SanDisk has unveiled a new physical media format for the distribution of commercial music albums, teaming with several major labels and retailers to sell 1GB microSD cards branded as "slotMusic." Best Buy and Wal-mart will be among the first brick-and-mortar and online retailers to offer the products (in time for the holidays), which will feature songs encoded in 320kbps MP3 format from studios such as EMI, Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal. Besides working in nearly all microSD-compatible devices, the cards will be bundled with a USB adapter sleeve that allows them to be read by regular computers. While this is not the first time SanDisk has attempted to deliver music on the tiny flash memory cards -- its 2005 "Gruvi" albums never took off -- slotMusic would seem to be the first of its kind to feature unencrypted songs, or tracks completely free of any restrictive DRM.

[Via CrunchGear]