Stereos reveal title and artist on digital screens during play. DJs send electronic coupons over listeners' computers. Car radios display real-time traffic reports and stock quotes. Companies behind the digital radio revolution, vying to develop seamless transition between analog and digital, will soon make long sought visions reality: CD-quality FM, less AM interference and new data services in an industry not changing technologically since the 1940s when FM was introduced. More efficient, digital signal is less susceptible to interference. Radio has enough bandwidth to carry large volumes of digital data, more than existing wireless technology, opening doors for radios giving listeners more than sound. Goal: broadcast digitally encoded music or data with regular AM/FM. Traditional radios would still work even as listeners buy digital ones. The first order of business is don't harm analog radio. USA Digital Radio, backed by some of the nation's top radio groups in its bid to create the standard for digital radio technology, runs digital radio trials in several markets, driving buses under bridges and in wooded areas to make sure the signal can be picked up in hard-to-reach places. Radio expects 12 - 18 months before consumers can sample the high-quality sound.
Regulators must adopt a technical standard for digital radio and address issues like commercial licenses and cost. The FCC reaffirmed its commitment to seeing radio join other technologies going digital. Manufacturers must roll out radios that receive the signal. Analysts expect digital radios to cost 15 - 30% over current high-quality radios, cheap enough to entice consumers to switch. Because old radios won't be obsolete yet it could take some time for people to say, 'This is how I want to hear music'. It could be several more years before consumers get advanced data applications digital radio signals make possible. Specially equipped clock radios receive digital weather reports even in sleep mode. Broadcast emergency instructions turn radios on, displaying relevant information onscreen. TV screens tell people how to order Mariah Carey's latest album as it plays. Ultimate capabilities depend on software or broadcaster creativity. Kenwood USA expects to manufacture digital car radios by spring 2001. Digital airwave signals don't have to be directed at a conventional radio. Handheld computers or cell phones could receive data carried by the signals. Broadcasters, wary after a decade of promises about digital radio, see opportunities from providing high-quality sound to leasing airwave space out. It costs stations $30,000 - $200,000 to upgrade, taking several years' experiment before broadcasters discern what consumers want. With endless possibilities nobody has a real business plan yet.
ABC opens morning show studio
NBC electronically crashed ABC's Good Morning America's new Times Square storefront studio opening party, beaming the Today show from a giant screen overlooking ABC's studio. ABC, CBS and NBC Manhattan storefront studio viewers watch live morning news shows. With 2.3 million lights on a facade bulging 20 feet into Times Square, ABC's new studio perfectly fits Times Square visual hurly-burly. The 2-story studio's ground floor replicates a New York subway station. ABC won't say how much it spent. NBC's Today show had a street-level windowed studio in the 1950s and opened a new one in 1994, coinciding with unprecedented high ratings.
Celebrity slot machines take Las Vegas
Stuff quarters in slot machines nowadays and lots more happens than used to. Along with bells and symbols comes stereo, dancing figures and Dick Clark. Celebrities on slot machines encourage gamblers and help casinos make big money. "Yes, yes, yes! Congratulations," Barbara Eden shouts on I Dream of Jeannie slot machines at the 1999 World Gaming Congress & Expo, consoling losing gamblers with, "I'm sorry, master." Reno-based world's leading slot machine producer International Game Technology believes players want more entertainment than just bells. Most new slot machines have buttons instead of handles. ICT's new wave of slot machines began several years ago with their Wheel of Fortune machine. Players don't solve puzzles but spin the wheel after lining up symbols. The machine was IGT's most successful slot machine ever. Helped by Eden, Clark, NASCAR legend Richard Petty, the Addams Family, the Munsters and the Pink Panther, IGT hopes to hit the jackpot again with slot machines more like video games for adults: more ways to win, extra loud music for winners and pats on the back from celebrity voices.
Filmmaker preserves 1923 set
GUADALUPE - Archaeologists, historians and film buffs save the elaborately detailed set from Cecil B DeMille's 1923 silent film "The Ten Commandments," 33 years older than Charlton Heston's remake. Storms dissolve plaster-and-clay pharaohs and sphinxes an over-budget crew dumped in trenches, now buried under wind-whipped sand dunes along a remote stretch of California's central coast. Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Brosnan and colleagues raised $180,000 to excavate and preserve the set. He launched the project after learning that DeMille hinted about it in his autobiography. Tiptoeing around mangled blocks of plaster and weathered wood the morning after the season's first storm, archaeologist John Parker stumbled on a statue the consistency of blue cheese, crumbling if touched. Archaeologists treated each item with a solidifying preservative before pulling it from the ground. Every year exposed pieces are sandblasted out of existence. The job made Parker the foremost and only authority on movie archaeology.
Cinema Verite
Cinema Verite, camera truth, attempting to capture real life on film, was pioneered in Russia by Dziga Vertov and in the U S by Robert Flaherty. The French school's camera is a catalyst. The American school's camera is a passive, objective observer. To capture the movement's spirit 1910s and 1920s Cinema Verite used no script or director but edited the final product.
Thai movie marathon bids for world record
Those staying the full 52-hour course or enduring the most movies without falling asleep shared $2,700. A Hungarian holds the current record, watching 20 films in 37 hours and 25 minutes. Participants took a physical to make sure they were fit for 3 long days and 2 sleepless nights, with urine tests before and during the marathon as stimulants were prohibited. Contestants got 5 minutes rest after movies and 15 minutes at the end of 3 movies for meals. They were monitored by an infrared camera for falling asleep, moving seats or disturbing others. 6 hours into the marathon 106 contestants fell asleep.