I still remember when I would stand outside in the blistering cold waiting for the yellow school bus to pick me up and the only way I could tolerate it was because I had “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees playing on my Sony Walkman. Fast forward about 18 years to October 2010. Sony has just announced that they will no longer be producing Sony Walkman devices in Japan after 30 years.

Material.net prematurely unveiled the Sony S-Series Walkman series specifications.  Two of the new devices that are part of the S-series include the Sony 8GB NWZ-S544 and the Sony 16GB NWZ-S545.  The devices feature a 16:9 (320×240, 262k colors) 2.4″ QVGA LCD screen.  The device also has built in speakers on the front of the player.  The device has a 42 hour audio and 6.5 hour video battery life.

Uploading content to the device utilizes a drag and drop interface in the software.   The device is also compatible with iTunes and Windows Media Player.  There is also an FM radio player with 30 presents.  Formats supported for music include MP3, WMA, and AAAC.  Video formats supported include H264/AVC, WMV, and MP4.  There is a built in microphone and video recording feature in the S-Series Walkman.

These devices arrive as Sony celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Walkman.

[via Ubergizmo/SonyInsider]

Tetris turned 25 last month, the Nintendo Gameboy turned 20 in April, and now today the Sony Walkman turns 30 years old.  The Walkman revolutionized the way we listened to music in 1979.  Below is a timeline of events:

1979 – The first Walkman hit the shelves at a cost of $200 — the model number was the TPS-L2PC.  Don’t forget that $200 was quite a bit back then.
1981 – TPS-L2 was introduced in different colors
1983 – A smaller  walkman called the WM-20 was introduced and it was the size of a cassette tape case.
1984 – The CD Walkman was introduced
2000 – The NW-MS7 was released and it supported digital files

The Walkman is having a hard time competing against the iPod since it was introduced in 2001.   Sony has sold 7 million Walkmans in the year ended in March thus far.

[via BusinessInsider]