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Digital audio broadcasting - or, more simply, digital radio - isn't a recent innovation, but the comparatively high cost of receivers means that few people know about it.
Unlike digital television, however, there simply isn't the financial incentive for a free receiver giveaway, which is where Psion steps in. In essence its WaveFinder is a digital radio tuner at a price that'll open up the digital radio market to all. Or so Psion hopes.
If looks alone could sell a product, then the WaveFinder has a rosy future. The translucent blue teardrop of plastic with a large, multicolour LED will have early adopters reaching for their debit cards, but at £299, it's still not a mass-market item.
The other bit of bad news is that the WaveFinder isn't a standalone device but rather a PC peripheral. So you will need a moderately powerful system with USB to make use of it.
Actually, the WaveFinder's reliance on a PC is no bad thing because digital radio offers the possibility of getting more than just CD-quality music from the ether.
Digital radio has a transfer rate of around 1.5Mbits/s, and while most of this is needed for music, once a track stops and the DJ begins his or her low-bandwidth prattling, all kinds of other data can be sent.
At the moment, this simply consists of useful snippets of information such as track names, but it's entirely possible to broadcast the music video for a track just before it's played.
With the world already poised for broadband internet access, this may not sound like a big deal, but the point to bear in mind is that digital radio is 'wireless'.
Portable devices
Psion's plans for the future include portable devices with built-in tuners and, since digital radio already covers 69 per cent of the UK population, is 'always on' and free to receive, it could give the wireless telecoms companies a serious run for their money in the Wap stakes.
The WaveFinder, therefore, is a bit of a taste of things to come. Getting it up and running is straightforward enough but some thought does need to be given to its placement.
The UK Digital Radio site reckons that digital radio is "able to get rid of anything that is likely to produce any kind of distortion, to produce a pure, clear sound all the time".
Here in the What PC? offices, however, our experiences with choppy reception proved this to be untrue. Home users shouldn't have any problems but we're still not convinced about hanging any PC peripheral (however stylish) on the wall.
The WaveFinder takes a few minutes to scan through the available stations the first time it's used. These are displayed as icons in the WaveFinder application's station map and clicking on one starts it playing.
The icons are rather spread out, and scrolling around with the four on-screen buttons is a chore. But it's a pity that neither groups of icons nor the map can be dragged around with the mouse.
With a strong signal, the WaveFinder works well and the music quality is certainly a step up from FM. Whether it's worth paying £299 to listen to the radio on your PC, however, is another matter, particularly since VideoLogic has just launched a hi-fi separate digital tuner for the same price.
The WaveFinder works well, but until Digital Audio Broadcasting delivers on its promise of high-speed wireless data, it's hard to see it as anything other than an expensive gadget that lets you listen to the radio on your PC.
Contact Psion 0990 134224
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