MP3 iTeddy hopes to challenge Apple's iPod dominance

Give your MP3 player a hug

1 February 2007 15:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

A UK company is hoping to make music cuddily with the launch of the iTeddy, a media player built into a teddy bear.

The bear comes in two options; either as a standard MP3 player, or offering image and movie playback.

The entry-level £35 MP3 player offers 128MB of storage and a USB2 connection to drag and drop files on to the player.

The slightly more expensive £49 media player features a 2-inch colour LCD screen, a built-in rechargeable battery and 512MB of memory to store songs and videos.

Both teddy bears feature a speaker to share the music rather than having to rely on wearing headphones.

Available in brown or white, the UK company behind the idea is hoping that tying in the bear with a website - iTeddy.co.uk - will help boost the appeal and offer additional content to download like movies, music and games. Although no content providers have been yet announced Imran Hakim the MD for iTeddy told Pocket-lint that a deal with Disney was in the works.

The company is also planning accessories such as a Webcap that features a webcam, iSpecs which features a digital camera and iBelt which would allow wireless communications with a PC to save having to connect and wires when transferring songs to and from the player.