Linux-based Internet Radio Appliance

sysadmn writes "From CMP Media's Winmag Win Letter, A company called Kerbango has built what it bills as the world's first standalone Internet radio, which can play any of the claimed 4,000 audio streams floating around the Net as well as more conventional AM or FM broadcasts. Tuning is accomplished through the Kerbango Tuning Service, which displays the user interface on a half-VGA grayscale LCD monitor. The radio has a built-in computer, with an 80MHz PowerPC chip running Linux with 8MB of DRAM, 8MB of flash memory, and a whole bunch of codecs. It'll be available in the Spring. They're not saying how much. "

Comments

Re:USB?

[Russ Steffen]

The USB stack from 2.3 has been back ported to 2.2. It's not integrated with the kernel, it's a separate patch. The last time I looked into it, there were a couple of device level drivers that wouldn't work with it because they used other 2.3 specific features, but it was otherwise complete. Wish I could find the URL again.

Re:Why would I buy such a thing?

[rcade]

Most people are not freaks if they choose not to watch TV. My reasons to actually watch TV are decreasing every day.

Anyone who doesn't watch TV is a demographic freak. Next thing you'll be telling me is that you read books. Shudder.

> Television and digital video are better for sports if that's what you really want.

Radio is the command-line interface to baseball. Television puts a nice graphic user interface on the sport, but if you want direct access to the things that make baseball great, you either go to a game or turn on the radio.

What did they fix in G2?

[Jeffrey Baker]

They must have modified RealPlayer G2 to run on an 80 MHz box with only 8MB of RAM. On my machine the X version of G2 spins at 100% CPU and eats about 4 MB.

-jwb

Re:What did they fix in G2?

[kinger]

Actually, unless something has changed recently, RealPlayer hasn't been ported to LinuxPPC.
LinuxPPC.org petitioned Real for a port, they said they would think about it (as of 12/99).

The petition & info can be found here:

http://www.linuxppc.org/real.shmtl

Re:This, they say, is where we're headed.

[Thrakkerzog]

Another three hundred gets you into a cheap set-top DVD player.

Just wanted to let you know that I got a fairly decent set-top DVD player for $155 USD here in Pennsylvania.

(slashdot is having problems, sorry if this got submitted more than once)

This, they say, is where we're headed.

[foxtrot]

A little box that plugs into the Internet and gives me my radio. A little box that plugs into the TV and lets me play games. A little box that plugs into the cable line and watches my TV for me.

They say the PC is going the way of the dinosaur-- after all, these little boxes are so much cheaper!

Cool, it runs Linux. Cool, it uncrunches streaming MP3. But I've got a PC that does that.

And funny, that very same PC plays games, too. And it can watch TV for me. And it keeps track of my finances and my recipes. You know, all those things I'd've had to buy a $200-300 little consumer-grade box to do. But somehow, those little single-purpose boxes sell.

A hundred bucks gets you into a low-end webtv. Another three hundred gets you into a cheap set-top DVD player. Toss in a hundred for a Playstation, a hundred for a VCR, at least a hundred for this gadget. That's $700-- and we're using last generation's game box, an analog system for watching our TV for us... Switching to a Dreamcast and a Tivo turns that $700 into closer to $1000. And I still can't do my finances, can't do word processing (and I don't have a place to plug a printer in even if I could!) and I can't store my recipes, $1000 later.

And then what we don't get are HDTV cards for our PCs that already have monitors with sufficient resolution to display HDTV.

I don't get it. Why is it these little single-use boxes sell? Is the general public really _that_ afraid of a general purpose personal computer?

-JDF

Re:This, they say, is where we're headed.

[slashdot-terminal]

Yes, the general public really is that afraid of a general purpose computer. I prefer a desktop too, as to most other Slashdotters. We prefer the flexibility that it provides. However, there are a vast number of people that wish to benefit
from the Internet, and yet are completely clueless and fearful of your standard workstation. Being uneducated is one thing, but the number of people who do not wish to educate themselves remains very large.

I just don't understand it. People have to have a job to eat. I go to college to get a better job. And yet it is theoretically possible to be a compelete fool and get a good job? Please tell me how?

As a customer service representative for a large software company, I get clueless AOLers calling in everyday blaming us for the problems caused by their cluelessness regarding computers. I consider it a Good Thing that your average
AOLer will likely be using a set-top box or a web pad in a couple of years. It leaves them with less room to screw things up. You might say that these devices won't encourage them to educate themselves about computers, but the fact
is that they're not making any attempts to educate themselves as it is.


This is a bad thing. Let me tell you why. The PC market is run by people usually buying PCs in mass. That means the things that people most want to use a computer for: games, and the internet. Companies come out with small black boxes that do the same things for less but more if you add them together to get the same functionality as a PC. What do you think will happen to general PC prices?

*BOOM* (rocket shoots towards the stratosphere)

And guess what happens then? People like me who are having ecconomic trouble just keeping up with technology will be screwed again.

These are bad things but I guess people who want to learn and get ahead are just usually screwed over anyway.

Re:This, they say, is where we're headed.

[cw0000]

Yes, the general public really is that afraid of a general purpose computer. I prefer a desktop too, as to most other Slashdotters. We prefer the flexibility that it provides. However, there are a vast number of people that wish to benefit from the Internet, and yet are completely clueless and fearful of your standard workstation. Being uneducated is one thing, but the number of people who do not wish to educate themselves remains very large.

As a customer service representative for a large software company, I get clueless AOLers calling in everyday blaming us for the problems caused by their cluelessness regarding computers. I consider it a Good Thing that your average AOLer will likely be using a set-top box or a web pad in a couple of years. It leaves them with less room to screw things up. You might say that these devices won't encourage them to educate themselves about computers, but the fact is that they're not making any attempts to educate themselves as it is.

Freedom from the corporate world, or new master?

[doom]

Look, here's the real problem with this thing, not the ugly purple case:

Tuning is provided by the Kerbango Tuning Service (KTS) with over 4,000 streams to choose from, dynamically updated and graded for quality and reliability.

[...] you are connected to the Internet, and the available stations are displayed by category: Rock & Roll, Classical, Talk Radio, Country, Jazz, and dozens more. By using the tuning knob in much in the way you use a regular radio, you select a category. Individual stations or streams are then displayed. Tune to the one you want to hear, and press 'Select'. The Kerbango radio connects you to the stream and your broadcast begins.

Radio That Gets Better Every Time You Turn It On Your Kerbango tuner always stays up to date with the latest stations, newest music, and current events because every time you turn your radio on it communicates with the Kerbango Tuning Service (KTS). KTS is a sophisticated database that stores information about all the stations that Kerbango finds on the Internet. Each stream is carefully screened for broadcast quality. Once it's added to the available stations, special automated programs, called StreamBots[tm], continually check the station's transmission quality and reliability. [...] StreamBots also detect when a station changes its location on the web, updating the KTS database, and ensuring that your tuning experience is always smooth and seamless.

Get it? One centralized database run by this company is central to the function of this gadget.

This raises some questions:

• Can their servers handle the traffic?
• As someone else here has pointed out: "What if the company goes belly up?"
• How does the company decide what category a signal will be filed under?
• What decides the placement? Will they accept payment from the broadcasters?
• What's their policy on advertising. Will any appear on the display? (Or worse, *in the audio*?)
• Will they make an effort to carry *all* streams, or will they focus on the most popular?
• Will they censor any streams that they regard as "inappropriate for a general audience"?

This is not to say that these aren't *answerable* questions. But they need to be addressed...

What I'm really interested in seeing is a good "internet transistor radio" (when they finally release palm pilots with both Richochet and an audio jack, I'll be happy... you can squeeze listenable audio over a Richochet modem, high-quality audio can come later). Second to that, I'm sure an "internet car radio" would be of interest to all the people stuck in car commuting. This particular type of gadget is third down the list. Certainly it's a drawback that it's stationary, but a webradio for the bedroom/livingroom that's cheaper than a full PC would still fill a niche. At least it has a quarter-VGA screeen on it that allows for *some* flexibility in what you can do with it.

The great advantage of a web radio would be to get people out from under the corporate conglomerate blandness that the world seems to be sinking under.

The great danger is that in the effort to make it simpler to access web radio streams, they'll take away some of your freedom to choose what you hear.

The obligatory questions:

[Kaufmann]

First, which PowerPC processor is this? What chipsets are we talking about? Any special chips? I want more technical specs.

Second, what Linux are they running? Is it a modified LinuxPPC? Or is it custom-built? Is it burned onto the ROM? Have they made any changes to the kernel? If so, do they intend to put them back into the code base?

Third, will I be able to telnet into it? To network it like a regular computer? To replace the OS? In short, what is its hack value?

Fourth and last (but not least), how would one go about setting up a Beowulf cluster of these things? :)

Re:The obligatory questions:

[Kaufmann]

Why are these questions obligatory?

Because I care about them.

I don't understand why people on Slashdot expect a device to be super-hackable just because it is based on Linux.

I don't expect it to be super-hackable. I just wanted to know whether it was super-hackable.

Sheesh. Calm down, dude.

Mouse trail effect?

[r2ravens]

Was anyone else annoyed by the mouse trail effect with the little "k"'s on their front page?

I turn that off for the duration when I work on someones laptop and this page bothered me enough that I emailed them asking to reconsider the "feature".

Oh well, I'm probably a little off-topic, but it does look like a cool box. I don't know if I could get used to paying a subscription service to listen to music.

Russ

Where do you think they got it?

[/]

You'd have to be asleep at the corporate wheel not to know by now that the latest fad is making every computing device resemble this purple device over here. Look at where the kerbango's knobs correspond to the imac's speakers, and we needn't say more about the silly colors. It'll pass, and on some future day in 20 years, someone will take the shell off a Dell machine (with the trunk in the back this time) and slap a colored one on and consumers will snatch them up in a massive coordinated fit of orgasmic nostalgia. I plan to be very cranky when it happens.

Re:Why would I buy such a thing?

[RNG]

The problem that I see is that eventually even if you are wealthy these little fees could start to add up rather rapidly and no one would ever notice until you actually add them up

This is exactly the pattern I see with my mobile/cell phone. Yes it's nice to use the thing and call your friends all the time, but on the other hand, when the bill arrives, I really wonder if it's worth it.

Re:break out your slide rule genius

[PurpleBob]

He actually had a point. 320x240 is half of VGA in each dimension, so it has a quarter of the total number of pixels.
--

PenguinRadio will do this from space

[PenguinRadio]

PenguinRadio is working on a similar device (also LINUX based), along with a car and portable appliance that works with a new constellation of satellites from Ellipso that provide broadband access.

It's a very interesting time to be involved in Internet Radio

Nice

[x00]

They forget to mention above that this little thing will play your MP3s accross your 10/100 Network (doesn't say how; samba, ftp or what?) and it already has the network card. It also allows external storage devices to be plugged into it.

This little thing has a lot of features...

--

Re:Nice

[x00]

True enough, but personally I don't want a PC and associated keyboard (and on occasion Mouse too) everywhere, I have enough hiding here and there as it it.

I'd be quite happy to have this as my alarm clock, and I'm not sure my bedside cabinet would take the strain of a PC..... :)

And I'd hope this would be better than a PC too..

--

Re:Why would I buy such a thing?

[slashdot-terminal]

That's more or less what I thought at first, but consider this: Radio stations all over the US are being gobbled up by Radio conglomerates, resulting in bland coast-to-coast crap. Variety is, well, your choice between easy-listening
pop-40 or "alternative" crap or country music, with an occasional 60s/70s classic rock station thrown in. College radio is the only interesting medium, but quality and signal strength can vary. If I wanted to hear Pantera on the radio...
I can't. I don;t think internet radio is the answer, but "internet" and "linux" should help their IPO :-)

So you are willing to buy a dedicated device that needs it's own line to access things via wireless internet connections? Wouldn't buying the CDs be a better option?

Re:Why would I buy such a thing?

[slashdot-terminal]

Because most people aren't freaks who never watch TV or go to the movies, and because local radio blows goats.


Most people are not freaks if they choose not to watch TV. My reasons to actually watch TV are decreasing every day.

Most of us are sedentary couch and mouse potatoes, and the Kerbango Internet radio sounds like a great way to do a little more digital grazing. No longer will I have to sit at my computer and feign productivity while I listen to
decent radio stations in other cities. I can sit on my couch and completely dispel any illusions of productivity, and there's even a possibility I can listen from the comfort of my porcelain couch.


The problem that I see is that eventually even if you are wealthy these little fees could start to add up rather rapidly and no one would ever notice until you actually add them up. Paying over $300/month for various services could start to be common. Until perhaps internet access via this device is as free as common FM or AM radio I think that most people will shy away from it.

Any technology that lets me listen to more baseball games on the radio is a good one. Is Vin Scully still doing Dodgers games?

Television and digital video are better for sports if that's what you really want. Check out something like ESPN or the like.

Never underestimate the buying public

[threaded]

Don't underestimate the power of the consumer. If they want a separate box for everything then they will get a separate box for everything.

Not many people want to power a computer up, rattle keys, whizz a mouse around and all the attendant house keeping. They want to get home from work, crack open a beer and slob.

Now, if someone could think up a way for all these household electrics to play nicely with each other...