SanDisk has recently informed about their plan to release a new flash-based micro card designed for MP3 players, computers and mobile phones, aimed mainly at users who are not keen on wasting their time on downloading music via a Personal Computer. Called slotMusic, the product comes pre-loaded with Digital Rights Management-free tracks and has a storage capacity of 1 GB. The company have clinched deals with major music labels such as EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, which will be providing the content. Moreover, customers can add tunes or videos on the device and then enjoy them anytime without needing a password to do so. In addition, SanDisk stated that the card is packaged with a „USB sleeve” that allows users to connect it to computers running on Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems. Also, according to the company, MP3-based tracks will be played at 320 kilobytes per second.

For the time being, no further details have been made public, the device’s availability and price remaining yet to be disclosed by SanDisk officials. Nevertheless, the latter have given out some information concerning the product’s sellers-to-be, stating that potential buyers will be able to purchase the slotMusic card from online and retail stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

Unfortunately, SanDisk is bound to miss out on a pretty large portion of  the customer base, since Apple’s mobile phones do not include USB ports, which renders the slotMusic useless to iPhone users. Despite this, Daniel Schreiber, a senior vice president at SanDisk, believes that this would not be a big inconvenience, since the majority of non-iPod music players are fitted with card slots, as well as other mobile phones.