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Handhelds Media Music Hardware

XM Portable Satellite Radio Receiver with Hard Drive 127

Posted by michael from the sounding-board dept.
daveplot writes "XM announced today the new XM MyFi. The hand-held MyFi gives users the personal freedom to enjoy XM Radio's Ultimate PlayList of more than 130 digital XM channels in two ways: a 'live' listening mode and a time-shifting "memory" mode. The MyFi's live mode enables users to listen live to all of XM's 68 commercial-free music channels, plus premier news, sports, talk, traffic and weather channels. MyFi's memory mode -- called 'My XM' -- allows users to store five hours or more of XM's outstanding content with the press of a button, even when the unit is not in use. The MyFi makes it possible to enjoy XM Satellite Radio anywhere, anytime, effortlessly. More information is at XM411.com." We had a story mentioning this a few days ago.
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XM Portable Satellite Radio Receiver with Hard Drive More

XM Portable Satellite Radio Receiver with Hard Drive

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  • I heard you on the wireless back in Two-OhOh-Four (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:06PM (#10635157) Homepage
    XM Radio has every reason to push MyFi, in its press release [xmradio.com], it mentioned "MyFi is a revolutionary product that dramatically expands XM Radio's appeal and potential subscriber base". The easier it is to listen to their contents, the more subscribers they will get.

    $349.99 is a bit pricey, but with enough advertisements/sponsors etc, they might even be able give it away for free??

    I wonder if any other company is going come out with a competiting product (like TiVo vs MythTV)? Might be another lawsuit in the making. And how about time-shifting local radio station? There are times when you want to skip some ads, or probably pre-record some live converstion before you head into a no-reception area.
    • but with enough advertisements/sponsors etc, they might even be able give it away for free??

      Oh Ick. Just what we need - more ads on a pay service.

    • The licensing's the thing.

      Groups like ASCAP send representatives around to stores and restaurants today and check out the music they have playing. If they determine that it's coming from a non-broadcast-radio source, they demand vigorish from the store owner. The case I remember (vaguely) found that a restaurant could play live broadcast radio or TV for the enjoyment of its patrons. But they could not tape a radio or TV show and then play the tape at a later time without paying the licensors.

      Anyway,

    • My family bought a XM radio in the last year. It's one of the little silver ones that slips into a boombox. Let's compare prices. This thing is $350, includes the reciever (which can apparently time shift), a home kit, a car kit, headphones, and a little more.

      Compare that to my SkyFi radio, which was $99. Add the home kit for $70, and the car kit for $70 and you're at $240. If you want to be able to listen anywhere, you need the boombox which is $99. So now we're at $340. Now if you include the fact that t

      • I bought the same radio, the Roady, and the home kit for $49 delivered this past June. XM runs specials almost constantly though I found this deal through fatwallet.com.

        I pay $9.99/month for the service and I pay another $3.99/month to login and listen over a computer (that was for my 14 year old son).

        Sirius is $2 cheaper per month if you want the radio and the online listening. However, XM has some stuff that I want that Sirius does not have, so, it depends on what you want.

        The prices for the radios

    • Well, it is kinda playing good quality sound stream...

      What about DRM?
      • It's full of DRM (just like other XM radios) but it doesn't matter because there is no way to get the audio off the device (legitimatly) other than through the analog out port, which is a loophole in the law. Other than that, you'd have to hook something up to read the device's memory while it's on and decrypt the signla from there, or intercept it between decrypting and the DAC (assuming they aren't on the same chip).

        At best you might be able to get a digital out through a home connection kit, but I assum

        • It has an NPR station now. Or at least a "public radio" station. XM 133, "XM Public Radio." Check out the details here [xmradio.com]. Not sure if it has actual NPR, but it has the WBUR feed which is equally bor-- er, entertaining.
    • $349.99 is a bit pricey, but with enough advertisements/sponsors etc, they might even be able give it away for free??

      Well, it ain't free but you can get one really cheap -- there's this device that offers constant free music and talk streams all the time, and you can rip any stream you want by connecting another device. Most of the free music is paid for by advertising. It's pretty cool if you like advertising; they call it a "radio."

    • $349.99 is a bit pricey, but with enough advertisements/sponsors etc, they might even be able give it away for free??

      Yeah... and they could call it MyFM.

  • If only... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:09PM (#10635198)
    Ahh, if only one of the new iPods and this XM device were one and the same. :-)

    • Re:If only... (Score:5, Funny)

      by BarryJacobsen ( 526926 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:15PM (#10635272) Homepage
      Ahh, if only one of the new iPods and this XM device were one and the same

      Give me $5 and some duct tape.

      iPod and XM device not included. Offer not valid in KY and ME. 10 cent cash refund in MI. Included sales tax if ordering from WI. Other fees may apply. Caution: Contents may be hot and contain peanuts.
      • Maine has no restrictions on such offers that are state-specific and would make the offer invalid. Try New Jersey or Texas- they love that kind of litigation.

    • Re:If only... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I know!

      But atleast there's a tool to convert XM Radio stuff into mp3 [gizmodo.com].

    • Re:If only... (Score:2, Informative)

      by shadowkoder ( 707230 )
      Might want to check out soemthing similar called podcasting, http://www.ipodder.org/.

  • Bad timing or intentional? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lxt ( 724570 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:10PM (#10635206) Journal
    Was this bad timing on Apple or XM's part, or intentional? Surely there'd be reduced press coverage on the XM device with the new iPods being launched...
    • I don't think it would've made much of a difference here since MyFi apparently can't download files off a PC like iPods can. MyFi's HD is only intended for time-shifting. We be talking apples and oranges here, no pun intended.

  • why doesn't XM or Sirius team up with apple? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ntxb229 ( 542609 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:12PM (#10635224)
    Either XM or Sirius should team up with apple to launch an Ipod with satellite radio. I bet that would help sell satellite radio subscriptions.

  • No way to get other content on? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:12PM (#10635226) Homepage
    Man, I have to think that the most ridiculous thing is selling a hard-drive based music player without any way to put on mp3/AAC/etc.
    • Get out the torx bits, I smell a HACK!

    • Nothing in the articles says it does, and the 5 hour capacity that they gave in the article, could be done with as little as 256 MB (probably 512 MB - don't know what XM's average bitrate is). I think that was just a faulty assumption on the editor's part. So you could only hold five or six albums, which you would likely want to switch out often. IMHO, that isn't worth the hassle when you have all the XM stations to listen to, and it would increas the complexity, support issues, and (to a lesser extent) the

  • Plug My Product! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by provolt ( 54870 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:12PM (#10635228)
    Dear Slashdot,

    My company is releasing a product. We would like a organize a grassroots advertising programs. Our marketing team has created a number of press releasing. Would your site please post our adverstising for free?
    • Maybe we need a plug.slashdot.org so those who would bitch about this kind of "advertising" can block it...
    • Dear Submitter,

      Slashdot will be more than happy to help you with your marketing efforts. All you have to do is provide us with a URL to your product information and watch those hits come in!

      Sincerely,

      Slashdot.
    • Release something that's really cool and geeky, and we'll get back to you.

      I'm surprised no one has mentioned XM fighting tooth and nail and lawsuit against that poor bastard who rigged up something like this XM MyFI thing with a connector cable and a recording program on his computer. Was on Slashdot YRO a few months ago...
    • Dear Lawyer,

      We forgot to tell you that we're going to use a product name that another company has already registered. How much will it take to settle this?

      Respectfully yours,
      XM

      Word Mark MYFI
      Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: PLAYERS AND RECORDERS OF DIGITAL AUDIO EMBODIED IN ELECTRONIC FILE FORMAT; RADIOS; AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR CREATING, MANAGING, PLAYING, AND RECORDING DIGITAL AUDIO. FIRST USE: 20021115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20021115
      Mark Drawing Code (1) T
      • Wondered a bit about this myself - when contacted Neuros reported by email that Delphi (who makes the radio) bought the name from them. Neuros has now renamed their FM modulator gizmo. Quoting the email (which I won't post in whole since I see that as bad karma without permission first):

        "No , we sold the name "MyFi" to XM/Delphi. We will now call the MyFi feature "NeuroCast".

        Makes sense for Delphi to buy the name - they have spend a lot of money on building the "Fi" brand.
        • Here we go... [neurosaudio.com]


          JoeBorn
          Neuros Audio Team
          Administrator

          Posted - 10/26/2004 : 5:48:50 PM

          It's true we sold the mark to XM a month or two ago. It wasn't that important a mark for us and they were willing to pay, so we said what the heck, more money for product development.
    • Actually, a while ago Slashdot announced they'd be putting paid advertisements on the front page in the form of story submissions.

      So, advertising - yes. Free? Probably not.

  • I can't imagine the technology is that far off to stream video content to one of these things via satellite. I suppose the big hold up will be getting all the rights sorted out...

    -Chris
    • Streaming video to wireless handhelds has be possible for 20+ years. That's terrestrial broadcast TV, of course.

      To stream satellite video to a handheld, you'd have a problem with getting enough antenna gain. Today's satellites aren't powerful enough to send video without groundstation antenna gain.

      Then again, if you were willing to wait 100 minutes for each minute of video, then it could be done, I would think.

    • Sirius tested this about a year ago. You could tune to the special test channels, but there was no audio. Don't know what happened with it.

      On the other hand -- Sirius is currently available on Dish Network. Perhaps it will flow the other way soon.

  • Trademark infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Oriumpor ( 446718 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:14PM (#10635247) Homepage Journal
    *cough*RIPOFF [neurosaudio.com]*Cough*

    Sure the name of the Neuros MyFi means something else, but sheesh it doesn't take by one google search.

    Hell for 399 bucks you could get a neuros that will (finally) do timed recording with a 40gb hd and all the niceness of having linux in your.... backpack. The thing is freakin huge but XM didn't even bother to be original in the naming of their Ipod wannabe.
    • I hope the ensuing fight means the name "MyFi" goes to obscurity. What a shitty name. I hate WiFi because it really doesn't mean jack. "Wireless Fidelity" Huh? Fidelity to wired? At 1/5th the bandwidth of base-wired (54Mbps only gets ~20Mbps in actual performance)?
      • I think WiFi means exactly what it says.

        fidelity, according to dictionary.com [reference.com], means:
        The degree to which an electronic system accurately reproduces the sound or image of its input signal.

        Fidelity is not a value in itself; it is merely a concept used to describe the faithfulness of the sound. You can have good or bad fidelity. So, in the case of "WiFi," you have a level of fidelity associated with the limitations of wireless technology.
      • *Fi matches Delphi's other XM receiver, the SkyFi.
    • I was going to post this if someone else didn't. They shouldn't be able to walk all over Neuros just because they're a small company...

    • Re:Trademark infringement? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you are going to call it trademark infringement link to the trademark information [uspto.gov] (not sure if that link is going to workfor other people, but if it doesn't Search Page [uspto.gov].)

      Digesting some of the jucy bits:

      Owner (APPLICANT) NEUROS AUDIO, L.L.C. LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ILLINOIS 2 NORTH RIVERSIDE PLAZA, SUITE 200 CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60606

      Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: PLAYERS AND RECORDERS OF DIGITAL AUDIO EMBODIED IN ELECTRONIC FILE FORMAT; RADIOS; AND COMPUTER SOFT

    • *cough* XM bought the trademark from them a couple months ago *cough*

  • Music nirvana: combine XM with iTunes-like product (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:14PM (#10635248)
    Give me lots of channels, time shifting, and the ability to buy (preferrably unencumbered) tracks out-of-band (i.e., I can browse for tracks, not just wait for them to be played) and I will sign up. This service is so almost there.

    • Give me lots of channels, time shifting, and the ability to buy (preferrably unencumbered) tracks out-of-band (i.e., I can browse for tracks, not just wait for them to be played) and I will sign up. This service is so almost there.

      The critical missing element is that XM is only a one-way service, and for good reason. Transmitting to a geosynchronous satellite from a small battery-powered device would be a nightmare. Plus, they'd have to allocate bandwidth on the satellite for every user.

      I'm not sayin

  • who's going to be the first to remedy this!

    How do they expect anyone to buy this with the lack of details on this site?

    I want to know if you can save individual songs or if you have to record things in time blocks. Anyone know what format these songs are stored in?
  • What format does the device store the music in? Is there anyway to get music on or off? Since its satellite and all of those new XM equipped cares come with antennea on the roof, what kind of reception should we epect to get sitting in our cubes at work? I thought XM required line of sight. Am I mistaken?
    • I've been trying to read between the lines on this thing, and I think I finally figured it out.

      Basically, it acts like the traditional XM "portable" receivers that can be switched between docking stations in the home or car other semi-permanent setup. Those require an external antenna to be run somewhere with a good view (though my desk unit will pick up a signal through the wooden roof at home, but not through the metal roof at work).

      It doesn't look like this unit comes with an internal antenna, in fact

      • A cassette! A walkman! Good lord! Don't you know that you lose an almost unoticeable amount of fidelity with a cassette! Why, that's unthinkable! MP3s on the other hand are digital and perfect.

        Seriously, it kills me to see people desperately trying to figure out ways to record a digital signal from XM when you can just tape it if you want to record it. Yeah, I know tape degrades, but XM's playlist isn't infinite either; you can always just rerecord it. Sometimes analog solutions are ok.

      • It doesn't look like this unit comes with an internal antenna, in fact it looks to come with an indoor and an outdoor antenna as well as the docking setup for each.

        It includes a home and car setup (with associated antennas, yes) but also has the "First-ever built-in XM antenna" (see the bottom of this page [xmradio.com].)

    • Re:Any way to get the music off of the device? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What happens at work depends on how high up you are, whether you have a south-facing window, and whether you have a local repeater. I brought mine into work a couple of times, and while I had a hard time finding the sweet spot, it does work. This is in the middle of a floor in an office building with no windows closer than about 30 feet in any direction.

      The trick is that I'm picking up a terrestrial repeater. The satellite signals are at 0%. This repeater must be pretty close and quite strong, since I
  • Seriously, time shifting is much more usefull if you have talk radio. IIRC sirius has NPR and Howard, I don't think XM had alot of talk.

    Time shifting just means you can skip the songs you don't like..
    • XM Has opie and anthony. I seriously considered signing up for the service just for those two. I know it's immature toilet humor, but I laughed my ass off at those guys before they got canned for broadcasting a couple having sex in a church.

      In fact, O&A were the first big name act to go to satellite after making a name for themselves on traditional radio. Howard followed in their footsteps. Their first show on XM was basically a giant FU to Howard, who did his damnedest to interfere with their care

  • It doesn't have a hard drive, just flash. (Score:4, Informative)

    by JoelJohnson ( 818958 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:21PM (#10635327)
    http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/xm-myfi-by-delphi- 024234.php

  • MyFi already trademarked? (Score:4, Informative)

    by SeaEye420 ( 613209 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:22PM (#10635333)
    I believe that the people at neurosaudio [neurosaudio.com] might take issue with that "MyFi" name, since it is their trademark according to their fact sheet [neurosaudio.com].

    Read about the feature here [neurosaudio.com]

  • XM Subscription (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pawnIII ( 821440 )
    $350 + XM subscription, going to be a little bit harder to sell this product. Sure XM is a great service, but I couldn't see getting one of these, unless I can tap into my dads service.
    • Why? It's not unlike when XM first came out, one could easily spend 250 on a receiver and another 50 on the antenna... now you can pick up a receiver for under 50 (although the antenna prices don't seem to have come down as far).
  • Couldn't they make this thing look a little "cooler"? I mean, with the onslaught of portable media devices and the thousands of man hours spent trying to make the aesthetics on these devices as appealing as possible, why are Delphi's products waning in this area?

  • Slashvertisment... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:30PM (#10635421) Homepage Journal
    Talk about an advertisement! Jeez... can we cut out the hyperbole a little bit, please?

    The MyFi's live mode enables users to listen live to all of XM's 68 commercial-free music channels, plus premier news, sports, talk, traffic and weather channels.

    Wow... what a way to work in the number of channels, etc. into the schpiel.
    What else did you expect? That MyFi would not allow some channels to be heard??

  • Hacked in 3...2...1... Streamripper anyone?

  • I think I'm done with Sirius now... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:42PM (#10635533) Journal
    There are a lot of people that enjoy either one or both services; But I am beginning to realize XM is more my style.

    If you are looking at getting either services, here are a few lessons I learned over the last year and a half....

    (i) XM seems to be going for the "deep playlist" crowd whilst Sirius is going for the "I would like to hear my favorite song many times a day" crowd. both approaches are valid. Depends if you are the type of person who likes pounding hits all day or, if you are the type of person who likes to listen to the "B" sides of records.

    (ii) XM's pricing approach is to have a cheap base price $9.99 but charge for services after that ( premium channels, online streaming is extra ), etc. Sirius has plans for premium channels, but have so far resisted the effort, they trying to have a hefty base package. I use streaming, but I would like for it to be optional, since I may what to go with yahoo launch ( once they start supporting Mozilla ) or real radiocast.

    (iii) Do not depend on the FM transmitter. Those things produce horrible sound. If you live in a city, forget it; you're going to be dodging stations on even short commutes.

    (iv) They both have less than CD quality sound and expect it to get worse as they try to cram more and more obscure stations in very limited bandwidth.

    (v) Do check xmfan.com [xmfan.com] and siriusbackstage.com [siriusbackstage.com] to find the problems current users are having.

  • That's it? It has a hard drive with 5 hours on it? Lets see here. MP3 encoding at ~1meg/minute. No that can't be right. Lets go WAV, 10 meg/minute so 5*60=300 so its 3000 megs. A 3 gig hard drive and its $349. WTF? This thing should be able to time shift hundreds of hours at that price. And if tivo can sell a 40 gig hard drive in their unit...and its $99. XM is not going to sell these things as well as they think.
    • I think the biggest concern I have is that I'm most likely going to be out of satellite range for times usually longer than 5 hours (i.e., I'll be working at my desk inside a building - usually for 8 hours). Also, a majority of the "two funny guys" radio shows are 4-5 hours in length already, so you have room to record only one day's show?

      With the rock bottom prices on Flash RAM these days, this seems pretty pathetic...
      • Don't forget there is a terrestrial signal too... my XMPCR works fine inside my office. YMMV of course; I don't know where all the ground stations are, and you may not be near one.

  • Cable TV's broken promise coming to radio (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:42PM (#10635536) Homepage
    I'm old enough to remember the beginning of Cable TV and the promises they made. They promised a crystal clear picture (mostly fulfilled) and commercial-free TV except for local channels carried.

    Well now everything, including the premium movie channels are carrying commercials. Kinda pisses me off because when cable started to catch on, they cut back on the signal strength of local air stations practically forcing the watcher to buy cable TV. Some people think I'm imagining things that local TV over the air was always bad. I tell them to compare that with their local ethnic TV station... out here local spanish TV comes in clear as a bell. They didn't cut back signal strength.

    So if satelite radio catches on, the same will happen to the local radio stations. I mourn already...

  • It should be noted (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ICECommander ( 811191 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @05:45PM (#10635561)
    The poster is the owner of xmxpert.com and owns stock in both XM and Sirius:

    "I opened a Scottrade account last week and purchased $450 worth of XM Stock and $50 of Sirius stock. I'm going to stay in it for the long haul, even though it has gone down every day, but it will go back up. It's all gone down $56.90 so far."
    His blog can be found here http://www.davidplotts.com/mt/ [davidplotts.com]

    • Re:It should be noted (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In the blogosphere, journalistic "conventions" such as "full disclosure" are obsolete and void. Please get up against the wall and prepare to be owned.
  • Well damn, I hope Sirius gets something like this soon. I chose Sirius some time ago because *all* it's music channels are commercial free, and I can listen to the music streams over the web.

    *TheDarb
  • i wonder if XM's competitor Sirius Radio is going to be doing something similiar.
    i believe that it would be much better for buisness
    meh, i want howard, timeshifted, so i don't have to wake up at
    6am daily to listen to him rant about the fcc and the "big government"!
    the new saying in two-oh-oh-four, i want my howard stern!, screw MTV!

  • What is the FAA/FCC ruling about using one of these receivers on an plane? I assume it is only good for domestic flights but it sure would beat the selection offered by the current in flight music providers.
  • Congrats /. you've been slashvertised [wikipedia.org] again. For as long as this has been going on, OSDN must be getting paid to host these. People decry the ClearChannels of the world but love sat radio? Talk about a monopoly over content.

    Sat radio is bad technology at a very bad price. Wake up people.

  • You would imagine that for $349 they would at least put an FM radio in there, for the not-so-uncommon cases where you're too far away from a repeater and you don't have unobstructed line-of-sight to the satellite -- or for when you want content that is just not available on XM, such as Howard Stern or NPR.
  • Wrong use of good technology. I own two TiVo's, I subscribe to Sirius, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day that I can hit quick rewind on my radio (since I keep trying to do it by accident ANYWAY).

    But since 99% of the stuff I listen to on the radio is talk anyway (I have an ipod for music), the only reason I would ever time-shift something would be to avoid commercials, that's impossible to do. There isn't a visual clue that the commercials are over. The only way that could be possible would be if the device
    • Replay Radio does a pretty good job of recording radio streams to mp3 files. Its primary purpose is to capture Internet streams, but anything that can be plugged into the sound card input would work - except that the software on the computer doesn't have an ability to change the channel on the radio.

      It seems to me that we're rapidly approaching the point where conventional "over the air" broadcasting has no purpose. For music, all the stations are doing is playing digital files that are available elsewhe
  • Don't Forget me [griffintechnology.com]

    And to think the radio shark was hot shit [slashdot.org] not even a month ago.
  • That's a really uninspired name. XMan woulda been soooo much better. XMan: The walkman for superheroes...
  • I know I've been spoiled by the ipods interface, but I'm looking at this thing and it appears to have 12 (!) buttons, five of which are two option buttons, and a little selection pad. Is this really necessary? Maybe people have patented having fewer than 12 buttons...

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