduction of portable CD players and even more so with the launch of portable MP3 players earlier this ddecade.
Sony will continue to use the “Walkman” brand, however, in phones and media players.
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Wal-Mart has begun a new promotional campaign dubbed Operation Main Street in which many products will see huge price cuts for a limited time.
From the full promotion however, Blu-ray products seem to be leading the pack. The Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray player is selling for $198 USD, down from $229. The player is Profile 1.1 compatible and will upconvert standard definition DVDs to 1080p.
Potential buyers of the most popular Blu-ray player, the Sony PlayStation 3, should be delighted by the promotion as well. The $399 USD 80GB PS3 will come with a $100 USD Wal-Mart gift card that can be used on any items available at Walmart.com. PlayStation 2 buyers will receive a $30 USD gift card if purchasing the aging $129 USD
Other deals not involving Blu-ray include a 2GB Sony Walkman media player for $49 USD and a 15.4 inch Compaq CQ-139WM notebook for $298 USD.
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The BBC has announced that its popular iPlayer service has gone portable and will be compatible with a large list of portable devices, including the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone.
“This is the first time that you can play BBC iPlayer TV programmes on a range of portable media devices,” says Anthony Rose on the official iPlayer blog.
Rose says the iPlayer will work on Sony Walkman E and S series, Archos 605 WIFI and Internet Media Tablet, Philips GoGear 52xx series, Samsung YP-P2 and YP-Q1 and Nokia N96 devices. The entire list, which is updated weekly, is available here.
If your device does not have Wi-Fi, you will have to download the shows and not stream, but Rose notes that any PMP that can play “PlaysForSure” media (now known as “Certified For Windows Vista”) is compatible.
“If the device packaging mentions ‘PlaysForSure’, that’s a good sign…for our Mac and Linux users, don’t despair: we have another release coming up very soon, aimed at improving your BBC iPlayer options - stay tuned for updates…” Rose adds.
