mp3 players

The MPMan was short-lived, but the first MP3 player mass-marketed in the US paved the way for the portable media player revolution. Now that we've gotten to know Kane Kramer, who developed the first MP3 player, and Nathan Schulhof, who created a precursor to iPod and iTunes, it's time to take a look at the history surrounding the MPMan.

Korean electronics company Saehan created and distributed the player in 1998. Michael Robertson, CEO of MP3.com, imported the MPMan into the US and sold it on the MP3.com website. Around the same time, Eiger Labs also imported the player and rebranded it (pictured).

The MPMan came in two versions: the MPMan F10 ($299), which held 32 megabytes, or 35 minutes of music; and the MPMan F20 ($459), which held 64 megabytes, or 90 minutes of music. The player was palm-sized and featured a small LED screen on the front, with the headphone jack and control buttons on top of the device.

Read more about the MPMan after the break.

Although Kane Kramer developed the first MP3 player in the 1970s, it wasn't until 20 years later that MP3 players hit the consumer market. For that we have Nathan Schulhof to thank. In the early 1990s, he envisioned a "portable device [that] would allow the selection, retrieval, storage, and playback of audio content delivered to the device via the Internet."

The founder and CEO of Audio Highway, Schulhof has been dubbed the "father of the MP3 player industry" for creating, patenting, and introducing the Audio Highway Listen Up MP3 Player in 1996. The first of its kind to be introduced to the public, the Listen Up Player had a retail value of $299 and held up to 60 minutes of digital audio files. To give you some perspective, today an iPod Classic ($250) stores up to 40,000 songs.

Even though the player was not mass-produced (only 25 devices were made), it still received a lot of buzz and recognition in the tech world. The player won an Innovations Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1997 as well as a People's Choice Award at the second annual Internet Showcase Conference in 1998.

See how Schulhof feels about Apple's success.

Arguably one of the most important tech inventions of our generation, the MP3 player didn't just invent itself. For that, we can thank Kane Kramer. He may not be a household name, but Kramer developed the first portable digital audio player 20 years before it became industry standard. In 1979, he designed the IXI digital audio player, the first of its kind to transfer and store music to-go. The player contained a credit card-sized IXI chip that held between 30 minutes to an hour of music, depending on the audio system (mono or stereo). All of this in 1979!

Kramer told us in an email that before the age of Internet, he imagined the "idea and concept of delivering music, data, and video down telephone lines on demand" via a small, portable device. Kramer's sketches, which are over 40 years old, very closely resemble what we now know as the iPod and iPod Mini. In 2008, Apple admitted that Kramer is the true genius behind the iPod technology.

The players that Kramer developed fit in the palm of your hand and featured a small LCD screen and a central navigation control panel. Despite several websites claiming the player only held three and a half minutes of music, Kramer insists the IXI held one hour of mono audio, half an hour of stereo, or 16 tracks of master recordings. He even thought of attractive aspects that we often take for granted, like having the ability to "select any track in any order" or download new content onto the device "in a matter of seconds."

It's truly fascinating — and almost unbelievable — how many trends Kramer invented almost 20 years before MP3 players would hit the mainstream market. In his 1979 proposal for IXI Systems, Kramer predicted that MP3s would "replace the heavy costs of distribution of records and tapes," would provide "immediacy of delivery," and "eliminate the need for retailers to carry any inventory." Sure enough, in the past two decades, almost every music store has closed down, while online MP3 sales have skyrocketed. If you're wondering what music will look like in the next 20 years, you better turn to Kane Kramer.

Source: Kane Kramer

DrSugar is in the house! This week she's teaching us all how to protect our hearing.

Ever wonder if listening to your portable music player of choice could be detrimental to your hearing? New research, published in the International Journal of Audiology and reported by WebMD, suggests that up to one-fourth of college students may have evidence of early hearing loss and that it's possible that portable music players may play a role.

The researchers made this discovery after recruiting college students with normal hearing for a study on whether the use of portable music players can lead to temporary hearing loss. Several of the students who reported normal hearing were actually found to have signs of hearing loss when tested formally. To learn more about hearing loss and its possible correlation to portable music players, keep reading!