Mobile AV podcast agregation support to be unvieled on the Nokia N95 tomorrow!?

As many know I've blogged time and again about the idea of the fabled "networked ipod"... The idea being "hubless media aggreagation" or "direct to portable device media aggregation"... taking podcasting and videoblogging "beyond the desktop"... and I've put it many other ways.

The ultimate vision is that that one day soon we'll be walking down the street and our portable media device will suddenly beep at us and we'll pull it out and see we have a new video or audio podcast from a friend right there and ready to play.

Ideally this device will transparenly jump on and off any open or trusted network checking all our photo, audio podcast, or videoblog subscriptions downloading any media in the background transparently without needing any attention. We'd then be able to pull it out at any point and be assured that the absolute latest videos, photos or audio podcasts would be right there waiting for us.

Such a device will allow podcasting technology to become untethered.. to go with us out into the world, to be experienced not in realtime, but in web time. Such media will then start to become not just more ubiquitous than traditional broadcasting and entertainment... but also a seemless tool of everday inter-personal communications.

The wifi enabled Sony PSP has been the closest to this vision, but it is not a automatic aggregator... it's simply a browser... and it requires way to much attention to discover, download, and prepare content prior to simple playback. You must be on network to browse media and download individual videos and pieces of audio individually for later playback. In order for such a device to be successful content must come to the device without the need for constant attention and require us only to choose which mp3 or video and press play.

Nokia has been making some major in-roads lately with devices like the n770 and more recently the n93, and now it appears that their latest device the n95 will be out as soon as tomorrow and that it might, just might, finally have full on support for audio and video podcast aggregation!

I'll believe it when I see it! :)

I don't have the exact specs but Steve Garfield just posted about the Nokia N95 which will supposedly be out tomorrow. According to him it will have an audio and video podcast aggregator on the phone.

This is Steve Garfield reporting from the Soho Grand Hotel where Nokia has gathered bloggers from around the world to preview the new Nokia N95, prior to it's public unveiling tomorrow in NYC at the 7th Regiment Armory.

[...]

There was an application called podcasting and I asked about it. It's a media aggregator that will be able to subscribe to audio and video podcasts which you'll then be able to watch on the device. It's really a lot more than just a phone. It's a multimedia computer.

I have lots of questions steve (and nokia)! and I want answers! :)

First, I want specs!

• video/audio codecs supported -- 3gp, mp4, mp3 ???
  
  
• RSS standards supported -- RSS 2.0, mediaRSS, Atom ??
  
  
• memory -- Onboard memory size, explandability, flash card type?
  
  
• does it aggregate via any open wifi? what about authenticated wifi?
  
  
• does it aggregate over wireless!? i.e 3G
  
  
• can it jump on and off trusted and open networks without my attention
  
  
• can it aggregate media in the background
  
  
• how do i get RSS feeds to the phone? does nokia have an API?

Steve, and Nokia... if you're listening... send me one already for testing!

We over at mefeedia.com have been waiting and prepared to take videoblogging and audio podcasting beyond the desktop computer and "tethered devices" like the ipod... for over a year... just give us basic RSS 2.0 support, some good formats support like mp4 and mp3, a way to get a feed in the device and a simple easy to use aggregator / playback interface we'll do the rest! :)

Steve G's whole post is here: Nokia Test Center Blog: Blogger Preview of the Nokia N95

nokian95, nokianseries, N95