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satellite

Audiovox wants to one-up other XM satellite portables

Shhhhhh! Audiovox has been displaying the XM2Go/MP3 portable in its copious CES 2007 booth, but the company isn't quite ready to discuss details. Scheduled for a late-summer release, the X2G100B will offer a similar feature set as other XM/MP3 portables such as the Delphi SkyFi3--live and recorded XM playback, MP3 playback, storage, and so on--but company execs say they are taking some time to make sure they can equip the player with enough cool features to really differentiate it from other XM/MP3 portables.

It will likely have at least enough memory to store up to 50 … Read more

Dish Network gives away HD-DVR with new subscription plan

The headline on Dish Network's press release says "free high-definition DVR," but the fine print is a bit less exciting. The company introduced two new programming packages, called DishDVR Advantage and Dish DVR Advantage HD, that are said to reduce the cost of items purchased separately--as much as seven percent for the first package (woo hoo!). The "free high-definition DVR," a ViP-622 normally available for $199, is part of the HD version. For the reasonable cost of $69.99 per month, customers will receive the DVR, the satcaster's 30 national HD channels (more info), … Read more

DirecTV promises 100 HD channels and satellite to go

In a major announcement at CES this year, DirecTV said it would expand its national HD channel offering to 100 channels by the end of the year, far surpassing the HD channel offerings of satellite rival Dish Network and of cable providers. The "100" number sounds suspiciously round to me, but the company's press release mentions it has "signed agreements, or agreements in principle, with more than 70 major networks including: A&E, National Geographic, Bravo, NFL Network, Cartoon Network, SciFi Channel, CNN, Speed, Food Network, TBS, FX, the History Channel, HGTV, the Weather Channel, … Read more

Pioneer's A/V receiver handles XM and Sirius all-in-one

The big surprise at CES 2007 has been the dearth of major announcements about new home-audio products. Receivers with HDMI 1.3 and built-in decoding for next-gen lossless audio formats are nowhere to be seen. But at least one receiver has brought something new to the table: Pioneer's VSX-1017TXV is the first model we've seen that offers built-in compatibility with both XM and Sirius satellite radio services. (In fact, it's one of three receivers in Pioneer's 2007 line that offers the dual-satellite option.)

As evidenced by the model number, the 1017TXV is just an evolutionary upgrade … Read more

Seeking other planets

Europe on Wednesday morning launched a new space observatory from a rocket base in Kazakhstan.

The COROT satellite was produced by a French-led design and science team. COROT--the acronym for Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits--uses highly precise sensors to note diminshed light emissions when planets pass between the satellite and the star being observed.

Main goal of this satellite: find other rocks in space--that is, other planets around other stars besides our own sun. When they find those other planets, will we also find out if "Britney Spears" is the most-searched term on their Internet?

Sirius TV on the way

Sirius Satellite Radio may start beaming video through its service by end of next year, according to comments made by boss Mel Karmazin at a media summit this week in New York. Don't expert to see Howard Stern and his naked guests; The company will initially focus on video content that keeps the kids quiet in the back seat. That's probably the easiest sell to current users and a fairly affordable type of content for Sirius to license.

Bits is bits, so sending video shouldn't be much harder than audio with the main difference being that the … Read more

Satellite TV in your car

We firmly believe in freedom on the road, but we have to draw the line at watching TV in the car. After all, if we're already concerned about using the phone while driving, how do you expect us to feel about channel surfing?

We hope, therefore, that KVH's "TracVision A7" is designed for the passengers in the vehicle because it would be dangerously distracting to anyone behind the wheel. The mobile receiver provides up to 185 DirecTV channels and XM Satellite Radio, as well as standard broadcast transmissions. And if you can't resist sneaking a … Read more

Speakers masquerade as fishing reels

These Kenwood satellite speakers are deceiving for a couple of reasons. One, they're made with natural charcoal; two, they look just like fishing reels.

Fareastgizmos, which says the charcoal minimizes distortion, breaks down the specs this way: "The 2-way speaker system with sealed 66mmBINCHO-TAN Plus PP Hybrid cone woofer and 20mmPEI balance dome tweeter with playback frequency 120Hz - 70kHz, 83dB impedance at 4Ω measures 110W?115H?122D and weighs 0.42kg (1) speaker."

Um, OK. All we know is that these KSC-SS10 speakers will be available next month in Japan for about $215. The rod is … Read more