Online Audio Books

The advantage of selecting audio books online is the fact that you can listen to a segment of the recording before buying. Often a sample of five minutes or so is made available. Sufficient time normally to assess the content and importantly the narrator. That is the nearest thing to flicking through a physical book and reading front and back covers.

Audio files are usually made available MP3 or WMA formats which allows files to be played on PC's and Macs directly. Files can be transferred to a portable MP3 player such as the popular Apple iPod; or they can copied to CD in order to listen to them in a car or on a home stereo system.

Finding book suppliers is facilitated by any of the well known search engines such as Google.com, Yahoo.com and Msn.com. Specific audio book portals provide on site search options which allow author or title related searches and the option to browse between categories.

Companies, such as the start-up Ruckus, have developed technologies that work with Wi-Fi to improve reliability. Because Wi-Fi uses an unlicensed spectrum, it can suffer from interference from other household wireless devices, such as wireless phones and garage door openers. Ruckus has already developed a "smart Wi-Fi subsystem" for 802.11g signals, and it will likely introduce one for 802.11n as well.

Other companies have also tinkered with Wi-Fi to improve performance and reliability. Neosonik, a start-up from Northern California, has come up with a proprietary spin on 802.11a for a wireless home stereo system. Quartics also has devised a Wi-Fi chip for this task.
Some companies, such as Radiospire Networks, have suggested using Wimax to transmit video throughout the home. Intel and Motorola have been working to develop Wimax chipsets for PCs and other consumer electronics. But for the most part, the technology has been seen as a wide-area broadband technology that could replace or augment cellular or citywide Wi-Fi services. Nationwide cell-phone carrier Sprint Nextel has already said it plans to use Wimax to deliver its next generation wireless service over 2.5GHz spectrum.