Wi-fi to cut Itunes out of loop
ADDING W-FI to everyday appliances has become commonplace.
So it's a bit strange that there aren't a whole bunch of radios out there which
already support both DAB and Wi-fi. Until now, that is.
According to our source, the UK's leading supplier of affordable DAB (Digital
Audio Broadcast) radios, Pure
Digital (fomerly Videologic), is planning to release such a beast around
April this year [2008].
This leak follows the recent news that chip supplier, CSR, has got together with DAB specialist, Radioscape, to produce a dual Wi-fi/DAB chipset. The first customer for these chips will be Intempo which plots a radio for around £150.
Combining DAB with Wi-fi is perfectly logical. That way you could listen
either to radio stations that are broadcasting via the net or you could listen
to high quality digital broadcast stations via DAB.
But there's more. If the radio supports Wi-fi, then it has suddenly acquired a
'back channel' capability. In essence, you've immediately added the ability for
listeners to interact with a radio station.
Obvious uses for this type of link would be for listeners to vote for their favourite tracks. However, there's another potential use – listeners could buy goods from the radio station. CDs and concert tickets spring immediately to mind.
The INQ learns that some radio stations are looking very seriously at this kind of capability. At present, UK radio stations like Heart link their play list information directly to an online store – in Heart's case Itunes.
By using the Wi-fi link, the radio stations could cut the likes of Napster, Itunes and Amazon straight out of the loop. Watch this space for further announcements. µ
See Also
CSR
diversifies into Internet radio
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DAB is touted as Digital Quality, but it is basically a lo-fi headache inducing bodge-up.

Wackypedia reports:
"DAB provides low audio quality in the UK due to 98% of stereo stations using a bit rate level of 128 kbit/s[20] with the MP2 audio codec, which provides far worse sound quality than FM-quality (assuming good reception on both DAB and FM). [21] Also, a large and growing number of music stations are transmitting in mono.[22] Indeed, the bit rates used by the radio stations on other digital platforms, such as cable, terrestrial and satellite are usually higher than on DAB, so the audio quality is also higher.[23] For example, all of the BBC stations use higher bit rates on the digital TV platforms than on DAB apart from the BBC World Service on Freeview."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_in_the_United_Kingdom