Sharetapes revives the cassette mixtape – with NFC

We’re sad to say there’s still no need to retrieve your tape collection from the attic just yet but it does appear the trusty music receptacle is making a comeback – sort of. New gadget Sharetapes allow you to save digital playlists in – get this! – a physical form. What do you mean, you don’t know what a cassette is?

So instead of sending someone a link like the impersonal digital person you have become, you can instead ‘record’ a playlist from Spotify, 8tracks, Rdio and even YouTube on the company’s website and add it to one of your Sharetapes. Okay, so they’re not real cassettes – just card replicas with an NFC tag and a QR code – but the thought’s the same.

Now all you do is hand over the tape and the lucky recipient can use NFC or a QR code-reading application to listen to your playlist – and without having to wind the tape in. Best of all, it works for both smartphones and tablets.

Five Sharetapes will set you back US$7 (about £4.50) – but we can’t help but wish that they’d slapped a QR code and an NFC tag on an actual old cassette tape, for the full authentic feel.

[Sharetapes via Design Boom]

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