Nominations Open for 2013 NAB Technology Innovation Awards

NAB is currently accepting nominations for the 2013 NAB Technology Innovation Awards. First presented at the 2009 NAB Show, NAB presents the award annually to organizations presenting advanced technology exhibits and demonstrations of significant merit at the NAB Show. Nominated exhibits should present advanced research and development projects in communications technologies that have not yet been commercialized.

Candidates for the Technology Innovation Awards must be organizations who are currently exhibiting at the NAB Show. The size of the organization is not a determining factor. Nominated projects may not be commercial products that have been offered for sale prior to or at the NAB Show. The merit of the technology exhibit is the sole factor to be taken into account. The entry deadline is February 22, 2013. Submission instructions are included in the application form.

The awards will be presented on April 10, 2013, during the NAB Technology Luncheon at the NAB Show in Las Vegas.

Here is a summary of past award winners:

2012 Winners:

Fraunhofer IIS - The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS performs contract research and development for industry and public authorities. Fraunhofer IIS researchers develop microelectronic systems and devices along with the required integrated circuits and software. Fraunhofer IIS received a 2012 NAB Technology Innovation award for its Dialog Enhancement Technology, which allows a user to adjust the volume of a program's dialog relative to other soundtrack elements. For example, individual users can adjust to their preference how loud the announcer's voice is over the background ambience in a sporting event broadcast, or how loud actors' voices are compared to the music or sound effects in a movie. The technology was successfully demonstrated in experimental broadcasts of the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Tournament.

Harald Fuchs, Fraunhofer IIS (above) accepted a 2012 NAB Technology Innovation Award from NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith

George Wright (above), chair of the RadioTAG Application Working Group, accepted a 2012 NAB Technology Innovation Award from NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith.

RadioTAG Application Working Group - The RadioTAG Application Working Group is a team of developers that includes participants from Global Radio, Frontier Silicon, and BBC Research & Development. A 2012 NAB Technology Innovation award was presented to the Group for its work with the RadioDNS Project's RadioTAG specification, in which the implementation of an open radio tagging protocol was developed. The application enables a radio listener to "bookmark" an over-the-air program for later online listening, to flag a song for download or addition to a subscription list, or to sign up for special deals with advertisers, all by simply pushing a button on the radio when the content is heard.

2011 Winners:

Communications Research Centre Canada - The Communications Research Centre (CRC) is the Canadian government's primary laboratory for research and development in advanced telecommunications. CRC received its award for a range of developments in audio loudness monitoring, 2D-to-3D conversion, FM-RDS and hybrid radio on Android smartphones, high-quality video frame-rate conversion, software-defined radio for broadcast applications, and broadcast coverage prediction.

NPR Labs - NPR Labs is engaged with technical research projects supporting the interests of U.S. public radio stations. The organization received its award for a "captioned radio" system for hearing-impaired users, a Personalized Audio Information Service for capture, indexing and on-demand playback of radio reading-service transmissions by visually impaired listeners, and an advanced IBOC interference propagation mapping application.

2010 Winners:

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) - ETRI is Korea's largest government-funded research institute specializing in information and communications technology. At the 2010 NAB Show, a Technology Innovation award was presented to ETRI for its technologies that enhance the ATSC DTV system, including increasing the total data capacity of the system.

Georgia Institute of Technology - the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) is one of the United States' top research universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. GT won a 2010 NAB Technology Innovation award for its development of a hand gesture-based, wireless, touch-free human-TV interface that uses a standard webcam.

2009 Winners:

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) - NICT is a national telecommunications research organization in Japan. The 2009 NAB Show was the first venue outside of Japan where NICT demonstrated some of the advanced imaging and sound technologies being developed in their labs. NICT's award was presented for its demonstrations that included holographic television, glasses-free 3D display, 3D television programming transmitted via broadband from Japan to the NAB convention floor, and a multisensory interaction system exploring human interface to communications media.

NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories - Established in 1930, NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories (STRL) is the research and development arm of NHK, Japan's public broadcaster. A NAB Technology Innovation award was presented to NHK STRL for its demonstrations at the 2009 NAB Show, which included an ultra-HDTV theater (with picture resolution 16 times that of HDTV and 22.2 channels of surround sound), new technologies that reproduce 3D in HDTV, and mobile DTV services based on Japan's digital broadcasting system, ISDB-T.

The December 17, 2012 Radio TechCheck is also available in an Adobe Acrobat file. Please click here to read the Adobe Acrobat version of Radio TechCheck.

RADIO TECHCHECK WILL RETURN JANUARY 7, 2013