Penguins-On-Hudson

The first Ogg-friendly music player I purchased was a Neuros II; this was late in 2004 and hardware support was fairly new as the Vorbis codec didn’t reach 1.0 until 2002. Then, as now, the best place for information on Ogg-friendly devices was XiphWiki. I recall being quite impresssed with Neuros’ willingness to open up the device specifications and embrace the Open Source community, unfortunately the device suffered from a number of design flaws that no amount of firmware hacking could ever resolve. Ultimately the combination of charging problems, a design plagued by awkwardness and bulk, and the manufacturer’s shift to focus on newer devices doomed the Neuros II to my technology junk drawer. Continue reading »