I think what he's talking about is having one unit capable of doing what several different radios do. Right now for example in the car I have my scanner, carry pager, and have a weather radio. I have often thought it would be nice as well if my scanner would alert me for a call and/or alert me for severe weather and scan the radio frequencies. As it stands right now I believe it will do any one of them, but not all of them at the same time.
The technology for the alert for the weather radio and pager is basically the same...scan a certain frequency for a tone or tone set, then set off an alert and open up for a period of time for the message. These radios can be purchased for what $30.
I wouldn't know why it would be that hard to do something like this and it shouldn't cost a bunch more to include and certainly shouldn't add $400 to the cost of the scanner. This is old school technology.
As it is, we have a new scanner that is out where Uniden has not fulfilled its marketing promises. We have a WiFi dongle that is useless; a promised Siren app that may or may not materialize, but certainly was a pipe dream when marketed; and finally, a scanner that becomes completely useless when the SD card becomes corrupted for some unknown reason.
I'm thinking...putting a couple of really basic, programmable receivers in the scanner to work for the weather alert and/or fire tone out would be a simple task as compared to what has been attempted in the 536 and not accomplished.