New platform heralds cut price Internet radio

 

Gallery

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 Dec 2006 at 17:38

If you haven't yet bought a wireless Internet radio, just hold out a year longer. A new platform could drastically reduce prices to around ï30 or ï40.

At next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Cambridge Consultants is demonstrating the technology, which includes just two integrated circuits: an 802.11 b/g device for portable embedded systems, and a multimedia applications chip combining DSP with a 16-bit RISC processor core from Cambridge Consultants' XAP range.

The hardware is programmable and supports a large set of protocols and codecs, including RTP, HTTP, RDT and MMS, and MP3, WMA, AAC, AIFF and WAV data formats. It also includes support for SNTP clock functionality and the WEP, WPA and WPA2 security protocols. More can be added.

Devices using this new Iona Wi-Fi portable radio platform are expected to run for around 30 hours on a pair of AA batteries.

The total cost of components to build such a device is claimed to be below $15, including a 112 x 64 black-and-white graphic LCD. Cambridge Consultants believes commercial products could be available in time for next Christmas.

'Traditional radios offer listeners the choice of relatively few stations that have to appeal to a very broad audience. Internet radio gives listeners access to many thousands, catering for very specific tastes from the mainstream to the exotic. Internet radio also allows you to tune in to your home town station wherever you happen to be in the world,' adds Smith. 'Combined with the existing infrastructure of Wi-Fi and broadband, we believe that the internet radio market is poised to explode as soon as the right product price/performance point is achieved. The Iona platform more than meets that target.'

According to media audience researcher Bridge Ratings there will be as many as 180 million listeners to Internet radio by the end of the decade.