iPod insights

Descriptions like "a window to your soul," a little box of "personal emotions and memories," and "a powerful identity technology" are not to be taken lightly. They come from, respectively, a software professional, a graduate student and human rights worker, and a university professor (Sherry Turkle, who directs the Initiative on Technology and the Self at MIT), quoted in the Washington Post. It's not the only MP3 player, but the iPod is the new "free toaster," according to the New York Times, and 22 million own one, many of whom are playing back parts of their lives along with all those tunes.