Computer memory company Sandisk Corp. on Thursday introduced a family of tiny digital music players and said it plans to challenge Apple Computer Inc. for dominance in the “flash” memory player market that represents the low-end of Apple’s gadget business.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sandisk introduced a 6-gigabyte player using flash memory, made with chips that are smaller and lighter than those based on hard-disk drive technology. Because flash memory has  no moving parts it is far more durable than disk drives.

Sandisk said its Sansa e270 is now the highest-capacity flash-based player in the market, and will be priced at about $300.
 
At a press conference at CES, Sandisk said it intends to take on Apple, whose hot-selling iPod Nano music player runs on flash memory.
 
“Ultimately, we would like to make this a two horse race, and reach 35-40 percent market share,” Nelson Chan, the president of Sandisk, said at a news conference.

He cited industry research data showing that Apple enjoyed a market share of around 49 percent, with Sandisk at about 29 percent in December.

Because Apple sells both flash-based and far higher capacity disk-drive players, it still dominates the overall global market for digital music players, with some estimates ranging upward of 75 percent of the music player market. In the past year, several former competitors have withdrawn from the market in the face of Apple’s success.

Actor Tom Hanks, starring in the upcoming Sony Pictures movie ”The Da Vinci Code”  jokes with Sony CEO Howard Stringer (L) and the movie director Ron Howard (R) at the Sony keynote address at CES. (Photo: REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer: “The scale of the transition from analog to HD (high definition) will make the shift from black-and-white to color small by comparison.” Reuters reports that Stringer, speaking at CES, said Sony is making progress in positioning itself to compete better with rivals Matsushita and Sharp Corp. (Photos: REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

Gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo are covering the first round of HD video players being announced at CES. Sony has announced their first Blu-ray player, with 50GB of storage capacity. Pioneer’s Blu-ray player will be coming in May.

On the competing HD DVD side, during Bill Gates’ keynote, Microsoft announced its Xbox 360 will also be able to play HD movies through an external HD DVD add-on. And Toshiba’s HD DVD players have been announced to ship in March. Outside of the major HD disc formats, KiSS Technologies has a networked DVD player that is capable of high definition playback using video encoding formats including MPEG-4, DiVX HD and WMV HD.

Reuters journalist Sue Zeidler reports on the battle for control of next-generation DVDs and the resulting pricing strategies of the product manufacturers.

“This next year for us is probably even bigger (than 2005). This is the year that stuff like Office 12 and other things will come out and MediaCenter will become mainstream,” Gates said in a speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In Gates’ vision, users files, photos, e-mails and the like will be stored on the Internet, making access to the information possible from all net-connected devices.

“We will have 80 pct of households connected by broadband by the end of this decade in the United States,” up from around 60 percent now.

Introducing a glimpse of Windows Vista, he commented that, “We will ship this by the end of the year,” and handed over to a Microsoft product manager who demoed some of the features including:

• A “Sidebar” program, similar to what Google and Yahoo already offer as Web downloads.
• Powerful graphics for better gaming
• A visual photo gallery which seamless views still and video
• Music search

The presentation was then handed over to Van Tofler of MTV’s new venture Urge. He said Urge covers MTV, VH1 and CMT and also 100s of Internet radio stations. Subscribers will be able to customize the service, he said. Finishing up he said “Take note — we are trying something new here.”

The service will also include editorial blogging built in to music channels.

To show off some of the specific features of the Urge service, Justin Timberlake, whose next album will be featured on Urge, appeared on stage briefly and joked that this is “artistry and technology”

 More Reuters coverage of Gates’ speech…

Music downloading on U.S. cellphones is all the buzz among mobile phone watchers at the Consumers Electronics Show.

Verizon Wireless, the No. 2. U.S. mobile phone operator looks set to introduce a music downloading service for phones, according to industry sources.

Harris Nesbitt analyst John Bucher expects Verizon Wireless to reveal a wireless music download service at its press conference scheduled for Thursday morning.

Executives at Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics also hinted at a press conference on Wednesday that the Verizon Wireless announcement would relate to music services.

Jon Maron, LG’s marketing director for mobile phones, said Verizon Wireless would talk more about LG’s VX8100 phone, which includes a digital music player, at the Thursday event.

Since last February, Verizon Wireless has sold about 1 million of these phones, which also run its streaming video service, according to Maron. Verizon has said it would launch a music service this year.

But the company declined to comment on any immediate plans. Harris Nesbitt’s Bucher believes a music service may do better than its video service.

“This service will probably get more traction,” said Bucher, who hopes the company will also provide more details about how it would offer a live TV service being developed by Qualcomm Inc.

Motorola Inc. is also scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday evening. Bucher believes the company is going to explain more about how its goal of “seamless mobility”, or the interconnecting of communications and entertainment services across multiple devices, will work.

Motorola already announced details of a iRadio music subscription service it developed to work on computers, cellphones and car and home stereos.

Fred Katayama takes a sneak peek at some of the new consumer gadgets on display at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show which kicks off in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Crown Castle International Corp., the wireless broadcast tower operator, said Wednesday it plans to launch live television in several top U.S. markets this year and hopes to deliver video and audio services to a range of products from cellphones and portable media players to laptop computers and cars, Sinead Carew reports from the show.

Crown Castle also aims to have its service run on portable media players such as Apple Computer Inc’s video iPod device as well as laptops and backseat car video players.

“Anybody you can imagine with a mobile device, we’ve talked to,” said treasurer Jay Brown. He expects combined video and audio subscriptions to cost about $15 to $20 a month and separate audio subscriptions would incur monthly fees of $7 to $9.

Big Asian electronics makers, automakers, computer and phone companies and even pornographers will be out in force in Las Vegas next week, seeking to define their role as new technologies blur the lines between industries, and allow for media on the go. Full article here.

“Every TV set, set-top box, cell phone will have an Internet connection,” said Tim Bajarin, an industry analyst at Creative Strategies Inc. in Campbell, California. “If every device is connected to the Internet, it requires a different way of thinking about how to create products and how consumers use products.”

Personal computer and storage makers such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Seagate Technology will seek to show how they can connect the living room to every other room of a networked home.

Curiously, Apple Computer Inc., the consumer electronics industry’s biggest pacesetter, will have a minimal presence in Las Vegas. Apple, whose iPod music player changed the way people listen to music and now watch videos, holds its own conference the following week in San Francisco