On Oct 21, 2010, at 3:43 PM, RussellMc wrote:

> What would be useful would be a commercially available hardware
> platform with open source (or even for $) software available that was
> able to be customised to refine the capability.


There are several projects to port hackable software to commercial MP3 =20
players and similar devices.
Here's one http://www.rockbox.org/  There is also a specific effort to =20
put linux of some kind on iPods.   http://www.ipodlinux.org/  I don't =20
know anything about any of them; I just recall seeing a bootloader =20
replacement for iPod Nano G2 mentioned recently on Hack-a-day.

"hyper-audio", eh?  This ought to be a nice piece of development work =20
for any of the current range of smart phones and/or tiny tablets.  =20
Some of which are already programmable.

Reminds me again of my hypothetical "open source museum" project.  Do =20
development of this sort of thing (hardware and software) as open =20
source projects, so that (minimally) development costs can get split =20
across many institutions.  It might help with that "volume too low for =20
custom development" problems, and it might lead to a bit of =20
standardization and overall improvement in the sort of highly-varied =20
displays you see at museums, zoos, and etc, frequently in some less-=20
than-working state.  ("here is a reference design and software for an =20
audio playback thingee with NO MOVING PARTS" and up to 8 controls =20
(touch and/or optical and/or etc) to select what to play.)

BillW

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