Gearfuse

Captured by the GeoEye-1 satellite at about half-meter resolution, this photo shows a stunning view of the Dubai Airshow in progress.

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The AP is reporting that Liberty Media, who had previously expressed interest in Sirius-XM, has signed a deal where it’ll invest $350 million in the failing satellite radio company. This comes right in the nick of time; Sirius had $175 million in bond payments due today, which would have no doubt sent the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Instead, Liberty Media is going to get 12.5 million shares of convertible preferred stock, worth about 40 percent of the company’s common stock. Additionally, two seats on the board will go to Liberty Media, giving it quite a bit of control over the company.

As for current CEO Mel Karmazin, it’s only a matter of time before he’s outta there. Since the merger between Sirius and XM, Karmazin has failed to have the company turn a profit, leading to a lack of investor confidence and a couple close scares. Let’s hope that Liberty Media can stop Sirius-XM from bleeding cash; especially from that $500 million Howard Stern deal. Shareholders, you can breathe a little easier today.

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So you’ve got the debt-riddled satellite radio monopoly known as Sirius-XM and you’ve got veteran satellite pioneer EchoStar. EchoStar is trying to buy Sirius-XM but the company keeps rebuffing its offer. As a shareholder, I believe this is not in our best interests. Sirius-XM has yet to turn a profit and while its subscriber base is increasing, short-term money solutions are becoming a key issue. Some people, like the blog Orbitcast, seem to think that the solution is a Democrat-run FCC. I think we just need more lax anti-trust laws.

Do you use Sirius-XM? Worried about losing your Howard Stern? Chip in and let us know what you think is the right thing for Sirius-XM to do.

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Whether you’re a Sirius XM radio subscriber or not, maybe you’ve heard it’s dropped the punk channels. Subscribers are outraged at the fact that XM Fungus and Sirius Punk were dropped, replaced by an AC/DC channel. That’s AC/DC, all day, everyday. AC/DC? They only have, like, 17 albums.

Why wouldn’t Sirius XM replace every punk band in existence with a band like Rush? At least Rush has 18 albums. What Sirius XM is trying to say is, it doesn’t like punk and it doesn’t appreciate its punk subscribers. Attempting to raise your concerns to Sirius XM will only result in a run-around reply. It appears Sirius XM has closed the door on punk music. That’s so not punk. Evan Dorkin would not be pleased.

Sirius XM says punk is dead. Sign the petition if you disagree.

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With all that FCC brouhaha out of the way, XM and Sirius were able to move forward with their plans for a merger. Announced today, the new name of the combined companies will be Sirius XM Radio Inc. Boring as hell, right? No matter. There’s some major firepower behind this new company. It’ll be “the second largest radio company based on revenue and the second largest subscription media business in the U.S.” Now that’s power.

If you’ve got money to spend in a shit recession, the new stock ticker symbol will be SIRI. I believe Sirius gave XM shareholders $4.57 billion worth of stock total, so if you were holding onto some XM stock, you’re probably doing a little better right now.

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Radio stinks. It’s boring and pretentious and they never play enough 1970s progressive rock bands. In a desperate attempt to get more listeners in on radio, Coby Electronics’ HD Radio launched with promises of higher audio quality for no additional fee.

The two new HD Radio receivers in town include the portable HDR-700 Radio System and the HDR-650 (pictured above) Component HD Radio Receiver. The latter is intended to be integrated into already existing household component systems. So if you don’t have one, you’re up shits creek without a paddle. The HDR-700 is priced at $149, leaving the lower-end HDR 650 at a price tag of $99. With no subscription fees, could this be a reason to give up your satellite radio subscription? Probably not and y’know why? Not enough NPR.

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A rogue U.S. satellite is threatening to plummet into the Earth in March, but don’t worry, our government has got us covered. And we know they’ve never let us down before! Oh, that big shiny thing plummeting straight towards your new home? Don’t worry, nothing to see here. (more…)

In an announcement made to calm anxious business men and XP fans alike, Toshiba has announced that they will be shipping their Satellite T31 notebook with both XP and Vista included in the box. While most of you will only install one of these OS’s, we assume that installing both on partitions is possible.

The T31 will ship in two core packages, one including a 1.86GHz Celeron M system with 512MB of memory, an 80GB hard drive, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive for the  US equivalent of $1,565, with an upgraded package shipping with a faster 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a newer mainboard platform, which will ship for around $1,850. It’s cool that they will be offering both XP and Vista, but I’m still waiting on the day for a fully compatible Mac-Windows computer, with full DirectX compatibility. — Andrew Dobrow

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