Bring on the WiFi Radios

Okay, so the record industry and the feds
are
committing
industrial genocide on US-based internet radio (with a few
exceptions that include popular public radio stations like
WUNC and
KUOW). But there are
plenty of places in the world where webcasting is still legal, and
nobody's keeping you from listening. So let's stop for a moment and
ponder the opportunities here.On the one hand, the easiest way to put up an internet radio
station is with Linux and other open-source tools. In fact,
it
says here that Bill Goldsmith of
Radio Paradise is
making his hacks available for anybody who wants them. For
background on how cool this is, see "The
Promise of Radio Paradise: An Open-Source Challenge to Commercial
Radio".The client side is another matter. One reason internet radio
is still at the early adopter stage (or earlier: more like
hunter-gatherer) is that computers are the only available
receivers. Kerbango made a run
at pioneering the internet radio receiver business a couple years
back, but 3Com bought and killed them ($81 million for
nothing).
Penguin
Radio
came
along around the same time and is still in business.
Their
radios look cool, but they aren't out yet.Yet the advent of WiFi begs radios. Wouldn't it be cool to
have a portable radio, or a car radio, that picked up web stations
over WiFi or a wired DHCP connection to the Net? Hey, why
not?Here's what Bill Goldsmith said when I asked him about the
prospects:WiFi internet radio? Gotta love it! I think that
the kind of ad hoc WiFi networks that are starting to pop up could
be the biggest thing since Linux--a total end run around the
big-money wireless initiatives. No reputable manufacturer is about
to put out a product that depends on a network run for the hell of
it by a bunch of hackers in their spare time--just like a few years
ago no reputable company would have had anything to do with an
operating system written by a bunch of hackers in their spare time.
Smells like an opportunity to me.Then I pointed him to
zradio,
a piece of $10 shareware that turns your Linux-based
Sharp Zaurus into an
internet radio receiver. He replied, "Well, that is just the
coolest thing...I could easily write a web app for that screen size
that would let me control the station as well as listen to
it--anywhere with WiFi access. How cool is *that*?"But what we need now is a radio--not a computer or a PDA,
simply a radio. A dedicated device. Something anybody could
use.It's silly to wait for the consumer electronics cartel to
make one. Their Hollywood connections probably forbid it outright,
but the bigger reason is production economics. They don't make
anything unless it risks selling huge numbers.Many years ago I did a lot of work with Hitachi
Semiconductor, where I often heard the expression, "10-10-10." No,
it wasn't fertilizer. It stood for an unspoken policy that was
common throughout the semiconductor industry: the big consumer
electronics component producers wouldn't bother to ramp up
production on a new microprocessor if it wasn't going to be
over 10 MIPS, under 10
dollars and ready to sell at least 10 million
units. That's why the
Hitachi SuperH never
would have been available as a
GNU/Linux development
target if the company hadn't sold piles of early versions
to companies like Sega and Nissan.So we have to roll our own. Hey, is it really
that hard? We don't need something beautiful,
just something functional. The innards could consist of a low-power
board running Linux, an analog board for audio, some backplane for
USB, Ethernet and PCMCIA--or only with WiFi and nothing
else.We have to think inventively here, and cheap, too. Here's Don
Marti:Perhaps the biggest obstacle to an internet radio
as a Linux development project is the sheer simplicity and lack of
challenge.
Put a single-board computer and some kind of networking
hardware in a box with an amplifier and power supply. Put a knob on
the front for power and volume and another knob to switch between
stations. Let the user build a preset station list on a web site,
and configure the radio to download it periodically. There's
nothing here that ten thousand people couldn't do in their
basements given a few spare weekends, a soldering iron and an FTP
client.But that means VC-funder companies looking for a big score
won't be able to patent anything, and individuals looking for a fun
hobby project would be done too soon. Who will take up the
challenge of doing such an "obvious" project, but with human
factors that will make people want to put it in their living rooms
and bedrooms? Who will resist the temptation to clutter the radio
with alphanumeric displays people don't understand and buttons they
don't press? Is it time to pitch Tom DeVesto about doing a Net
version of the Henry Kloss
Model One?You can forget venture capital in any case. Here's the
RenguinRadio CEO Andrew Leyden:Raising new funding for a "device" like this is
impossible in this economy, even though the demand for such a thing
is as hot as ever (people e-mail me every week pleading for things
like this, it pains me I can't deliver it now)....It's really a
shame. The elements are falling into place (broadband, home
networking), but the march of the big boys is really wrecking the
Net in many regards (RIAA, CARP, etc.). Our goal was a device that
could deliver everything from around the world to the local guy in
his basement. Now that the efforts are underway to make internet
radio as stale as over-the-air radio, it does make us scratch our
heads and ask should PenguinRadio even play a part in the rise of
musical mediocrity?That last question is a rhetorical one, because he's pressing
ahead with development anyway. But what about the rest of us? Just
because the going got tough doesn't mean the tough should stop
going. It seems to me there's an opportunity here. What do the rest
of you think?Doc Searls is senior editor
of Linux Journal.

email: doc@ssc.com