Bleh. For some reason I kept thinking the StrongARM was a BGA chip even though I've opened the empeg and installed extra RAM myself. It's the PXA and IXP chips which are BGA packages.

It makes it easier to remove the StrongARM with it not being a BGA but you'd still need to put RAM onto this board as the existing RAM is way too slow. I've got a 266MHz IXP here and that requires 7ns RAM at a minimum. The RAM on the empeg board is EDO as well which won't work.

I think the 700k units/month is for the new factory, which I would guess makes every player that iRiver churn out. I'd be suprised if the entire *aftermarket* head unit demand worldwide, for all models right from the most basic CD or tape deck, is up to 700ku/month.

I'll be interested in what they do with it, though, as (as I've said before) it's getting hard to fit DIN units into cars nowadays, which is slowly eroding the entire aftermarket stereo business.

Hugo

Count me in, I would love to see a full color LCD screen (maybe even touch screen) with 5.1 output or atleast front rear and sub outs and a build in tuner, maybe even have a drop down face and a bay so you could add an extra drive with out taking the unit apart. give me all that with the Empeg interface and you will get my money so fast it will make your head spin.

I don't find myself wanting/needing many new features on my in-dash player. What I would want to see more than anything else is a dockable portable player that can be used at home, in car, or as a true portable. I don't know where the Moore's law hard disk corrolary is these days, but we can't be more than a year or so off from Grzelak-ish music collections being able to fit on a Karma-ish hard disk. If that happens, then there's no good reason for anyone to own more than one mp3 player, which can then be dropped into a DIN-sized dock, or a traditional home stereo-sized component at home. Then you have none of this business of keeping a subset of your collection on this player, then forgetting that your other player's collection is out of date... Let's keep it all on one player, and just plug that player into a shell with controls and display to suit the environment.

Actually, I forsee a future when we've got a box that's our cell phone, our MP3 player, and our digital camera, and perhaps other stuff, all in one box. I mean, we have that right now but they have limited storage capacity and they aren't the best-in-class at each of those tasks. We'll get more storage and the integration and quality of all those devices will improve. But having a universal car dock for such a device would be nice.

Very few companies, if any, have domain expertise at the cutting edge of those 3 different devices, so usually when you see combination MP3/Digicam/Cellphone/Toaster devices, one of the functions is lagging. With that in mind, I'm okay with my cell phone, music player, and digital camera all being different devices.

What you're talking about may happen down the line, but I'm talking about something that could be developed now-ish. I admittedly don't know the state of iPod/Karma type HD technology these days, but assuming storage density is going at a nice rate, it can't be that tough of a nut to crack.

And, if Microsoft has their way, that device that can do all these things will be your (non-portable) computer...

Sure. I'll design and make a "Mk3" for you. Each unit will cost $1,000,000 however since the market for such a device will be so small. Still interested?

I'm pretty sure Patrick would be very happy to do it for a lot less than $1m per unit, so I think you're out of luck.

Rob

Well Patrick... if you want to do that, I'll Paypal to you now! Go on go on go on go on go on...

Doh. Bang goes my MAKE MONEY FAST!!! idea. Anybody want a diploma from an accredited college? Or help a good friend of mine shift a few million out of Nigeria?

1. Build empeg MkIII
2. ???
3. Profit!

Quote:
1. Build empeg MkIII
2. ???
3. Profit!

Sure beats stealing underpants!

The guy with the 10000 yen note looks like one of the men from the Chinpokomon episode of South Park.

For a minute there I thought, 'Those cigarette packets look funny'