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Well, at least this type of DRM is effective. As for the other type, she couldn't be more wrong.

Yes, certainly in the United States it is. Only the Federal Government is permitted to print US currency and anyone else who makes it is a counterfeiter.

I disagree. At some point in the past you could walk into a radio station with a banjo and, before you knew it, you were riding around the country opening shows for Elvis and eating more peanut butter and banana sandwiches than you ever imagined. Now you can't even get in the front door unless you have a diamond encrusted grill, and even if you do they'll still laugh at the banjo. If you want to go it alone you have to have a PC and broadband to digitize the banjo music, and a web site or at least a torrent. Type "banjo music" into Pirate Bay, that'll demonstrate the relative lack of good quality banjo music in today's supposedly barrier reduced internet driven music scene. It is deplorable.

Absolutely, but given that it is an open standard I don't see how they are going to protect anything. Anyone who can afford it can buy the necessary equipment and employ the standard to broadcast their own sub 30Hz digital radio station. At this point DRM is the only source of top quality banjo music, particularly since many of the banjo greats were displaced by hurricane Katrina.

See http://www.drm.org/ There's a GNU Radio module for it. Apparently there are no DRM stations in the US, but since it's already digital the bitstream (or stored segments of it) for some sources may be online.

TFA is very light on data, so it's hard to say what exactly "interactive" means? Does it just send URLs, or is it a real two-way medium? The Nokia logo on the device is a hint this may just be a layer over a cellular network.

DRM can send data or audio. The data might be video, a transcript of the story, or any other "text". That means it could include URLs, and meet some definitions of "interactive" (using the ISP of your choice).

Have you come across Digital Radio Mondiale?

So, she's a big fan of, and wants to push DRM, eh?

I guess iBIQUITY is not gonna be too pleased...

He was broadcasting on Digital Radio Mondiale, an AM-band digital radio service. That's the part he got slammed for. He should've done what everybody in Europe that doesn't want to comply with local broadcasting laws does, and set up a storefront operation in Luxembourg and put on one program in the middle of the night in the unintelligible Letsebuergisch language. Not that I usually hand out advice to far right nutjobs, but there.

Also, just a podcast would also have been just fine and dandy.

Listen to any station from around the world: look for Digital Radio Mondiale (Texas Instruments manufacture the chips) http://wwww.drm.org/ (And no, not the dreaded DRM...). You can get digital broadcasts from around the world (depending on what you pay for the kit). Simple systems can be found with USB ports etc.etc.

Whether you like it or not, DRM http://www.drm.org/ is coming, has had millions of dollars invested by Texas Instruments, some good engineering work by the BBC and is a splendid toy. A USB stick version is already for sale.

But perhaps you were thinking of something else....

2) I suppose all I was trying to say was that it would be better if Apple stopped pushing the format and had mp3 as the default in iTunes etc.

I do not really see the benefit of that. I'm not an audio encoding expert, but from all what I have heard AAC is better than MP3. It's basically next generation MP3, considering its developers includes at least part of the groups that developed MP3. So why should Apple stop using (and prefering) the better format? It's good that they include MP3 support, no question about that. But just because MP3 is the defacto standard right now, it is not wrong to look to more modern alternatives. AAC is part of MPEG-4, it is used for the new digital radio standard (Digital Radio Mondiale, with an unfortunate abbreviation... :) )which intents to bring Stereo quality to AM radio, it will be used by the next DVD standard, regardless whether it will be the Blu ray Disc or HD-DVD
So it is really not some exotic standard used by Apple. Why drop it?

Sorry, it's been a long day already

:)

I've assembled and used a Flex Radio -- they really are pretty cool.
We actually didn't use it for a Ham radio -- we used it to build a fairly inexpensive, high-quality DRM reciever (not Digital Rights Management, it stands for Digital Radio Mondiale -- pretty cool tech).

Wifi is meant for end-to-end network connections though -- you need some kind of digital broadcasting standard like Digital Radio Mondiale. You could probably do it with firmware hacking on a Linksys though.

Nobody wants to listen to regular old AM when Digital Radio is just around the corner. Software receiver at sourceforge

Salve,
please go to http://www.drm.org/ and see that Digital Radio Mondial is not BAD.
Digital Radio Mondial != Digital Right Managment.
Digital Radio Mondial allows 16-28kBit/s Broadcasts via SW, LW, MW (w=wave, not windows, ergo Short Wave, Long Wave, Medium Wave)
rob

I think it's kinda neat that they're streaming digital audio in MPeg-4 over shortwave radio these days. /joke

Seriously, DRMondiale is pretty cool if you get a good signal ;)

• FM sound quality with wide AM reach with digital reception quality
• Digital tuning support station text
• Supports multiple channels with digital audio/text/other services
• Can use existing transmitters

Useful links:

• Digital Radio Modiale organisation's homepage
• Open Source DRM software
• DRMRX - Commercial DRM software
• FRARS (where both myself and MOEYT are members)
• BBC: Research Department (Doing work on testing DRM)
• BBC Research Department papers (includes DRM papers
• MOEYT/Paul Marsh's homepage (lots of info on satcom and DRM info soon...)
• Introduction to the GNU software radio project with various links

• FM sound quality with wide AM reach with digital reception quality
• Digital tuning support station text
• Supports multiple channels with digital audio/text/other services
• Can use existing transmitters

Useful links:

• Digital Radio Modiale organisation's homepage
• Open Source DRM software
• DRMRX - Commercial DRM software
• FRARS (where both myself and MOEYT are members)
• BBC: Research Department (Doing work on testing DRM)
• BBC Research Department papers (includes DRM papers
• MOEYT/Paul Marsh's homepage (lots of info on satcom and DRM info soon...)
• Introduction to the GNU software radio project with various links

The frars talk I attended was given by M0EYT and covered the future of long range digital broadcasts using Digital Radio Modiale. The BBC research labs and many others are involved with DRM research. Just about to load up M0EYT's talk (which unfortunately isn't publically available - sorry!).

Agreed. A far more sensible use of digital broadcasts over regular frequencies is Digital Radio Mondiale which transforms AM (and shortwave) to near-CD quality.

Will this operate in competition with Digital Radio Mondiale? Do we really need competing digital radio standards? I suppose DRM's goal is not high-def radio, so they're not identical. I think we have a VHS/Beta, DVD +/- RW, 3.5"/5.25" battle on our hands.

I feel the author of this story is looking at radio totally from a US / Western perspective.

Did the author stop to think for just one minute of all the non-western countries around the world where some people still don't even know what a computer is let alone even dream of being able to afford one? (Tip: please please travel more...!!)

Have you ever heard of Telex which was around before fax machines? Fax machines and Telex are dead in world, right? Wrong!, Both Telex machines and Fax machines are still very much alive elsewhere in the world with many companies offering gateways to convert between "modern" systems and Telex/Fax !!!

If you work for a international company then you will know how important it is to still have access to this out of date technology (in western terms) to be able to communicate with non-western countries who haven't quite reached the same level of infrastructure. [In fact I'm please to see that as a whole the US has finally almost caught up with Europe in relation to mobile (radio) phones... :-) !!!]

Radio has been around for 100 years. It's pretty amazing that TV, the Internet, etc. haven't killed it. It's still enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people here in the US every day.

Exactly... only radio is enjoyed by BILLIONS of people around the world in additional to the US. What is more radio is very much alive with new developments still coming into existance such as Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) (long range *digital* AM/MW!)

Radio will be around for at least another 100 years in the western world and will continue to exist for many more outside the western world, regardless of if people think it is dead in the west.

A new digital standard for SW/LW/MW will officially launch this time next week, DRM is based upon COFDM (as per DTV in Europe, 802.11a/g etc) and uses the AAC codec at around 30kbps, it doesn't sound much but it's an amazing improvement upon analogue shortwave and will really bring it back to life again, instead of being the preserve of nutters living in huts in Montana.

Anyway, checkout the samples, not bad for a signal that has travelled to and from the extreme of Europe.

A new digital standard for SW/LW/MW will officially launch this time next week, DRM is based upon COFDM (as per DTV in Europe, 802.11a/g etc) and uses the AAC codec at around 30kbps, it doesn't sound much but it's an amazing improvement upon analogue shortwave and will really bring it back to life again, instead of being the preserve of nutters living in huts in Montana.

Anyway, checkout the samples, not bad for a signal that has travelled to and from the extreme of Europe.

Not that dreaded word used by RIAA! I'm talking about the digitalized version of shortwave radio, which transforms its quality to near-FM!

Check it out: Digital Radio Mondiale

Two questions. Will the FCC approve DRM? Or will the FCC approve DRM?

I thought I remembered hearing, a few years ago, something about AM radio going digital starting sometime around October 2002. The original plan, as laid out by the in this news brief (and that's DRM as in "Digital Radio Mondiale", not the DRM we all know and hate) from the Digital AM Radio development Consotium, called for digital AM broadcast to start in 2001. Whenever digital AM does start (if it hasn't already), there may well be an AM renaissance, with many AM stations getting back to musical programming. The only other thing I remember right now is that I believe there are going to be multiple digital channels layered in with the analog broadcast, to give a quality of sound never heard before over free broadcast.

Some guys in Germany are working on a software decoder for DRM, this is basically a new digital radio service for SW/LW/MW radio, there's a few test transmitters running in Europe. The transmissions consist of a COFDM modulated channel and a 20-30kbps AAC stream within, doesn't sound like much but when you can get flawless delivery from Finland to Portugal and farther afield it's not bad and makes old SW look very poor indeed.