These days, almost everyone has a MP3 player of some kind. Some are integrated into phones while others are even made into the handles of sunglasses. It makes listening to music easy and accessible wherever you are.

Today, most phones, from O2 to Orange, have an MP3 player integrated into them. Listening to music couldn't be easier; we have our own virtual library at our fingertips. Phones and MP3 players can store hundreds of songs at a time, perfect for whatever musical mood you are in. But how did portable music players develop to reach their current stage?

One of the earliest forms of portable music was the Pocket Transistor radio in 1953. It was a very popular electronic communication device and billions more were made in the 1960s. This small portable device sparked ideas leading to the boom-box and then the cassette player, which soon became more popular than the transistor radio. People really liked the the tape deck became they could create their own mix-tapes and listen to them on the go.

At the end of the 70s, we saw the one of the first low cost portable stereos. Later models allowed the user to record their own voices onto cassettes over the music. This then developed into the Discman, which was released in the 80s. It was an electrical device, capable of skipping, pausing and forward-winding songs.

Like all technology, it goes through phases of becoming smaller and more compact, so next, we saw the minidisk player. Each minidisk could hold the same amount of data as a couple of CD's. The advantage of this was that you could personalise the discs and place certain songs on them.

From this we saw the birth of MP3 players. They were even smaller devices which had a small screen and a huge storage capacity. We now have touch screens with virtual colorful libraries to store all our music.