There are untold fortunes to me made in this world, as long as you live by one cardinal rule: never underestimate the laziness of consumers. This is the guiding logic behind a new "intuitive" mp3 player launched by the Slacker Company. Slacker and their new gadget called... The Slacker (creative, no?) are set to be available in June and cost around $150 for a 2 Gig model, and $400 for 12 Gigs. The real innovation is that the player chooses music automatically, and allows you to decide if you like it or not. If you say you don't, it'll never play the song again. Many internet radio users will be familiar with this format. Mainly because it's taken directly from internet radio. Slacker's internet radio has been operating since March, and has 100 stations which will is where the songs for the mp3 player will be downloaded from.

In a wonderful testament to just how lazy we've become as a society, one of the founders of Slacker was quoted as saying "Most MP3 players are too much work for the average user." Valid point. Many of us lay tired and sore in our beds at night after a long day of handling our Mp3 players. Medical experts have recently reported a high rate of chronic fatigue among young Americans and feel that portable music players are to blame, even going so far as to dub the trend "Ipod Drain". Poor attempts at humor aside, the Slacker does seem like a useful tool. A portable radio with just enough control over the playlist that you can be sure to get something you like, while trimming out that which you don't. And more importantly, now that we don't have to spend so much time and effort slaving away on our old fashioned MP3 players, we as a society can finally get around to getting some work done.