The evolving use of radio frequency ID tags is just one illustration of the ways in which users adapt new technology to a myriad of purposes. Another example caught our eye: MP3 players, such as the Macintosh iPod, now have a gadget that allows them to take pirate radio on the road in a minimalized form. For the latest on micro radio with a twist, we turn to Peter Rojas, editor in chief of and he's joining us from New York City.
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Welcome.
Hi.
CONAN: How do these little transmitters work?
Mr. ROJAS: Well, basically, they are attachments to your iPod and they create a very small, not very powerful FM signal, which you can pick up on any radio, usually within about 10 to maybe 20 feet.
CONAN: So in other words, if I have my iPod in my car, I just turn this device on and I can hear what's on my iPod on my car radio speaker?
Mr. ROJAS: Yeah, you should be able to. I mean, there are a lot of variables involved. If you live in a city where there are a lot of powerful radio stations, you might not be able to override those and pick it up on your car stereo, but...
CONAN: So do you have to tune...
Mr. ROJAS: ...generally they do work.
CONAN: So you're implying you have to tune this to a frequency that's not being used by other radio stations.
Mr. ROJAS: Yeah, ideally. And so most of them actually tend to come--I mean, some of them you can--some of these devices you can set the frequency, and some of them just come preset to frequencies that don't tend to have a lot of radio stations already there on the dial.
CONAN: Well, they go for, as you said, 20, 30 feet. Are people using them to broadcast to not just their car, but to somebody else's car?
Mr. ROJAS: Well, what people are doing is they're hacking these things a little bit. You know, the FCC has a lot of regulations about what you can do and how powerful these things can be and what sort of, you know, signal and range they can have. And so with a few small modifications--for instance, Griffin makes one for the iPod called the iTrip, and they have the antenna actually inside the iTrip, but if you just remove a little sticker, pull the antenna out, you can actually boost the signal. You can usually boost it by about 20 or 30 percent, which does make a difference if you're trying to reach, you know, the car next to you.
CONAN: Hmm.
Mr. ROJAS: People are turning their cars into, you know, sort of mini iPod-driven radio stations.
CONAN: And you said it's manufactured by Griffin, so it's not an actual Mac product.
Mr. ROJAS: No, Mac doesn't actually manufacture these things themselves, but they are really open to third parties creating their own iPod accessories. There's a whole host of iPod accessories out there.
CONAN: Hmm. Well, people used to say tinkering with their iPods--is there more widespread movement towards customizing gadgets?
Mr. ROJAS: Well, people have been customizing and tinkering with things for decades, for probably hundreds of years, of course. But in the past few years, gadgets have gotten so widespread and everybody has an iPod and a digital camera and a laptop and an MP3--or, you know, like, a video game console. And what we're seeing is that, as the cost of these things continue to plummet, all of a sudden it's not such a big deal if you accidentally break it. And so people are taking a lot of risks with their gadgets and doing some really interesting things.
There's a whole culture of people who spend their time hacking the TiVo, which is the very popular digital video recorder which lets you record TV shows. And one of the most popular hacks that surfaced a few years ago was people said, `Wait a second. I have all these TV shows stored in my hard drive on my TiVo but, you know, I'd like to back them up to my PC.' And so people created a hack where you could actually extract those files and copy them onto a PC. Of course, TiVo wasn't very happy about this, and the TV stu--you know, the networks weren't very happy at all, because it meant people could copy their shows.
CONAN: Hmm. Well, as you say, it occurs to me that probably the TiVo box you bought, and probably your iPod, too, or your iTrip, says, you know, `Under no circumstances take a screwdriver and open the back.'
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Mr. ROJAS: Oh, these are definitely warranty-voiding hacks, when you bust these things open.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. Things are changing, I guess, that allow for a lot more customization.
Mr. ROJAS: Well, I think--I mean, it's not just with hardware; it's with software, also. When you have an MP3 player, the whole idea of buying an album and having to listen to the songs in the order that, you know, the artist set them in just flies right out the window. You can create your own playlist. You can put the songs in any order you want. You can leave songs out. You don't like that one song on an album; it's gone.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. ROJAS: And people are getting used to this idea of being able to get things their way. And what I'm seeing is, you know, on all sorts of levels--I mean, if you don't like the way Windows XP looks, you can--we have a guide on Engadget about turning--making Windows XP look exactly like you're running the Mac operating system.
CONAN: Wow! I...
Mr. ROJAS: And most people can't tell the difference.
CONAN: But I guess kind of `Wow' is the whole point of this, isn't it?
Mr. ROJAS: It's just about having fun with the stuff. It's about, you know--I mean, hacking and tinkering is sort of half the fun. I mean, you might not necessarily, you know, get something incredibly useful that was worth those hundreds of hours or, you know, tens of hours that you spent playing with it, but at the same time--you know, people actually really enjoy getting hands-on with this stuff. I mean, there's this sense that sometimes we get--feel so alienated and sort of, like, overwhelmed by all this technology, that it's actually kind of fun to crack it open and tinker with it and play with it and make it your own.
CONAN: Peter Rojas, thanks very much.
Mr. ROJAS: Thank you.
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CONAN: Peter Rojas is a freelance technology writer and editor in chief of the Web site and he joined us on the phone from New York City.
In Washington, I'm Neal Conan, NPR News.
