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RadioShark Is Vaporware No More

Posted by timothy on from the no-more-sleeping-through-car-talk dept.

DLWormwood writes "Well, after acquiring a reputation for being 'vaporware of the year' from Wired News, MacCentral is reporting that Griffin Technology's radioSHARK is finally shipping. Now maybe I can finally get some sleep while Dr. Demento is recorded by my Mac late at night..."

15 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. What is the demand for this? by no+haters · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't know about other people, but for me, the radio is something that helps to pass the time when I'm doing something else. I listen to the radio when I'm driving my car, when I'm cleaning my house, when I'm having dinner, occassionally. Granted, I wish I could catch "Prairie Home Companion" more often, but oftentimes many broadcasts that are one-time appearances like that are available online after the fact anyway. Do people see a strong demand for an item like this? At $70? Only available as hookup to your PC?

    1. Re:What is the demand for this? by Electric+Eye · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Every Howard Stern fan with a computer will want this. Seriously. If Griffin is smart, they'll start taking out ads on his show. They'll sell millions of them.

      Imus fans are too old and bitter to hook anything up to their computers.

    2. Re:What is the demand for this? by jalano · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I got so tired of waiting for the radioSHARK that I ended up cobbling together the equivalent; I bought a Griffin iMic and hooked it up to a D-LINK USB FM Radio (DSBR-100), now discontinued. It requires both of the USB ports of my powerbook.

      I use it to record Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and A Prairie Home Companion each week, which then gets burned as mp3 files to a CD-RW that play in my car's mp3 player. It's great to listen to the NPR weekend programming as part of my daily commute. It's all done with some Applescripts and cron entries in OS X. I also have scripts which change the Energy control panel so the laptop automatically turns on before the broadcast and powers down when the recording is complete.

      If I had to replace my setup I'd have to buy the radioSHARK since there are no FM USB tuners that will work with my powerbook. I hope there will be an API so I can have it write mp3 files instead of making a pit-stop through AIFF.

  2. Things that make me go ho-hummmm by Bin_jammin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seems like too little too late for me and radio. After the corporate buy-outs (Clear Channel, I'm looking at you) the blandification of radio pretty much turned me off from turing radio on. If I could find a station I wanted to listen to, it would probably not entice me to buy another radio to listen to it. If this product had been around 5 years ago, it would have been the latest and greatest. As it is, it's just the lastest. The tech behind it is cool, and it seems like a great product. Commercial free radio would be great, but these days it seems like the songs are the breaks in between the commercials, and not the other way around. Alas radio, you've died at the hands of top 40, and the funeral march will be performed by top selling artists. You sure do look nice in that beige suit though.

    1. Re:Things that make me go ho-hummmm by RPI+Geek · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Try finding a small independent radio station, or a college radio station. They tend to have good programming and the Top40 music is occasional rather than the rule. One of my favorite radio stations is 102.7FM WEQX (Manchester VT, but I can hear them in the Albany NY area just fine) simply because they don't pump out the same crap over and over.

      91.5 WRPI plays a lot of eclectic and oftentimes strange music, and they aren't corporate slaves.

      88.3 WVCR "The Saint" plays mostly hit music during peak hours, but other than that, you can hear just about anything: classical, folk, rock and rap sometimes within a few hours, especially if you're up for some sleepless night.

      The bottom line is that there are a handful of radio stations that are actually doing very well without ClearChannel's meddling. Try finding one of these because they're actually enjoyable to listen to, and you might find that it's better than listening to your music collection over and over. Or try finding a local NPR station. Or listen to any given AM station, they can be pretty damn funny sometimes, especially when they're trying to be serious.

      --

      - "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
  3. Gettin' in line to buy one of those... by The+I+Shing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't wait to get a RadioShark, record Coast to Coast A.M. every night, and then listen to the cavalcade of freaks and weirdos on my iPod while driving, walking, exercising and so on.

    For internet broadcasts, I'll still be using iRecordMusic to bring shows like This American Life and The Savvy Traveler into my iPod via iTunes on my Mac.

    Good thing that 120GB external hard drives are on sale at Office Max this week!

    --
    You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
    1. Re:Gettin' in line to buy one of those... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why??

      I have been doing EXACTLY that for over 2 decades with a FM radio Tuner Card in my pc, or one of the serial port radio tuners, or current USB tuners.

      The software that came with all those devices allowed you to specify a time to start recording and a channel. convert the WAV to a mp3 using lame when finished and everything is done.

      I do not understand why people think the radioshark is anything innovative or special. It's the same-old from 20 years ago and has been available ever cince.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Gettin' in line to buy one of those... by SlamMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What USB tuners? I haven't been able to find one.

      --
      Mod point free since 2001
  4. Misread by StevenHenderson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did anyone else read this as Radio Shack...?

  5. It Works On PCs Too... by DLWormwood · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...though it is a bit expensive ($70) come to think of it. I still plan on getting one, however. My iMac doesn't have an audio-in, and this device appears to send the recorded data over USB. I don't have cable, so I never got a TiVo, but now I can experience something similar. Staying up late for the Funny Five wrecks my return to work on Monday mornings.

    I might start listening to more NPR too, since I've had bad luck listening to their Internet broadcasts. I better curb my enthusiasm, I'm starting to sound like a Griffon shill...

    Wow, I'm batting 3 for 3 on getting accepted submissions, anybody have a longer streak?

    --
    Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    1. Re:It Works On PCs Too... by LinuxHam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I might start listening to more NPR too, since I've had bad luck listening to their Internet broadcasts

      Have you checked Shoutcast lately? Remember the old days when, in order to get NPR via streaming MP3 you had to look up a station at current.org that streams in MP3? Well, after the McDonald's hieress died and donated what, a trizillion dollars to NPR, they can be found on Shoutcast with like 56 of 157628 listeners! Your troubled NPR streaming days are over. (Just checked, and they are currently at 0/96669 listeners at 56k.)

      Come on, people, get on those streams! Let's show their appreciation for this effort. No more WUGA, WPSU, WRDU, or WDET for me.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
  6. Why is this interesting? by Redshado · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For $70 dollars I can buy a Hauppage Win-TV FM, $10 dollars more I can add Hauppage's radio time-shifting software. So, for a net cost of $10 dollars more I can have all the benefits of the RadioShark and a TiVo, or even better, run it under Linux and MythTV/MythRadio and have it all for the same cost.

  7. Re:Finally! by killjoe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For me it would be cool for me to record the songname and the artists. I listen to a lot of collage radio and I hear a great song but I have to leave the car before I know what it is.

    --
    evil is as evil does
  8. A Tivo for your radio by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Think of it as a Tivo for your radio. I'd be surprised if a product with this sort of functionality hadn't already been invented before, the ability to set a device to begin recording at a certain time has been around since VHS and Betamax was invented. It also strikes me as a bit of a novelty not having to have an internet connection to get content.

    Up to now I've been content to use the BBC's website to hear their radio on demand, but now I can have the joys of NPR, Free Speech Radio, Air America etc. whenever it's convenient. I want one of these!

    --
    Drill baby drill - on Mars
  9. Re:How about a mobile model? by a_ghostwheel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why parent is funny?

    Seriously there are countless times when I missed traffic report on my 107.7 just because I was busy handling situation on the road. And you dont want to miss traffic report in Northern VA during rush hour :).

    I would have glady paid for car audio module that would handle both MP3s on CD and provided time-shifting (even 10-30 minutes for live radio will do).