 "Sleeper hit" of '08? Fortune predicts high-tech radios ·Jan 11, 12:07 PM From Fortune Small Business in CNN Money: “Get ready for what has got to be the all-time greatest sleeper of a tech trend: Radios, I kid you not, are making a comeback in 2008. “And we’re not talking iPod-like portable thingies, but big, expensive desktop radios. Mark my words, they’ll be downright cool in the coming year. Best of all, charting this new radio frontier is a fleet of innovative small businesses… “But this new generation of desktop radios, taking its introductory bow here at the 2008 International “Radios are feeling a strange brand of love radiated by the public’s growing hatred for complex electronics. Innovative new models take full note of consumer distaste for too many features and difficult-to-operate equipment. Most new desktop systems, like the new line from Sonoro Audio ($289), sport ultra-simple designs with a half-dozen controls and few functions. It doesn’t hurt that the device, which the Koln, Germany-based 25-employee firm is launching in the United States this week, looks like something you would buy at a better furniture store. “But my pick of the new radio litter comes from tiny Somerville, Mass.-based Cue Acoustics. This three-person, self-financed startup is betting its entire future on a radio: the Cue R1 Radio ($399). The R1 is the brainchild of Cue’s president, industrial designer Samuel L. Millen. It takes great advantage of the latest in miniaturization of audio components to deliver a radio of utmost quality and good looks. Millen has built the Cue with four – count ‘em, four – independently amped channels at 25 watts each. That’s a borderline ludicrous 100 watts of power for a radio the size of a small shoe box. “There is no denying the results. The unit uses advanced tuner technology that makes it easy to control the high-quality Philips radio within. The whole package is wrapped in an attractive black enclosure that supports an iPod dock on top… “At this rate, what’s next? The return of horse-drawn carriages?” Read the entire article at CNN Money. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
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