Hear 2.0

More Internet Radio coming to a portable device near you

You can already get Internet radio on mobile devices, of course, through services like FlyTunes and others.

But as the ubiquity of Internet radio devices expands we'll find "radios" becoming part of almost everything with a WiFi connection, and a new chip like this one might speed that process along:

RadioPro's $15 eBOM drives the cost of making an internet radio down dramatically. This not only opens up the new product category of portable/wearable [Internet] radios, but also makes it economic to add the technology into existing successful consumer electronic product segments - many of which are highly competitive and could benefit from the introduction of new features.

For example, CSR predicts that by 2009: 40% of MP3 / PMP players will have Wi-Fi internet radio, 50% of DAB and satellite radios will have Wi-Fi internet radio, 30% of home hi-fi systems will have Wi-Fi internet radio.

In other words, the pitch goes, cheap Internet radio could become a "feature" of products which currently have no relationship to radio whatsoever.

Terrestrial stations are (rather amazingly) still asking whether or not they should stream. When in fact the real question is how do you propose to make your stream easy and convenient to find and dramatically different from millions of alternatives?

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