

The hidden FM radio inside your pocket, and why you can't use i - pwenzel
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/04/17/npr-hidden-fm-radio

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shawkinaw
_" What Americans really want is the ability to stream, download and customize
music playlists to meet their personal preferences," Carpenter said, according
to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, "and that's not what the traditional FM radio
offers."_

What kind of shoddy defense is that? If Americans don't want to use the FM
function, then, well, they won't.

Obviously that isn't their real reason, but is that the best fake reason they
can come up with?

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Apreche
You think that's bad? In Japan and other countries their mobile phones can
pick up broadcast television for free, no problem. It has been that way for
many many years. They had that technology before we even had the iPhone.
Imagine if you could just pick up NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS, etc. on your phone
without issue. Verizon would have a pretty hard time selling you on NFL live
streaming.

~~~
unsignedint
Except terrestrial TV coverages in the US is laughably bad... so it probably
requires major revision of infrastructure to begin with. (It's ironic how in
Japan you can do that for "free" but broadcasts for fixed TVs are encumbered
by a heavy DRM... but that's a completely different story.)

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dalke
FWIW, 77 comments from 8 hours ago, at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9395944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9395944)
.

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marvel_boy
FM enabled could be a good resource in a emergency.

~~~
def_illiterate
I lived through a large natural disaster. (I don't want to go into specifics
because I like my anonymity.)

The local FM station was the only show in town for about 2 days. The local
t.v. stations were back online, but a lot more people had battery powered
radios than battery powered televisions. :-)

It definitely makes sense in an emergency, especially if it can be coupled
with a low-power mode similar to the one on the new Samsung S6's.

