As a result of two recent pedestrian deaths in Senator Carl Kruger district in New York, Senator Kruger is reported to introduce legislation that would ban MP3 players in metropolitan areas within New York. The proposed ban would ban MP3 players, cellphones, and any other electronic device while crossing the street.

The thing to notice in this article is the use of the word iPod: "New York may ban iPods while crossing street". Is the iPod name going to lose its unique brand identity and become a generic term? It is getting to the point where the word iPod and MP3 player are used interchangably. With the words podcast, and variations of "i" something, Apple's brand is constantly being lost to generalization within the public eye. Even my kids when asking for an iPod last Christmas, said they didn't care which one they got all they wanted was an iPod (meaning any MP3 player would do -- Zune, SanDisk, iPod, whatever).

As this title points out using the word "iPod" interchangably with MP3 points out that Apple is in danger of losing its brand and iPod becomming an generic word. This has been the case with many popular trademarked products in the past: Aspirin, zipper, escaltor, in some countries Sony's Walkman has become a generic term. Is the iPod the next to fall?