Visual Radio Coming to India

morpheus83 writes "India continues to march towards becoming an IT and economic super power. The Indian capital of New-Delhi will become the the third city in the world to have a commercial Visual Radio service after Singapore and Helsinki (Finland). The technology developed by Nokia allows audiences to interact with the radio programs. The audio is received via a regular analog FM radio whereas graphics and text are streamed over a data connection. It will be available to Hutch and Airtel subscribers who have compatible Nokia handsets."

uh...

"Visual Radio"

Don't they normaly call that TV?

Re:uh...

No. It's not. It's radio that allows you to get additional info about the song. I agree it's not the most advanced piece of technology, but you can't just simplify it as being 'TV'.

It's also interactive, while TV is just streaming.

Hint, hint: RTFA :)

wow

visual radio, I wonder what it would be like to have pictures along with audio... I can hardly imagine such a thing!

Visual Radio???

How is this not television? I read TFA and there's really no information. So as far as I can tell, it's just radio that lets you watch their commercials? Can someone clarify if this isn't just radio plus advertisements you can see? Is there a /.er that has or has seen this?

Otherwise it's just MTV without the 'V'.

Explanation

No, no, no! You fellas have got it all wrong! It's just like radio, but with pictures!

huh?

"India continues to march towards becoming an IT and economic super power. The Indian capital of New-Delhi will become the the third city in the world to have a commercial Visual Radio service after Singapore and Helsinki "

Somehow i dont think the creation of visual radio (i thought it was called TV) will lead you to become a super power.

Since the article has ZERO inso on what visual radio is here is a nokia link [visualradio.com]. To summarize, think proprietary TV with minimal interactivity from the creators of Ngage. You tune into a station and see a "web page" where you get more info and can provide feed back.

Sounds like real superpower material to me.

ewwww

i am an indian.. i wouldnt succumb for hutch's marketing tactics.. i would listen radio because its free.. why would i want a visual radio and spend Rs. 6 per interaction??... already there are a tons of services on hutch that i dont use like wallpaper/ringtone/callertune/music download etc etc etc.. its not a technological marvel either since it hasnt invented something out of the ordinary.. for people who dont understand how crappy this is.. a single local call to another hutch fone costs something like Rs 0.3 for me.. why would i spend about Rs 6 for some crap? its for the teeny boppers and its stupid that its on /.
slownewsday or blech ?

Also comming to india...

Horse carriages driven by motors!

This already exists.. minus graphics

I forget the exact name of the protocol, but for years now, radio stations in my area have encoded a short message in the audiostream. It shows up on the receiver as a short message of a sort either advertising the station name and/or the current song that is playing. Quite handy at times.

Another driving distraction

So while im talking on my wireless phone, watching the directors cut of "silence of the Lambs" on a tiny LCD, scarfing down a burger and a large soda, i can now look over and see a picture of a random slutty popstar? Guess i got no time left for stop signs and crosswalks.

where is /. heading ?

radio mirchi is bringing the technology to the country ?
i've had enough of this dumb radio station. they have a set of 100 crappy remixes that hog all their airtime..
and now as if it isnt enough proof that they are a crappy commercial radio station, they try to make us buy their crappy remixes as well? i think these channels have a wrong presumption that indians have too much money and they dont know how to spend. post anything about india and you would get enough page impressions eh ?? why dint this come up when finland did it before india ?
P.S : i am an indian and i am pissed off about /. posts about india

Sounds like G4's Trek 2.0

This sounds like cable-tv-station G4's "Trek 2.0" with the main feed over traditional media and the enhanced content over alternative delivery.

Some radio-talk-show hosts have been doing something like this for years:
They have additional content, blogs, instant-messaging, incoming faxes, pager alerts, and other features that happen in sync with their talk show. "Today we are talking about the President's actions in Iraq. One of our viewers send me this video, we put it up on our web site. In 15 minutes I'll pick the best comments and air them right here. Remember, you can watch the antics in our broadcast booth live at http://www.narcissistictalkshowhosts.com/webcam/."

Visual Radio = dead consept

I live in Helsinki. Visual Radio has been available here about one year.

There is only one radio channel that provides the service and not many Nokia cells that supports it.

And yes, just like N-Gage, nobody actually use it. Even Nokia has started to move towards podcasting.

Nice copy and paste job

The submission is simply the first paragraph of the article. Is Slashdot now just an RSS aggregator?

I'd buy it...

...if it allows me to electrocute the DJ every time they make a witty remark.

Superpower checklist

1. Nucelear weapons - check
2. Launch satellites - check
3. ICBM - check
4. Supercomputers - check
5. Visual Radio - check! ...and we are done...!

You know,

I'm Indian and all that, but can we drop those gratitious references to marches and being an "IT super power" or whatever shit? Propaganda has its uses, but only for totalitarian societies, not a free-thinking, or argumentative [timesonline.co.uk] society that I always thought my country was.

some more googling

a better article for the same story http://www.mobilepundit.com/2006/07/15/radio-mirch i-to-launch-visual-radio-in-india/ [mobilepundit.com] and a little bit of googling for lazy fellow ./ers http://www.visualradio.com/ [visualradio.com]

A similar service for talk radio.

I just came across a similar service a few days ago that has some promise. Talkshoe.com [talkshoe.com] combines a radio talk show with voice, podcasts, and Internet participation.

Nothing to see here, move along

The concept of Visual Radio is already invented and fairly popular, it's called television.

Lame...

I don't think this will be much of a hit.

If they could produce pictureless television, it would be a very different matter. But that will probably just remain a dream for many years.

economic superpower powered by visual radio!

Somehow I fail to see how visual radio is going to help 30% of India's population living below poverty line and millions suffering from AIDS and malnutrition. India is no doubt doing well on IT outsourcing and in the long term may well become a economic power; but for now lets outsource the non-sensical chest thumping over radio technology to banglore.

TV != Visual Radio

I'm right in the epicenter of the whole radio revolution in India. My town just got FM radio that broadcasts the latest music for 'FREE!!'. Everyone's going crazy over FM radio sets because this is a cheap and excellent form of entertainment here. Hell, I don't touch iTunes when I have access to an FM player because they always play good music. Since there's a general lack of genres in Indian music, this works fine because good music is mostly good, and bad music and mostly bad. It's just like the iPod revolution in America - except people are carrying red, flourescent, yellow, green, white, and blue earphones because FM radios come in all colours. To have visual data to go along with the audio will attract cellphone users in India where almost everyone carries a cellphone. Many would not mind paying a small fee for it, especially in this booming economy. Indians are buying Honda Accords for 36000 dollars and paying 4.50 dollars per gallon for gas, and the land rates are skyrocketing.

someone has to say it ...

Wi nøt trei a høliday in India this yer?

    See the løveli lakes

    The wonderful visual radiø

Belongs on thedailywtf.com

A convoluted setup like that sounds like a feature on The Daily WTF [slashdot.org].

This is about try #4 for this concept

This is about try #4 for this concept. In the 1980s, there was "Silent Radio", which drove LED signs with text messages. These used to show up in bars and restaurants, so you could watch the news and sports scores scroll by. Then there was sending song info on FM subcarriers of broadcast stations, which many car radios understand. XM satellite radio has a fancier system for doing the same thing, as does the on-band-in-channel digital broadcast system.

The main feature of this new system seems to be ads. Yawn.

Coming Next ...

Audible TV... Now thats real superpower stuff, I don't think any country except india will be able to invent it.

Indian capitalism:

Capitalism, with Indian characteristics.

There was a very interesting piece on BBC Radio's "From Our Own Correspondent", by a journalist who lived in Beijing for four years, then found himself in Delhi for six months. At the end of the six months he's on a flight back to Beijing. The flight leaves at 3am, the ticket agent tells him "Yes, it really is 3am - the airport's too small, so many flights leave at night." Sure enough he arrives to find Delhi airport a heaving mass of people, with that implies in Indian cities. After takeoff he fell into conversation with the Indian passenger sitting next to him. "Have you been to Beijing before?" "Yes, I lived there for four years." "Great! So tell me, what can I expect?" "I think you can expect to be surprised."

Sure enough, they arrive at the brand new, huge, ultramodern airport (OK, it may have been Shanghai...) and his Indian travelling companion's jaw hits the tarmac. No heaving crowds... no beggars,... picks up a car straightfowardly and soon finds himself on the zooming along 8 lane motorway back to town...

It should still be up on bbc.co.uk/FOOC, let's look for a link.,.. Well wouldn't you know it, the full text is here [bbc.co.uk] and will expose my summary above as hopelessly inaccurate, but do check it out anyway, it's great :)

Good idea, but the name could be better.

'Visual Radio' just isn't catchy, what we need is a hybrid word...perhaps if we use a buzzworld, like the prefix 'tele' from the newfangled telephone...so it's 'tele-visual entertainment'...hmm...kinda long though... I know! We can replace visual with vision! Tele-vision! I predict with this catchy new name, the technology will really go places. I perhaps, within ten years, every home in the first world will have one of these 'tele-vision's!

Quoth Alfred Hitchcock

"Radio is simply television with a tube burned out."

How's this different from Digital Radio Mondiale?

See http://www.drm.org/ [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).

Visual radio ??

Radio I belive is for Listening should be enjoyed that way . These services are Invented by Companies to bring out money from the Pockets of Cunsumers . And above all what Radio has nothing to do with being a Super power ( What a thought ?) . People out there who hail this Country as a force to reckon with dont realise that this Country is still a Struggle . Struggle for Basics in the Life . Try to Buy a House , try to get Safe Drinking water , Power , Affordable Education, Job everything is a Struggle out here . Wonder which Country they are referring to when they say that we are a Power ?

Re:India keeps squandering money

It freaks the hell out of me when they have a title that reads "Gizmo xxxx introduced in India ... India IT and economic super power".

Will someone explain how the hell having Visual radio service (provided by a Finnish Company and not an Indian one) has anything to do with India becoming an **IT Super Power**?

I think thats just because Indians are trigget happy with their cell phones and big entertainment buffs. They are probably the biggest chatter boxes on the planet as well (a fact well recognized by MSN and Yahoo!). Most of my *sane* friends here in India spend anything like 10-15% of their monthly income for cell phone bills (Don't ask me about the insane). And the Finnish company recognizes this and is introducing this service here in India. They are just trying to make a few bucks here.

By the way what has Indian govt got to do with this???!!!

Of course if the Indian Govt had a hand in this, the service would be "delayed" indefinitely (the indefinitely is normally not told. It is meant to be figured out). And our honorable elected representatives ("the government") would pocket the money.

Re:India keeps squandering money

The USA keeps squandering money when its infant mortality rate is higher than Cuba (or insert irrelevent comparison to your taste)

Re:U.S. must be a third world country.

Could start with better mental health care for this seems lacking. It is good to teach math in schools - but spelling might be taught too.