satellite

A few weeks ago I asked how many people had given up on standard definition completely and only watch high definition. Interestingly, even though the majority of you had made the switch, it seems many were dissatisfied with the picture quality of their HD programming.

At the top of the HD quality pyramid is Blu-ray, of course. Lots of bandwidth, lots of storage, and pristine image quality are the hallmarks of what will surely be our last physical media format.

Quality degrades rapidly, though, as you change media. In many markets, the HD broadcast (over-the-air) signal is nearly as good as Blu-ray. But this isn't always the case. Many stations try to squeeze multiple channels within their allotted bandwidth (such as 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and so on, all from the same station). This has a noticeable and negative effect on the quality.

Worse yet are cable and satellite TV, all of which have limited bandwidth to work with. Additional compression to fit in more total channels is the norm, as is adjusting the quality of more popular programming at the expense of the picture quality of less popular channels. Some providers are better than others, and I'd be very interested to read in the comments how you feel about the picture quality of your cable or satellite provider. … Read more

If you ask Steve Jobs what do to if you want to carry your entire digital library on your iPad--a library consisting of hundreds of gigabyte of data--he'd probably lower his voice and tell you how shiny the device is, point out that it's super thin, and remind you that the iPad offers 10 solid hours of battery life. And then you'd likely be so carried away by the magical Smart Cover that you'd forget your original question. You might even feel guilty for asking.

If you ask me, however, I have a more direct answer: … Read more

Alpine Electronics puts its weight behind SiriusXM satellite radio in the car with its announcement of a new line of single-DIN CD receivers that will bear the new SiriusXM-Ready badge, marking their compatibility with the car audio supplier's new SVX100 SiriusXM Connect Vehicle Tuner Kit. For the first time, Alpine is offering a bundled SiriusXM tuner and CD receiver package, giving customers a turn-key option for getting satellite radio content through their cars' speakers.

The star of the show is the SXV100 SiriusXM tuner, which provides access to a number of advanced satellite radio features in addition to the … Read more

MENLO PARK, Calif.--If you've seen the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," you know how dangerous bomb dismantling can be. But researchers have developed a system that they say can allow military and police to disarm explosives without risking anyone's life.

The system, developed by scientists at SRI International, is known as Taurus, and it is a miniature robot that can allow a trained dismantler to remotely do the work that used to require getting up close and personal, often too close for comfort, to a bomb.

According to Tom Low, SRI's director of medical systems and telerobotics, Taurus will be in field trials this summer and is expected to be commercially available by early 2012. While he would not say specifically what the 14-inch wide robot would cost, SRI's goal is to sell it for "less than the price of a squad car," meaning that many police departments, as well as military agencies, could conceivably buy it.

I got a presentation on Taurus from Low yesterday during a visit to SRI as part of my Road Trip at Home series. I've been to SRI before and seen things like wall-climbing robots, but seeing the way that Taurus could potentially help save lives was a much starker reminder of the ways that robots can make a real difference.

Taurus is a cousin of some of SRI's previous efforts into remote-controlled telemanipulation robotics. For years, the institution has worked on systems designed to allow remote surgical procedures, such as a military doctor being able to operate from afar on a wounded soldier. Low explained that this work began in the mid-to-late 1980s, and was intended to allow highly-trained surgeons to work on such soldiers within minutes of them sustaining injuries.

Over the years, this technology led to the creation of more general-purpose robots, such as the M7 system, which could allow security personnel to remotely explore, say, an abandoned bag at an airport. Low explained that it was crucial that the system be easy to use and quick to learn. … Read more

Some satellite radio subscribers woke up this morning wondering where their favorite stations went. Today, Sirius XM completed its network unification, combining all satellite radio stations into a single channel lineup. All cars equipped with satellite radio now have access to the same stations and in the same order, but it also means that some stations have been combined, renamed, or have changed places on the dial.

For the most part, the station unification involves a simple reordering of channels. For example, in cars equipped with XM satellite radio, listeners will now find Hair Nation on channel 39 instead of … Read more

Sirius XM will release Satellite Radio 2.0 this fall, according to a source close to the company. The next generation of the satellite radio subscription service will feature time-shift recording capabilities, increased storage for portable hardware devices, and on-demand content channels.

Because of licensing limitations, you can't record and store Sirius programming in your car. If you miss Howard Stern on the way to work, you're out of luck. But new satellite channels will host popular programs, and make them available for on-demand playback, according to a Sirius insider. That's means the big game will be … Read more

Don't you hate it when you drop $10 million on a new private jet, and you don't have any cash left over to afford the $500,000 in-flight mobile phone system?

A new Android app is out to bridge that gap between those who can go anywhere, anytime and those who can go anywhere, anytime and call their other wealthy friends while they're doing it.

SafeCell, developed by ASiQ Limited Australia, enables users to make in-flight calls with their Android smartphone. At $12,500 for a single license--add $5,000 for multi-channel--it is likely the most expensive Android app yet, but that's still a big savings over conventional half-mil in-flight systems.

"The development of the Android app follows on from our initial Blackberry and Symbian versions...We now see why Android has gained such a high consumer acceptance," ASiQ CEO Ron Chapman said in a press release. "The app is very fast, which means that making a call at 30,000 feet or sending a message is just as simple as if you were using your mobile on the ground."… Read more

A growing number of people are willing to ditch their cable or satellite subscriptions in favor of online, over-the-air, and streaming television options, a new study from the Convergence Consulting Group has found.

According to the researchers, 2.07 million U.S. television subscribers will have "cut the cord" between 2008 and the end of 2011. Between 2008 and 2009 alone, the firm said that 550,000 households cut the cord. Last year, it estimates 1 million households did the same.

Of course, that still represents a tiny fraction of the overall viewership. Convergence Consulting says that at … Read more

It's a startling picture of how dramatic and destructive Friday's massive earthquake actually was.

The quake, which was upgraded today to a magnitude 9.0 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, may have shifted the position of Earth's axis about 6.5 inches, Richard Gross, a geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the Los Angeles Times. The quake likely sped up the Earth's rotation, shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds, Gross said. Also, the main island of Japan appears to have moved 8 feet, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey told CNN.

To … Read more