I watch my daughter who, (totally unlike me), is a fantastic people
person.
When she meets anyone, she embarks on an exploration of common ground,
seeking common tastes putting aside her own to learn those of the other.
But so many people have detached themselves from our community by
walling themselves in a closed garden of sound.
Ear Phones In, Volume Up.
Tiny embedded linux devices are becoming so common, so cheap these
days...
...my dream is nearly here.
What I want to create is this..
An ogg music player with blue tooth that comes packed to the brim with
a random selection of Creative Commons Licenced music.
Jamendo would be my first port of call to find that music...
http://www.jamendo.com/
The UI allows you express your liking or disliking for the current
track playing. (Click up arrow or down once or several times.)
Whenever you meet _anybody_ else with one of these devices, they pair
immediately and promiscuously and without asking begin exchanging the
highest rated tracks, deleting negatively rated tracks if space is needed.
The highest mutually (A x B) rated track currently on both devices will
begin playing on both devices providing an instant talking point. (If
no common favoured tracks exist, the track currently being exchanged
will play.)
Instant Party!
An app on a PC will automagically do the same.
Anyone want to play with?
The todo list is something like this...
* Start spreading the idea and getting feedback and suggestions. (Where
I'm at now).
* Search for compatible/similar FOSS projects / components.
* Start savanna / sourceforge site.
* Define the blue tooth discovery and automatic pairing protocol.
* Define & implement the track exchange protocol.
* Find (and purchase) suitable embedded device(s) to implement this
on.
- Need audio out.
- enclosure & battery.
- display
- a few keys.
(maybe android, but a bit too expensive.)
* Tweak an existing playback app to record preferences.
* Define the preferences / checksum / path database format.
I envisage making all these items as loosely coupled and redeployable
as possible.
It'd perhaps be nice to make the odd buck from selling the hardware... but
I'm not fussed. I aim to make the protocols and implementations
completely open and GPL'd.
The purpose of the project is create roving and merging and splitting and
spreading communities of sound.
Further applications can be imagined like...
* Set your player to play "whatever anybody near me is playing".
* Set everybodies player in 3 or more person groups to play on
simultaneously on their speakers the mutually highest rated track.
Instant dance party!
* Bands planning on touring a location can "inject" their best track into
the region a month or so before to drum up enthusiam.
John Carter
[email protected]
