Is AM dead? Will the HD infrastructure grow quick enough? Will royalty issues destroy Internet Radio? Is post-merger Satellite Radio the next big thing? What about content on Cell Phones?
Maybe this will matter in 10 years – but what about 50 or 75 years from now?
I’m going to give you my vision of the future of Radio based on where research is headed and how I imagine it might be applied. If nothing else, this article will give you something to think about.
You Are the Radio
Decades from now, we won’t be worried about carrying around radios, iPods, cell phones or any type of external device for receiving radio signals.
Thanks to nanotechnology, you will be your own radio receiver. Researchers are already experimenting towards this end. Last year, wired.com reported:
A scientist has unveiled a working radio built from carbon nanotubes that are only a few atoms across, or almost 1,000 times smaller than today's radio technology. The nanotech device is a demodulator, a simple circuit that decodes radio waves and turns them into audio signals. By hooking the decoder up to two metal wires, University of California at Irvine professor Peter Burke transmitted music via AM radio waves from an iPod to speakers across the room.
According to a recent article at dailymail.co.uk, "Children will learn by downloading information directly into their brains within 30 years, the head of Britain's top private schools organization predicted..."
Someday, you will have the option to purchase a "bio-telligent" implant which will quietly exist in your body until you decide to trigger it. When you do, this "nano-radio" will connect with your auditory system and be ready to receive content impulses which will be translated into sound that will play inside your head in the same way headphones create sound for us now.
