Long time reader, first time poster.

Ars Technica alerted me to Gocho Network's E-1337 player due out in June. It will have the functionality of the Empeg and then some. Supports wireless Eternet AND GPS out of the box. Will use PDAs for the user interface - a major limiter but I am OK because I just got my Prisim. Runs Linux. Has budget box like specs, i.e. 600Mhz+ CPU, 128MB RAM, 80-100GB hard drive.

I really like these specs. I know the StrongARM is nothing to sneeze at, but a 600MHZ processor allows for a world of possibilities. In an Ars forum, a company founder says it will decode MPEG-4 video/audio. He contends there will be real-time weater/traffic/news upon request. Same person says a sister company to Rio has seen the logo, which looks strikingly similar to Rio's and has said nothing. Could this sister company be Empeg?

Now one of the original draws of the Empeg was the geek appeal. I don't think we have many using their Empeg's for crunching Seti@Home or distributed.net blocks and transfering the the info to their computers using Apple's Airport.

Gocho plans on making the box at near-cost and making the serious money off subscriptions. Looks like it will beat sattelite radio to the punch by some time. Then again, the competing sattelite providers have inked major partnership deals (both content and automakers).

Also interesting is this division of services they call "Virtual Radio," "Virtual Changer," and the "MP3 Library."

There is a lot to like and a lot to question. Anyone near Austin mind peeking in these Gocho's windows for me and checking up on their progress?

As Ars would say - supra-geek-cool.