Audiofy Audiobook Chip
Amongst other titles, Audiofy has re-released a number of Simon and Schuster’s well-produced Star Trek titles on Audiofy Audiobook Chips. What’s an Audiofy Audiobook chip? Well, it’s an SD chip with an audiobook on it. In my little world, the SD chip works with my laptop (which is my main computer – I’m typing on it now) and my Pocket PC. I inserted the chip first in my Pocket PC, and the audio started to play automatically after asking me if it was OK to do so. After about 15 minutes, I stopped the playback and put the chip in my laptop, where it resumed right where it was playing on the Pocket PC.
Anti-DRM folks will not be pleased to find that the chip is not just a collection of MP3 files – in fact, a quick exploration of the contents of the chip didn’t provide me a clear idea of where the audio files actually are on the chip. The player that plays the files is contained on the chip, and it will work in Pocket PC’s, Palm Pilots, Macs, Smartphones, and PC’s. They also have an application on the chip that allows for easy transfer of the audio to an iPod.
Overall, I had a good experience with the Audiofy Audiobook Chip. It did what I wanted it to do – played the content, bookmarked where I was from device to device, and sounded pretty darned good – the sound is not of the highest quality, but it’s certainly more than adequate. They are easy to use and are definitely space savers.
Apart from the many Star Trek titles, Audiofy offers some excellent audiobooks in their science fiction collection. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls and Curse of the Chalion are there, along with The Consciousness Plague by Paul Levinson, several from Edgar Rice Burroughs (Mars and Tarzan), Roger Gregg’s superior audio drama The Last Harbinger, and a couple of Spider Robinson’s Callahan novels.
ADDENDUM: I didn’t explain that picture very well… ok, not at all. What you have there is the Audiofy Audiobook Chip version of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Imzadi by Peter David, read by Jonathan Frakes. You can see the chip itself, and a credit card-sized holder for when you are not using it. The shiny round silver thing is a quarter, provided for perspective. Of course, if you don’t know how big a quarter is, I suppose it won’t help much. –sd
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
