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Pandora Selects Coding Technologies' aacPlus for Personalized Mobile Radio Service

Posted on: Thursday, 24 May 2007, 09:00 CDT

Coding Technologies, the leading provider of audio compression technology for digital broadcasting, mobile music and the Internet, today announced that Pandora has chosen its MPEG-4 HE-AAC/aacPlus audio codec to deliver its new, personalized radio music service to its mobile listeners. The music discovery service, previously only available to online PC users, allows any aacPlus-enabled Sprint Power Vision mobile phone owner to create up to 100 personalized radio stations based on their favorite artist or song. Initially, this service will be available on the following Sprint Power Vision models, which include the FUSIC by LG, the A900 and A920 by Samsung, and the 7500 and 8400 by Sanyo. In addition, five more models will be available by the end of June.

Widely regarded as the world's most efficient audio codec capable of delivering a CD-like audio experience at very low bitrates, aacPlus is the technology of choice for live and on-demand audio for the most demanding PC, mobile television, Internet and radio applications. To date, aacPlus is available on over 200 million mobile devices worldwide from manufacturers such as LG, Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

"We evaluated several audio codecs on the market and aacPlus from Coding Technologies was the clear choice for our new venture with Sprint," said Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora. "aacPlus's high-quality audio and impressive momentum in the marketplace made our choice obvious. Coding Technologies' solution has exceeded our expectations in terms of performance and audio quality."

Pandora is a free Internet-based radio service with close to 7 million registered listeners. Its innovative Music Genome Project, combined with an intuitive interface allows users to hear a continuous stream of their favorite music style based on the music of a favorite song or artist.

"By applying the quality and efficiency of aacPlus, Pandora has been able to bring their revolutionary music experience to music aficionados on the go," said Shawn Hopwood, senior director for Coding Technologies. "We are proud to be the enabling technology behind Pandora on Sprint."

Coding Technologies' aacPlus audio codec empowers some of the world's most demanding and cutting-edge wireless music and television entertainment applications and services, including those from AOL, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, REAL, Sprint and XM Satellite Radio.

The PC and Mobile Pandora service is available at: www.pandora.com.

All trade names, company names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective owners.

Coding Technologies

Coding Technologies provides the best audio compression for mobile, broadcasting, and Internet. SBR™ (Spectral Band Replication) from Coding Technologies is a backward and forward compatible method to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec; putting the "PRO" in mp3PRO and the "Plus" in aacPlus. Parametric Stereo from Coding Technologies and Philips again significantly increases the efficiency of audio codecs for stereo signals at low bit rates. Products from Coding Technologies are fundamental enablers of open standards such as 3GPP, 3GPP2, MPEG, DVB, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, and the DVD Forum.

Coding Technologies is a privately held company with offices in Sweden, Germany, China, and the USA. Founded in 1997 in Stockholm, the company later merged with a spin-off of the renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, the inventor of MP3. Coding Technologies' customers include America Online, EMP, iBiquity Digital, KDDI, O2, Nokia, Orange, RealNetworks, SK Telecom, Sprint, T-Mobile, Thomson, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, and XM Satellite Radio.

For more information, visit www.codingtechnologies.com.

About Pandora

Pandora (www.pandora.com) is a personalized radio service, available anytime and anywhere on the PC, in the home and on mobile devices. Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, which began in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in this massive collection, which includes Pop, Rock, Jazz, Electronica, Hip Hop, Country, Blues, R&B, and Latin, is analyzed by one of more than 50 trained musicians, and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes (encompassing melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) to capture its unique musical identity. Pandora uses this information to build playlists based on musical similarity. By simply entering a favorite song or artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening experience, full of new discovery as Pandora explores their favorite part of the music universe. Listeners can create up to 100 of these personal radio stations and refine them by providing feedback via the Pandora radio tuner. Additionally, listeners can create profiles, search for other listeners in the Pandora community who have similar musical tastes, and find stations built by other listeners, using artist and song names as well as genre and mood search terms. The music analyst team works daily to keep the Music Genome Project updated with the latest releases, emerging artists, and an ever-deepening collection of catalogue titles.

Source: Business Wire

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