Sony senior vice president Takao Yuhara met with reporters yesterday to announce that the company is working on a new digital audio player, software and download service to take on Apple’s iPod. Yuhara didn’t provide a whole lot of details, though he did say the player would be “typically Sony,” by which we assume he meant it would be hobbled by intrusive DRM, poor support for formats other than ATRAC and prices that will make it completely uncompetitive in a market where you can get a decent 512MB flash player for well under $100. Let’s hope we don’t end up with this year’s answer to the Bean.