Solaria to Power New Digital Radio Alliance
Three organizations recently announced they are embarking on a major humanitarian effort to deliver solar-powered state-of-the-art digital radio technology to the most remote regions of the world. The venture, called "=access", brings together Solaria Corp. (San Francisco, CA), a solar systems company, WorldSpace Corp. (Washington, DC), a provider of global digital satellite broadcasting, and the State of the World Forum (San Francisco, CA), a not-for-profit group of humanitarian, business and educational leaders.The goal of =access is to bring information affluence to billions of "information poor" individuals around the world by using the technology of digital radio and multimedia, broadcast directly to small, inexpensive receivers via three satellites. The aim is to deploy technology to build a global infrastructure as a foundation for providing populations in the developing world with important information, health education, distance learning and other tools for increasing sustainable development.The venture will begin by deploying portable digital radios in Africa, with broadcast service provided by WorldSpace's AfriStar satellite. Then, in a series of roll-outs, receivers will be deployed in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean as WorldSpace expands its service area over the next year with the launch of two more satellites, AsiaStar and AmeriStar. Solaria will provide solar photovolatic technology to power the receivers. The receivers are configured to receive WorldSpace Satellite service with audio and web-like multimedia programming and are equipped with a data port that can be used to downlink webcast Internet-like content for those with access to a computer. No phone line is needed as the digital radio receiver acts as a one-way modem.The first generation of digital radio receivers are being produced by Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic) and Sanyo and are currently available throughout Africa.
