The Dawn Of The $8.50 MP3 Player
Japanese company Evergreen shatters the mp3 price barrier with a player that costs a mere $8.50. Sure you need to insert a 1 meg SD card because the player lacks memory and everything about scream CHEAP, but t $8.50 who cares?
Currently only available in Japan, the stripped down player proves just how inexpensive many of the underlying parts of portable players really are and it opens up a world of possibilities for other products. Can disposable and pre-loaded players be far 
behind? Photo and more info via Engadget.
UPDATE: Hypebot reader and music attorney Rob Falk turned us on to another "almost free" (ius you want need a flash card reader) mp3 player a $59.99 USB reader from zMate that doubles as an mp3 player.
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In fact, there is at least one free MP3 player out there already. I picked up a 512MB SD card for $29 a few months back, and with it came a combination SD card reader/MP3 player called zMate for no additional charge. It has a USB port, is powered by a single AAA battery and came with necklace style headphones. It works fine with my Mac so I guess it would work with a PC 🙂
There are better sounding MP3 players out there – I have not given up my iPod – but for a toss-it-in-the-backpack item, it’s OK.
Once again, the blade makers are giving away the razor.
There is no reason why MP3 should be more expensive than a disposable solar calculator.
Once simple 1GB mp3 hits sub $40. It’ll be entirely different ball game. An entire new market will open.
MP3 adoption/death of CD will accelerate exponentially.