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Neuros - Portable MP3 player, FM radio, Digital Recorder
KenMaier writes "Interesting new product in the portable MP3 player space -- this portable 'Neuros' from Digital Innovations comes with either 128MB or 20GB storage, built-in FM radio and a built-in digital recorder. Two interesting features -- you can record 30 seconds of music you hear and it will 'fingerprint' the song and tell you the title and artist. Also, a built-in wireless feature lets you beam music from one Neuros to another. Not really clear on the speed, but transferring 20 GB sounds like it might take a while. If anyone owns one of these care to post a review?"
I like the feature where it can transmit music/whatever to any radio receiver - it scans the frequency range, picks a non-used frequency and starts transmitting radio. It seems to be too low-power to start your own radio station, but it should work within a normally sized home or dorm. Post a notice on the dorm's bulletin board and go DJing! A neat solution. Should work with your old car stereo too.
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I'd be a bit surprised if it did _not_ show up was a USB storage device. I'm guessing the reason they require Windows* is because their host app has a lot of synchronization smarts that they advertise (and can't deliver on Mac/Linux).
I haven't seen much advancement in these devices, particularly since the FCC limits their broadcasting to a miserable 7-10 feet (clear).
So expect to be able to put your Nueros next to your home radio and get clear reception, but don't plan on starting a weekly neighborhood radio "Slashdot Talk" with your new toy.
Don't expect a clear signal on your car stereo using Nueros. The Nueros unit has an FM transmitter, not digital radio. So you're still dealing with an analog signal and the sort of loss associated with that.
From my experience with cassette adaptors... some suck, others don't. But on average they do better than an FM wireless transmitter like Nueros's built-in feature.
Of course your best bet is simply to buy a car deck that comes with input jacks
it's a transmitter capable of transmitting on fm frequencies you need a license for
Part 15 of FCC rules states that some low-power unlicensed intentional transmissions in the 88-108 MHz band are permitted. For instance, in the NES days, there was a peripheral called "GameSounds" that plugged into a game console's audio output and transmitted the sound over the FM band so that anybody with an FM radio within 20 feet could pick it up.
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Okay, this thing is pretty cool. In fact in my mind it definitely gives the iPod a run for its money on the PC platform. Unfortunately, until the Neuros has USB 2.0 or Firewire, I would never buy it. Transfering 20 GB of songs to a player over USB 1.1 is masochism.
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Honestly, do you really believe that the switch to digital radio will fix that? Those are bandwidth issues not signal issues.
(makes one wonder what are we going to do once everything we do is in binary)
Interestingly enough; a digital signal is either there - in all of the orignal transmitted quality - or it's not. In TV it's called the Cliff Effect and is part of why digital is becoming popular. Ever have a radio or TV station where the signal was full of snow and static? That won't happen with digital signals.
So, once devices such as this transmit a digital signal; it may be poorer quality ( = lesser bandwidth, say 64kHz compared to 128) than a "real" FM transmission station, but you'll recieve the signal in as high of quality as it sent out, thanks to the Cliff effect.
No I haven't heard snow for about 10 years now... it's remarkably easy to remove with proper hardware (naturally said hardware/software costs about $40 so most radios don't have it).
I've seen digital tv, and the clif effect makes part of the picture totally unviewable, instead of a light snow effect.
I think I've become cynical in my old age, people still think CD's are the end all for music reproduction (Simply because they are digital), and I see it happening to more and more mediums.
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