Sports Illustrated's dop! SI Swimsuit Soundtrack Series MP3 player
Hold on, now Sports Illustrated is doing a line of MP3 players? We always figured that we'd bust out a gadget before a sports mag would, but it turns out that SI is coming out with three screenless players to accompany the launch of the first music-themed Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The dop! player (which is sort of supposed to be a mirror image of "ipod") will retail for "under $20" (translation: $19.99) and come in three versions, each one pre-loaded with thirty tracks of music "inspired by the issue's lush and sexy photo spreads." All of the music on each player isn't exactly copy-protected; there's actually no way to get music on or off the player at all. The dop! is meant to be a self-contained package of player + content, sort of like those single title Playaway audiobooks that came out a couple of years ago (it's no coincidence that Findaway is responsible for manufacturing both). The notion of "one album, one player" is a little anachronistic (or maybe quaint) in the age of 80GB iPods, but these things are more like promotional items than replacements for your current player. Or at least not until someone hacks a USB port into one, that is.
