Radio today (Sept 1935-Dec 1936)

WHAT DO YOU MEANRADIO FACSIMILE? • NEWSPAPERS and magazines printed by radio in homes everywhere ! Wait and see. Just as the invention of the printing press abruptly switched the course of civilization many years ago, today "radio facsimile," a new and far more miraculous extension of the graphic arts is nearing commercialization, with the probable result of tremendous changes in present methods of the distribution of knowledge and news. The new development will whisk printed pages into homes and remote places with the speed of light (or radio, which is the same thing) ■ — with a stunning effect on publishing and advertising fields. In fact, a metropolitan newspaper, complete with headlines, display advertising, cartoons, all of them typographically up-to-the-minute, can now be laid down at the most distant fireside without the aid of physical transportation facilities. Important news events will receive a new treatment. Within a few minutes after they happen, they will be recorded, in full printed display with pictures, and will actually be delivered in reader homes. The present newspaper treatment, which requires at least six or eight hours, will be definitely outmoded. Here are the details of the development. In most cases, the Great American Family may sit around the radio all evening, let us say, but when midnight rolls around, the music is shut off, the family retires. But the radio set may be made to work the rest of the night, using the same tubes and waves. Switched to a button labelled "Radio Newspaper" the set will get busy with printing a news record in the regular newspaper page style. And in the morning the family will find in a basket under the receiving set, a complete newspaper, including headlines, pictures, display ads, style forecasts, weather reports, advertisingoffers, and whatever else is appropriate to the day. What is. more revolutionary, the "radio" paper will include the news up to a few minutes before it is clicked out in the home. Compared with the metropolitan news sheet, which local families may have to travel a few miles to get, it will be a complete "scoop." nt» r»M»r» THE NEW YOBK SUN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER .ii*,... ■ YuuTbinlt Editoi *rr Of "P#i>tt«irt" ii In Dw bopc (Ij.1 -h hfcpfry t*l»(lotie Newspaper page transmitted by radio facsimile process developed by 0. J. Young, Camden, N. J. Radio research men call the new method "facsimile transmission" though it may well be dubbed "flash publishing" compared to the present method of newspaper production and delivery. Works all 24 hours It will be noted that this facsimile newspaper process has the special advantage of putting the broadcasters' costly and elaborate radio equipment to work during the early morning hours, when it is now standing idle. The 23 million receiving sets, too, now idle between the hours of 1 to 6 a.m. will have work to do that will be vital and important to their owners. The "cumulative" service, working during the night reproducing printed and pictorial matter will open limitless opportunities for new advertising revenues to the broadcasters, both in display service and in whatever other media this development may bring along with it. Since the radio newspaper will reach the very last receiving set throughout the country, no matter how remote, its advertising importance can scarcely be over-rated. The new printing attachment needed in the home for the production of the radio sheet is so simple that its principle of operation is readily understood by those without a technical vocabulary. It is generally understood that a radio loud speaker produces sound by vibrating a diaphragm, and that it is these vibrations, corresponding to the sounds of music, voice, etc., which set the loudspeaker diaphragm into movement. Thus, broadcasters send electrical vibrations corresponding to sounds made in their studios, to receivers throughout the land. If watched closely, the loudspeaker diaphragm can be seen to vibrate particularly when low notes (slow vibrations) are being reproduced. It is apparent that if the incoming vibrations are fed to a control magnet on a moving stylus, rather than to a loudspeaker, the stylus (or moving pen) will be lifted on and off the paper as vibrations are received. It follows that if the pen or stylus can be made to move regularly across a paper in closely parallel lines, one 22 Radio Today