Blaupunkt and miRoamer have joined forces to bring the internet to your car.

The Hamburg is a smaller Internet radio head unit. (Credit: Blaupunkt)

The choices of stations on the internet are unlimited, making it the best place to get the biggest variety of music, news and talk. However, listening in your car has been limited to local stations, CDs or satellite radio that plays the same loop over and over and did I mention… over?

Blaupunkt has added its sound quality to miRoamer’s internet streaming to make the internet available in your car. Arguably, there are already ways to get internet radio to the car, mostly available to the tech savvy tinkerer, but this is the first time I’ve seen someone team up with a giant like Blaupunkt for a quality “plug and play” system.

The Blaupunkt New Jersey integrates Internet radio stations. (Credit: Blaupunkt)

There are a couple of drawbacks inherent with internet radio, however. Driving down the road with a mouse in your right hand and a keyboard on your lap is probably not the brightest thing to do. Blaupunkt worked around this by having you create a list of bookmarks on your computer which are downloaded to the car player and show up as presets on your car stereo. This limits the number of stations you can take with you, but all the presets can be changed (when you get back to your computer).

Another limitation is that you must have a bluetooth capable phone with a data plan. Not much of a problem, but you need to make sure that your data plan is unlimited! A no-brainer, for sure, but if you forget this little detail your first month phone bill will be a shock. I’d be willing to bet that the second month you have internet radio in your car, your data plan will definitely be unlimited.

I see this move by Blaupunkt to be the start of a new era in music broadcasting. Just as I expect streaming video over the internet to eclipse satellite and cable broadcasting, internet radio, with its unlimited variety will eventually be the method of choice for most listeners.

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