iTunes rival radio launches gift cards available online and on target

Streaming music radio service from Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, is today launches two new musical gift options – physical gift cards and online loans. Consumers will have the opportunity to buy a virtual gift card options at $ 10, $ 25, $ 50 and $ 100 values or user-selected amount. In the meantime, the physical card in the value of $ 10 and $ 25 will be sold in more than 600 Target retail stores here in the United States.

Gift card radio is flexible in that it did not specify how the money should be used. The recipient can choose to use it towards their monthly subscription offline music or with recently announced unlimited family plan radios.

Radio vs. iTunes-"rent" versus "native"

Gift cards are for the first time the radio is currently sold in retail stores in the United States. Although they will be sold along with the top competitor to iTunes, two services are actually quite different. iTunes payment you music that you upload, which can then be saved and synced to your Apple devices. Radio, instead, provides streaming access to all the music in its catalog of nearly 11 million songs for a monthly fee. In other words from iTunes you own you buy music, but with a radio, for the most part, you rent it.

As Apple's upcoming iTunes match radio also uses a tool that searches your local library (in iTunes or Windows Media Player) look for the names of the artists, albums and songs that are already available in its catalog. With radio in the monthly fee, but Apple will charge $ 25/year to do the same. However, Apple will also update the tracks for high-quality, DRM-format when you run your game.

In addition, users can purchase select the tracks for offline listening if desired – the feature that is on a par with traditional iTunes offer. Often this is due to the music labels and/or rights holders ' restrictions on streaming.

New radio gift cards are available in the trust now or on the radio on the Web site www.rdio.com/gift.

Radio is an unlimited, on-demand social music service that allows subscribers to listen to music on the Web and mobile devices. Radio distinguishes itself for its social design that emulates ...

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Harvesting energy from the radio signals: Two new devices from Japan (video)

Dr. Serkan Toto is currently working as the first and only Asian-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covers with Japan technology and Web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent Internet and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is Saint lingual, holds an MBA and a doctorate in economics. Serkan ... ? Read More

Gleaning electricity from radio signals are not super efficient (or new concept), but it is possible technically. Two companies from Japan has recently come up with new devices that can do just that: a harvesting energy from the cell phone signals, another uses a rectifying antenna (Rectenna) for energy production.

Firstly the device [JP] recently announced Tokyo electronic device can pick up radio signals from cell phones between 800 Mhz and convert them into electricity (800 Mhz frequency is used in mobile phones in Japan). The company says that users can expect to get to 2.5 free milliamperes (stored in the small lithium ion battery).

Device gathers signals from other wireless gadgets, too, and it can provide a few minutes running time is built into tablets and laptops (that's better than nothing). Tokyo Electron markets as "green" product and collaborates with the American company Powercast in its development.

We do not have this device, but professional video shot of the next one, recently developed Rectenna from the Tokyo-based Nihon Dengyo Kosaku. Device (pictured above) itself has two main points of sale: he is thin (12 mm to collect signals from Wi-Fi and 30 mm for digital terrestrial broadcasting waves) and needs just 50 µW authorities begin.

Nihon Dengyo said that their Rectenna can get power in micro Watt range from Wi-Fi signals at a distance of about 10 cm, enough to power sensors, for example. The device can be used both inside and outside buildings.

Here's the video (shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo in English), which provides better:

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