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MP3s From The Phone Box
An Economist writes "The .com bubble has come and gone, but the great ideas and implementations are starting to come through thick and fast now. The BBC reports on a planned development in the UK - download MP3s (or the like) from the phone box. Walking along the street and fancy a song - just plug in your iPod/MuVo/iRiver/whatever... awesome! Perhaps the lauded benefits of eCommunication are just beginning to be felt - plus it increases the viability of old-tech phone boxes, which are socially beneficial but financially challenged."
I'm envisioning someone figuring out how to boot off an iPod and using spare hard drive space to trade pirated software.
Hmm... Warezchalking?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Think about it - they are tergetting a niche market (Ipod owners) with an even nichier product (downloading songs on the road). And, to top it off, how often will a given person do it? Maybe once or twice, for that one time you are own the road and need a particular song. Otherwise, you'd get most of your music at home. I mean, they are losing money with telephone calls (where you might actually get repeat customers), and that doesn't even require them to pay for a high speed connection. No, I suspect this project is doomed already.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Cause its so more practical to load music at a phonebooth, in public, than in the comfort of your home. I don't see the point here, honestly. An Ipod hold so much music that you'll always have something non-boring to listen to anyway.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
"Under the plans, anyone owning an iPod or portable music player would be able to go into a phonebox and download a song while out shopping or on a lunch break."
Well, just about every player has a different method of song transfer. Many require databases to be constructed, and there are so many obscure models out there... Most don't have Line-Ins to record off of, so what are they going to do?
Can't say that I speak for everyone, but I really can't imagine using this service. How often do you find yourself walking down the street thinking "man, I'd pay anything just to listen to some Moby right now"?
And it's not so much the cost. Who wants to stand there, navigate a bunch of menus and wait for a download just for a 3-minute song?
Maybe I'd pay for general internet access, but I can do that at a coffee shop. If I'm tired of what I've got on my iPod, I can always listen to the radio. The concept just doesn't seem to fill a desire.
On their recent tour, the Pixies offered CDs of the show recorded and mized live to fans walking out the door. I could see a kiosk at concert venues allowing fans to downlaod the night's show to their iPod. It would proably be faster than burning CDs. A phone both however, is not something I currently associate with music, and I don't thing it would catch on, but i buy most of my CD's at concerts, where I know the money is going to the artist. Apple is going to realse a U2 special edition iPod next week, and is rumored to be working on A sub $200 flash player. How long till digital complete overtakes cd's?
sorry 'bout the mess...
How about being able to download old episodes of Dr Who from a phone booth... how cool would that be?
Other possible things to dispense from a phone booth:
Perhaps you're not familiar with the newer UK phone booths.
What with the huge uptake in mobiles over the last 5 years, phone boxes have become rather redundant neglected by the vast majority of the indiginous population, and BT have been reinventing them in order that they remain profitable.
As such, many of the phones in large cities and towns are DSL-enabled and have little embedded web kiosks that you use to browse the web using your change, phone or credit card on a pay-as-you-go basis. Never used one myself, but I can't imagine it'd take long to download some DRM-encrusted WMA offof some dedicated service. The only problem would be enabling the phone boxes with USB and firewire connections.
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