View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/08/sony.flash.music.devices/ Tuesday, Mar 08, 2005 7:10am iPod faces new challenges from Sony, mobile phones Sony has launched a new line of flash-based MP3 players. Designed to counter Apple's recent entry into the low-cost music device market, Sony's new music devices store up to 1GB of music, offer up to 50 hours of music playback, and feature a small LCD screen. The players are expected to cost between $150 and $180. Meanwhile, another article titled "Mobile music challenges 'iPod age'" looks at the challenges posed by cell phones--which are expected to incorporate mini hard drives and higher-capacity flash storage in the near future and will soon leverage higher speed networks for downloading music: "The seamless experience of mobiles and PC downloads is approaching, he predicted. Mr Babinet said the mobile phone had a number of advantages over PCs which would see it become the focus for music downloading in the future."