MIT IS TRYING to replicate elements of work already developed, tested and deployed single-handedly by award-winning DCU student Robin Blandford. The MIT product ports its interface onto a phone. Blandford's was web-based, viewable and listenable on a smart phone without any plug-ins.
PC Magazine reports, "MIT's RadioActive project, which Judith Donath created with student Aaron Zinman, defines a large-scale asynchronous audio messaging system, or mobile audio forum. In this system, voice messages, which are short audio sound bytes, are exchanged between groups of users via mobile devices, like cell phones or PDAs, as a method of discussion-on-demand.
"The messages are then collected in threads similar to how a common Internet discussion forum, like discuss.pcmag.com or even Slashdot, organizes text posts. Each message contains a subject, body, and author, as well as other metadata, and can range the spectrum from quick blurbs to full-length podcasts."
During the past academic term, we passed around a mobile phone in my Media Writing class at Tipperary Institute and students called Blandford's Commentcasting service to offer two-minute snippets that they quickly cobbled together as revision files for audio playback. This parallels part of the MIT project--and it is done and dusted already.
MIT Electronic Lens Project
Robin Peterson -- "MIT plans to convert cellphone users into podcasters"
Commentcasting -- for feeds or individual audio snippets.
