Nokia's Visual Radio

In January of 2004, Nokia announced 'Visual Radio' as an upcoming product for their new range of multi-media phones. Since then, Visual radio has been supplied as standard with a number of Nokia phones powered by the Symbian operating system. This page provides an overview of Visual Radio.

 

Visual Radio is intended to enhance traditional FM radio, by adding interactive content over the mobile phone network. Data can include images and text - supplying listeners with Visual Radio handsets with extra data including news, music, travel, sport and extras.

Here's the type of content that it was hoped Visual Radio would offer:

• Information on the song and artist currently playing on air
• View images relating to presenters or news stories
• A weather map during the weather broadcast
• News, weather and traffic alerts while songs are playing
• Listen in to a talk show and see what has been discussed so far
• Join in audience votes, Big Brother style
• Participate in on-air competitions

When Visual Radio launched, the main broadcast partner in the UK was Virgin Radio. Pictured below is a picture of the Nokia 7710 device, the first device to make use of Visual Radio:

Now, here's a screenshot of Visual Radio running on a Nokia N95 handset

 

Handsets offering Visual Radio included:

• Nokia N95 - Nokia phone with GPS and a 5Meg camera - Details on the FileSaveAs N95 page
• Nokia N73 - Stylish phone with loads of features - Details on the FileSaveAs N73 page
• Nokia 7710 - Landscape tablet device - Details on the FileSaveAs 7710 page
• Nokia 3230 - Multimedia cameraphone - Details on the FileSaveAs 3230 page
• Nokia N90 - 3G phone with internal harddrive - Details on the FileSaveAs N Series page

 

Hop over to Nokia's Visual Radio site and see a demo, or why not chat about Visual Radio in our forum...