Samsung Hopes to Ship Half a Million Tiny MP3 Players

Computergram International, April 28, 1999

Samsung Electronics boasts that its tiny new MP3 player is the size of a calling card. Called "yepp", the device was checked out with youth focus groups, gaining FM radio and a telephone directory in the process. Samsung claims yepp has the audio quality of a CD Walkman, but points out that it won't skip even if you fall on it while roller-blading.

The yepp has 40MB of memory, enough to store ten ordinary songs encoded with the popular internet audio compression format MP3. A smart card extension increases the device's capacity still further. Record company executives can relax. Samsung has included its SecuMax software to prevent users from pirating unauthorized songs. So tell us, Samsung; what did the youth focus groups have to say about that?