HP quietly drops Nokia's Visual Radio

IN ORDER to compare the recently launched Cliq music service, the INQ decided to revisit a very similar facility which Nokia has been offering since 2004 – Visual Radio. Curiously this service appears to be currently in limbo.

Visual Radio was originally developed by Nokia back in 2004 as an adjunct to the FM radio facility it had been building into many different models.

The idea was very simple. You tune the handset's FM radio into your favourite music radio station and then using a data connexion, you can see what track is currently playing at the time.

Such a service is almost identical to the facility which Cliq has just launched in conjunction with 21 UK radio stations.

When the INQ tried Visual Radio with the one major UK station claiming to support it, Virgin radio, the screen just displayed a "coming soon" message. Strange since Visual Radio has been built into millions of Nokia handsets for over three years.

A Virgin Radio spokeswoman, however, pointed the INQ in the right direction by suggesting that Nokia's chief partner on this particular project – HP, had got cold feet.

HP told us, "HP has ended its collaboration with Nokia on Visual Radio. HP and Nokia voluntarily agreed to end their three-year Visual Radio collaboration in mid-2007."

Crucially Nokia revealed that it now has a new partner for Visual Radio – RCS. The latter modestly describes itself as "the world's largest broadcast software supplier."
This new alliance took place in October [2007] and promises an upgrade to the old Visual Radio app. RCS also says that besides feeding Nokia's Visual Radio-ready handsets, it can also send the same content to HD Radio, the Internet, DAB Digital Radio, and DVB-H.

Very impressive. This means it really is going head-to-head with Cliq which promises compatibility with DAB radios as well as mobile phones.

The INQ is looking forward to testing out Visual Radio Mark II over here in Blighty. µ

L'INQS
Visual Radio
RCS

See Also
Nokia positions Visual radio against DAB
Cliq disappoints with new music download service