Roadcasting -- The future of Podcasts?

[Bob Russell]

There's a new combination of various technologies that are making something called "Roadcasting" possible. Imagine storing content on a hard drive in your car and listening to a playlist. If you choose to, you're broadcasting to other cars within range all the while. So instead of turning on the radio, or listening to their own playlists that they are now bored with, they can tune into your playlist!

Check it out at TechnologyReview.

[Pride Of Lions]

I wonder how the FCC is going to regulate this. Already FM transmitters have to keep a certain low-power profile so that it doesn't step on anyone else's station, how will this "mesh network" provide enough distance without infringing on another station's bandwidth? There's nothing worse than to kinda get a station that you really want to hear, won't this frustrate drivers to have to continually accept a connection from a car 2 lanes away because the truck between the signals is blocking their efficiency?

I like the idea. I have my iPod mounted in my car and with it's 8200+ songs (and audiobooks, podcasts,...) I'm rarely bored while driving because I have control over so much content. It'll still be nice to be able tune into someone else's playlists (and even cooler that we're not trapped by what that person is listening to right now, but we can search their entire drive for content), it'll be like driving through someone else's head.

I see that the copyright holder's are already investigating how to keep thier pocket's lined, I wonder how much will trickle down to the artists. Also, will there be obstacles to leeching from another person's playlists? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to drive around and fill up the car's hard drive with other people's music collections? Maybe if they expired in 2 weeks so that it's not stealing the music, but rather like borrowing someone's CD's. Or if certain locations transmitted their content to willing hard drives? Chamber of Commerces could tote their city's attributes and narrate a "driving tour" just by having that person swing by and download the files. How would we control spam? What if a playlist is "mislabeled" and we end up receiving all kinds of unwanted material?

I like the concept, however certain social interactivity issues need to be straightened out first. Also, the final say belongs to the FCC and who knows how they'll accept the technology? Not to mention that this tech. won't really be commonplace for at least 10-15 years. We'd have to wait until it's viable, until market prices fall, and until people see the value-added proposition of buying and installing the hardware and have the tech. knowhow to use it properly. But still, it'll be exciting to see how it all shakes out.
POL9A