SIRIUS Satelite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin was at an investment conference today and expressed his optimism that the merger between Sirius and XM Satellite Radio will be approved by government regulators by the end of the month. This has sparked a somewhat huge increase trading today. There has been a lot of optimism recently surrounding the merger and todays news really adds to the momentum it is carrying.
Reuters has quoted Karmazin as saying, “The fact that it has lingered this long, it has been interpreted … as good news.” Karmazin also went on to say, “clearly if there was a big problem with the merger, it wouldn’t take the (regulators) this long to figure it out. Either you believe we compete with a whole bunch of audio choices or you think there’s a distinct market called satellite radio.â€
SIRI was seen trading at up around 2.89 +0.14 (5.09%) while XMSR is also up at 11.71 +0.62 (5.59%) .
I just recently purchased a brand new Asus Eee PC from NCIX. It is a sub-notebook which means it is a fully functional notebook but it is smaller and lighter. All sorts of people these days are buying notebooks and its really becoming a common sight around the University. Well, coming up soo, everyone carrying around an Asus Eee. I think it is a really great idea for school, although the display is only 7 inches, it is more than adequate for typing notes and browsing some webpages wirelessly.  I think a lot of notebooks these days are becoming more and more expensive as they are actually more of desktop replacements and thats note really what I’m looking for in class. Out of the box it comes packaged with Linux and that should provide the functionality for most people but of course you can install Windows if you desire. If you see me around school make sure to ask to see it since it really is something that should be seen. You can check out a comparision picture of an Asus Eee beside a Dell XPS M1330. If you would like to read some more, a great website for news and a cool wiki is the EeeUser webpage.
I thought I would look over all the stats of 2007 and present the facts for the last year. So here they are in all their statistical glory!
Unique Visitors: 1,006
Page Views: 2,397
Top Traffic Source: Google (489 visitors)
Top Keyword: Castlevania (103 visits)
Blog Entries: 80
Top Browser: Internet Explorer (55.78%)
Major Nelson posted a very interesting post on his site just recently. It can be summed up that Microsoft acknowledges that the Xbox LIVE service has been below satisfactory over the holidays and they are attempting to make it up to customers by offering a free Xbox Live Arcade download. I haven’t really had a problem with the service so this free offering seems very reasonable and is going to be well received. I wonder if they are going to limit it or how this whole offering will be given out. It says that details will be following in the next couple of weeks so I have some time to see which new Arcade games I want to try out.
There have been recent rumours surrounding a possible Iron Chef America video game on Nintendo Wii and DS. I am a really big fan of the Iron Chef series so this game really interests me. The Wii and DS already have a creative and fun cooking game with Cooking Mama but Iron Chef will bring more intensity to the battle. The time constraints and theme ingredient will surely add a lot of excitement to the game. It will be interesting to see if they bring in the regular judges as I would love to have Jeffrey Steingarten in there adding his opinion on the food. The multiplayer battles would be a lot of fun so I really hope that the rumour is true and a game is in the works.
Microsoft is set to debut its Fall 2007 update for the Xbox 360 tomorrow, December 4th. This will be a really big update and it shows that Microsoft is listening to its users. The big feature that I’m looking forward to getting is the DIVX and Xvid support. This will be a really big improvement over the existing WMV support. A lot of the other features are forgettable as they are just improvements made to existing features I don’t use. Such as more parental control. Another big thing coming out is the Xbox Originals where you can download select Xbox games to be played off the hard drive. This could be cool depending on how many games they offer and if its possible to delete and redownload these games for free as my hard drive would be full pretty quick. Another feature is the Xbox Live Arcade Hits where they are offering older Arcade titles at discounted prices. Right now I don’t see anything that I don’t already have or anything I want but that doesn’t mean they won’t add something new to the list. I am looking forward to that one in the future for sure. Lastly, a feature that I don’t really think is that important but they are hyping, the Friends of Friends feature. I don’t really know why I need to look at the friends of my friends or why I would want to be adding these people. Oh well, some may find this feature useful.
I noticed a video circulating around for a new game just coming out. The game is called Avatar The Last Airbender — the burning Earth. The video clearly shows how to get 1000 achievement points in less than 2 or so minutes. THQ should be ashamed of themselves for making such a mockery of the achievements system but I guess this is one way to increase the amount of rentals and possibly sales of a sub-par mediocre game.  Have a look at the video as its posted on Youtube here. Definitely easier than the 1000 points from King Kong.
I picked up Guitar Hero 3 today. I was waiting outside Bestbuy for about 10 minutes before they opened. The guy behind me in line was kind of an idiot. He thought the lineup outside the store very good for Apple OSX Leopard. Why would there be a line of 50 people outside Bestbuy for a new version of an Apple OS? Then when someone told him the lineup was actually for Guitar Hero 3 he had no clue what it was. Haha, well this guys stupidity made for an interesting story. Guitar Hero 3 doesn’t really bring much new to the table. After just beating the game already on medium I can tell that I hate the guitar battles. I can easily play through songs and do decently but the guitar battles require some strategy and plain old good luck. I have yet to play the game online but it should be fun duking it out online. So many good games right now and so little time. I have a lot more guitar hero to play and I still have Halo 3 to beat on legendary. I wonder how much my school will be suffering because of all this :)
During the past week Sirius Satellite Radio Inc (Nasdaq: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR) stocks have both gained ground over recent optimism in their merger. One Citigroup analyst, Eileen Furukawa, has even stated that the merger prospects are likely to be about 69% by December 5th. Meanwhile, both stocks have been priced at much lower probabilities of the merger occuring. Some have said that the Sirius stock has a 41% chance of merger built into the price while the XM stock has a 29% chance of the merger occuring built in the price. Because of this, this analyst continues to put both companies as a “buy” and only time will tell whether they are right.
With the recent supporters of the merger from Members of Congress, consumer advocates, and Kia Motors all voicing that they are in favor of the merger I believe the FCC will do the right thing and allow the merger to take place. The reason why I really like the merger is for the possibility of getting the benefits from both services. I would really like to listen to the NHL broadcasts but that requires XM but I don’t want to leave behind all the benefits of Sirius.
The graphical line separating video games and real life has been getting thinner and thinner with each passing console generation, and the Gran Turismo series always seems to be the one leading the charge. If you follow the links to engadgets site you will see the quiz.. I took it and only got 10 out of 15 pictures correct. It is amazing what they can do with pictures these days. Now that the graphics are almost life like, its also time to increase realistic car damag. This is on the list of features for GT5 and I really hope they do a good job on it. This has been one of the main things that keeps it from being truly realistic. Once they get realistic AI, realistic graphics, and realistic damage, it will be the true Driving Simulator.
but Iron Chef will bring more intensity to the battle. The time constraints and theme ingredient will surely add a lot of excitement to the game. It will be interesting to see if they bring in the regular judges as I would love to have Jeffrey Steingarten in there adding his opinion on the food. The multiplayer battles would be a lot of fun so I really hope that the rumour is true and a game is in the works.