My wife has a blue VW Beetle that she loves dearly. Recently, she brought it to the dealer for some regular maintenance. While she was waiting in the showroom for the maintenance to be finished, she learned about a new digital car audio system that VW now offers in its cars, or as an add-in to existing VWs.
It's called the PhatBox and it runs a custom Linux kernel. It uses a removable 20GB drive called the DMS cartridge that you upload your music to via your PC and then you insert it in your PhatBox installed in the trunk of your VW. I thought at first that would be a hassle, but then I read in the brochure she brought home that 20GB is about 500 CDs worth of music. So, you won't be changing it out much once you get your music on it. Here's the hardware specs: PhatBox Digital Media Player Processors: 74Mhz Cirrus Logic EP7312 24Mhz real-time controller Custom Linux kernel (I'm kinda surprised they actually used the word "kernel"!) Media Types: MP3, WMA, WAV, and FLAC Variable Bit Rate compatible Upgrade Capability: Kernel, firmware, and configurable logic, all in-system upgradeable Audio: Stereo 24-bit DAC User Interface: SSA voice-enabled search interface Physical: aluminum, steel and plastic components 2.6 inches (66mm) high 9.4 inches (238.13mm) wide 6.5 inches (165mm) deep DMS Cartridge Storage Size: 20GB (about 500 audio CDs) (Which comes out to about 25 straight days of music: 500 CDs * 74min / 60minperhour / 24hours) USB Desktop Cradle PC Connection: USB 2.0 Physical: 4.5 inches (114.3mm) high 5.1 inches (129.5mm) wide 3.7 inches (94mm) deep PC Requirements: Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, and XP Mac OS 9.1 running Virtual PC 4.0 and Windows 98SE Mac OS 10.2 running Virtual PC 6 and Windows 2000/XP I realize that requiring Windoze, especially running on the Mac in some kinda virtual mode, is about as cool as a lick-on tatoo, but I figure that some hax0r geeks will have a command line tool available to upload music to the DMS by the time I finish this email. In case you missed it in the above specs, the PhatBox is voice-controlled. Yes, you read that right, you _talk_ to it. And then it talks back. No, you can't engage it in discussions concerning Nietzche's conception of the ubermensch, or fantasize that you are David Hasselhoff tooling around in K.I.T.T. (ok, maybe Dustin can). It is a voice-enabled search and browse interface. I haven't played with it, so I can't tell you how well it works. All I know is that the brochure says you can search for and browse your songs by Playlist, Album, Artist and Genre "without taking your eyes off the road". Now, imagine grabbing the latest headline stories of interest from news.google.com or maybe the entire set of HOWTOS with some script you cook up, piping that through Festival, and then encoding the output into MP3 with Lame. The resulting files are then available for uploading to your DMS cartridge, so you can while away those traffic jams doing something productive while burning those non-renewable fossil fuels that are responsible for the current spate of geopolitical shenanigans. I imagine that since it is based on Linux, the same hax0r geeks will soon figure out how to extend the search mechanisms through clever but currently illegal reverse-engineering (thank you DMCA) so that you can search for specific paragraph headings in texts converted to audio: You, while driving down I-10 at 100mph in your spankin brand new Turbo GTI VW: "K.I.T.T.! Quick, I need to know how to patch a kernel from 2.4.16 to 2.4.18!" Your spankin brand new Turbo GTI VW: "LINUX KERNEL HOWTO, CHAPTER 6, PATCHING THE KERNEL. 6.1. APPLYING A PATCH. INCREMENTAL UPGRADES OF THE KERNEL ARE DISTRIBUTED AS PATCHES..." Much, much later: You: "Gee, thanks K.I.T.T.!" Your car: "YOU ARE WELCOME." Really. Something like that. For more information, check out: http://www.phatnoise.com/vw . John Hebert
