Portable Internet Radio to take on XM?

TheDude writes "A friend who works for a design company attended the Australian EDN awards last night and was impressed with one of the winners, in the wireless category, which was won by Grey Innovation for their Infusion device . It's a Linux based portable internet radio that streams Internet Radio over WiFi. Is this the future of Radio? Given the big push by XM and Sirus , the potential of Podcasting and now the "inFusion", in which direction is mass-audio-broadcast heading? And why isn't anyone really pushing Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB), like they have in the UK ?"

No - the future is EDGE/WDCMA/EDVO

[Otterley]

Grey Innovation has a keen idea, but the implementation is not quite right. WiFi is great for bounded areas, like a house or a college campus, but it's not really well-suited to situations in which you need truly mobile IP access. For that, I think the new high-speed mobile IP protocols, such as EDGE, WCDMA/UMTS and EVDO are much better. Right now you can get unlimited EDGE IP traffic from Cingular for $15/month if you know what you are doing.

Internet radio is also a very good application when done well (check the radio stations in iTunes if you haven't already), but you can do a lot more than just radio if you have Internet access. With Internet access you can also have music on demand. Rhapsody, Napster or the new Yahoo! Music Unlimited all provide this for a small subscription fee of $5-$10 US per month - much less than XM or Sirius charges. Their catalogues are pretty sizable, over 1 million tracks each.

The key is to link this all together with a reasonable user interface. It would manifest itself in the form of a device (either standalone or built into an automobile) capable of tuning into these radio streams, or connecting to one of the music-on-demand services, with a Bluetooth interface using the Dial-Up Networking profile. Tether that to your Bluetooth-capable mobile phone, and voila. Instant kick-ass.

DAB isn't the last word in radio

[Larry Lightbulb]

If you want a high bit rate and stereo then the BBCs DAB broadcasts won't always be what you expect - take a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio/faqs/answer_03c. shtml [bbc.co.uk] for some of them. A quick search will find you plenty of other pages detailing the shortcomings of the current set-up.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Digital Audio Radio in the US

[connorbd]

I think those pushing for digital radio are overlooking the key advantages that analog radio has -- simple equipment, and a massive installed base. There is no point to IBOC on the AM bands, and it's at best a value-added for the FM bands.

Re:i have an xm radio

[jerw134]

I'd be willing to bet that XM has been an option for Ford and Chrysler as well...

Actually, Ford and Chrysler have partnered with Sirius. I don't know about Chrysler, but Ford doesn't push Sirius at all. You have to get a premium (Mach) radio for it to even be satellite-ready.

Re:XM is quite horrendous

[jlink7]

First of, sir, you're obviously listening to the wrong stations. Unless you explore more than a couple of the available stations, yes, it may seem like they play music that is a bit more uncommon to hear than on normal broadcast radio-- but then again, broadcast radio rock MUST play the same music over and over (and over) again on the same station.

On XM, there is more than one "rock station" that would play music that broadcast stations must play on the same station, save some of your huge market cities where there may be a bit more selection of stations. XM offers quite a few different "genres" of rock stations-- Ethel plays songs from the alternative genre.. from Blink 182 to Nirvana. Boneyard plays your hard rock, which has a pretty huge fanbase...

Aww hell, just look for yourself. The description on the XM Radio [xmradio.com] [XMRadio.com] website does a fairly good job in explaining this anyway.

Re:2 Responses

[mbourgon]

Are you on crack? I had the chance to play with one a few weeks ago, and it almost convinced me to go buy one. The Old Time Radio channel (of which there were two, btw) was playing stuff that probably hasn't been on the radio in decades. (And yes, I've caught a couple OTR shows on the radio) And the Audio Lab channel had stuff you'll _never_ hear on Clear Channel. I think you listened to the pop channel, and I'm sure that's intentionally like Clear Channel. But go find a real channel, and be amazed.

Re:No - the future is EDGE/WDCMA/EDVO

[Anonymous Coward]

It's $25/mo, all you have to do is ask for MEdia Net Unlimited to be added to your account.