wiDock

Since we have all of our music on our Mac mini, and the mini is not in a really accessible location, it is a hassle to synchronize our content to our iPods.  Right now, the Mac mini makes the volume that contains the music available through afp.  Each of our laptops mount the Mac mini drive, an the iTunes library access the content directly from the mounted volume.

The wiDock looks like something that could make this a lot easier.  In addition to being an iPod dock that has audio and video out, it also has built-in 802.11b/g and an ethernet port.  If you use the included software, you can sync iTunes with an iPod over a network.  This would allow us to keep the dock in our office, but still synchronize the iTunes library on the Mac mini in the living room.

I am really interested in how they implemented this.  Since they haven't modified iTunes on the Mac or Windows, and iTunes can only talk to iPods over USB, their software running on the computer must be simulating a USB port and a mounted iPod.  Then any traffic that is set over this virtual USB port is actually sent over the network.

[via Gizmodo]