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Technology

Linux-powered car MP3 Player 102

Posted by Hemos from the i'll-take-five-please dept.
Splatta was the first one to write in about the Linux-powered car MP3 player. The cool thing is that unlike the Rio, this thing will also let you web browse, check e-mail, and store addresses and dates. Heck, who needs an office anymore? Thanks to the folks at Empeq.
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Linux-powered car MP3 Player More

Linux-powered car MP3 Player

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  • Don't forget the mp3stereo mailing list where we discuss such issues as exactly how to go about building something like this.

    To subscribe, send mail with subject SUBSCRIBE to mp3stereo-request@itchy.wdc.com.

    And no there is currently not an archive of all past articles (waiting on my DSL line).

    Thanks, Aaron Newsome

  • hmmmm (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by skitzo:

    car-stereo-cum-computer... Are they suggesting something here?? =) -skitz
  • Checked their site - they've got a little "we love Slashdot" section with an image of what appears to be the Empeg player with "Slashdot: News for Nerds: It Matters" showing on the display.

    Kinda cool. Now if I had a car, I'd get one of these things.
  • - "We're Not Gonna Take It", by Twisted Sister
    - "Crumblin' Down", by John Cougar Mellencamp
    - "Dust in the Wind", by Kansas

    etc.etc.etc. Endless fun!
  • Ok, Redmond-bashing aside; this thing deserves its own anthem. Given that it's Linux-based and a portable source of *many* MP3s, I'd call it:



    "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".


  • Yeah, when my house got broken into they stole the better stereo stuff, a portable CD player, and jewelry, but dang it! They didn't steal my computer! It would have been less hassle than it was to get Quantex to replace my broken CD drive (this was ~4 years ago.)
  • Two words for you: Windows_95_sucks.mp3 :)

    "My 3-8-6, ain't got the speed,
    gonna havta buy myself a brand new machine,
    whoa-o-o-oa..."

    Oh man, I love that song.
  • Oh No! Help Help! He's shooting me with the BFG 9000!


    **HONK HONK HOOOONNNNK** SCREEEECH
    CRASH!!!!!


    Kinda gives a new meaning to "deathmatch."
  • More importantly, how many times are we going to see THE SAME DAMN CAR MP3 PLAYER FOR LINUX? I think empeg.com has been on Slashdot at least twice before this.
  • Umm... I hope you mean 90F... 90C (194F) is above the maximum operating temperature for humans, too.
  • We already covered the basic mobile office...

    How about starting it up in the winter?
    Un/Locking the doors?
    Reporting alarms and current location(via GPS) to the police?

    If you've got a general purpose computer in the car, all you need is a cell-phone...

  • Yes, this has been on slashdot several times. What new can be discussed now? Larger hard-drives? Faster CPU speeds?

    Oh wait ... BEOWOLF! In a traffic jam, your car radio could network with nearby car radios, and create a large computing surface! WooHoo! I can't wait!

    :)
  • Although we have heard about this several times on Slashdot, the particular article that is being referenced to is new, and refers to their presence at LinuxWorld, and possibly has information that was not included in previous offerings. So, instead of thinking of it as a repeat, why not think of it as an update?
  • I agree, i'm currently in alaska (and don't plan to move thank you very much) and as i'm typing this the temps are -25F, simply put most LCD based machines would require heaters of some kind. The power requirements wouldn't be much but it would still take a bit for the screen to warm up (you should see a pilot try and display at -45F :)

    Of course once you put a computer (that you can control) in a car you can load the thing with sensors and auto scripts all over the place; heat the screen when needed, that type of thing, hell you could automate the whole car heating system
  • The empeg uses _laptop_ hard disk drives (2.5" form factor). Those 6GB drives are expensive...

    -- Nathan
  • First one on the last week or two to send in something about it. Hasn't there been a half-dozen postings about the Empeg on here in the last six month?

    And I thought it was something new...

    www.bangsplat.org/autolinux

    for anyone interested...

  • Debian (Score:1)

    by tgd ( 2822 )
    Which makes sense, I've never been able to get RedHat to run on an 8meg system, regardless of what their minimum requirements say.

    I use RedHat on my alpha and 8meg+ intel systems, Debian on anything 8 meg or less.

    RedHat could learn a bit from Debian in the installer allowing you to mount an existing swap partition first step of the install. In 8 meg, I've found fdisk and the other partitioning program won't load... at least in the two or three I've tried.
  • ...they have a PWEI album in one of their pictures. You know it's good.

  • Voice Recognition remote control. There's a neat upgrade.

    As for the great white north, how about a computer-controlled car stereo heater?

    I don't mind having to warm the thing up before I use it, or taking it out of the car every night, but if I forget it in the car, I don't want to have to buy a new one.

  • Um, I don't know about you, but when it's cold out, I usually have the heat in my car cranked well above the freezing point. As for theft, it's removable, just like any other removable stereo.
    Take it with you! show it off!

  • For 2 reasons, first, theft, that's obvious.

    Second, for all of us living in the Great White North, that device would be operationnal only 6 months/year. (On a warm year)

    I emailed the developpers of the empeg when they started building it. The guy told me that the device would only be operational with temperature above 0C.

    Still, it would be a great summer toy!

    M.
  • The stereo's ability to support the Global Positioning Satellite system allows it to give directions, and even be programmed to play songs appropriate to the car's location -- like the Beach Boys at the beach or "Route 66" when cruising the famous highway.

    So what do you play when driving through Redmond, WA?

    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
    "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"

  • Duh (Score:1)

    by smileyy ( 11535 )

    Duh.

    Dave Mathews Band - Crash.

  • According the the latest Debian Weekly News (http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/current/issue/) , it uses Debian gnu/linux.
  • They even refer to being on slashdot last January on their home page.
  • From their site:

    "It's pull-out removable, which is handy both for security and because to update the tunes you need to hook it up to your PC."
  • Stuck in the Middle with You

    or

    I Can't Get No Satisfaction

    Speaking of the Stones, how come MicroSoft never played the rest of "Start Me Up": "You make a grown man cry".
  • "I'm Gonna Kill You" - George Thoroughgood

  • Correct, we don't have to worry about the min. temp in the winter - but instead it is the max. temp that is important.

    The specs for the empeg say 0C to 55C operating from the hard drive. This is approx 32F to 130F - and I have personally seen the air temp. get to 125F here in Phoenix. Expect much higher temps in a car sitting in a sunny parking lot.

    Of course, 55C is the max _operating_ temp, which means the empeg should be able to deal with higher temps while turned off. Just don't expect to jump in the car and turn it on.
  • Well once I get my income tax in my car mp3player is going in! Im using a 6inch LCD from www.eio.com and running caramp from http://ryanspc.com This is a decent player but I wish there were better ones because he hasn't released the source code to it. Anyine know of any cool looking svgalib or ggi mp3player?
    Natas
    http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
    grab some of our mp3's to listen to, or buy our cd. Industrial music made in Linux!
  • I can't remember how many times I've had to dodge morons who were too busy playing with their car phones to watch where they were going. Now what?

    "Uh, gee, officer, I'm sorry I was doing 40 over the speed limit on the shoulder. I'm doing a kernel re-compile and it's just driving me nuts..."
  • Cool... The webpage states that it uses Python extensively. That means that it should be really easy to hack up the software to suit your individual needs. :)

    -troy
  • Unless the thieves are geeks of some sort -
    they would be screwed if they ripped of your stereo.

    A bunch of Windoze using idiots (who have recently stolen the Linux-powered MP3 Player):

    "When I type 'win', it doesn't do anything... it's broken.... 'dir' doesn't work either... Dammit this sucks..."
    ---
    The statement below is true.
  • Or perhaps somebody could port Carmageddon...
  • dude, if you type in the date it's there. it's just not updated on the static page :)
  • ...we could go for several decades without problems. Definitely a very cool product.
  • Why doesn't anyone add a CD-ROM drive to any of these systems??? It could be used several ways:

    * The obvious - play exisitng CDs.
    * Update the MP3 database with a CDR disc. (I like this option better than dragging the box to my computer to transfer via IR or serial. That has got to be really slow.)
    * And better yet, record normals CDs directly into the MP3 database.

    Sure I want one, but it should be easy to use.

    Has anyone actually had overheating problems on these?? The LA summers are brutal.
  • Still, none of these put the MP3/CD player in a car stereo format.

    Why the link to XXIMP?? Isn't that just a touch screen interface. I couldn't find anything about CDs on it.
  • As long as we are enhancing the linux/bathroom
    experience, I thought maybe embed this linux
    mp3 power into a q-tip? Anyone with me?
    I smell a successful startup here. ;-)
  • The Empeg is relatively expensive, but developing a custom mainboard always is; you sure you're up to the task? If you've read some more of the details on the mp3mobile [chaos.org.uk] you'll know that some source was released; and copyright issues played a part in the descision not to release more. Finally, I'd better declare an interest; Hugo is my younger brother!
    PS No one at Slashdot has stock in Empeg :-)
  • They need to just make a package that rips the CD strait to the unit, also with CDDC (what ever) feature so we don't have to go in and edit the tags.
  • Check it out at
    http://yulia.com/hardware/

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