Digital music distributor GoodNoise is to work with Adaptec, developer of the best-selling Toast CD authoring application, to create a system that will allow consumer CD players to read MP3 files stored on CD-ROM. Currently, digital music buffs who want to play downloaded tracks when their away from their PCs have to either copy them to Diamond Multimedia's Rio player, or convert them to standard CD Audio files then burn then onto a disc. The GoodNoise/Adaptec solution contains two components: a version of Toast that would be used to create specially formatted CDs from downloaded MP3 files, and firmwire built into the playback device, whether it's a hi-fi separate, DVD player or in-car entertainment system. Success, then, depends on sufficient numbers of consumer electronics companies agreeing to add the GoodNoise/Adaptec to their products. At the moment, neither company will say which, if any, manufacturers have expressed an interest in the technology. Not that this is the only solution for such companies. Earlier this year, ESS Technology unveiled a chip-set that will allow consumer electronics devices to play back all of the most commonplace digital music formats (see Semiconductor firm launches MP3 chip-set for set-tops). ®