Wow. Empeg shows up in Wired magazine. Interesting and slightly critical review... They love the unit, dislike the buttons on the front panel... But I think we all have our issues with only 4 buttons. Man this product is really taking off (and it's on the same page as a Soul Calibur review... that's a page for the ages!)

All this talk about wired... I went to www.wired.com and searched for Empeg ( http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,18236,00.html ), and the article seemed a little crazy.

"The stereo's ability to support the Global
Positioning Satellite system allows it to
give directions, and even be programmed
to play songs appropriate to the car's
location -- like the Beach Boys at the
beach or "Route 66" when cruising the
famous highway.

?Qué?

Did I get the lite version (j/k)? Seriously, Is this something planed?

I haven't heard anything about the Empeg guys implementing GPS, but I know I'm working on it...I think Verement might be too.
Hopefully I'll have a GPS receiver and a serial pass-through designed (maybe even built) by January.

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

now THAT'S something i think a lot of us are interested in..
-mark

I have a combination GPS/CDPD unit which interfaces with the empeg via serial PPP. It's on the net (see http://empeg.orbit.mars.org/), but I have issues running PPP at the same time as the player. Since I'm away at a conference this week -- SC99, not Comdex, alas -- I left my empeg at home, so it's not currently acting like a stereo, and you're not going to see the GPS readout change at all.

I'm still working out some GPS issues with the vendor, but my hope is to be able to draw small maps on the empeg's display. An alternative would be to transmit the coordinate and/or map data to an external device like a Palm unit and display the map there.

I'll try to post more details under the Projects section of this BBS when I get a chance.

Cheers,
-v

If anyone feels like FAX'ing me a copy of this, I'd be very interested to read it. Our copy hasn't turned up yet!

Rob

This was quoted from some early publicity material, as a possible "jokey" application for the player. We do intend to do some work with GPS - getting telemetry on screen should be about an afternoons work. Of course, getting adaptive routing etc will take a little longer.

Rob

Don't forget that we're always interested in talking with anyone that has developed something nice for the player. As a minimum we'll be able to endorse useful and reliable add-ons (be they GPL/commercial/whatever) and if it's good enough to get into the standard distribution - well, who knows :-)

Rob

Will there be a page on the site (www.empeg.com or other)for "plug-ins" and such?

How will us "users" know what's out there for the unit?


-CHiP

We plan to bring a new web site online in the new year, and one of the features will be an online support area which will include this kind of thing.

this might cost to much but how about i in dash lcd like one from alpine http://www.alpine1.com/