Jon Sawer needs to upgrade his old but dearly loved radio and wants to buy a high-spec DAB radio

I'm about to reluctantly upgrade from my existing extremely old but dearly loved radio. I'm intending to spend as much as I can afford on a top range, high specification standalone DAB radio. You have in the past published many articles on the subject on the UK DAB radio format and how you consider this to be inferior to the European model being developed, and I don't really wish to make an error in my purchase when shopping around.
Jon Sawer

You can't really buy decent standalone radios any more, unless you want a portable of the sort often called a "kitchen radio". Above that are "tabletop radios" that usually include other functions. The main features are FM and DAB digital radios, a connection for an MP3 player (often an iPod dock), and internet or Wi-Fi radio. Some have CD players and some have hard drives for storing music files. Finally there are "lifestyle" or microsystems that are actually mini hi-fi units with separate speakers. You'll have to decide which kind of system best fits your needs, and your budget.

This diversity reflects changes in the way people listen to music.
Radio now comes from a variety of sources, including thousands of internet radio stations. Also, many people now listen to music files from their portable music players or PC hard drives, not just to CDs and cassette tapes. The most common factor is FM radio, because it's cheap and because FM radio's network coverage is still much better than DAB's.

Portable DAB/FM radios tend to be mono and have "retro" (old fashioned) designs. The top-of-the-range model in this class is the Pure Digital Evoke-2S (from about £130), which has a smart veneered finish. It's also a proper stereo radio, although the speakers are too close together to create much of a stereo effect. It has the usual telescopic aerial but you can unscrew it and use something more capable if you live in a weak signal area.

There's a very similar Pure Evoke-3 model (from £154), which can record to SD memory cards and also comes with a remote control. However, it doesn't say it's upgradeable to DAB+ (see below), so you'll need to check. A cheaper alternative is the "piano black" Roberts Sound 80 (£85), which has a downward-facing bass woofer of the sort more common on tabletop designs.

Tabletop radios are trending towards a boxy design exemplified by the Roberts MP43 Sound 43 (CD/DAB/FM/Dock, £180). The Monitor Audio AirStream 10 (£224) is a more stylish and distinctive unit that also includes Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections. Pure's challenger is the Avanti Flow Table-top Digital Music System (£228), which also has a downward facing 5.25 inch subwoofer. However, the one to beat is the award-winning Vita Audio R2i (Walnut finish, £280), which has a reputation for its sound quality.

Microsystems attempt to deliver hi-fi, or something close to hi-fi, without the overhead of having a large stack of units and speakers on stands. For a very long time, small silver Denon CD/radio receivers have been the ones to buy, though the line has been challenged by Onkyo and others in the value-for-money stakes. The Denon RCD M38 (up to £300) is the latest model, and it now supports USB playback and DAB+ as well as DAB and FM. It's also available for £200 without the two small SC-M37 speakers usually supplied. This allows you to spend a bit more on better speakers.

There are dozens of small bookshelf speakers on the UK market including the Q Acoustics 2010 and 2020, Tannoy F1 Custom, Monitor Audio BR1 and Mordaunt Short Aviano. They are heavily discounted if you shop around, though in the long run, it's better to buy from a dealer who will let you listen to them first. Most sound much better on stands, but you can use four generous blobs of Blu-Tack to lift each speaker off a shelf.
Sony also offers a lot of "mini hi-fi" systems at low prices. The Sony CMTBX77DBI (CD/DAB/FM/Dock, £130) provides the advantages of separate loudspeakers and room-filling sound for less than the cost of many portable radios.

I've quoted current prices from Amazon.co.uk for convenience, and this is also a good site for checking star ratings and user reviews. You can also use TestSeek.co.uk to find magazine and website reviews of most products before shopping around.

In terms of future-proofing your purchase, the main thing is to look for support for DAB+. This is the relatively new digital radio standard that is replacing the old and inefficient DAB system currently used in the UK. Of course, there are no plans to use DAB+ in the UK at the moment, and even DAB+ will never see the global adoption enjoyed by FM. However, it is painfully obvious that DAB is floundering in the UK, and DAB+ provides the chance to offer higher sound quality, more channels and lower transmission costs than DAB so ultimately it cannot be avoided.

This doesn't mean DAB would be phased out immediately: DAB+ is backwards-compatible so the two would co-exist while 10m DAB sets drop out of use. Before there's a switchover from FM to DAB, digital radio listening must reach 50%, and national coverage has to match FM coverage. There is zero chance of digital radio listening reaching 50% by 2013, let alone that being DAB digital radio. Indeed, the number of FM radios is still growing much faster than the number of DAB radios, because FM is also appearing in mobile phones and MP3 players. There's also very little chance of DAB matching FM coverage in time: that would require the BBC to spend more than £100m on building out the network. (The government isn't going to pay for it directly, and commercial radio doesn't have the money.)

But it may never happen. If the government thinks it can make perhaps 150m FM radios redundant then it's in for a very rude shock. (Technically, FM will never be switched off: the plan is to use it for "hyperlocal radio" – presumably schools, hospital radio, community stations etc.)

However, as I've pointed out before, Lord Carter's Digital Britain report said: "To prepare for any such change or additional upgrade we will work to ensure that digital radio receivers sold in the UK are at least compliant with the WorldDMB receiver profile 1; which includes DAB+ and DMB-A." This prepares the way for moving beyond DAB, though I suspect it had more to do with the European Broadcasting Union's desire to find a standard that would actually work across Europe.

You could, of course, wait for radios that support WorldDMB receiver profile 1 (PDF), but don't hold your breath.

Lobbying by London Mayor Boris Johnson has paid off once more - and put the city further forward in the open data stakes

Tube train, on time. Photo by fabbio on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Want to get the bus and underground timetables, in a zippy XML format? You can, right now, via the London Datastore.

As the page explains, "The data available in the attached zip file consists of almost 800 xml files, with each relating to a particular service i.e. one per tube line, bus route, riverboat route, dlr route etc. Each xml file contains the following data elements: StopPoints; RouteSections; Routes; JourneyPatternSections; Operators; Services; VehicleJourneys."

Getting this data out hasn't been a trivial task - and my understanding is that it's been down to persistent lobbying from the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, himself.

This is another significant tranche of data to come out of TfL - an organisation that for years has been seen by developers and some within the Greater London Assembly as something of a black box; as one person put it to me, "you pour money in at one end and you get transport out at the other, but you're not allowed to see inside it." Previously, TfL released data about locations of bus stops, and then some real-time data about movements of tube trains - which led, you'll recall, to Matthew Somerville's live tube train map. (Unfortunately, the API for that has been suspended: it couldn't cope with 10m hits per week, and hasn't come back since June. Ahem, ahem, TfL.)

You can see all the London transport-related datasets via the London Datastore. With Johnson pushing it, though, light is starting to shine inside TfL.

By far the most successful demonstration of the power of making data free though has come from the London Cycle Hire scheme - where you can now get real-time information about availability of bicycles for hire, by location, in apps for Android and iPhone.

But if we can now add information about bus and tubes to apps like that, we're getting closer to the point where TfL really is being run for the citizens of London, rather than (as many bureaucracies are) for its staff. The distinction is a fine one - most organisations think of themselves as having their users' best interests at heart; the difference is that when you can get feedback, then the organisation may discover things about their users that they never knew.

There's still some way to go with TfL: for example, it collects data about how many cars pass particular points (using induction loops in the road) which is used for traffic light timing; that's data that many developers would love to get their hands, or processors, on. You never know: if the pressure continues, it might come too.

You might think that Boris Johnson's presence pushing this along is just a bit of grandstanding, but that wouldn't be correct. He's actually been in the vanguard of politicians introducing open data. If you have a long memory for public data-related stories, you'll recall that he did a rather neat end-run around the Labour administration's Home Office in 2008, when as part of his manifesto while running for the office of London mayor he declared that he would publish crime maps.

We were a little sceptical on the Free Our Data blog, although the blocking attitude of the police and the Information Commissioner's Office did nudge us towards Johnson's side.

Johnson did go on to publish them, and London has been in the forefront of cities which have tried to do innovative things with the data that its local government and authorities collect. First came the London Datastore, launched in January. Then came the datasets. And that brings us to the present day. For the many who don't live in London, this might all seem academic - but really the Datastore, and the political impetus behind it, are examples for the rest of the country that making data open and reusable actually can have a benefit. Would the Bike Scheme be as useful if you couldn't find out availability easily? Probably not. And once the TfL timetables have been processed, someone is sure to have a smart use for them.

Can't wait, personally. Overall, 2010 has already been a fantastic year - possibly the best ever - for making data free: first the London Datastore, then the Ordnance Survey OpenData release in April, and now the drive by central government to get both central and local government to publish data (soon to include the text of contracts) about spending. Results don't come much better than that.

Enjoy your music, video and photos on your iPad, wherever you are!PC World unveils new revolutionary software for the iPadFirst Apple approved service of its kind from a UK retailerStore as much as 100GB online, up to 6 times your iPad's internal hard drivePC World has today announced the launch of its new iPad Media Streaming service. Designed in collaboration with Livedrive, the iPad Media Streaming service allows iPad owners to store 100GB of media...

LG adds 3D plasma and 72" 3D screens to its portfolio for the second half and is announced as Sky's first choice for 3D TVBerlin, Germany, Friday 3rd September 2010 - LG today launched its extensive range of home entertainment products for the second half of the year and revealed some of the latest technologies due for release this autumn, including the innovative new range of 3D plasma TVs and home cinema systems. The electronics...

There are tons of Photo Book creators out there nowadays. But Kodak Gallery’s new Photo Books with Smartfit technology wants to make it even easier than ever for people to make photo books. I myself have used an assortment of photo pook creators, and while many of the ones out there now are pretty intuitive, it does take a while to actually build the photo book itself. SMARTFIT Technology however, is about to change all of that – it features an auto-fill system that can organize and lay out a photo book in just a few minutes. It can arrange pictures based on event and date creation, and adjusts to accommodate landscape, portrait and panoramic shots. This way, you can stay focused on perhaps the most fun part of the creation process – choosing page themes, writing captions, and adding your own personal touches.

Plus Toshiba's tablet hands-on, Twitter's bad OAuth, TfL timetables and more

Everything must go! Photo by And all that Malarkey on Flickr. Some rights reserved

A quick burst of 11 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Vox is closing September 30, 2010 >> Vox
"Vox has been a fun place to explore, create and connect with your friends. But Vox is closing its doors on September 30, 2010.
"This doesn't mean you have to say goodbye to your blog. We want you to make sure you can keep the great content you've shared on Vox, and continue to have a home for your blog. To help you make the transition off of Vox, we've added new export features that make it easy to move your blog to a free TypePad account, and your photos & videos to Flickr."

My job was to game Digg using infographics, voting networks, and bait-and-switch >> Reddit
A Digg-gamer explains the how, why, and how much.

Why Users Fill Out Forms Faster With Top Aligned Labels >> UXMovement.com
Because they don't have to move their eyes back and forth so much. Sounds obvious. Isn't.

It's time for the baked-in Android UI to die >> Computerworld Blogs
Not sure whether the mobile carriers are listening, but.. "Listen up, Android manufacturers: The time has come for your built-in Android user interface to go away. Call it Motoblur, call it Sense, call it whatever you want -- as long as it's coming preinstalled on Android phones, it's officially overstayed its welcome."

Toshiba Folio 100 preview >> Engadget
For €399, you get.. "We just got to handle the Folio 100, after witnessing it bolted to a wall earlier, and we have to admit that it's lighter and thinner than it looks at first glance. Unfortunately, it still feels pretty cheap, and we're not sure how much we trust ourselves one-handing something this large and fragile seeming. Our brief glimpse of Toshiba's custom skin on here was most depressing -- it's not final, but we're not sure why Toshiba is even bothering showing anything in this abysmal state." Oh.

Compromising Twitter's OAuth security system >> Ars Technica
"Sadly, Twitter's extremely poor implementation of the OAuth standard offers a textbook example of how to do it wrong. This article will explore some of the problems with Twitter's OAuth implementation and some potential pitfalls inherent to the standard. I will also show you how I managed to compromise the secret OAuth key in Twitter's very own official client application for Android."

Reddit 'excited' about chance to eat Digg's lunch >> VentureBeat
"Reddit saw an uptick of about 30 percent in "self-serve" ad sales this week, and is seeing a strong rise in new subscriptions to it's 'Reddit Gold' program, (which gives users who pay a sneak peak at new features), according to Erik Martin, Reddit's community manager. "It's still going up. Our numbers have been going up significantly for the entire year, and in the last week or so with the refugees from Digg, a lot of people are hearing about us from friends or on Twitter. We're seeing a lot of new users.""

TfL Timetable Listings >> London DataStore
"The data available in the attached zip file consists of almost 800 xml files, with each relating to a particular service i.e. one per tube line, bus route, riverboat route, dlr route etc". Ooooh yeah.

iPod nano (sixth generation) review: first look >> PC Pro blog
"my overwhelming first impression is that the new nano is a miniaturisation too far."

Essex Councty Council CIO on mysterious 'indefinite leave' >> ComputerWorld UK
In the midst of a major transformation programme with IBM, his leave only drew the comment from the council that "we use a leave of absence as part of our resolution procedures". Odd.

Free Domain Reports with Safety Ratings >> AVG Threat Labs
Basically, much like what other AV companies have been offering - a "safe surfing" method of checking sites. Not much use without an API, to be honest; but an API might be easily abused. Conundrum.

You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on delicious

It has just been two days since the dreamy new HP Envy 14 Beats Edition laptop was announced, and there is already a $50 coupon code available for it! The HP ENVY 14 Beats edition 14.5-inch comes with a Core i5 (or i7) processor, a red backlit keyboard, 1GB ATI MObility Radeon HD 5650 graphics, and an awesome 14.5″ BrightView Infinity LED Display. Plus it’s bundled with Beats by Dr. Dre Solo Headphones with ControlTalk.

Get the the HP 14 Envy Beats Edition for $1,199.For more great daily gadget bargains check out LogicBuy.

London, UK, 2nd September 2010 - Toshiba UK today announced a brand new selection of innovative products at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, including Toshiba's first ever 3D ready television and 3D Blu-ray™ player, Toshiba's Android tablet, new super slim REGZA televisions designed in collaboration with JACOB JENSEN DESIGN and updates to the Satellite A665 3D laptop. In addition, Toshiba has also announced the StorE TV+ hard disk drive and a pair of new Camileo...

Sure, the new iPod Nano 6g is certainly adorable, but I can already foresee these little fellas getting lost all around the city, kinda just like the bed bugs going around.  So I find it amusing when cases are designed to enable this to happen even more. Despite the cuteness of the new Wristlet from Griffin, its one-piece wrist strap design only makes it easier to leave it behind at the bank, subway, and supermarket checkout. On the other hand, the Wristlet certainly makes it easier to grab out of your purse. But being the forgetful type, I think I’d prefer a clip over a wristlet. The Griffin Wristlet will retail for $19.99 and is currently available for pre-order.

Berlin, Germany - This year at the Internationale Funk Ausstellung (IFA), taking place in Berlin from September 2-8, Philips is unveiling a range of advanced consumer products that help people enjoy a healthier and better life in a simple way. Whether it's a new home cooking device that delivers the great taste of fried food with no oil[1], a new range of headphones especially designed for an active lifestyle, or the launch of Europe's greenest...