Tuning to the multimedia milieu
Gone are the days of the conventional radio system. The latest hype in the car market is the multimedia radio whose prototype was showcased at Noordwijk Space Expo, in the Netherlands on January 25, 2007, by European Space Agency (ESA) and its partners.
The new radio system is quite similar to the satellite receivers for the television except that the car radio system does not have any dish antenna. Instead they will have an improvised flat antenna that can be fitted on the body of the car in a compact manner.
The new multimedia system has many advanced features. Firstly, it does not require any new satellites or ground-based transmitters. Rather they work on the existing communication satellites. Another unique feature of this is that it can store the received signals in its cache memory. This facility of the system enables it to prevent the loss of the signal during poor connectivity. Also, the listener can opt for a part of the broadcast that he wants to listen or pause the program for a while and play later.
The efforts of ESA and its partners are not in vain. Major car leaders such as SES Astra, BMW, Deutsche, etc., have given green signal to the innovation and have carried out demonstration of the new radio system in their car models.
