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Wireless Networking Communications Media Hardware

New Music Player to Spread Files Wirelessly 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the riaa-nightmare-scenarios dept.
PontifexPrimus writes "A new P2P / media player project could allow mobile music devices to automatically transfer media files from other players running the same software. While there seems to be a certain risk (mislabeling files, creating intentionally corrupt songs) there also seems to be a huge potential to this idea (get on the subway to work and when you arrive there your available music has doubled). Of course, this also is a nightmarish scenario for the RIAA-like organizations, especially since such swapping occurs without active user participation, in a drive-by way."
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New Music Player to Spread Files Wirelessly More

New Music Player to Spread Files Wirelessly

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  • No Thanks.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kickboy12 ( 913888 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:09PM (#14417560) Homepage
    I don't want the thing downloading Backstreet Boys, or even worse... getting Dashboard Confessional from some emo kid.

    *shivers* Scary thought.
    • Agreed. Sounds like a great way to fill up a player with "popular" music you know you don't want.

    • Re:No Thanks.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:13PM (#14417580) Homepage
      or even worse... getting Dashboard Confessional from some emo kid.

      Is that what they're calling it? So that's what happened to Katie Holmes' face. [defamer.com]

      In that case, you're right. I don't want to be getting dashboard confessional from some emo kid either.

    • Re:No Thanks.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by thelost ( 808451 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:15PM (#14417591) Journal
      the idea is to have it work on the basis that it learns your listening habits, what you enjoy and then proactively retrieves music from other push enabled music players on the fly. If you don't listen to the Backstreet boys or music like that it will be very unlikely to pick that it.
      Kind of like last.fm but more aggressive.

      • Re:No Thanks.. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kadin2048 ( 468275 )
        Well the player -- at least an iPod-style one -- ought to have a pretty good idea of your tastes, since the file metadata contains playcount, rating (one to five stars) and genre. Assuming you actually use the rating feature and set the genre correctly, I think it would be pretty straightforward to only retrieve music that's somewhat similar to what you enjoy.

        Here's what I'd want on such a player: 25% of the space would just be for my music, and the other 75% would be a cache of music taken from other playe
      • proactively retrieves music from other push enabled music players

        Push? Pish [wiktionary.org]. Dated, empty buzzword. What value did it add to your sentence?

    • Re:No Thanks.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by jack79 ( 792876 )
      From TFA, file jumping will only happen "Based on what you have been listening to in the past and which files you already own". So unless you have a secret Backstreet Boys habit this should be avoided. The concept seems similar to http://www.last.fm/index.php [www.last.fm] which generates reccommendations, neighbours and radio stations based on the tracks you listen to on your PC.
      • From TFA, file jumping will only happen "Based on what you have been listening to in the past and which files you already own".

        Yeah, but we all know how well that type of system has worked in the past. [drunkenblog.com]

  • double entendre (Score:5, Interesting)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:10PM (#14417566) Homepage
    And by "Spread Files Wirelessly", they mean viruses wirelessly.
    • And by viruses, you mean N'SYNC and Good Charlotte albums... right?
    • This could be a really neat way to model how real human viruses spread through casual contact. Create a file that reports back to a central tracking station and watch it go.

      If its built into an mp3 phone you could even track its location, since the CDC already wants your cell phone number [slashdot.org] and cell phones are now being used to track you [slashdot.org]
      • It would be neat... right up until your battery dies.

        My understanding is that modern mp3 players buffer your audio so that the disc does not have to be spinning non-stop. Wifi + spinning HD = dead batteries

        Software isn't going to be the problem, my guess is that the hardware is going to present the most technical challenge. Things like battery life, bandwidth, interference, dropped connections, and so on.

        I'm not going to expect anything cell-phone sized unless it's half battery.
    • Yeah, there will likely be an exploit here or there, but I imagine that they have already thought of this and that they have designed it in a way to keep it from being extremely vulnerable, I can't imagine them not providing patches to any discovered vulnerabilities either.
    • ...music players have no way of running executables you copy into them.

  • Eastern Standard Tribe (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:15PM (#14417589) Homepage
    This sounds like an element from the plot of Cory Doctrow's Eastern Standard Tribe [craphound.com] where all users of a highway system will be able to access each others music as long as they're on the same road at the same time, a real information superhighway.

    • Doctorow's model, if I recall correctly, was that the automatic trading of songs would happen between two "tollbooths" on the highways. The tollbooths would count the number of songs you went in with versus the number you came out with, and would then charge your music account accordingly. THe more music you picked up on your trip, the more you got charged for.

      The interesting twist was that if you had more than a certain amount of songs, you could trade freely because you were seeding everyone else around

  • if they were ubiquitous (Score:5, Interesting)

    by victorvodka ( 597971 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:15PM (#14417590) Homepage
    If these things were widespread and of sufficient density, they could form their own peer-to-peer grid networks capable of sending any sort of information, untraceably. It would be its own internet, the way the internet was first envisioned. Information would finally be completely free. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Time Warner/RIAA/NSA!
    • This is awesome. This idea... is awesome.
      Too bad it will probably only run on a Windows PDA OS, therefor has no proper file attributes to prevent nasties etc. (For me it's just a bad aftertaste to run a Microsoft OS or product...) I like this idea completely. Allowing only specific files such as .doc, .pdf, .txt etc?! This would be awesome if everyone had a pda / device with this kind of software.

      I love it! What a vision!
    • Oh don't you worry. The lawmakers would come up with something.

    • Re:if they were ubiquitous (Score:4, Funny)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:35PM (#14417679)
      Information would finally be completely free.

      And no one would produce anything, because people do actually need to eat.

      Do YOU go to work for free?

      • Re:if they were ubiquitous (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Blastrogath ( 579992 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:47PM (#14417726)
        >And no one would produce anything, because people do actually need to eat.
        >
        >Do YOU go to work for free?

        Yes I do. There are a load of things I do for no monetary reward that others get paid for, the same is probably true for most people. Some people get paid for writing out their opinions in print, for one example.

        Music predates copyright by a few thousand years. People didn't need copyright to write or play it before, they don't need it now. Writing and playing music is fun and rewarding in and of itself, and there are plenty of ways that musicians have been financially supported in the past without copyright.

        By the logic you put forward nobody would play sports anymore if you took away the professional leagues.
        • Ok...maybe I was over the top with 'no one'. However...people DO still need to eat. And that includes all the other people involved in making music. Bye bye to "sound engineer" or cameraman as a full time job.
          • I'm not saying there's no truth to that point of veiw at all, but there are alternitive economic models to copyright.

            A few examples: Back in the days of Bach and the like large orginisations or rich patrons would commission music, essentialy employing musicians full time for the prestige of doiung so. Many bands even now make more money from their tours than their albums. Donation based systems can work, just look at a lot of webcomics.
            • Donation based systems can work, just look at a lot of webcomics.

              How many of those webcomic guys do it full time? How much of a production dept do they need to support? Technology is making it easier to make good music for a lot less money. But not zero money. 'Information will be free(as in beer)' will require a very painful shift in world economics. Far more than getting the latest music track for free on your PDA.
              I'm not concerned about the RIAA making money. Screw them. I'm thinking about all the othe

              • "
                I'm not concerned about the RIAA making money. Screw them. I'm thinking about all the other people involved in making that music/movie. Cameramen, makeup artists, sound engineers, editors.

                Who pays them, if no one pays for the product?"

                I don't know. Perhaps if the movie producers would choose to break FREE of the RIAA/MPAA and have Universal/MGM/whoever be the only ones who they deal with -- they'd have more money overall without having to pay the **AA's cut.
        • Music predates copyright by a few thousand years. People didn't need copyright to write or play it before, they don't need it now.

          Before copyright laws, however, there weren't easy ways to duplicate music either. Recording devices didn't exist, and neither did photocopiers.
      • Creative people work because they need to, not because they're paid. Getting rich should be a side effect, not an end in itself.

    • Routing? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by B1ackDragon ( 543470 )
      Unless they automatically copy every new file they encouter to themselves (meaning they'd have to be HUGE) I bet routing would be a problem. "User Error 719: No Route to Host/File Not Found. Please walk to nearest Starbucks and Hang out with more People."

      I'm fairly sure any kind of ad-hoc mesh network with any type of standard routing protocol would be brought to its knees by the frequency of connection change.
    • Add FreeNet ( or something like it ) to the mix, and we would have a secure data distribution system. Each little device stores what it can, and spreads to everyone else.

      How about adding distributed processing too? A huge GRID network...
    • It would be its own internet, the way the internet was first envisioned.

      Strange. I always thought the original intent of the Internet was to develop a redundant network that would withstand enemy attack, and to exchange research at universities. Never was I aware that the original intent of the Internet was to rip off content producers and commit criminal activity.

  • If these become popular it will be a dream come true for the RIAA. Hard, physical proof that someone is a music pirate! "Officer, arrest this man, he's carrying intellectual property theft devices!"
    • Hard, physical proof that someone is a music pirate!

      I thought that was the eyepatch, the tricornered hat with the jolly roger on it, and the parrot on the shoulder?

      yarr.....

    • Re:Nightmare my ass! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jrockway ( 229604 ) *
      > "Officer, arrest this man, he's carrying intellectual property theft devices!"

      "Officer, arrest this man, he's carrying a murder weapon."

      Oh, you mean it's not illegal to carry something that could be used illegally? Damn the constitution! (Murder weapon in this case is a hammer that "this man" is carrying home from Home Depot to hang a picture on the wall.)

  • cool pranks (Score:5, Funny)

    by icepick72 ( 834363 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:19PM (#14417607)
    certain risk (mislabeling files, creating intentionally corrupt songs)

    Same as regular P2P but that's survived and comes in useful.

    Drive-by music. Hmmm ... I like it. I will put an MP3 on my player that consists of only my voice yelling at the listener to "WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU". See how many paranoid people I can freak out. People would be doing that walking the street, in their car, on their bicycle, on the transit system. It would be great

  • Interesting ONLY IF (Score:5, Funny)

    by u16084 ( 832406 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:20PM (#14417614)
    Only Useful If Paris Hilton is standing next to you with her Camera Phone....

  • Who really thinks this is a great idea? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ItMustBeEsoteric ( 732632 ) <ryangilbert.gmail@com> on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:21PM (#14417620)
    Illegal content? Copyright infringement? All "without user participation," but I would say that since people can download from you on P2P apps, without active participation, you could draw a precedent from that to apply to this: having shared, copyrighted music on a device that allows (forces?) others to download it simply by being in your vicinity is clearly a violation.

    Of course, the second this moves from simply audio to pictures and/or video, you could wind up with other illegal content (i.e. child porn) on your player, just by walking by someone with a similiar device who so-happens to be a pervert.

    Great idea here, people.
    • This is a perfect example of the all-too-often-ignored principle that just because we CAN do something doesn't mean that we SHOULD.

    • Of course, the second this moves from simply audio to pictures and/or video, you could wind up with other illegal content (i.e. child porn) on your player, just by walking by someone with a similiar device who so-happens to be a pervert.

      I think this could be fixed with a proper implementation. Suppose your media player knows what files you like. Perhaps the media player could periodically connect to the Internet and upload your preferences to a recommender system. The recommender system would then comp

    • Re:Who really thinks this is a great idea? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @05:53PM (#14418270) Homepage
      You're absolutely right.

      That's exactly why VCRs are illegal! Because people could use them to commit copyright infringment!

      Oh wait, no. You're an idiot. This whole issue was resolved twenty years ago in the Sony v. Betamax supreme court ruling. This is perfectly legal and it is a good idea for the exact same reason VCRs are legal and a good idea.

      Yes people could decide to commit copyright infringment. So fucking what?

      I have an entire folder on my computer of public domain / Creative Commons MP3 songs. The people manyfacturing this product have every right to sell it to me, and I have every right to load those files onto the product and to distribute and redistribute those files to anyone and everyone.

      Of course, the second this moves from simply audio to pictures and/or video, you could wind up with other illegal content (i.e. child porn) on your player, just by walking by someone with a similiar device who so-happens to be a pervert.

      Yeah, and?

      Someone can mail child porn into your mailbox. And they could put a flyer with child porn under your car windshield. And they could hand you a free innocent-looking magazine on the street as you walk by, with child porn on page 8.

      Someone could choose to commit copyright infringment using or to distribute child porn with it. Just as they could use a Xerox machine to do the same things.

      And whenever you find files on it that you don't want... whether it is simply crappy music or child porn or whatnot, then you delete it. And no, you are not violating any laws if someone sticks child porn into your mailbox or broadcasts it onto your device and you had no idea about it.

      The answer is simple. They have the right to sell it and you have the right to buy it, and YOU are responsible not to intentionally violate any laws.

      -
    • "Illegal content? Copyright infringement?"

      Is a law designed to prevent disputes amongst owners of the first 20 printing presses in the 1500's best suited to arbitrating the flow of data between ubiquitous digital wireless devices?
  • This just proves the point that it all comes down to a battle between copyrights and free speech rights. After all this technology could just as easially be used to dissemate political information. At a fundamental level, there is no inherent difference between free speech content and copyright content.
    • No, I don't think it proves that point at all.

      At a fundamental level, there is no inherent difference between an insightful comment and a total misfire of logical thought, either.

    • BS (Score:2)

      by donutello ( 88309 )
      Free speech is the ability to spread your own thoughts and ideas.

      Copyright infringement is spreading someone elses against their wishes.

      • Free speech is the ability to spread your own thoughts and ideas.

        Copyright infringement is spreading someone elses against their wishes.

        Allright fine. Then please point me to a technology that distinguishes the difference.

  • Push vs pull (Score:4, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:30PM (#14417655)
    ...allows users to actively recommend songs by sending (or "pushing") music to other users in the proximity.

    Current P2P is strictly pull. You select what you want, and get it from (wherever). Having random people push random stuff on to my hardware? Not a chance.

    Would you allow someone to do this with your PC? Didn't think so. Remember that when you connect your new mp3 player to the USB port.

    A potentially good idea, but we all know there is a tiny minority who will screw it up. Badly.

    • Your bandwith is virtually free and unlimited, since it works on ad-hoc networks.
      So, if you don't like it, just erase it.
    • The way I read it, they're pushing recommendations, not songs. That would be great. But my hangup here is that a song takes a while to transfer over WIFI. It's not like you can pass someone on the street and accept their song recommendation in time to get the whole file. Even a car passing you on the highway might not be next to you long enough.
      • The way I read it, they're pushing recommendations, not songs.

        ...sending (or "pushing") music...

        If not actual songs now, then soon.

        But my hangup here is that a song takes a while to transfer over WIFI. It's not like you can pass someone on the street and accept their song recommendation in time to get the whole file.

        The person you're sitting behind on the train to work. The person you're sitting two tables away from at lunchtime. The person in the next booth in the bar after work.

        Famous last words:
        "You

    • It hasn't always been. If you remember AudioGalaxy, they had a push function with the groups feature back in 2000. You could join groups created by users wherein users could send music to others in the group, and sent files would automatically be added to your download cue. It was an absolutely fantastic feature for discovering new music -- in fact, over half of what I listen to know what discovered through this feature of AG. Sadly, the P2P sharing features of the site were shutdown in 2002. I'm still wait

    • Re:Push vs pull (Score:4, Insightful)

      by legirons ( 809082 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @06:39PM (#14418446)
      "Having random people push random stuff on to my hardware? Not a chance."

      TiVO users accept it. Radio listeners accept it. iRate users desire it. Aren't the same type of people buying music devices too?

      • Re:Push vs pull (Score:3, Insightful)

        by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 )
        TiVO users accept it.

        A single format, from a single source company.

        Radio listeners accept it.

        soundwaves. No actual files.

        iRate users desire it.

        Closer, but still a central point of contact.

        Seriously...would YOU allow your hardware to accept random files from random people on the street? I wouldn't.
        And neither will the sheep, after the first drive-by virus outbreak.

        • Re:Push vs pull (Score:3, Interesting)

          by legirons ( 809082 )
          "Seriously...would YOU allow your hardware to accept random files from random people on the street?"

          Absolutely -- it was a central feature of Konspire2B, which I still think is one of the most elegant/efficient transportion methods for various types of data. Kind of like a bittorrent/TV-station mix, where the users help out with bandwidth. Or like multicast except that it actually works on the internet.

          Use wireless aswell as the internet for connections, and it becomes even more robust, with better availa
  • Why limit this idea to the transfer of music? Why not distribute any information through a chain of WiFi devices and build a whole network? With so many devices already existing it should be possible to build subnets, and hook them up to the Internet. Who cares about 2 cent music articles, other than organizations like the RIAA who see their distribution monopoly threaten? I find the idea of a network independent of any service provider much more attractive.
  • Suppose this is a success product, a video version comes out, and a not so techsavvy person, lets call her "Paris" puts a video "Live in Paris (2)" in the open section instead of the blocked session.
    In short: I think users should have control over what they put on the device, else it ends up full with crap since it just uploads, or you are spreading your own files unintentionally.
  • There is always a risk when creating a community that some asshole will disrupt it. Should we therefore lock ourselves up in single person cells and never risk getting something we don't want?

    So what if some idiots would use this to push mislabelled files. So you get a weird sound file once in a while, this is nothing new happened with napster and that didn't stop it.

    Plus there is tiny little difference here. The person pushing the weird file will be closeby. 99.99% of the internet assholes are pussies wh

    • Easy to avoid if the OS just is seperated from this application. There are enough base applications which run on multiple OSes without security risks. So I agree, virusses are not a big issue.
    • As for virusses. As long as the software is not written by MS it should be fine. Shouldn't be too hard to write a player that does not suffer from bugger overruns and as far as I know MP3 does not allow system calls to be embedded.

      My last three [Sony] Ericsson phones have had buffer overflows which corrupt the cell information string. You have increasingly heavy software developed on the cheap and sent to market too soon. There will be security issues.

  • And this is just the start of it... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:52PM (#14417747) Homepage
    This is exactly the sort of thing I dreamed up in an earlier response to an *AA post (too lazy to go and link to it :)

    The beauty of this sort of system is that, designed well, you'd be able to program your device to "listen out" for things you're currently interested in (this would rely on files being tagged with a bit more meta data than we get in current IDV3 tags etc.) With some sort of AI algorithm processing the tags you could also optionally allow the "pickup new music" function to take you off into new avenues of sonic exploration (Hmm... think I'll set the "weirdness factor" to 3 today). Hell I never knew how much I liked Bulgarian throat singing until I heard some on a radio station whilst cooking my tea :)

    One thing's for sure though you'd soon find more good music than you'd probably have time to listen to - unless in the future you can get paid for being a "music filter" for a third paty (when most manufacturing ia automated new jobs will come into being...) And with digital transmission of the data the days of artificially induced shortages are over (ooh look, limited edition of 100 copies on BLUE VINYL !!!!)

    So you make available what you please and passing people pick up what they please from you. Everyone gets to hear more music.

    And what of the poor musicians I hear you say. In the future more bands will make more money than they do today from live performances, personal appearances, writing bespoke music for social events etc. etc. In an interconnected world there is now more opportunity for musicians/sound sculptors to both create works and to get paid for it. Admittedly there'll probably be less battery farmed, multi millionaire musicians producing trite pap (a la Britney Crap etc.) but there'll be more musicians earning a living.

    Meanwhile the cavemen at the *AA etc. still just simply don't get it and are attempting to keep things going using their 1920s business paradigm.

    Ho hum. Bring it on.
  • The only problem is that the RIAA will be able to home in on your filesharing - you'll see their agents (all named Smith) in the Subway soon.

    I propose some simple method of authorizing users. Maybe you could exchange keys with people by pressing some button while shaking their hands. [pcworld.com] Even with just the people I trust enough to exchange the keys to my mp3s that way I'd be able to build a fairly sizeable collection. Now, moving on to friends of friends etc. I'd have all music in the world within a few years

    • Hmm... It should be easy to spoof one's identity for a device like that. I mean, since there is no routing of any kind, it does not matter how it identifies itself. So, to actually catch someone in the middle of the act, agents would have to use triangulation, and then it would still be useless for moving targets. The evidence would also be very flimsy, especially in crowded areas like Starbucks.

      I have been waiting for this technology for a while now. I am not a big fan of portable players, but I will pro

  • ...just run an unsecured FTP server that allows anonymous uploads. You put up your favourite music files, and pretty soon you'll have a very nice collection of illegal porn, warez and viruses.
    • > ..just run an unsecured FTP server that allows anonymous uploads. You put up your favourite music files, and pretty soon you'll have a very nice collection of illegal porn, warez and viruses.

      So, that's just like running unpatched Windows, right? :)
  • Make Millions of dollars sharing information. Call 1-800-sir-spama to get into this multi-level advertising oppostunity.

    Do you want to get paid to attend parties, movies, and rock concerts? Maybe you are into exercise? How about making money on your way to work? If you sign up today, those hours of congested traffic and annoying public transportation experience start making you money.

    All you need to do is download our "music" everyday from our service onto your AD-pod and it will do the rest. It will share all of the its content with anyone who passes by, making you money in return.

    Our technology works by attaching ads to snippets of popular music and sharing those ads with those around you. Our ads give full credit to the artists and records label and get our messgaes out to the masses.

    Sign up today
  • Cant imagine that the *AA would sit by and allow this logical progression to occur.

    If you can control what sort of stuff comes across to your device, such 'similar music' or have an actual 'wish list' this might be a cool thing.

    We need a wireless adaptor for ipods .. hint hint..

  • Wireless Usenet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @04:24PM (#14417908) Journal
    I think it would be cool if it was a wireless Usenet. Usenet uses a flood algorithm. In the olde days you could sent mail thru it.

  • They are gonna get sued. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) * on Saturday January 07, 2006 @04:28PM (#14417931) Homepage
    There is a good argument for P2P systems in general in that there are MANY uses for them other than stealing music - and yet many P2P systems have been taken down by hoards of ravening *AA lawyers. But it's quite a bit harder to come up with ways in which this device could be used legally. It's a music player - so people aren't likely to be using it for copying photos they've taken or software they've written - such as is the case with P2P on the Internet. How many people do you think you'll just naturally happen to bump into who:

    a) Have a compatible player...and...
    b) Have OpenSourced music on offer...and...
    c) Actually want to recommend it to you.

    I would be quite utterly amazed if I got one interesting and legal track in a year of use.

    Furthermore, if the owners of these machines don't actively send the files, it's likely that there is a good case for suing the manufacturers for causing copyrights to be breached.

    They are gonna get their asses sued unless they weigh this thing down with so much in the way of DRM that it'll be useless in practice.

    The article links to the manufacturer says that this is for sending "Recommendations" - so perhaps it is intended that one only ships a short recommendation in the form of a brief clip.

    Another possibility is that you'd have to be signed up to a music service based on the 'subscription' model...in that case, this is music you could just have easily downloaded for yourself - so the 'recommendation' thing would really be the only reason to use it.
  • If this ever really launched, I give the advertising industry one month to catch up and start spamming the players with lots and lots and lots of ads.

    • I am sure there would be some spamming, but there does not have to be a lot of it. If every device broadcasts its shared files, but keeps the "wanted" list private, then spamming will take a lot of guessing. It will only affect the people who are seeking the most popular music.

  • A similar idea plays a role in Cory Doctorow's novel, Eastern Standard Tribe. [craphound.com]

  • Ad Hoc Networks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kalel666 ( 587116 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @04:57PM (#14418048)
    Imagine some kind and generous soul buying these, and then leaving them in public places. Subway stations, parks, coffee houses, etc. Presuming you could hide them or otherwise make them conspicuous, you could have a repository of music from anyone nearby. Over time it would update and grow, reflecting a gestalt of what music is popular in that particular neighborhood/location. Would be kind of cool, actually.

  • I think there are also quite a few issues regarding incomplete transfers... portable devices on the move will be continuously connecting and disconnecting with other portable devices on the move. The connect / disconnect cycle will be a lot shorter for them than for traditional P2P devices.

    There are definitely ways to deal with such issues; in fact there are multiple incompatible ways. I suspect that the exact way it's handled could make or break the concept.

  • Microsoft will sue for patent infringement (Score:3, Funny)

    by tomcres ( 925786 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @07:03PM (#14418550)
    I believe that Microsoft owns the patents on "drive-by downloads" as part of Internet Exploder. IE has been facilitating uninitiated covert downloads for about a decade now. Frankly, this is just a blatant rip-off of Microsoft technology.

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