Zune Improvements: Smart Shuffle and More Efficient Wi-Fi

Microsoft

zune

By: Grahm Skee on March 5, 2008 2:32 PM

A researcher at Microsoft’s Techfest showed off a smart shuffle system that would use additional meta data such as temp and genre to make static and dynamic playlist for the Zune. This may still be a ways off judging by the prototype interface, but I’m sure we can expect it in future Zune firmware updates.

Additionally at Techfest, another researcher showed off a way to shape the band of the Zune’s wireless spectrum dynamically in order to conserve battery life. The conservation will hurt transitions, so the likely scenario would be to use the low power for discovery then throttle the spectrum for transfer.

[Gizmodo | NetworkWorld via ZuneThoughts]

Comments

Chris on March 5, 2008 11:48 PM

YES! Bring smart shuffle to the Zune!

jhaks on March 6, 2008 6:25 AM

I just saw the video on channel 9 about "music steering" and I think you left out one key aspect that makes this technology so amazing. It can tag your music all pragmatically (automatically). Not to mention it provides so much tag information beyond simple things like genre. I saw something around 15 attributes that it can automatically determine.

Here's the link to the channel 9 post which is really worth a visit:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=388600#388600

If you don't have silverlight you can just click "full screen" to view the wmv.

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