satellites

With a lineup of perfectly serviceable, but not exactly standout mainstream laptops, Toshiba's Satellite line has long played second-fiddle to the company's excellent Qosmio multimedia laptops.

Aiming to correct this, Toshiba today unveiled an entirely redesigned Satellite line, with what is being called a new "Horizon" pattern in a "Fusion" finish. Toshiba describes it as, "gray pinstripes set upon a field of black." We checked these out in person a few weeks ago, and they had a distinct metallic sheen, quite different from the current black-and-red flamed look.

The new models are … Read more

Attorneys general from 11 states urged the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday to impose conditions on the proposed union of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio should the agency decide to approve the megamerger, according to Reuters.

The state leaders said they were disappointed by Monday's decision by U.S. Justice Department antitrust regulators to let the deal go through without conditions. They suggested restrictions that would preserve competition and protect consumers, such as requiring "Sirius and XM to make interoperable radio receivers available to customers, offer different packages of channels on an a la carte basis, … Read more

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache wrote this article.

It may seem that the Bush administration's approval of the Sirius-XM merger should invite a rush of deals before the next presidential administration, which could be Democratic and therefore more hostile to billion-dollar corporate combinations.

After all, Democrats have spent years alleging that the Bush crowd is overly merger-happy--with the corollary implication that a Clinton or Obama administration won't be. One 2006 column in the New York Times charged that there was a "lack of interest in antitrust enforcement these days," and one frequent … Read more

This story was updated at 2 p.m. PDT with new information and again at 10:30 p.m. with the correct title for Mel Karmazin. He is the CEO of Sirius.

The proposed union of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio won approval Monday from the U.S. Department of Justice, after more than a year of review.

Antitrust officials said they concluded that combining the only two satellite radio players would not "substantially lessen competition," beating back concerns raised by consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign from broadcast radio operators.

"The evidence did … Read more

After Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's announcement this week that the commission is indeed getting closer to making a decision on Sirius Satellite Radio's proposed acquisition of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings, the stock prices of both companies climbed and everyone interested braced for, well, a little more waiting.

But because it's already been more than a year since the deal was announced, that prospect no longer seems terribly daunting. The principals are used to it. And, as the Motley Fool and others have observed, the delay may have worked in the merger's favor: the … Read more

Only yesterday we were complaining that the Palm Centro didn't have enough oomph for our liking when--whaddaya know?--the postman kindly delivered Garmin's Mobile 10, a memory card and sat-nav receiver combo that converts a variety of smartphones, including the Centro, into satellite navigation devices.

You simply stick the card--in microSD, miniSD, and SD formats, all included--into your smartphone, and the sat-nav software automatically starts to install itself. Once installed, you're ready to go and can input full addresses or just a zip code. The receiver automatically pairs with your phone via Bluetooth when you launch the … Read more

The Pentagon scored a point for missile defense advocates last week when an SM-3 missile launched from the USS Lake Erie whacked a defunct satellite in orbit and shattered it into thousands of tiny (and presumably harmless) pieces. But it did leave some questions hanging in the air: Was the mission really necessary? Was it worth the cost? How much of a threat was the hydrazine fuel, really? Did we escalate a space weapons race? Herewith some thoughts on those matters:

MSNBC: "Five myths about the satellite smash-up"

ArmsControlWonk.com: "4 Questions from Geoff Forden"

One shot was all it took for the Pentagon to decommission with extreme prejudice a spy satellite that first failed to operate and then started on a steady descent toward Mother Earth.

A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) streaked skyward from the USS Lake Erie late Wednesday and whacked the satellite while it was still 130 or so miles up in space--and whizzing along at 17,000 miles per hour.

Defense Department officials quickly pronounced the mission a success, not just in hitting the satellite at all, but also in apparently rupturing its fuel tank. The rationale for the target shoot was … Read more

You really have to hand it to the United States. After putting up a remarkable ruckus in November when a Chinese rocket annihilated an old satellite and spread undetermined amounts of debris orbiting Earth, the United States government has decided to do the same to a malfunctioning spy satellite that could rain sizable and toxic debris somewhere on the planet if not destroyed. And China's government urges caution.

The situation is hard to grasp. According to the International Herald Tribune, China and Russia have recently called for a ban on all space weapons, which the United States has opposed. … Read more