Tag: Radio
DAB growth slowing across the UK
The humble DAB radio has been a fixture in middle-class households across the UK for several years now. However, it’s growth appears to be slowing. Although more than half a million sets were sold in December, that’s down nearly 10% on the previous year, and down 20% on the Digital Radio Development Bureau’s forecast for the year.
At the same time, there’s no date been set for analogue radio switchoff and the growth of internet radio and compatible devices directly threatens DAB’s position as the future of radio, in the same way that Blu-ray is being threatened by digital delivery of video content.
DAB either needs a strong injection of support, or to be cut free to sink or swim on its own. Its current middle-ground situation isn’t really helping anyone. Much will depend on what happens in 2009, I suspect. Do you use DAB? Could you live without it? Tell us your story in the comments.
(via the Guardian)
Related posts: Arcam shows off the FMJ T32 Hi-Fi DAB tuner | Pure launches its EVOKE Mio DAB & FM radio, a coloured-in update of the EVOKE-1S
CES 2009: Sansa slotRadio – 1000 "hand-picked" songs, you'll hate 95% of em
I’m developing a bit of a love/hate relationship with Sandisk. They swing wildly from releasing great, innovative stuff, to wasting plastic on awful products. Unfortunately slotRadio falls into the latter category.
Sansa slotRadio is an MP3 player that comes with 1000 songs pre-loaded. It’s essentially a music player for people who’ve got absolutely no interest in what music playing, as long as there’s something in the background. The songs come on a Sandisk microSD card, but they’re tied to the card with DRM, so you can’t do anything else with them. If you work your way through the thousand, then you can buy 1,000 more for $40 (£26).
My advice? Save your cash and stick to Last.fm. In the meantime, go check out our other CES coverage here.
(via PC Mag)
Twadio – silent radio station launches on Twitter
Are you listening to music? Turn it down, or off for a moment. Now go visit @tweejay on Twitter, and sing along in your head for a moment to whatever’s at the top. Congratulations, you’ve just enjoyed the delights of Twadio.
It’s the first ‘silent radio station’, where every five minutes, a song is posted. Listeners who sign up are notified via @tweejay, and across the world, the same song suddenly gets stuck in millions of people’s heads. Brilliant, or an evil plot to get “U can’t touch this” in your head? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Tweejay (via @dubber)
Related posts: Britney, Obama and Fox News’ Twitter accounts get hacked | Twitterer liveblogs his own plane crash
Universal Music: We're getting heaps of cash from YouTube
For a long time, Google has struggled to monetise its video-sharing site, YouTube. Experiments with advertising have been coldly received by the community but perhaps things are starting to perk up – the executive vice president of Universal Music Group’s eLabs, Rio Caraeff, has said that his company is getting “tens of millions of dollars” from YouTube.
Universal is one of a handful of companies who have a deal with YouTube where ad revenue from Universal’s content is split between the parties. As Universal has a hell of a lot of back-catalogue content, that’s a decent chunk of revenue, but “tens of millions” is far more than I would have expected.
PURE intros Avanti Flow: fully equipped radio with iPod dock
It seems the fashion for sticking an iPod dock on audio products still hasn’t died, with PURE launching its latest radio unit, the Avanti Flow, complete with Apple-friendly port.
The star feature of the unit is the almost complete coverage of modern radio standards. Not only is there FM radio, but also DAB and Internet radio, which can also be used to catch up with previously broadcasted shows (from the BBC, for example)…
Pure launches its EVOKE Mio DAB & FM radio, a coloured-in update of the EVOKE-1S
The Pure EVOKE Mio comes in six “striking” colours – chilli (red?), chocolate (brown?), moss (green?), nicotine (yellow?), candy (pink?) and midnight (black?) – with the leather-esque front of each unit colour-coded so it’s as much fun to look at as listen to. Almost.
One of those colours is fictional, by the way. Can you guess which? That’s today’s FUN QUIZ! The Mio is rechargeable, apparently…
Which Tech Are You? – DAB Radio Stations
Here’s the latest in our Which Tech Are You? series. DAB radios are cheaper now than they’ve ever been. If you’ve just got one, however, then you might be overwhelmed by choice. There are so many stations! Which do you listen to? Not 4music, for starters.
Calm down young one. Tech Digest is here to help. Just click “read more” below, pick your favourite band in each of ten rounds and based on your answers, we’ll suggest which station you should try out. Aren’t we nice?
Now you can listen to iPM on iPlayer on iPhone, iirc
The BBC, pioneers of colour TV, stereo sound, teletext, and HDTV, among other now standard technologies have come up with a revolutionary new idea: putting radio programmes on digital audio players.
They’ve now made radio programmes available on the iPhone/iPod Touch version of the BBC iPlayer…
Slacker G2 – properly personal radio on the move
Okay, close your eyes and relax your mind. Think about nothing – just a grey backdrop. Now allow an MP3 player of your choice to float in. iPod, Zune, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Now, from the other direction, float in Last.fm, or Pandora, or any other personalised radio service. Allow yourself to get a little cross-eyed as the two objects merge in your head and you visualize a portable device that streams a mix of songs to you based on your listening habits – your likes and dislikes.
Tangent intros UNO portable mono FM radio
With the world seemingly in stereo and beyond, you might wonder at the introduction of a monaural portable radio, but if you think about it, stereo is fairly useless on a small unit, and far more important is quality of sound.
Enter Tangent’s appropriately-named UNO portable radio, offering FM and AM radio in a curved wooden cabinet with five watt amplifier and three-inch speaker…
