I realize this may sound like it is coming from out in left field but I was wondering. If the Empeg Mk2 has an ethernet attachment for use in the home, couldn't it also be used in the car? It would seem to me that just as useful as a GPS would be the ability to pull in information in a predefined format while mobile.

Example: Some type of wireless access device connected to the ethernet port of the player while in the car. If this were in place and enabled the player could be theoretically setup to pull down information from a configurable location at preset intervals. i.e. Traffic information, new emails, etc.) In order to keep from getting too distracted from trying to read the display while driving perhaps a light text to speech engine could be employed to simply read the information to you through the system.

I know this may sound far fetched but I thought it might be just as plausible as the GPS project already underway.

Has anyone looked at anything like this already???

It could certainly be done. I'm sure stuff like this has been discussed before. Now, who's going to program it? Get started.

Bruno

Yes, there is even a FAQ Entry on the subject with respect to the hardware.

However, the software side of it (the various possible uses for the hardware connection you suggested) are going to have to be left up to you to write.

My skills with Linux are not up to the task. I only know Windows programming at this point but I will start trying to get the basics down. I would guess that somewhere I can find a starting point for a simple smtp client. I would think that there are also existing text to speech engines for Linux.

I will do a little poking around and see what I can come up with. Mostly I wanted to see first if it was in the realm of possibility. From the responses I have read, I would say that it is. (Theoretically at least)

Search in the projects and/or technical forums for "flite" and you'll find the threads where Text to Speech has been talked about. I haven't followed any of the discussion for a long time so I'm not sure if anyone's been sucessful at getting it to run on an empeg.