Hassle-free copying

A new breed of chips will let people copy music without using a computer. Texas-based Cirrus Logic has developed a chip for personal music devices that can play music from CDs while simultaneously recording the tunes on a blank disc or memory card in the more compressed MP3 format. Until now, anyone wanting to copy music has had to play it into computer memory, convert it to MP3 and then record it onto a CD or memory card.