There’s a new start up in town sporting a nice looking portable player and matching online music service. That start up is named Slacker and they’ve got some pretty big honchos helming them into a space dominated by the Apple iPod.

Slacker, unveiled last week, is being driven by Dennis Mudd, former CEO of Music Match, Jonathan Sasse, former president of iriver America, and Jim Cady, former CEO of Rio. These three have pooled their considerable experiences into an CD-music quality online music service which has already secured rights from content owners such as Sony BMG Music Entertainment and hundreds of independent labels. The Slacker music library is organized into professionally programmed genre and sub-genre stations. Listeners can create accounts on the Slacker Web site in either free or paid options. Features will include the creation of personalized stations via combining favorite artists, ratings of favorite tracks/artists and in-depth information on bands and their music.

As for the Slacker Personal Radio Player, this device integrates wireless Internet connectivity and music management software to let users enjoy “personalized radio stations with optimized radio programming sequences, continuously refreshed and updated to include personalized new music.” A built-in cacheing system lets one enjoy music when not in Wi Fi range. Other features include a four-inch color display, support for MP3/WMA/video media files and, later in the year, support for Slacker over satellite via high-speed music feeds from satellites throughout the continental United States.