Two interesting submissions to the Core77 Business Card Hacks Challenge: earbud speakers and a cord winder.

Contexture Design’s iPod classic and nano cases made of reclaimed 45 RPM vinyl or audio cassettes are just fine. Too bad they’re all sold out.

Last weekend, while I was putting an iPod interface into my Scion I did the same thing for my 2002 Honda Civic. Using Ben Johnson’s story as a guide, I bought a PIE HON98-AUX interface and dove in.

Aside from tools (screwdrivers and 8 and 10mm sockets), you’ll need:

• The interface adapter
• Audio wiring — I used a 6′ RCA to 1/8th inch cable from Radio Shack
• Power — I used a Belkin car charger plugged into this 12v extension cord I picked up from Radio Shack

I also recommend a sufficient quantity of good beer or other beverage. I used raspberry wheat for this project.

As I noted in my previous post, most people recommend unhooking the battery to guard against short circuits while doing this sort of thing. For my part, I usually skip that and let a fuse automatically disconnect things when it blows. Either way, though, you’d do well to find your factory radio’s 5 digit security code, as if the power gets disconnected, it won’t work again without it.

Underneath the dashboard is a panel with the car’s only power socket. The panel can be removed with some careful-but-stern pulling around the edges. Five friction clips (two on each side, one on the top center) hold it in place, but by working a flathead screwdriver around the sides I was able to pull it off.

Behind the panel are the screws that hold the dashboard console assembly in place.

With those two screws removed, I was able to push the assembly from behind and ease it out of the dashboard cavity.

Again, however, I had to fight these friction clips that held the top and sides of the assembly in place.

Once the assembly was out, I could plug in the interface adapter into the CD changer port.

I routed the interface adapter’s cable bundle behind the stereo and down to the accessory power panel. There’s enough space behind there for the adapter to sit, but first I wanted to test it.

Unlike the Toyota adapter, the Honda adapter has a separate ground wire. Fortunately, there’s another ground wire screwed in down there behind the 12v jack too.

To power my iPhone, I cut the plug end off the 12v extension cord and tapped it in to the wires leading to the existing 12v socket.

The inline taps are hugely useful.

I fished the cable for both the extension socket and the audio along the center console, hidden behind the plastic on the passenger side. The socket end of the extension emerges from the console at a convenient spot along with the audio cable. My old Belkin car charger plugs in there, the audio cable plugs into the base of it, and the dock-connector cable plugs in to my iPhone. The only thing I have to futz with is the dock connector cable, everything else is out of sight.

People have asked me why I chose to use the low-tech PIE adapter, instead of a smarter one that would allow me to control the iPod from the factory stereo. Up to the time I got my iPhone, I was sure that that was what I wanted, but the message I get every time I plug an old accessory into the dock connector is enough to make me cautious about building infrastructure around the interface. I don’t know what music device I’ll use next, but I would rather not have to take apart my car again to plug it in.

In my next post on this topic, I’ll explain how I replaced the rear speakers in this car.

Based on this story about an iPod interface install I purchased a PIE TOY03-AUX aux input adapter so I could finally listen to my iPhone without using the lousy FM transmitter. Sure, I coulda bought a new car, as the manufacturers seem to have finally come to their senses and started including such inputs, but I refuse to buy another car until I can have one that gets well over 40MPG.

The parts:

Thing is, buying all the parts is the easy part.

The dashboard:

Remove all three knobs and these two screws:

Pull the panel out from the bottom. As the hooks at the top of the panel are released, the panel should move freely:

Be careful of the wires to the A/C, defrost, and hazards. Thinking of electrics, most people recommend unhooking the battery to guard against short circuits while doing this sort of thing. For my part, I usually skip that and let a fuse automatically disconnect things when it blows.

Once the panel is clear, remove the four screws that hold the radio in place (two each side):

With the radio out, the interface adapter plugs in easily. There’s lots of room behind the dash to hide the box, and lots of open space to route the audio cable through.

But why spend so much time on this and still plug the iPhone into the dash’s 12V accessory socket? I wired the extension cable into the existing power. Getting at the wires to the power socket requires removing another panel. Easy enough, but it looks an awful mess:

With the audio cable and the new power jack, I simply plugged in an old Belkin car charger, plugged the audio cable 1/8th inch end into that, and now all I have to do is connect the dock connector to listen to my iPod in the car.

Total time for the job? If you don’t include having to run out for a new fuse, then it’s under an hour.

New 160GB AppleTV. How far away are we from a standalone unit that can download from iTunes store directly, sync iPods, and write to USB-attached burners?

apple, tv, itunes, itunes store, ipod, media, AppleTV

Even Bob Borchers, Apple’s senior director of iPod worldwide product marketing, calls most iPod car setups an “inelegant mess of cassette adaptors and wires.” Indeed, while Apple aparently doesn’t want to get into the car audio business, they do want to improve the in-car iPod experience:

What Apple really wants you to buy is a car that’s designed from the ground up to interface with the iPod,” the Web site said. “The 30-pin connector on newer iPods can transmit all the information displayed on the iPod screen to a remote display. This lets car manufacturers display track information on the dashboard.

Still, Apple has a long way to go in uncluttering the wires from the iPod ecosystem. After reviewing current iPod integration offerings from premium car makers like Audi, BMW, Mini, and from audio/accessory vendors Pioneer, Kensington, and Dension, Francois Planque gives up on the fancy tricks and reccommends the simplest solutions possible:

I could go on and on with other iPod integration solutions, but really, most of them are pure crap. The only thing they get right is charging your iPod while you drive!

However, if you seriously care about listening to your iPod in your car, if you want to listen to podcasts and not to the same old playlist again and again, I think the only effective solution today is to use the iPod’s native interface and get the analog sound out, either through the headphone jack, or through the dock connector with an adapter.

You can then pump the audio into your car stereo in several ways:

• A cassette adapter (bit quality sound won’t be that good)
• A jack connector on your head unit if you’re lucky to have one
• RCA connectors at the back of some head units (you can get an optional box from some manufacturers, like Pioneer…)

Then of course, some kind of docking system to have your iPod accessible at a convenient position can also help, compared to leaving your iPod on the passenger seat.

If you can’t live without charging your iPod while you drive, then the Dension RDS solution may be the best deal.

Anything more “advanced” is currently a waste of money. It’s good for demos and showing off. It’s useless for daily use.

Jake Ludington agrees, saying “big fat deal” to the much vaunted iPod + BMW integration that displays only playlist and track numbers — not names! — on the car’s stereo.

Integration means the metadata attached to the song gets passed to the car stereo system. Buttons built into the steering wheel don’t really make this better; the iPod’s remote could have accomplished the same thing, with very little intrusion.

So, aside from putting an iPod Hi-Fi on the dash, what’s a person to do to get easy iPod control in the car?

Joe Padula posted some pics of a very classy-looking mod (picture above) that turned his car’s in-dash cassette deck into an iPod dock, but he doesn’t show how he’s controlling it.

The iStore offers an adapter that seems to offer some promise. The iPod connects to the stereo via a standard dock connector, users can control the tracks via the car stereo and the iPod’s built-in controls.

Unlike some other car solutions, iPod2Car does not disable the controls or display of your iPod, so you will still be able to view track details and playlist information on your iPod. You will still be able to control the iPod with its controls in addition to your radio controls.

DICE Electronics has a similar offering that promises the addition of song titles in the radio display as well as an additional auxiliary input.

The good news is that at $160, it’s less expensive than iPod2Car’s adapter while appearing to offer more features, and it’s available for my Scion XB.

Now, where did the simple line-in jacks that were common on stereos ten years ago disappear to?

ipod, car, integration, ipod integration, car kit, car audio, line in, adapter, mobile audio, in car ipod

Steve Jobs’ Thoughts On Music is surprisingly open and frank, almost blog-like, for the man and the company especially know for keeping secrets.

Jobs is addressing complaints about Apple’s “proprietary” DRM used in the iTunes Music Store.

There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

And after offering his view of the situation, he offers three possible futures.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music.

And the case for doing more of the same is pretty clear. Apple’s iPod and iTunes Music Store are successful, and though there are competitors, they’ll have to convince would be buyers to give up their iPods.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores.

And that’s exactly what people have been asking for. It’s hard to know who wants to use a player that’s not an iPod, but there are some things that don’t play on iPods. But…

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

And finally…

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely.

And how does that work?

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

steve jobs, music stores, music digital rights management, music, itunes, itms, ipod, drm, apple

The full text follows:

With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three possible alternatives for the future.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full.  This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.  Its hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future.  And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute. Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players.

An equally serious problem is how to quickly repair the damage caused by such a leak. A successful repair will likely involve enhancing the music store software, the music jukebox software, and the software in the players with new secrets, then transferring this updated software into the tens (or hundreds) of millions of Macs, Windows PCs and players already in use. This must all be done quickly and in a very coordinated way. Such an undertaking is very difficult when just one company controls all of the pieces. It is near impossible if multiple companies control separate pieces of the puzzle, and all of them must quickly act in concert to repair the damage from a leak.

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free  and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries.  Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free.  For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard.  The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company.  EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company.  Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace.  Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

President Bush, speaking in Alabama at the American Competitiveness Initiative, made a claim that would make Al Gore blush: he claimed to have invented the iPod.

After taking credit for the development of ultra-small hard drives, audio compression, and chemistry(?), he laid it out: “it turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod.”

Tip o’ the hat to Engadget.

a matter of trust, bush, bush lies, george bush, george w bush, I invented the ipod, ipod, ipod inventor, lier, lies, president bush, w

Colin has a nifty guide to your iPod’s hidden commands, like those for rebooting or getting into the diagnostics. He’s got more iPod tips if you look.

diagnostics, ipod, ipod hacking, key combo, key command, reboot, special keys, tips

I couldn’t help but want one when they were released. I still wanted one after reading the reviews. And I couldn’t help but think about buying one when I finally got to play with it in the store. My wife, loving me and knowing me as she does, got me one.

Yes, I got a video iPod for Christmas.

Thing is, presents like this create a crisis. How do I extract the gigabytes of music I’ve accumulated on the old iPod? Answer: iPodRip from The Little App Factory. It copies the contents of your iPod back to your computer — including the playlists and without duplicating any songs you do have on your computer. Once iPodRip is done, the next step is to plug in the new iPod and synchronize from there.

But what about video? Digigami offers MoviesForMyPod as a free download. It easily converts any QuickTime readable file into an iPod playable movie.

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It’s old news now, but ArsTechnica did a really thorough review of the video iPod. I especially appreciated reviewer Clint Ecker’s opinion of the video playback capabilities.

Now I’m curious about what this does to enable more video podcasts.

tags: ipod, ipod video, review, video, video ipod

How to Install iPod Linux on 1 & 2G mini, 4G, Photo

ipod, linux, tutorial

How-To: Automatically download and convert TV for your iPod – hackaday.com

video, ipod, conversion

The MTA, the folks who run New York’s subways and busses and such, weren’t the only ones to smack a cease and desist down on iPod Subway Maps last week, but they’re the first to tell they can pay $500 for the privilege of distributing those maps in an iPod-readable format — but only for non-commercial distribution.

Cluetrain moment: doesn’t the MTA understand that services like this serve potential tourists like me? Don’t they understand that the availability of such maps increases both the likelihood of my visit and the commercial opportunities of my visit (tourists don’t spend money in subways)?

What I really want to leave with, however, is this: Barb Dybwad at Engadget got this one right when she aknowledged the two sides of the issue and added:

These are exactly the kinds of cases in which traditional copyright law feels unsatisfying in the age of digital mashups, and we can only see the demand for these kinds of “information conversions” increasing.

tags: cease and desist, conversions, copyright law, distribution license, engadget, ipod, ipod subway maps, ipodsubwaymaps.com, mashups, mta, subway maps, subways

Other than a bit of head scratching after the announcement in June, I’ve been quiet about Apple’s switch to Intel processors. Now, ArsTechnica’s Jon “Hannibal” Stokes has written some of the most intelligent material I’ve seen since.

How’s it work? Hannibal thinks Apple’s relationship with IBM soured to the point where they refused to play the game. And Apple is imagining a world of devices Macs, iPods, and as yet unannounced portable, personal lifestyle devices. The announcement Apple didn’t make is its switch to Intel’s XScale processors for those portable devices.

It’s worth reading the whole story.

tags: apple, arstechnica, big switch, intel, ipod, mac, personal lifestyle, switch to intel, wwdc, xscale

We’ve all seen the ads they digitally insert on the field during football games and we’ve heard talk about inserting new product placements as old TV shows play in syndication.

Ernie Miller has been thinking about this recently. Last week he noted that folks are creating ipod-able, independent audio tours of museums.
“…Hack the gallery experience, [...] remix MoMA!” commands ArtMobs, one of the groups producing these unauthorized audio tours. In this context, the notion of hearing “things you’ll never hear through MoMA’s headphones” is an exciting example of the power of the technology/communication-enabled individual over the corporation.

On the other hand, Ernie sees parralells between this and the digital overlays described at the top. In a followup post inspired by a response from the lawfirm of Carson Bailey, he notes:

as our world becomes increasingly layered with digital data. We will be changed by this; how, I’m not sure.

Now, back to Carson Bailey LLC, the principles of which do some blogging. In this post responding to the “hack the gallery” rhetoric, they ask “whether asking students to plug in [to these unauthorized audio tours] challenges the museum’s authority as an institution or reinforces it.” But you’ll have to read the full post to know what they’re really getting at, because I’m going to take that quote in a different direction.

What I’m interested in is if the museums will try to prevent that sort of unauthorized remixing the same way recording artists have. Will MoMa start ejecting visitors sporting white earbuds? If they do complain, on what basis do they stand? Can they also prevent me from accompanying my friends and offering my tour and descriptions of the work?

Technorati Tags: audio tours, communication, ernie miller, gallery experience, independent audio, ipod, mobs, moma, product placements, technology

MacNN reports that Saab has released an iPod integration kit:

Saab has quietly introduced its own iPod/MP3 Player audio integration system. The new system, listed in the most recent Saab Accessories Catalog from October 2004, offers direct input for and control of the iPod on its Saab 9-3, according to one MacNN reader: “I spoke with the parts department at my dealership and they confirmed that it’s available. Evidently it’s wired through to the center console armrest and will be out of site. A tech told me the unit has power and will be able to control the iPod from the steering wheel controls. I took this to mean switching songs via the OnStar / radio controls that are stock on Saab 9-3s.”

Of note: new Saabs apparently have some built-in windows-based computer that crashes a bunch. Or, at least it crashed once and somebody got a picture, the blog story really doesn’t give much context. Here’s to hoping the iPod integration works better.

Related iPod stories at MaisonBisson:
Integration: In Car iPod, In Car iPod Take 2, iPod Integration Kits Proliferate For Home And Car, Saab, and PIE iPod Input Adapter.
Hacks, laughs, and background: iPod Hacks, iPod Giggles, What Does Proprietary Mean Anyway?

Technorati Tags: adapter, apple, integration, integration kit, ipod, ipod mini, saab

A reader, Mike, wrote in to reccomend the Precision Interface Electronics aux input adapter to connect the audio from my iPod to my Scion’s factory head unit.

I don’t know if you ever found a solution to connecting your iPod to your Scion head unit, but if not, you can use this adapter to add an AUX input to the Scion factory head unit.

I asked Mike for followup and details, and he offered this:

I am not affiliated with myradiostore.com, I sent that link because I am comfortable recommending that retailer based on my past experience with them. That particular part is available from a variety of other retailers as well.

I myself have not used that particular part but I have installed similar products from that manufacturer in customer’s vehicles (I install stereos as a side job). Sound quality is just the same as if the receiver had its own AUX input jacks.

I have yet to try any input adapters, so it’s nice to get reader feedback. Thanks, Mike.

A quick glance at the PIE website shows that the adapter is available in several models for compatibility with cars and stereos from a the full range of manufacturers.

Also look here and here for related news.

Related iPod stories at MaisonBisson:
Integration: In Car iPod, In Car iPod Take 2, iPod Integration Kits Proliferate For Home And Car, Saab, and PIE iPod Input Adapter.
Hacks, laughs, and background: iPod Hacks, iPod Giggles, What Does Proprietary Mean Anyway?

Technorati Tags: adapter, apple, car, integration, integration kit, ipod, ipod mini, scion, stereo, stereos

MacNN reports the Sonance iPort will ship later this month, which must mean next week. Anyway, the iPort is a wall mounted dock that hides all the cables — audio, firewire, dock, others — in the wall. The MacNN story includes nice pictures of the unit, including the beauty shot and a view of the ports and connectors. Sonance makes no end of “architectural-audio” equipment, including those speakers you sometimes find hidden in the wall.

— – –

A short while ago, Monster annouced their iCruze for iPod car audio integration kit.

The iPod and iPod mini can be hidden away and controlled by the CD player that it is connected to. Users can select the songs and playlists of their choice through either the steering wheel controls or the CD player’s controls. The song information can also be viewed on the optional display and the iPod can be mounted anywhere in the vehicle.

The product was developed with assistance from SoundGate, and is said to cost $500. No word on when it’s going to ship, though.

— – –

Denison, I think, was first to market with an iPod car integration kit. Their original Ice > Link debuted during the 1G iPod days, but now they’ve added control and display via compatible head units to the Link: Plus“>Ice > Link: Plus.

Use your radio or iPod to navigate through playlists, albums and songs and access the simple to use ipod interface. The ice>Link interprets the radio controls from your vehicle to the iPod to emulate a fully loaded CD changer with advanced features.

iPod integration kits seem to be proliferating, but the Denison kit seems to differentiate itself by including a bit of software that appears to run on the iPod itself to add control and features not possible through the head unit (though the ”software“ might only be a playlist of special tracks that signal commands via the audio out, as with the iTrip). Their compatibility list includes cars from Audi, BMW/Mini, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda/Accura, Jaguar, Landrover, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan/Infiniti, Porsche, Saab, Scion, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo. At $200, it looks like a deal.

– – –

Recent news related to iPod integration also available in: In Car iPod, InCar iPod, Take 2, iPod News.

[update:] There’s been lots more iPod news since this story came out.

Related iPod stories at MaisonBisson:
Integration: In Car iPod, In Car iPod Take 2, iPod Integration Kits Proliferate For Home And Car, Saab, and PIE iPod Input Adapter.
Hacks, laughs, and background: iPod Hacks, iPod Giggles, What Does Proprietary Mean Anyway?

Technorati Tags: adapter, icruze, integration, ipod, ipod mini, iport, monster, monstercable, sonance, soundgate

Engadget echoed a story from AutoBlog (duh, I just noticed that they’re both from Weblogs Inc.) about an iPod integration kit that works with most all 1998-or-newer cars: iPod2car.

First, it gives a clean line-in to the stero from the iPod, then it gives next and previous track as well as rewind and fastforward control on the stereo. Sure, you can buy a 2005 BMW and get the same deal as an option, but this is cheaper.

Most importantly, it’s compatible with both my Scion xB and Sandee’s Honda Civic. The FAQ answers some questions, and links to the installation manual.

The manual also helps answer some basic questions about the xB stereo. For instance, all Toyota (1998 – 2005), Scion (2003-2005), and Isuzu (1998 – 2003) factory stereos apparently have the same connections. But, Toyotas require a cable adapter that’s only available from the dealer (part #08695-00370). With this in mind, I can probably get a cheaper audio-only input adapter. I went looking for such a solution before, but details about the Scion radio are scarce.

Also in iPod2car FAQs is a link to carstereohelp.com’s stereo removal guides. And, back at Autoblog, they’ve got an entire section devoted to the xB.

Then, for home-use, I can’t help but like the Bose SoundDock.

Related iPod stories at MaisonBisson:
Integration: In Car iPod, In Car iPod Take 2, iPod Integration Kits Proliferate For Home And Car, Saab, and PIE iPod Input Adapter.
Hacks, laughs, and background: iPod Hacks, iPod Giggles, What Does Proprietary Mean Anyway?

Technorati Tags: adapter, bose, civic, engadget, honda, honda civic, icruze, integration, ipod, ipod2car, scion, scion xb, toyota

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer did another one of his monkey acts when he went ape about music and DRM.

Most people still steal music…We can build the technology but there are still ways for people to steal music.

The most common format of music on an iPod is ’stolen’.

It could just be a picture of what happens when Microsoft wakes up and realizes it doesn’t own and can’t control everything, but it also reveals a lot about where the company is going. Ballmer could have said that the shifting of purchased music from one device or format to another is a legally protected form of fair use (at least for now). Instead, he argued something like “Microsoft’s DRM is the only solution to piracy.” Anyway, it’s a crock of shite. Teleread (always an anti-DRM advocate) has picked up on it.

– And –

tags: arstechnica, content, content consumer, content creator, copyfight, copyright, copyright law, drm, ipod, piracy, shite, steve ballmer

Copyfight’s Donna Wentworth reports on an article by Laura Murray about copyright law in Canada. Here are some items quoted from that work:

Spend more than a few minutes browsing Canadian court rulings, policy materials, or public hearings on copyright, and you will come across somebody seeking or promoting “protection.” “Protection” seems to be a good thing, and somehow copyright provides it, or should be providing it. But protection of what? Protection from what? … Only a few argue for protection of consumers or those whose creativity builds on copyrighted works, and fewer still the citizenry or the public domain.

How do we differentiate between “creator” and “consumer?” Are they really “distinct entities placed on either side of a fulcrum(?)”

In fact, as many have pointed out, we cannot draw a firm distinction between “creators” and “users”: every single person alive on earth is a consumer of culture, and anyone who ever puts pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) is also a creator.

Without wanting to get into the rest of the story, I’m now trying to figure out how to plug an iPod into a Scion xB. The xB comes with a stereo by Pioneer, but I haven’t been able to get details about what inputs it supports.

Installer.com and Logjam both offer connection kits that appear to give me RCA aux inputs to the radio head unit, but Pioneer offers a simple IP Bus adapter that might also do the trick. The question is: does the Scion radio by Pioneer have IP Bus support?

I’d RTFM, but I can’t get specifics about what model Pioneer is in the xB, and Scion doesn’t have any manuals that I can find online.

Pioneer is using the xB as a demo car. In this context, their story about it reveals that the xB has a full double-DIN radio bay, and that they successfully installed both an AVIC-80DVD navigation system and AVH-P7500DVD head unit in place of the standard stereo.

Though nice enough, the sales guys knew nothing, of course. I’m hoping to get more details about it when the radio actually gets installed. Maybe the service guys will actually let me see the back of the radio before it goes in, or maybe they’ve actually got docs they can share with me. Maybe.

[update]: More info, details, and solutions in In Car iPod, Take 2.

Related iPod stories at MaisonBisson:
Integration: In Car iPod, In Car iPod Take 2, iPod Integration Kits Proliferate For Home And Car, Saab, and PIE iPod Input Adapter.
Hacks, laughs, and background: iPod Hacks, iPod Giggles, What Does Proprietary Mean Anyway?

Technorati Tags: adapter, apple, ipod, pioneer, scion

Googling “proprietary” results in lots of hits, but very few of them use the word in a positive sense. The Webopedia Computer Dictionary offers:

Proprietary

Privately owned and controlled. In the computer industry, proprietary is the opposite of open. A proprietary design or technique is one that is owned by a company. It also implies that the company has not divulged specifications that would allow other companies to duplicate the product.

Increasingly, proprietary architectures are seen as a disadvantage. Consumers prefer open and standardized architectures, which allow them to mix and match products from different manufacturers.

Notice the tone at the end? Forgive me for contradicting authorities (well, the Webopedia anyway), but I believe that last paragraph needs some exploration.

Like so many words we use, I do not think it means what we think it means (apologies to Inigo Montoya). Dictionary.com emphasises the “property rights” sense of the word without the heavy innuendo of the Webopedia definition. Still, we can all recognize what Webopedia is getting at, sort of.

A few of those many Google hits are for pages complaining about Microsoft Word’s “proprietary” data format and others (here and here), and there’s a real point there, but it’s not the point made by Webopedia. See, the thing is, since “proprietary” is no longer used in anything but criticism, it’s lost much of it’s meaning.

One of the first uses of the word might have been in the battle between VHS and Beta. Critics labeled Beta the “proprietary” format and held up VHS as the “open” standard alternative. But the facts vary somewhat. Beta, developed by Sony, was first to market with a better product. VHS was developed by JVC but lacked Beta’s image quality and first-mover advantage. What JVC did was brilliant, they licensed VHS to other manufacturers at rock-bottom prices when Sony was demanding top dollar for Beta. VHS won that battle, but it is no more an open standard than Beta.

If yesterday’s battle was video tapes, today’s is commercial music formats. I find myself scratching my head when I here people complain that the iPod is “proprietary” because it will only play music from Apple’s iTunes music store. Once again, it’s a meaningless criticism, and just plain wrong. iPods can, of course, play any MP3, AIFF, or AAC you load on it, not just those downloaded from iTunes. What those critics really mean is that you can’t use the iPod with competing music stores.

Of the many competing digital rights management (DRM) formats for audio, two stand out: Apple calls theirs FairPlay, Microsoft builds theirs into Windows Media (including WMA). They and the others are all proprietary and incompatible. The problem isn’t that one is “proprietary” while the others are “open” In the end, they are all designed to limit what you can do with and how you can use the music and audio programs you purchase at these many online stores.

So what do these iPod critics use as portable music players? They appear to prefer products from Windows Media licensees. Microsoft, like JVC with VHS, finds itself behind the curve and has to struggle to push their product. The difference, and why we should all be concerned, is that we’ve seen what Microsoft does with monopoly power. Microsoft kept prices low and offered incredible deals to schools and universities when Microsoft Office was second or third to WordPerfect in a crowded market for word processors and office suites. Years later, after killing most of the competition they raised prices and changed licensing terms to cash in on their dominance (give credit where credit is due: it was a good business move that paid off).

Does anybody really think Windows Media will be any different?

Update: Former RIAA chief Hilary Rosen weighed in on the ‘proprietary’ debate recently.

tags: aac, audio player, beta, betamax, downloadable audio, downloadable content, fairplay, format war, format wars, ipod, portable audio player, proprietary, vhs, vhs beta, vhs v. beta, vhs vs. beta, windows media, wma, wmv