Zunes, or some similar device, would work great with Windows Media Center. It would be sweet if they worked as Media Center Extenders, and could use their WiFi capability to play (but not store, necessarily, except in a temporary cache) anything that was on the Media Center server. So, for instance, I could maintain all of my music on my home Media Center appliance, and then I could use this WiFi MP3 player (perhaps a Zune descendant) to connect to the media center and listen to music from it – even if the MP3 player device had little or not storage of its own.

Obviously such a device would only be useful in the house, so most likely it *would* have storage of its own, and that’s fine. My main point is that it should be able to play stuff off of the media center without having to first go through some lengthy SYNC process. Its local store of media should be separate from what’s available from Media Center (though it would be cool if play lists and/or randomization could use both). It would also be good if it could store up to N Media Centers, so that I could take the same device to work, a friend’s house, the gym, whatever and anywhere a Media Center machine is set up I could register my device with it and have it work there (OK, maybe not the gym, since current MC’s only allow up to 5 extenders, but I expect that will eventually change).

[categories: zune,media center]