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.

Comments

Re:I'll take two

[TheKodiak]

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.

Conversation Changes Songs?

[GeekLife.com]

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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Voice Technology

[Life Blood]

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.

Cool, but

[NuclearArchaeologist]

no one is going to steal my $40 tape deck.

"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."

Can't This Guy Do His Own Market Research

[MasteroftheVoxel]

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".

Ok, but add this too

[John Jorsett]

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.