By Andrew Liszewski

It apparently wasn’t important enough to make the announcement roster during Samsung’s CES press conference, but the TicToc was on display at their booth and is a clever alternative to Apple’s iPod Shuffle. A built-in motion sensor makes switching tracks as easy as shaking the player, and it’s smart enough to cue up a slow song if shaken slowly, or a fast one if shaken vigorously, should you so desire.

On one end there’s a large button that’s used to power the TicToc on and off, but it’s also used, in conjunction with gravity, to adjust the volume. Hold the button with the player upside down and the volume will decrease, and vice versa. To be honest the gimmick actually seems like kind of a pain to use, but I’m sure it will appeal to the player’s target demographic which is somewhere in the tweens.

According to reps at their booth, the Samsung TicToc will be available later this year in 2 and 4GB capacities supporting MP3, WMA, OGG and FLAC audio formats with 12 hours of battery life. I’m going to assume it also comes with the syncing cradle pictured above, though the designer plastic sleeves used to customize the player’s appearance will be sold separately.