World's First Internet Car Radio to be Premiered at CES 2009

The world's first internet car radio will be premiered at the 2009 Computer Electronics Show. The internet car radio comes to you from a partnership between Blaupunkt and miRoamer. miRoamer is a company that allows users to listener to thousands of internet radio stations online.

"miRoamer's development with Blaupunkt is the first seamless Internet radio solution," said miRoamer founder and CEO George Parthimos. "With the simple push of a button, users can access AM/FM stations or Internet radio's thousands of music, entertainment, news and talk stations from around the world, all from the same car stereo."

The internet car radio device requires the usage of an internet enabled phone to receive the audio stream and connects via Bluetooth.

miRoamer spokesman Ryan Greives further explains, "The first model will connect to a 3G/HSDPA/HSPA device via Bluetooth for Internet connectivity. When connecting to the Internet via an external device (such as an iPhone), the customer's existing mobile service provider is the default network, various models are in the pipeline which may have an internal modem."

Until the internet is everywhere via WIMAX or some other technology I don't see internet in the car as a viable solution just yet. Playing audio content over a 3G network just doesn't cut it. I do however believe that when internet technology is everywhere we will see a technology boom parallel to that of the dot com era. New companies, applications, and innovations will spring up to utilize this new internet bandwidth at a rapid pace.

Until such time when we have internet access everywhere, radio in the cars should be left alone to satellite radio, and terrestrial radio. It seems like Blaupunkt and miRoamer are too early to the party.

Source - Gizmodo