Digital Radio
Revo Domino D3, D2 and D1 unite DAB radio, Web and Last.fm
We still believe in the spirit of radio. Invisible airwaves crackle with life, and all that. The Revo Domino D1, Domino D2 and Domino D3 bring together DAB radio, Web streaming and Last.fm for that timeless wavelength, bearing a gift beyond price...
Alright, that's enough about Rush. The D3 is a slick white or black box with a rubberised coating and joystick-based control system. It boasts a nifty OLED display. Each of the three models sport iPod docks, which also support iPhones. Continue reading...
UK invented mobile phones in 1978, according to Tomorrow's World archive
Let's make no bones about it - we love the BBC. No other company has produced as much terrific content over the years. Now, in a bid to make us even more lovestruck, the BBC has put a whole bunch of old Tomorrow's World clips on the internet. If you're a geek who grew up in the UK, it's almost certain that Tomorrow's World played a huge part in your childhood (and maybe adulthood too). But we weren't expecting to discover that British boffins were ahead of the game when it came to mobile telecommunications.
In 1979 the Japanese launched the first city-wide mobile phone network, but earlier in the year Michael Rodd made several 'radio' phone calls on an experimental British designed system. It's pretty clear from the archive video that the BBC has just released that this is basically just a walkie-talkie which communicates with a traditional phone exchange. It even uses pulse dialling, which most people under 25 probably won't even remember. Continue reading...
Photos: iRiver B30 MP3 player hands-on 
Meet our hands: they're all over iRiver's latest DAB-ready MP3 and video player, the B30 -- a glossy 16GB player with digital radio built in.
It's a good-looking player, probably meaty enough to crush a medium to large insect. But be warned: it looks like a touchscreen player, but it isn't. Instead, it has touch-sensitive buttons. Epic meh.
Continue reading...
BBC doubles iPlayer radio quality, DAB weeps
All of the BBC's national radio stations are now available streaming in Adobe Flash. The quality of live radio streams has been roughly doubled too, to the same format and quality the iTunes Store used at launch (128Kbps AAC).
This has been available for a while in the BBC Labs, but as of today the final versions are live on the public iPlayer. Continue reading...
Digital Britain: Wave goodbye to high-quality FM radio
We've long maintained that the idea of digital radio is a good one. We also like DAB, on the whole, but we can see it has quite a number of very obvious failings too. But now the government has announced in its Digital Britain report that it will be migrating all radio to DAB, and that it plans to switch off analogue radio by 2015. There's a substantial caveat here, in that at least 50 per cent of all radio listening will need to be via DAB before they'll consider flipping the switch.
We aren't yet sure how the government thinks it's going to get DAB listening up to such high levels. It's claimed it will work with vehicle manufacturers to ensure digital radios are installed in cars, which has been a massive barrier in the take-up of DAB. But even with brand-new cars potentially getting new radios, where does that leave the millions of older cars on the road? We can't scrap them all, even for a discount on our next vehicle. Continue reading...
The Prince Charles of broadcasting: Does DAB have a future?
In the next few years, analogue TV will die a death. It will be a well planned, gentle and carefully orchestrated passing away, but make no mistake, it will be stone dead by 2013, and digital TV will reign. Digital radio, on the other hand, has no pre-ordained date of succession. If something isn't done soon, it will become the Prince Charles of broadcasting -- waiting for years and years for its moment, until finally it becomes irrelevant.
The main issue facing digital radio is the millions upon millions of FM radios in homes up and down the land. Look at your own dwelling -- we'll wager you've got quite a few of them, perhaps even ones you're unaware of. Lobbing an FM radio in any old thing is commonplace these days -- your phone probably has one, your AV receiver does, most DAB radios do, as do many Internet radios. Continue reading...
PURE Digital to launch MP3 store via DAB radio systems
Buying MP3s through your DAB digital radio will soon be possible, as British DAB manufacturer PURE Digital has announced it's developing an extremely interesting take on the music download store model.
We spent several hours this week with Imagination Technologies -- PURE's parent company, which licenses designs to chip manufacturers, and designed graphics processing technology used in the upcoming Samsung Omnia HD and Apple's iPhone 3G. During the trip we got a look at a very early version of the company's as-yet unnamed music store. Continue reading...
Interim Digital Britain report: Broadband for all by 2012
Lord Carter's eagerly awaited interim Digital Britain report arrived today, promising broadband to every house in the land by 2012. First impressions are that the report is more than a little vague, and although we were surprised by such a concrete commitment to universal broadband access, we're left with as many questions as answers.
Such as whether we really need broadband for all? How will it work? Is 2012 realistic? And the elephant in the room: who's going to pay for it? There is a recession on, after all. Continue reading...
PURE Digital Avanti Flow: Slick Net and DAB radio
Back in the day, Avanti was the name of a superb map on the original Half Life mod, Team Fortress Classic. It is also the name of a Durex condom. But now the name has been recycled for the latest and greatest Internet and DAB radio from PURE Digital.
Its full name is the Avanti Flow, and it's the second model from PURE to come with the company's Internet radio service, following on from the Evoke Flow earlier this year. The Avanti is much larger, with an integrated down-firing sub woofer and a pair of 76mm (3-inch) main drivers, backed by a power-efficient Class D amp. Continue reading...
Hands-on with the Tangent Uno FM radio
Being at the journalistic forefront of the technological juggernaut that is the 21st century, Crave doesn't often cover tech that's been around since the first half of the previous century. We've made an exception today for Tangent's Uno -- a monaural, FM/AM tabletop radio.
"What? Are you high? There's no DAB? You must be joking," we hear you exclaim. Well, high (on the third floor of the CBS Interactive building) we may be. But joking, we most certainly are not. This is truly a back-to-basics piece of work from Denmark, with the main feature being its lack of features, a gorgeous design and a sub-£100 price tag. Continue reading...
