CeBIT: Turn on an iRadio

Web radio is a fine thing--except that you need a computer to hear it. And your regular radio can't receive Web stations. Terratec, a company that builds multimedia hardware components, showed a new radio at CeBIT that plays both Internet and FM radio. Here's a photo:



The Noxon iRadio (guess what the inspiration for that name was?!) plays songs either from any Web Radio station or from a hard disk connected to the device. If you have a router, you even don't need your PC turned on to hear music from the Web radio stations. The iRadio has a built-in wireless LAN connector, and can log into any ad-hoc network or router. It also supports both WEP and WPA.

This gizmo plays music in MP3 or WMA in compressions up to 320 kbps. It even supports modern digital right management so that you can play songs bought at online download services that work with Microsoft's DRM10.

Interesting, but the company currently doesn't have plans to sell in the United States.

--Thomas Jungbluth, PCW correspondent at CeBIT