Beatnik, a US-based software company, has announced a new music download system that claims to compress songs up to 10 times more than the mp3 format, and they plan to market the system to handset makers and cellular service providers.  Beatnik exec Jeremy Copp says his comapany is, "More than doubling the addressable market for music services," by making tracks with smaller file sizes available to non-smartphones and phones operating on so-called 2.5G networks. 

In other words, by compressing music tracks down to one-tenth the size of what we're used to, Beatnik says they can deliver songs to mass market consumers using mass market (i.e. low-end) phones on mass market (i.e. EDGE or slower) networks.  Word is that the compression scheme involves locating parts of a song that repeat throughout the track and pointing to one copy of that section as needed instead of actually repeating the audio data multiple times across the file.

Beatnik founded Thomas Dolby Robertson was quoted in Wireless Week as saying the Beatnik Mobile Music Player will deliver, "a high quality listening experience," though it remains to be seen if the solution can, in fact, cram a 4 minute song into less than one megabyte of data without making it sound like an old AM radio.

Also according to Wireless Week, "The company says it is in talks with operators, handset manufacturers and content providers about adopting the system and expects to announce a partnership in a month."

Read at: wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=148408