Before long you will be able to tune in to your favourite breakfast programmes not just while getting ready for work — but after you have left. Cellphones that can receive digital television and radio broadcasts are starting to appear.
Some cellphones have analogue FM radios, but even these are being souped up. Nokia, the Finnish cell-phone maker, is offering what it calls ”visual radio” with a radio station in that country.
Nokia demonstrated its 7700 media phone at the 3GSM World Congress, an annual mobile-fest held recently in Cannes, France. Using this handset, listeners will be able to see the name of the song being played and get the name and photo of the singer.
”They will also be able to vote on which song they want to hear, participate in quizzes, or pose questions for studio guests,” says Pekka Koponen, a director of Starcut, a Finnish company working on content with radio stations and Nokia.
The radio part of the service uses FM technology, while the visual part is provided through a parallel channel that uses GPRS (general packet radio service) or Edge, ways of delivering data at high speed over mobile networks.
Advertisers will be able to communicate better because they could display a picture of their product at the time their advert is broadcast. They will be able to add an interactive element, such as a button, saying ”click here to request a brochure”.
The idea for visual radio came out of a Nokia research centre project to find cross-media services.
Plans to add the latest generation of digital TV and radio technology to cellphones are also under way.
At the 3GSM congress, Frontier Silicon announced it has co-developed a miniature low-power digital audio broadcasting receiver that measures 30mm by 38mm and is 2,5mm high. The receivers will be in mass production by the third quarter of this year and are expected to be included in some Samsung phones by the end of the year.
Radioscape — whose receiver design is included in digital radios, such as those from Intempo Digital and Roberts — is also talking to cellphone manufacturers.
With digital radio, you don’t have to hunt for a precise frequency, just scroll through the names of stations for the one you want. Extra data, such as programme times, can be viewed alongside.
Moreover, Nick Oakley, marketing manager at Radioscape, says: ”By next year, if you receive a cellphone call while listening to one of our digital radio receivers, you will be able to pause the programme you are listening to for up to 10 minutes.”
Nokia’s 7700 can be used for digital TV, too, with the addition of a set-top box that slots into the back of the phone.
Instead of continuously streaming video images, about four to five seconds’ worth are sent at a time into the cellphone’s buffer for storage. This means the cellphone’s digital TV receiver does not have to be on all the time.
Also, large amounts of data do not need to be sent because each programme will only be displayed on a small screen. The end result, at 12 frames a second in the media phone prototype, is not quite fixed-TV quality but still good enough to make watching on the move worthwhile.
The first cellphones that can receive digital TV should start to appear at the end of the year, and a Nokia TV pilot starts in Helsinki in a few months time.
Meanwhile, music videos could soon be delivered to cellphones. Chip maker Intel has collaborated with Sony Music Entertainment and software company Emuzed to deliver PC-quality video at 30 frames a second on its XScale processor. — Â