Roadcasting

Wow.. apparently some crafty individuals from Carnegie Mellon University are already quite a ways into developing Roadcasting, a system where drivers can broadcast their own “radio station” as well as tune into others’ over an ad-hoc wireless network. But it’s also much more than that. It allows a listener to have established “tastes” that influence their own track selection as well as the stations they listen to. In addition, you will be able to vote what plays next on a remote station between 3 songs that are automatically chosen from everybody’s “tastes”. It sounds like they’re incorporating all sorts of nifty usability and otherwise features like that into the system to make the whole experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible. They say they were contracted by a “major auto manufacturer” to develop this for commercialization by 2010. The java source is already even available for download, though. Sounds pretty damn neat to me.