Where's my on-demand XM radio?

Earlier this week, I was stuck listening to FM in one of our work vans, while commuting to a job. There is nothing on FM worth listening to. Once in a great while a song that I like might come on, but most of the time I’m scanning the airwaves for something that doesn’t annoy me. Most of what I heard, was commercials and “light” music, because all the stations are too “PC” to play good music.

Usually, I’ll listen to a specific CD or XM in the car. But even these are limited. A CD only holds so much, and I still have no control over what XM plays. (But at least XM isn’t afraid to play real music.)

So here I was, listening to some light rock station in the Bay Area wishing I could listen to my personal collection of music. Of course, I could listen to last.fm or the music I have on my cell phone, but that would have killed my battery. I found myself wishing XM offered a monthly fee to listen to my music through their services and devices.

So how about it XM? Offer a service that allows me to sync my collection of MP3’s with your service. Then, the XM radios could be setup to brows these MP3’s like I would on my MP3 player or cell phone. So I would have on-demand music that I liked. Not a station that plays what it wants, not a streaming service of random music like Pandora or Last.fm, but my music on-demand anytime I’m in my car or have my XM radio with me.

With more and more car stereo’s coming out with things like Pandora on them that stream music for free, XM has got to step up to the plate and give me a reason to pay for their service. Just think about it. All the benefits of having your MP3 player in the car, without having to cart around extra cables/adapters or getting crappy sound out of your cell phone.

See through trucks.

Ever get stuck behind one of those big trucks that you can never see around? You try inching over to see around it, only to almost take out a motorcycle with your mirror. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just see though them?

I had this idea. What if you could look through these large trucks? They have rear view cameras on large motor homes. Why not reverse that camera? Put it on the front of the truck and pull the monitor from the dash, to the rear of the truck?

Maybe mount a fair sized display inside the rear door. Just above eye sight? The camera would be mounted on the front in such a way, that when traffic begins to stop in front of the truck, you’ll know in advance.

Of course, you would have to figure out how to keep it from being stolen, or someone spraying graffiti all over it. But I just come up with the ideas. I usually give it to Ryan or Jen to implement.