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Is There A Market For A Voice Controlled MP3 Car Stereo?
big_hairy_mama asks: "I'm the author of MP3VoiceControl, a software package based on IBM's ViaVoice. As it was designed as an interface-free car stereo (in addition to being used at home) and allows you to search for and play all your MP3's completely without the use of a keyboard or monitor, I am seriously considering starting a small business to build and sell voice controlled MP3 player units. My project is called called EmVAX, short for MP3 Voice Activated Car Stereo. This is similar in concept to EMPEG's units, except a lot cooler, and I am confident that I can produce my box at about 1/3 of the $1500 price tag of EMPEG's similar unit. My question is, how much of a market is there for this type of item? How much would you be willing to pay for 140 hours of continuous playback with an easy-to-use voice-activated and voice-searchable system? Is the impress-your-friends factor enough of a selling point so that people will shell out $600 bucks for my unit?" Very cool. I'd love to have one of these, but at $600US a pop, I think I'd have to see one in action, first.
I don't think IBM would appreciate him selling/licensing their ViaVoice to other people. Maybe I read that wrong, but it looks to me like he's using ViaVoice...
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Does it run EmVMS?
USB, 10bT ethernet, a better design and interface and as you mentioned, voice control.
(having trouble accessing your site... host not found) If you could make an affordable and easily removable car mp3 player with USB and Ethernet and a remote that would be enough to convince me... but voice control would be damn cool too!
I'm considering my first car and right now an mp3 player looks just a bit more attractive than a 6 cd changer.
What would really sell your product is a slot loadable mp3 cd player. You can skimp on the HD then too (maybe none)! Finally 11Mbit wireless ethernet capability... perhaps a PCMCIA slot on the front! then you could use all sorts of media (SM/CF that standard handheld mp3 players use! or iomega click, sony memory stick (is there a PC card mem sick reader?), and wireless ethernet cards among other goodies)
If your product had all that I'd almost be willing to pay the full $1500 for it!
I would plead for one thing - please make sure the command sequences are accessed by first speaking a command word, then acknowledging you are in "command mode".
The most classic example I can think of here is Star Trek, where they say "Computer", and it responds "Boop-bleep" (or whatever) do let them know it heard them - then they can tell it to do whatever, it acknowledges that, and goes to work and stops listening. This eliminates all ofthe complaints of constant-on voice recognition.
As a side bonus, I'd love to be able to use my Palm to beam it playlists or even as a remote control when I didn't want to talk to it.
Also, please include a CD player that plays MP3 files - I can't get through to your site to see if you've thought of that already.
Wait! One more thing - please include support for adding other formats as well, like the recently discussed open format that could replace MP3's (forgot the name already).
Other than that, I've been yearning for a car MP3 player (I'm going to buy a portable CD-MP3 player mostly for that porpouse) and think there is definatley a market!
Oh, one last optional feature would be nice - if I could add wireless ethernet so I could beam the car songs from my house.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I built one, without voice input capability, for less than $250 US. Sunnylab GXLite MediaGX POS board($40), ES1371 soundcard ($20, OEM), GL5446 videocard ($14), 8G Maxtor HD($79, on sale), 100W micro supply ($10 used) and a small inverter ($59). With a wee bit of modification, (a pair of L-shaped PCI adapters to lay the cards flat and a roll-your-own DC-DC supply) you could fit it into a case slightly smaller than the Kenwood changer it replaced. You can roll your own supply for $20 in parts, (a $50 savings) and toss the video card for a voice interface. Just add a uni mike to the FD ES1371 and your software. Buy in bulk and I'm willing to bet you could get the constituent parts for under $170, add a case for $20, and still make a decent profit at $279.99 final retail..
.sig: Now legally binding!
Safer? Yeah, until you get clever and teach it that it's name is "Pig", and set the stop playing command to "Die!". And then get pulled over by a motorcycle cop in a quiet neighborhood with your stereo blaring and start screaming over it to try to get it to shut up.
Or maybe that's just me.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
. . . or you could just whack out a frontal lobe, and achieve the same effect!
I'm out.
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Why everybody using it in apps (Can you say GNOME?) when IBM hasn't clarified this?
-Jeff
I'd hate to be expressing my love to a date and have "Nothing Compares 2 U" start up accidentally.
How does the player differentiate between conversation and orders?
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$600 sounds very reasonable. Heck, it's safer than a regular radio AND plays mp3s? If it delivers as promised it might be the first sound system that actually tempts me to get rid of my AM/FM.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I realize that this is a verboten topic on slashdot - home of free software - but have you considered trying to sell/license your voice technology and design to any major manufacturers? You might be able to cut costs by having some electronics firm build what you design and then make your money through volume and licensing from them.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
"Computer, play that song...uhh that one that goes 'road runner' by that band..uhh I wish I knew the words.... Computer are you lis-" Sound of 1970 VW van wrapping around a light post.
"Computer, call the doctor."
Shuts car off.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The problem with the UK empeg is that it's produced in the UK. It's not quality or anything like that it's price. I've been there, I've purchased there, and even without VAT the costs are higher. The software isn't the problem. It's putting it all together. In the US you could have the parts come in from Singapore and Japan and have final build in Mexico, or some urban area (read The Hood). It would be 1/4 of the price as Empeg. Last year I had a question about the price of HD's, and Empeg said the prices couldn't be cheaper in the US because they bought directly from Fujistu in Japan. What they don't realize is the US market is way different than the EU. US Hard Drive market is domminated by Seagate, IBM, Maxtor, and Western Digital. US companies. Asian hard drive makers practically dump drives in the US just to make get product through the door.
At any rate a large company like...Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood, etc. would be able to put together the hardware in bulk for a super cheap price.
Me personally, I would look to team up with the people who are testing the StrongArm (LART) based computers that run linux (similar to Empeg) and license the "technology" both to large companies, but to general public as a hobby.
In the spirit of OpenSource what I would like to see is someone take the work with LART, and perhaps create a module, or kit so to speak. A series of kits perhaps. The LART being a cheap PC, and a Car Kit that would connect to the LART and provide a user interface. I look at this as almost a computer. So why not make it modular so it can be upgraded.
Just my $.02
Sounds like a cool idea, but I'm tired of these "Ask Slashdots" where we end up doing someones work for them.
Can't he do his own market research? What does slashdot get back from this? It seems to me that the point of "Ask Slashdot" is so one may ask a question that others might also be interested in learning the answer to. Who cares whether people will buy a voice-activated mp3 player.
I tired of have slashdot being used a guinea pig population of geeks that others can pitch their ideas at. Lets go back to the intellectually stimulating "Ask Slashdot".
Adding features to digital products is relatively easy, so in addition to the MP3 playback and voice capability, give the player a Tivo-like feature. I want to be able to listen to a radio station with the unit recording it in the background so that I can shut off the car, run an errand, then come back to listen starting where I left off. Not to mention rewind a bit to listen to something a second time. I like talk radio and it would be great not to have to miss things when I'm driving around. It would also be nice to be able to set the unit to record specific programs at specific station/times for later listening.