This week XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio providers, closed a deal to merge both companies to equal a net value of $13billion. Both companies plan to share their specialty content, which was originally limited to each service, to all their listeners soon. This means both XM and Sirius subscribers will eventually have access to more HD commercial-free music, news, talk, entertainment, sports, traffic, and weather.

“This combination is the next logical step in the evolution of audio entertainment,” said Mel Karmazin (CEO SIRIUS Satellite Radio) “Together, our best-in-class management team and programming content will create unprecedented choice for consumers.”

Sirius currently offers 130 high definition channels while XM offers 170. Both services offer their subscribers free access to the content through the internet. At the moment the companies claim they plan to reduce the cost of the service and increase the content, however since there will only be one remaining satellite radio provider (no competition) they can increase costs all they want. Luckily, for the time being both XM and Sirius claim that monthly costs will not change and customers will not have to purchase new units to receive additional content from the other service. Neither companies have stated when the merge would be completed or when the mixed content would be available to all customers.

Links: XM Satellite Radio | Sirius Satellite Radio
Press Releases: XM Press | Sirius Press

Two weeks ago at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony announced the long awaited 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo. The card weighs less than two grams and is only 0.79 inches wide and 1.22-inches long. The Pro Duo card will work with plenty of Sony’s hardware media products such as the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Mylo, Sony Ericsson phones, and Cyber-shot digital cameras. Although this is good news for many, the current price isn’t. According to Sony, the 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo will be on store shelves next month (Feburary ‘07) for a retail price of $300!

Unless you absolutely want this much storage, we don’t reccomend wasting this much money on it since it costs about $100 more than the PSP itself. Prices should drop as soon as third-party companies such as Sandisk begin to manufacture these cards, however this may a while. As for now, prices on smaller capacities are getting quite cheap. You can now get a 1GB card for as low as $25 and a 2GB card for about $55.

P.S. At least the price is much lower than it originally was. During CES 2006 when the 4GB model was originaly released, the expected cost of the 8GB model was around $800!

Links: SonyStyle.com | Press Release