This is yet another technological marvel that will most likely be forgotten within two months and will fade into the bottomless pit of the tech gadgetry. This is Flipster from Pogo, portable music and video player:

    Flipster works under WindowsCE operating system and reads only MP3, GIF/JPEG and MPEG4 formats. It is about the size of a cell phone: when you flip it open, you can watch a movie on the 160z234 pixel LCD screen, when its closed, Flipster can be used as an MP3 player. What makes Flipster interesting is a slot for MMC/SD cards as well as an expansion port that can be used to add functionality to the device in the future. The price of Flash-memory is falling rather sharply lately; soon a 512 MB cards will cost 30 dollars a piece. Very handy: record a movie – pretty good quality too! – onto a 512 MB card, pop it in and watch it on your way to work on the bus/train.

    From a financial standpoint this whole thing is hardly interesting: Flipster, with built-in 128 MB of memory, costs 450 dollars. For about the same price, you can purchase a PDA with color screen, which will not only show movies and play music but satisfy all other computer-related desires of its owner. If the price falls down to around 200 dollars, then Flipster will actually have some chance.

    This is an interesting question: what size does the screen have to be to make watching a movie an enjoyable experience? Imagine watching Star Wars on your cell phone… I think that this system should only be used to watch previously-watched movies on it, otherwise it will be hard to understand if you’re watching latest porno flick from Asia Carrera or Terminator 2. Flipster says that their primary projected market for this device is traveling salesmen who will show videos of the products they sell to their potential customers. The potential customer will run away screaming if he cant see what he is being offered – definitely something Flipster/Pogo should think about. I’d just use it to watch porn during English class :)