OTHER TECH

Sirius showed nothing that directly competes with XM2go. It did introduce a tuner the size of a deck of cards that docks with home, portable, or car adapters, but it's not self-contained.

Following Apple's LeadAlthough the Mac World Expo followed CES this year, many of the more exciting products in the handheld music category in Las Vegas seemed inspired by Apple's introduction of the Photo iPod late last year. RCA's RD2765 Lyra Micro Jukebox takes a cue from the Photo iPod.

Samsung introduced its first 5-GB Yepp MP3 player, the YH-820 ($229), with a color LCD for viewing photos. It's expected to be available early this year. RCA unveiled the 5-GB RD2765 Lyra Micro Jukebox, which also has a color screen and will be available in April for $269. It can store thousands of JPEG images or up to 170 hours of music.

While these products, or the Photo iPod itself, only let you view images, the new hard-drive-based Olympus m:robe takes pictures, too. Then you can view them while listening to your music library stored on the same hard drive. It'll be available soon for $499.

iPod AccessoriesThere were far more iPod accessories being hawked at CES than portable CD players. (Rich says: If I had a dollar for every iPod accessory at CES, I could fly round-trip in first class to the 2006 show and stay at the Four Seasons while in Las Vegas .) Here are a few of the more interesting ones we saw:

Maxell introduced a $30 Digital FM Transmitter that lets you play your iPod through an FM radio. Kensington debuted a combo FM Transmitter/Auto Charger for iPods that'll never let the music stop playing (as long as the car doesn't run out of gas). It'll cost about $60 and be available soon.

Mustek unveiled the i-Carrier, a 3-foot-tall speaker tower with an iPod dock for playing songs and recharging the player. Including a remote control, the i-Carrier will cost $169 when it's available later this year. Other companies introducing speaker docks for iPods included Altec Lansing and Sakar International. < < Back to the International CES 2005 index