David Friedman's portable CD jewel case concept

Apr 10, 2007 11:21 GMT  ·  By

The "idyll" between you and your CD jewel cases may soon be over. You'll probably chase the Digital Jewel Box illusion, especially if you don't like holding the real thing in your hands. David Friedman's Digital Jewel Box is not even a prototype though. This device is supposed to sit next to your stereo or computer in its charging dock and synchronize wirelessly to your home network, iPod or other digital player via WiFi.

The DJB's displays the album cover "art" for the song being played, while you read the liner notes and also listen to the "Broken Flowers" soundtrack, for instance.

If your media supports it, you can also use the DJB as a remote control thanks to its infrared transmitter and the IR receiver that's integrated in the charging dock. So, instead of manually flipping the pages in order to read the all liner notes, you'll (manually) use the remote control to flip through the rest of the liner notes, including track listings, lyrics, song credits and other precious info. The thing can also be taken out of its stand, so you can so you can carry it on trips around your desktop. How's that for innovative, eh? Right.

If, "par example/miracle", you decide to change songs, you can skip forward or back by pressing buttons on the DJB itself. And if you want to hear a different album, use the menu to browse through your music. The songs aren't actually stored on the DJB, but the track listings are. When you're not playing music, you can use it as a digital picture frame. Maybe. But probably not. At least, not today.

I wonder if it could be designed to allow moving art or videos to be embedded as well.

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