Human beings always want devices that make their lives easier and are as slimline, portable and powerful as new technology allows. So the evolution of the mobile phone from large brick to tiny, sleek thing that can also take pictures is just one of many innovations in the pursuit of convenience and progress.
Sometimes, as in the case of the development of the hand-wound movie camera on a huge tripod into a tiny camcorder that shoots high-definition pictures, change can take more than a century. At other times it’s a swift process – such as when MP3 players made CD portables redundant.
Now, we can carry our entire music collection in an iPod not much bigger than a credit card, or put 1,000 tracks on a similar-sized device that also makes phone calls anywhere in the world (and look, no wires). We can while away a journey playing games on a sleek gizmo with a large, bright screen that plays movies and music too. Or choose a portable DVD player with a large screen that plays movies with crystal-clear quality, making VHS, with its flashing red shades and fuzzy images, a dull memory.
Portability has long been the holy grail of technology creators. Legend has it that when Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony, was shown the first Walkman by his engineers, he asked for a bucket of water, dropped the prototype into it and as the bubbles of air leaked out, said, “There are the spaces. Make it smaller.”
The original Walkman, the TPS-L2, was launched nearly 28 years ago in July 1979, as a means of enjoying music anywhere, at any time. It had some charming quirks. There were two mini headphone sockets so you could share your music with a friend, and a hotline button that slightly muted the music so you could talk to them. This was dropped, leading to the worldwide phenomenon of headphone-wearers shouting to be heard over music only they can hear.
In the ensuing years, the Walkman went from one format to the next, adding CD and MiniDisc models. Now, it and other portable players use compressed digital music, with formats such as MP3, AAC (as used in Apple’s iPod) and ATRAC, Sony’s proprietary music format. Hard drives that can hold thousands of tracks are small enough, but even smaller models are now possible using flash memory, which is lighter and less energy-hungry.
Sony’s latest models include a real mover and shaker – the Sony NW-S200 Sports Walkman. This tiny tube of electronic ingenuity is ideal for jogging. Not only is it water-resistant (good for running in the rain as well as working up a sweat), it’s also light, thanks to its aluminium casing. And you can change the track that’s playing by just shaking it vigorously three times. Though it’s small, it finds room for a one-line display. Thanks to a sensor in the player it can count your steps as you run and show the distance you’ve travelled and the calories burnt. Or it will tell you what track you’re listening to. If you find you’ve had enough of the music stored on it, there’s also an FM radio tuner. Battery life is strong (18 hours between charges). It has a 2GB capacity, enough for 500 tracks, though smaller capacities of 1GB and 512MB (that’s half a gigabyte) are also available.
The leading digital music player is still the iPod. Its hard drive has a capacity of 30GB (for 7,500 songs) or 80GB (up to 20,000 tracks). Because it has a colour screen, you can also view digital photographs or watch a video on the iPod, although the 2.5in screen may prove eye-straining if you’re planning to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But though the screen is small, the iPod is already a technology icon – its sound quality is excellent, its operating system unbeatably user-friendly and its design irresistible. And now the battery life on new models has reached 20 hours between charges.
