Build your own "RSS RADIO" station for less then $100.00
Imagine if all present and future open WIFI hot spots were also "secure, smart, free "RSS RADIO transmitters".
That's why today I'm changing the codename for the "News Stumbler Project" and heading it in the direction of the "RSS RADIO Transmitter".
Forget about waiting for the big cell telcos and the present audio and video air wave broadcasters that see the online world as this week's metered advertised embedded feature. I'm confident we can find a way to install a heck more of these "inexpensive transmitters" within communities quicker then they will install broadband towers in the near future. Look how fast "hot spots" came on the scene. BLINK!! VONAGE. BLINK!! Why not "RSS RADIO" next!! BLINK! BLINK!
Where I'm at with the initial testing design
Refering to my thoughts yesterday, let's keep the design as simple as possible. With that in mind, I'm really starting to think we should just use Dnsmasq for discovery. It's easy and there for free. We can easily add (hack) the dns entry "RSSRADIO" into the LINKSYS WRT-54G host table. Finding the ip address of the http server becomes a simple nslookup. I already tested this and it works. The last thing to really figure out with discovery is the port assignment of the http server.
Here's the scenerio: You stumble across a WIFI AP that is broadcasting it's SSID. How do you and most importantly your RSS News feed reader with the "RSS RADIO Stumbling" feature enabled know that it's a RSS RADIO transmitter:
Easy:
1) First, the open AP issues you an ip address - this fact by itself doesn't mean much.
2) But, when you do a dns lookup for "rssradio" against it's dns server, the server replies with a valid ip address for the open wireless network. Bing!!
There's a simple assumption here. If the AP is open, issuing ips and responding with a "rssradio" dns entry reply, the AP is a RSS Radio transmitter open for RSS feed receiving. Today if we come across an open WAP we don't know if the owner has left it open for us to use or if the owner just forgot to secure it. The "rssradio" dns entry represents represents a "digital social gesture" made by the WAP owner to us the WAP listeners. "Yes, you can use my WAP for reading RSS News"
The http server on port X (I don't know yet if we could use DNS A records to make this dynamic) would host the transmitters html page (index.htm)?, an opml page (suggested feeds maybe cached for quick download), a rss feed and probably a radio station identifier page done up in "rss radio" xml markup.
Pretty simple stuff!! That's because the core design and idea is based around integrating prior Internet/Web/Blog art with an off the shelf inexpensive piece of hardware. With this implementation strategy and design hopefully we can get something quickly started and working.
Stay tuned! It crude but I'm close to .1 of design implementation!! It shouldn't be very long before I will document and show you how you can setup and start testing your own "RSS Radio Transmitter" for less then $100.00.
12:32:14 PM 
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