A Product That Radio DJ’s Fear
MYINE Electronics touts the Abbee as a product that eliminates commercials and useless DJ Talk from music played on your favorite FM radio stations. That’s enough to have the local radio DJ’s and station managers up in arms but that’s exactly what it does.
The abbee home speaker system with built in FM tuner records songs from your favourite FM radio stations directly to the Music Lock portable player. It auto-magically removes all the DJ talk from those songs using a technology called “Pop Catcher” and allows you to store up to 500 songs on the device. One button saves songs, one button deletes them and it will even auto refreshes with new songs.
The device requires no computer and no subscriptions, but most importantly no commercials or DJ Talk. Just all your favourite tunes. The MYINE abbee will run you $249 US and will be available this Spring.
Not All Companies Are Made Alike
Even if you’ve never heard of Fruitshop or Genius, you may agree that these companies have something to offer to the world. They are doing something in an attempt to be innovative and they are largely going about it in the right way. Canadian companies like Vision Quest are also stepping up. However, the entire Sands Convention Center is not like that. I encountered more than my fair share of knockoff companies, cloned devices, and blatant ripoffs. M & Soft, Inc. could be perfectly legitimate with a perfectly good product (they make software for GPS navigation systems), but I think it’s fair to say that they are trying a little too hard to knockoff the Microsoft name. They’re not alone in this kind of strategy either, as it’s all too easy to find things like the BlueBerry, the aPhone, and Soony HDTVs. I wonder what their hardware division is called?
At least the rep at M & Soft, Inc. appeared genuinely interested and enthusiastic about his company’s product line. The same cannot be said about this fellow from China Electronics. What do they do? With nary a product in sight and the rep taking a nap on the job, it’s pretty hard to tell and definitely a waste of booth investment money. Check out the next page for more pictures in the photo gallery and stay tuned for just a bit more CES 2009.