MIT Plans To Convert Cell Phone Users Into Podcasters

robyn217 writes "A new research project at MIT's Media Lab, entitled RadioActive, aims to turn every cell phone or PDA carrying member of the public into a podcaster, and every mobile device into a virtual podcasting studio. The project defines a large-scale asynchronous audio messaging system in which voice messages can be threaded like text in a discussion forum (like on Slashdot) as a method of 'discussion-on-demand.'"

Re:Great

[drinkypoo]

The real problem with audio is skimming, or the lack thereof. With text I can glance around and my brain will automatically do background processing, flagging any words that are interesting to me (like, say, "boobs") so that they stand out from the text without any kind of syntax highlighting or similar. With audio, I can't do that. The best you can do is speed it up while pitch-shifting it down so you can still recognize voices, but even someone who speaks very slowly can typically only be sped up to double-speed.

not as much podcasting

[jbloggs]

its only 'podcasting' in the sense that you're recording audio for others consumption. its much more about the discussions within a community (local physical/social context)....

For more info here's the project website [mit.edu]

this was recently used in the elens [mit.edu] project, and its video can be found here [mit.edu].

a live demo should be up this weekend

Re:PODCAST IS JUST A FANCY WAY OF SAYING "PUTTING

[jbloggs]

im the creator and i can tell you it was pc mag that used the term not i.