Nano iPod proves small is beautiful

Net Results: A few weeks back, during the BA Festival of Science in Dublin, I had the pleasure of sitting on the panel for the wonderfully-named "just say nano!" session, on the possible uses - and abuses - of nanotechnology.

One of the more eminent participants noted that he felt the word "nano" itself had become a negative for many people, evoking fears of what Prince Charles memorably referred to as "grey goo", a phrase originally conjured up by scientist and writer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book, Engines Of Creation.

This described an end-of-world moment when self-replicating robots would destroy the earth. The "nano" brand needed a lot of image work, several participants in the session agreed.

The discussion moved on and I didn't get the chance to say a resounding "au contraire". Far from being a Windscale awaiting an image makeover, the "nano" brand (as it were) was already starting to soar.

The week before, Apple had launched a new member of the iPod family, which had become the latest fetish gadget, called the "nano". The size of a credit card and the width of a pencil, the tiny device can hold up to 1,000 songs or 25,000 photos. US stores had waiting lists immediately for the black version.

If anything, science's new problem will be to defend against the expectation that a fascinating and broad area of research and development applies only to little music devices.

Admittedly, Apple's nano is now facing a few image issues.

Some buyers say the casing scratches too easily, and a class action lawsuit has even been filed in the US alleging that its design is defective, but one way or another that kerfuffle will almost surely be resolved (Apple tends to remain quiet initially then resolve problems, as it did with battery life in the original iPod).

As for the device itself, if you like small and subtly flashy, the nano will make you very happy. I spent the past week playing around with one and found it out-of-the-box easy to use, though its USB (rather than high-speed Firewire) cable for connecting it to your computer means considerably slower upload times for getting your music onto the device.

I made the mistake of letting the nano choose which of my large iTunes library it should import - it just seemed easier than making 1,000 choices. But I regretted this because if you have an eclectic taste in music then you are going to get a rather annoyingly eclectic sequence of songs.

Lulled into a peaceful state with some 17th century guitar on a long train journey last week I was next moment jarred into attention with Edwin Starr's roaring anti-war anthem, War.

There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what it had downloaded - four delightful songs from my "favourites" playlist, then suddenly the entire soundtrack from the film Shaft rather than a selected song or two (while the Isaac Hayes theme song is 1970s soul perfection, no one needs to hear all of Shaft).

I made good use of the fast forward control every few songs and realised it makes sense to choose your nano music more meticulously. However, when the songs are on, the nano has all the great sound quality of an iPod in a ridiculously portable form. It seems way too small to sound that good.

Overall, Apple's catchline for the nano, "impossibly small", sums up its good and its bad points. The weeny screen's ability to show a song's album cover art - basically, as a postage stamp - is cool but only really useful if you are the size of a garden gnome. The tiny size of the device makes it as easy to misplace as your ATM card and can invoke panicky searching to make sure you haven't left it between the sofa cushions or tucked it in a novel as an impromptu bookmark.

But small is so, so beautiful with this little pricy toy. Mine received plenty of double takes. It will have you gazing admiringly at its neat little lines when sitting on a train or plane, smiling a goofy smile.

It will tuck inconspicuously into a guy's coat pocket or this season's chicest little handbag.

The nano is the equivalent of the kind of toy that you wanted so badly when you were seven that you ached with longing and tormented your parents with your begging entreaties to "please buy it" and that you'd be good forever - or at least until Christmas.

But now you can take your own grown-up fistful of euros and go buy the toy for yourself. If the scratching issue concerns you, you'll perhaps want to wait and see how the court case plays out or if Apple makes some manufacturing changes. On the other hand, you'll miss months of flaunting your tiny endowment to friends and strangers.

weblog: http://weblog. techno-culture.com