News

Applied Data Systems Demonstrates Gibson Audio's Breakthrough "Wurlitzer" Digital Jukebox (1/4/2004)

Applied Data Systems (ADS), a global leader of application-ready RISC-based systems, demonstrated Gibson Audio's breakthrough new product, the Wurlitzer Digital Jukebox at Booth 2726 at ESC/Electronic. At the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show, the Wurlitzer recently won 'Best of Audio' in the CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards along with Popular Mechanics' 'Editor's Choice Award', and won 'Best of Show' at ESC in the consumer electronics category.

The Wurlitzer Digital Jukebox incorporates cutting edge technologies, elegant industrial design and an extremely simple user interface to provide the most comprehensive feature set of any digital audio device on the market. While invoking the powerful Wurlitzer legacy, the new Wurlitzer Digital Jukebox brings that legacy into the 21st century home, allowing consumers to: (1) store up to 1,000 CDs in digital format; (2) create song and album playlists; (3) create "mix" CDs; (4) access the Wurlitzer Music Service (including more than 100 digital radio channels and instant purchase of digital song downloads); and (5) manage this entire collection of music from any room in the house via a wireless handheld remote with a simple and elegant touch screen interface. With this functionality, the Wurlitzer also has a sound system featuring high-end Klipsch speakers.

The Wurlitzer Digital Jukebox runs on a custom-design embedded single board system from Applied Data Systems (ADS) that was designed within a very quick timeframe. The custom design features next generation processing with Intel's PXA255 XScale, robust IO for supporting the complexity of multimedia options, and sophisticated power management with partitioning. The handheld device is battery operable in a very compact framework.

"ADS developed a successful prototype and customized product within a very quick timeframe," said Kris Carter, president of Gibson Audio, "We were impressed with their engineers' ability to understand our product design needs, and to deliver such a robust working prototype within 6 weeks."

"We are excited to showcase the Wurlitzer as a featured demo at ESC," said Fred Salloum, director of ADS marketing, "That such a sophisticated product with rich multimedia features is running on an embedded system reflects on the maturation of our industry. The Wurlitzer is a powerful, elegant, yet simple product."

The Wurlitzer reflects the Gibson Audio philosophy that people would like to manage home entertainment without complicated computers. There are three models of the jukebox: the flagship Floorstanding design that features Klipsch speakers and 1,000 CD storage; the Component version that is functionally identical to the Floorstanding but without speakers and in a stereo rack form factor designed to fit comfortably in existing home entertainment systems; and a small Executive version that stores 500 CDs and also features Klipsch speakers. These models will retail for $1,899, $1,499 and $999 respectively.

www.applieddata.net/products
www.gibsonaudio.com