How about a round of applause for Sony for inventing the time machine! From what we hear, they’ve gone back in time to 1997, picked up a bunch of Sony engineers, brought them to 2006, and gave them all jobs. That’s the only rational explanation for Sony releasing a new CD Walkman.

Idiocy aside, the Walkman has a G-Protection system, supports MP3 CDs, and is round. If the CD players of olde had 40 second shock protection, these things should have 40 hour shock protection.

Now let’s hope they use their new time machine for good, not evil, and bring us forward to a time when Blu-ray doesn’t suck.

D-NE241, the new Sony portable CD player [Akihabara News via uber gizmo]