This week's stories from New Scientist available online. But Americans won't be able to make use of such devices, because the digital TV standard in the US isn't robust enough to support reception on the move. The set, based on the open source Linux operating system, can display Web pages sent alongside digital broadcasts.
Commands transmitted over the device's built-in cellphone modem select the pages .
But Nokia's new device will work only with Europe's DVB digital TV format. Analogue TV and pictures transmitted in the American digital TV format, 8-VSB, cannot be decoded on the move because their signals are not rugged enough. So last week Nokia showed American TV networks what they are missing by not switching to Europe's DVB standard before too many people have bought 8-VSB receivers. DVB divides a signal into several thousand narrow carrier signals that allow a receiver to reject echoes from buildings or hills, whereas 8-VSB relies on a coding system which is prone to echoes that ruin mobile reception.