Slashdot Mirror
MIT Plans To Convert Cell Phone Users Into Podcasters
robyn217 writes "A new research project at MIT's Media Lab, entitled RadioActive, aims to turn every cell phone or PDA carrying member of the public into a podcaster, and every mobile device into a virtual podcasting studio. The project defines a large-scale asynchronous audio messaging system in which voice messages can be threaded like text in a discussion forum (like on Slashdot) as a method of 'discussion-on-demand.'"
MP3 ON THE INTERNET" confirm/deny
[x] confirm
wants to do too.
Perfect! This is just what we need to get the general public even more convinced that they have a damn clue what they're talking about.
Another useless feature that I don't need on my cell phone. The phone companies will probably charge the heck out of it. Bad enough I'm paying $0.10 USD per instant message spam that I'm getting every month since I can't turn it off.
In Russia, you listen to podcast. In Soviet America, podcast listens to you!
The article forgot to mention that google want to index these conversations as part of their quest to make all information searchable.
So what you're saying is that I can now use my cell phone to talk to other people. Amazing!
I think if this public service announcement teaches us anything, it's that voice debate on the Internet is a bad thing.
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
How do you pronounce the dollar sign in "M$ Winblows"?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
As if there aren't enough totally useless text-based blogs filling up the internet, now our phones will be able to stream a constant flow of totally useless podcasts. I'm not sure which is worse, reading poor grammar in blogs on ugly looking websites, or trying to understand the voices of numerous self-important podcasters.
/. post was a min-podcast instead. How'd you like to try to listen to them all? The different voices (accents, etc) would drive me away in very little time.
Just imagine if ever
Compliance is bliss!!
Do not resist the collective.
May I have sexual relations with your syphilitic mother now, please?
I guess what they REALLY need is a life. This is just bandaid'ing the underlying problem.
I take it you're getting sick of this crap too?
KFG
Cause I'm sooo over the other great features I enjoy on my phone, like the camera, MP3 player, image/video viewing, FM radio...
Wouldn't phones be a lot nicer if they were just plain and simple? I hear the Japanese market is shifting back towards simplicity in the phone market, surely the rest of the world should hurry up and follow their lead.
Just a thought..
Will program for karma.
The UK government is already proposing to criminalise its use as all internet activity supports child porn and terrorist activity.
The cell phone will do EVERYTHING for you. And I can sit on a remote beach somewhere sipping a margarita knowing anything I need done will be handled by my phone.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
I mean, leaving video messages back and forth is no more useful than leaving text messages for one important reason: You lose the fluidity of real conversation/discussion. If I'm having a heated discussion with someone about something, it's nice to be able to get a word in edge-wise so I can properly have a conversation with them. And facial cues/expressions kinda don't work when you can't gauge audience reaction.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
is a grant for this tied to the pile o cash just delivered to verizon from the boyus at NSA?
interesting....
thats better than hissing like a spraypaint can as you walk by someone standing next to grafitti!! soon, everybody is movie producer
They have yet to make a phone capable ofreliably making phone calls...when that happens, call me...er...uh...never mind
Not only is the term "podcasting" overkill for "putting an MP3 on the internet," I imagine there are plenty of people out there who think (perhaps subconsciously, as I do): "I can't listen to podcasts, because I don't have an iPod."
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Yet another thing to do in the car while driving "safely"!
The phone companies will love it too as users minutes skyrocket.
Now if only they could teach my sister to lock her keypad so she doesn't call me or podcast from her purse.
... hundreds of people in geek-infested cities all shouting "First!" into their cell phones.
Podcast is just a fancy term used by Apple whores to give free publicity for a huge corporation. I'm staying out until Apple pays me, but I guess some people just love being bitches.
Hi, I work for the UK government. We're a little concerned about your use of the words "child" and "porn" in succession.
If you wouldn't mind coming down to the station to prove your use of this phrase was indeed innocent, we can forgo the unpleasant step of siezing all your assets until they can be checked for Compliance.
Cheers,
your Elder Sibling.
its only 'podcasting' in the sense that you're recording audio for others consumption. its much more about the discussions within a community (local physical/social context)....
For more info here's the project website
this was recently used in the elens project, and its video can be found here.
a live demo should be up this weekend
im the creator and i can tell you it was pc mag that used the term not i.
I thought LiveJournal at www.livejournal.com has already been doing this for at least 6 months???? (Doesn't seem very innovative or new to me?)
This may or not work for you but all the spam I've gotten via IM (not very much) has been via email. Verizon at least lets you set an aribtrary, random email alias for your phone number, and then block email sent to @vzwwiress.com or whetever their domain is.
This works for me since the only email I ever intend to get via my phone is pages from my own personal servers.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
RIAA launches $10 Bazillion lawsuit against CIA, NSA for copyright infringement.
There are some very high quality podcasts and these will take approx 10 hours of editing etc per hour of audio, but for the most part podcasting is becoming a way for people to dump their vacant minds on audio. Podcasting is much like blogging in that respect except it is far easier to generate a crap podcast (push mike button and spew forth) and far harder to generate a good one (editing audio is harder than editing text). Further, for the reader/listener it is far easier for a reader to skip through a blog to see if it is worth reading than to do the same thing with audio.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Honnestly, some people talk so loudly on their cell phone, it's already some form of podcasting.
fount of good ideas. It seems that even they have become crapified.
The last good thing to come out of MIT happened in 1980.
[x] Deny
An mp3 on the internet is an audio download
An RSS feed that contains audio downloads for the purpose of automatic and easy synchronisation to a digital audio player is a podcast.
People like the linked article don't know what they're talking about when they say that an ordainary download can be called a podcast. You could call it a threaded audio message board, but it wouldn't be a podcast.
One disadvantage to discussion boards that are audio based is that you can't search or index the information without some kind of speech-to-text recognition.
That said, what if you could search audio by speaking into a mic and having the search engine search for those sounds. An intersting case, humm.......
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Mine is the first post that mentioned the CIA, how can it be redundant?
http://www.vaestro.com/ is already doing this in a web based version. It is pretty clear to see how this could be integrated with a mobile phone interface.
www.wisdomproject.net The open source think tank.
There is no way that audio files can be read in parallel in the same way that text can be scanned. No one would ever trudge through an audio forum... that's just nuts!
/. on a mobile phone?
Neither is it reasonable to assume that we could convert it all to text to scan it either - this is cell phones with tiny screens; they simply can't scan through volumes of data.
Would YOU read
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t
CB radios with bad antennas on noisy channels get better sound quality than mobile phones. This is useless...
Help us build a better map!
In Korea,Podcats are only for old people.
There are other ways of navigating asynch audio. This research project is about that exact problem, not about trying to podcast audio.
I just had the best idea ever! And this time I didn't forgot to write it down!
I call it "Soapboxcasting."
It requires a soapbox; climbing up on the soapbox somehow (I think AJAX will make that simple). Then, after exchanging headers with the recipients, you simply start talking, utilizing the already largely available atmosphere to transmit the soundwaves.
This is going to completely revolutionize the world as we know it! Just think about it, one soapboxcast at every street corner. And how simple it is, using nothing but the basic technologies, I imagine this will be very useful in China for example!
Signal to Noise ratio?
Paid LJ subscribers can call a phone number and record an audio entry into their LiveJournal. Have been able to for some time. It doesn't have the whole threading thing, but I've recorded entries from my cellphone before.
Meanwhile, Odeo.com allows anyone with a computer and a microphone to become a podcaster, using simplified Flash-based audio tools. Hook a phone interface to Odeo and you'd probably be set.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
A million monkeys with a million typewriters......
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Yet another fucking literal definition for signal-to-noise.
Isn't that what the film Antitrust was about?
In which case, I'll take RLC, and I'll see y'all around.
I think a voice mail based BBS was done a long time ago,
but have no references. Does anyone remember something
like this?
Now,I won't just have to listen to the prattling of that cellphone-in-public twit when I am out and about. I can eavesdrop on their vacant lives from the comfort of my computer workstation at home!
It wasn't long ago at all that the phrase 'one of the pod people' carried negative connotations.
You heard me: I don't own a cell phone. I actually can't stand phones in general. My friends who have figured this out call me and our conversations go like this:
Me: Hello?
Him: Hey, when does Drop Trio start?
Me: 9:30
Him: Cool, see you there
(hangs up)
I like strong, quick entry-and-exit points for conversations. An audio version of what is essentially a message board is just what *my doctor ordered.
That said, I shudder to think about entangling myself in spam, etc. I'd rather this turn into an audio layer on SMS, open code using Gizmo/Ekida/whatev. (NB: I know dick about this stuff, I'm just dropping relevant technology names)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Yeah, I'll throw that in the category of SneakerNet, natural firewalls, and miniature wind tunnels (man blowing through straw).
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
"An RSS feed that contains audio downloads for the purpose of automatic and easy synchronisation to a digital audio player is" just a fancy way of saying playlist. "Podcast" is and always will be just a marketing term.
Complaints about moderation are always Ontopic on Slashdot by defintion.
Hey I can do this all day. Bring on the next brain-dead mod:)