Gizmodo’s Wackiest Gadgets of 2002

In the early 2000s, there have been critical efforts to seek out the subsequent technological breakthrough that will succeed the CD. One of these was the DataPlay, a miniaturized model of a CD with a 32mm diameter. Why use DataPlay as a substitute of CD? For one, it might retailer extra than simply music—artist interviews, music movies, and pre-recorded songs may very well be accessed when related to a PC. It was additionally lovable tiny, or as The New York Times put it, “about the size of the ing in the center of a CD.”

After successful the CES Best of Show award in 2001, the DataPlay was launched in 2002 and was rapidly backed by artists and recording studios resulting from its strict digital rights administration system. Britney Spears’ album Britney and re-releases from ‘N Sync, Pink, Usher, OutKast, Sarah McLachlan, and Brooks & Dunn were included in the first batch of DataPlay discs.

In the end, DataPlay failed and is now an all-but-forgotten format. It was too expensive, forced owners to purchase new music players, and locked down content in a way customers weren’t used to on the time. It additionally arrived in the course of the progress of digital media.

Gizmodo had a feeling DataPlay wouldn’t achieve success:

Let’s see, they’ll value greater than CDs, be tough to repeat, sound about the identical as CDs, and require an entire new participant (of which just one is obtainable, the iRiver IDP-100, pictured at proper). Sure to be an enormous hit.