bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

quizIds

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

paywallTypes

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Eric Lai

The first MP3 audio player that is not likely to frighten record companies is being developed by a Singaporean company.

 The Zappee ZMP-3000, to be launched on Friday at this week's Internet World Asia exhibition, comes with encryption technology that prevents users from listening to songs unless they have paid for them through the Web.

 The first product from startup ZipLabs, the Zappee, will be one of the more petite MP3 players available, weighing only 74 grams.

 MP3 is the most popular way to compress music digitally on the Internet. There are an estimated 40 million active MP3 users worldwide, due in part to its ubiquity and the fact that music remains at near-CD quality.

 ZipLabs claims the Zappee will be able to hold more MP3 files than competing products on the market, with up to two hours of music at near-CD quality. Existing players - like the Rio - store MP3 files inside internal, non-expandable memory chips.

 That means users must erase and re-download songs from a PC every time they want to change the music on their MP3 player. And if they want to increase the limit on the number of songs they can store, they would need to buy a more expensive player.

 'These products are pretty expensive to be self-obsoleting,' ZipLabs chief executive Christopher Ng said.

 But the Zappee uses tiny multimedia cards which plug into the player. Each is the size of a finger nail, but can store up to 30 minutes of music at highest quality.

 That lets users record MP3 songs on cards and easily switch between songs by plugging in a new card.

 The basic Zappee player with 16 MB memory will cost US$99. A 32 MB version will cost $169, while a 64 MB version, which can store up to two hours of music at highest quality, will cost $229.

 The Zappee depends on the Secure MP3 technology created by ZipLabs. It combines the top audio quality of MP3, extra multimedia features and encryption copy protection schemes. Mr Ng said this should help it gain support from both Internet users and record labels.

 Secure MP3 will let users look at pictures of album covers, read lyrics and guitar chords or jump to related Web sites via its format. None of these features are available on the regular MP3 format.

 Listeners can download Secure MP3-encrypted songs anywhere on the Web. But to listen to them on a PC or Zappee player will require payment to ZipLabs' Web server, which then provides the digital key to unlock the song. If the song is sent to another Internet user, he or she will also have to pay a fee, which Mr Ng promised would not be large.

 'Most people would prefer not to steal if they can get the music cheaply,' he said.

 The Zappee comes with a cable to connect to a PC, which effectively turns it into a backup or portable storage device. The MMC cards serve as tinier but much higher-storage versions of floppy disks.

 The Zappee requires only two AAA batteries for power. And like all MP3 players, because there are no moving parts, it will not skip or jump like a CD player does.

 ZipLabs is a six-month-old startup whose investors include the Kerry Group, which owns a major stake in the South China Morning Post.

 The company plans to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange's secondary board soon, with a Nasdaq listing within a year.

 Mr Ng hopes to sell between 500,000 and one million Zappee MP3 players in 12 months.

 Other products ZipLabs is ready to launch include the PagerMan, a pager-sized MP3 player that comes in fruity iMac-inspired colours. ZipLabs is also preparing an MP3 player the size of an audio cassette, for use in a car stereo or Walkman.

 With its wide range of products, ZipLabs could run into some of the biggest giants in the business.

 Microsoft is pushing its own digital music compression software called Microsoft Media Player, and is also a strong proponent of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a coalition which is attempting to determine a global encryption scheme to protect against piracy.

 Mr Ng holds out hope that SDMI - of which ZipLabs is a member - may choose his company's technology as the encryption scheme.

 He said the Secure MP3 used digital keys of between 128 bit and 448 bit in length and had yet to be broken.

Existing players are expensive to be self-obsoleting . . . Most people would prefer not to steal if they can get music cheaply 



Encryption feature on new MP3 player