SATELLITE RADIO

A satellite radio or subscription radio (SR) is a digital radio signal that is broadcast by a communications satellite, which covers a much wider geographical range than terrestrial radio signals.

We all have our favorite radio stations that we preset into our car radios, flipping between them as we drive to and from work, on errands and around town. But when you travel too far away from the station, the signal breaks up and fades into static. Most radio signals can only travel about 30 or 40 miles (48 to 64 kilometers) from their source. On long trips, you might have to change radio stations every hour or so as the signals fade in and out. And it's not much fun scanning through static trying to find something -- anything -- to listen to.

Satellite radio broadcasters promise crystal-clear music from satellites thousands of miles above the Earth.

Now, imagine a radio station that can broadcast its signal from more than 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) away and then come through on your car radio with complete clarity. You could drive from one end of the country to another without ever having to change the radio station! Not only would you never hear static interfering with your favorite tunes, but the music would be interrupted by few or no commercials.

XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio each launched such a service at the beginning of the 21st century. Satellite radio, also called digital radio, offers uninterrupted, near CD-quality music beamed to your radio from space.

Satellite radio offers a meaningful alternative to ground-based radio services.  Satellite radio e.g. Worldspace, allow listeners to roam across an entire continent, listening to the same audio programming anywhere they go. Radio services are usually provided by commercial ventures and are subscription-based. The various services are proprietary signals, requiring specialized hardware for decoding and playback. Providers usually carry a variety of news, weather, sports, and music channels, with the music channels generally being commercial-free.

In areas with a relatively high population density, it is easier and less expensive to reach the bulk of the population with terrestrial broadcasts.

Satellite radio, has become a major provider of background music to businesses such as hotels, retail chains, and restaurants. Satellite radio's significantly lower price, commercial-free channel variety, and more reliable technology make it a very attractive option.

Satellite radio uses the 2.3 GHz S band in North America and generally shares the 1.4 GHz L band with local Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) stations elsewhere. It is a type of direct broadcast satellite and is strong enough that it requires no satellite dish to receive. Curvature of the earth limits the reach of the signal, but due to the high orbit of the satellites, two or three are usually sufficient to provide coverage for an entire continent.

Local repeaters similar to broadcast translator boosters enable signals to be available even if the view of the satellite is blocked, for example, by skyscrapers in a large town. Major tunnels can also have repeaters.

Each receiver has an Electronic Serial Number (ESN) Radio ID to identify it. When a unit is activated with a subscription, an authorization code is sent in the digital stream telling the receiver to allow access to the blocked channels. Most (if not all) of the systems in use now are proprietary, using different codecs for audio data compression, different modulation techniques, and/or different methods for encryption and conditional access.


At this time, there are two space-based radio broadcasters:



•Sirius XM Radio
•Worldspace

Satellite radio companies are comparing the significance of their service to the impact that cable TV had on television 30 years ago. Listeners aren't able to pick up local stations using satellite radio services, but they have access to hundreds of stations offering a variety of music genres. Each company has a different plan for its broadcasting system, but the systems do share similarities. Here are the key components of the two satellite radio systems:


•Satellites
•Ground repeaters
•Radio receivers

Satellite radio works a lot like satellite TV -- you purchase a receiver and pay a monthly subscription fee for a certain number of channels. For the moment, there are slight variances in the three satellite radio companies' systems.

Indian satellite radio policy to be put on hold

India’s proposed policy on satellite radio may now be kept on hold. The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has prepared a draft Cabinet note for the satellite radio policy, but now a policy is unlikely because WorldSpace radio has decided to shut its India operation. US-based WorldSpace, which is the only entity operating satellite radio in India, has announced that its service will be terminated in the country on 31 December. WorldSpace, which started its service in India in the year 2000, has been operating without any policy framework so far.


While there was no limit on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in satellite radio due to lack of any regulation, the new policy was expected to cap FDI at 74%. The draft cabinet note had indicated that WorldSpace would have been given three years to comply with the guidelines.

Sources have pointed out that the new owner of WorldSpace may restart the India operation, perhaps with a new brand name. “They would return if the system allows them. After all, they have retained the satellites, technology and the associated assets,” a source argued. However, the receiver sets may have to be changed even if the India operation resumes, as the new service may be offered on terrestrial platform.

Several media houses in the country are believed to have been keen on buying the WorldSpace India business, but no transaction has been executed so far. Around 300 employees in the WorldSpace India office, in Bangalore, have lost their job due to the closure.

(Source: DNAIndia.com)

PODCASTS

A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.

The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting. A list of all the audio or video files currently associated with a given series is maintained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener or viewer employs special client application software known as a podcatcher that can access this web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in the series. This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically. Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access to episodic content.

The term "podcasting" was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in a February 2004 article.

The logo used by Apple to represent Podcasting

A podcast is a series of media files, in either audio or video format, that are distributed through a syndicated RSS feed and released in chronological order. A podcast is an online talk radio show, news show or other type of show that you can subscribe to and get automatically as each new episode is released.

Podcasts are often available through blogs or on blog directories. iTunes is the host of some of the most popular online shows. Listeners can use a podcatcher to download the files and in some cases have the program downloaded automatically. Podcasts are often played on an iPod, the Apple mp3 player they get their name from. They can also be downloaded and played on other brands of mp3 players.

Here are some of the common features:

1.Hosts - Most often a podcast has one or more hosts that present the show each week. They usually have a topic of focus and often have guests to speak and showcase their expertise on that topic.

2.Released by Episode - Shows are not available all at once. You can download past episodes but much like a TV show you must wait for the next episode to be released. Many happen on a weekly or monthly basis, while others may be daily. The frequency of the release is a choice of the host.

3.Syndication - What makes a podcast different from just an mp3 download is that they are syndicated and available through an RSS feed. Every podcast has it's own unique feed that anyone can subscribe to. Then, when there is a new episode the feed is updated and the episode is delivered automatically.

Video podcasting has become more and more popular as the availability of Flip cameras and other easy to use digital video cameras become available on the market. It's relatively simple for someone to get set up with a video camera, record a podcast and then upload that for everyone to view.

The length of the podcast varies depending on the type of podcast, topic, and general preferences of the host and/or audience. Some are as short as just a few minutes while others are an hour or longer. Podcasting can be used to promote a business or it can be a business in itself. The options and uses are practically limited only by the imagination.

Looking at this medium from the subscribers point of view it really is a wonderful thing! Listeners get to choose what they want to listen to and when. This is very different from traditional media such as TV and radio where you have to watch or listen on the broadcasting schedule.

Also the variety of topics and information available through podcasts is massive. Because anyone can podcast relatively easily listeners now have access to information they never would have received before.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.

Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web.

The term "Web 2.0" was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci.

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.

Technology overview

Web 2.0 draws together the capabilities of client- and server-side software, content syndication and the use of network protocols. Standards-oriented web browsers may use plug-ins and software extensions to handle the content and the user interactions. Web 2.0 sites provide users with information storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities that were not possible in the environment now known as "Web 1.0".

Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features and techniques. Andrew McAfee used the acronym SLATES to refer to them:

Search : Finding information through keyword search.

Links: Connects information together into a meaningful information ecosystem using the model of the Web, and provides low-barrier social tools.

Authoring: The ability to create and update content leads to the collaborative work of many rather than just a few web authors. In wikis, users may extend, undo and redo each other's work. In blogs, posts and the comments of individuals build up over time.

Tags: Categorization of content by users adding "tags" - short, usually one-word descriptions = to facilitate searching, without dependence on pre-made categories. Collections of tags created by many users within a single system may be referred to as "folksonomies" (i.e., folk taxonomies).

Exensions: Software that makes the Web an application platform as well as a document server.

Signals: The use of syndication technology such as RSS to notify users of content changes.

Information Society, Knowledge Society

Information Society

Information Society is a term for a society in which the creation, distribution, and manipulation of information has become the most significant economic and cultural activity. An Information Society may be contrasted with societies in which the economic activities are primarily Industrial or Agrarian. The machine tools of the Information Society are computers and telecommunications, rather than lathes or ploughs.

Policy makers for the G7 (now G8) group of nations recognised, only a few years ago, that:

Progress in information technologies and communication is changing the way we live: how we work and do business, how we educate our children, study and do research, train ourselves, and how we are entertained. The information society is not only affecting the way people interact but it is also requiring the traditional organisational structures to be more flexible, more participatory and more decentralised. (Chair's conclusions from the G-7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society, February 1995.)

The idea of a global Information Society can be viewed in relation to Marshall McLuhan's prediction that the communications media would transform the world into a "global village."

Here is a succinct definition from the IBM Community Development Foundation in a 1997 report, "The Net Result - Report of the National Working Party for Social Inclusion."

Information Society: A society characterised by a high level of information intensity in the everyday life of most citizens, in most organisations and workplaces; by the use of common or compatible technology for a wide range of personal, social, educational and business activities, and by the ability to transmit, receive and exchange digital data rapidly between places irrespective of distance.

Knowledge society

Broadly speaking, the term Knowledge Society refers to any society where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. It may also refer to the use a certain society gives to information. A Knowledge society "creates, shares and uses knowledge for the prosperity and well-being of its people".

Knowledge societies have the characteristic that knowledge forms a major component of any human activity. Economic, social, cultural, and all other human activities become dependent on a huge volume of knowledge and information. A knowledge society is one in which knowledge becomes a major creative force.

Knowledge societies are not a new occurrence. For example, fishermen have long shared the knowledge of predicting the weather to their community and this knowledge gets added to the social capital of the community.

What is new is that

• With current technologies, knowledge societies need not be constrained by geographic proximity

• Current technology offers much more possibilities for sharing, archiving and retrieving knowledge

• Knowledge has become the most important capital in the present age, and hence the success of any society lies in harnessing it.

A knowledge society needs infrastructure like

1. Physical: meeting places, notice boards ...

2. Technological: local language content sharing, mailing lists, web portals, wikis, chat rooms, video conferencing, virtual meetings, collaborative development environments, distance education ...

The Free software movement is a success story of knowledge society.

Information in social and economic activities

The main feature of the information revolution is the growing economic, social and technological role of information. Information-related activities did not come up with the Information Revolution. They existed, in one form or the other, in all human societies, and eventually developed into institutions, such as the Platonic Academy, Aristotle's Peripatetic school in the Lyceum, the Museum and the Library of Alexandria, or the schools of Babylonian astronomy. The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came up when new informational inputs were produced by individual innovators, or by scientific and technical institutions. During the Information Revolution all these activities are experiencing continuous growth, while other information-oriented activities are emerging.

Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, including Shannon's (1949) Information Theory and Wiener's (1948) Cybernetics. Wiener (1948, p. 155) stated also: "information is information not matter or energy". This aphorism suggests that information should be considered along with matter and energy as the third constituent part of the Universe; information is carried by matter or by energy.

We can distinguish between information, data and knowledge. Data comes through research and collection. Information is organized data. Knowledge is built upon information. Data and information are easily transferable; knowledge built by a person is not certain that it can be transferred to another. Following this, the notion of a "knowledge society" cannot be defined cogently.

Information is then further considered as an economic activity, since firms and institutions are involved in its production, collection, exchange, distribution, circulation, processing, transmission, and control. Labor is also divided into physical labor (use of muscle power) and informational labor (use of intellectual power). A new economic sector is thereby identified, the Information Sector, which amalgamates information-related labor activities.

Information Age

The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Information Era, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. Commonly seen as an outflow from the Space Age, capitalizing on the computer microminiaturization advances of that effort, with a fuzzy transition spanning from the advent of the personal computer in the late 1970s to the emergence of the internet in the early 1990s, and the adaption of such technology by the public in the two decades after 1990. Since the invention of social media in the 2000s, the Information Age has evolved into the Attention Age according to some publications.

What is New Media?

New media is a term used to describe the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century. New media technologies are digital, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive. Examples are Internet, websites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMS, and DVDs. New media is a way in which the delivery of news and information follows a many-to-many format. Old media are television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications.

"New media" as interactive forms of communication that use the Internet, including podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and more!

New media makes it possible for anyone to create, modify, and share content and share it with others, using relatively simple tools that are often free or inexpensive. New media requires a computer or mobile device with Internet access.

New media tools can help you to:




CONNECT people with information and services. This includes connecting individuals with healthcare providers and people living with HIV with one another. New media can also connect the families, friends, and caregivers of people living with HIV ands AIDS to resources for their loved ones and themselves.


COLLABORATE with other people—including those within your organization or community.


CREATE new content, services, communities, and channels of communication that help you deliver information and services.

New media has:


• Changed the meaning of geographic distance.
• Allowed for a huge increase in the volume of communication.
• Provided the possibility of increasing the speed of communication.
• Provided opportunities for interactive communication.
• Allowed forms of communication that were previously separate to overlap and interconnect.

The new media industry

The new media industry shares an open association with many market segments in areas such as software/video game design, television, radio, and particularly movies, advertising and marketing, which seeks to gain from the advantages of two-way dialogue with consumers primarily through the Internet. The advertising industry has capitalized on the proliferation of new media with large agencies running multi-million dollar interactive advertising subsidiaries. Interactive websites and kiosks have become popular. In a number of cases advertising agencies have also set up new divisions to study new media. Public relations firms are taking advantage of the opportunities in new media through interactive PR practices.

Digital media
Digital media (as opposed to analog media) are electronic media that work on digital codes. Computing is based on the binary numeral system. Digital refers to the discrete states of "0" and "1" for representing data. Computers interpret binary digital data as information and are therefore predominating class of digital information processing machines. Digital media like digital audio, digital video and other digital content can be created, referred to and distributed via digital information processing machines (computers).

New Media Tools


Blogs
eCards
Mashups
Photo Sharing Sites
Podcasts
RSS Feeds
Social Bookmarking
Social Network Sites
Text Messaging
Texting Reminders
Twitter
Video Games
Video Sharing Sites
Virtual Worlds
Webcasts/ Webinars
Wikis
Widgets