satellites

LightSquared, which is building a nationwide 4G LTE network, said today it has a fix that will ensure its network doesn't interfere with GPS navigation equipment.

The company said it is setting aside spectrum that is in the spectrum band adjacent to the one used for GPS or Global Positioning Systems. LightSquared has worked out a deal with satellite provider Inmarsat to use frequencies lower in the spectrum band that is further away from the GPS spectrum. These frequencies are not expected to interfere with GPS gear.

Originally, LightSquared had planned to move into that band of spectrum over … Read more

Your HDTV, HD cable box, Blu-ray player, and even most DVD players and receivers will "upconvert," or scale, a standard-definition image to fill the screen of an HDTV.

Despite the marketing hype, this doesn't make SD look like HD, but it can make it look better than regular SD. The better the source, the better your TV will look. So how well a piece of gear can make standard definition appear is one of the major performance differences between two products. Recent TVs and Blu-ray players have gotten quite good at this.

The irony is, as good as scalers or upconverters have gotten, they're becoming obsolete.… Read more

Livio Radio, developer of a free car Internet radio app for iPhone and Android, and Dice, developer of audio integration kits for OEM car stereos, have teamed up to provide a solution for streaming Internet radio to your car without ripping out the stock receiver. It starts with an app on your iPhone and ends with hardware that takes over your car's satellite radio input.

Livio's app delivers more than 45,000 Internet radio stations and Internet streaming AM and FM radio stations via your smartphone's data connection. (The app's free version steps down to 300 … Read more

NASA is set to end the 30-year space shuttle program next month with the final mission of Atlantis, but the craft may help extend the life of satellites orbiting Earth, thanks to a handyman robot.

Atlantis will carry a unique robotic experiment during the 12-day STS-135 mission to the International Space Station.

The Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) is designed to help figure out what's needed to refuel satellites in space. As NASA describes it, "RRM is expected to reduce risks and lay the foundation for future robotic servicing missions in microgravity."

The experimental platform will attach to the exterior of the ISS, where remote-controlled maintenance robot Dextre will practice gassing up satellites that are not designed to be refueled. To accomplish that, it would have to get past the seals that typically close a satellite's fuel compartment permanently. … Read more

We've often commented on Toshiba Satellites becoming a confusing galaxy of letter-based lines that share similar looks. Today's announcement of the back-to-school Satellite P700 series should help in this regard, since it's effectively replacing the Satellite A660 and M640 lines, both of which we've reviewed in a variety of versions at CNET.

The P700 isn't anything truly new chassis-wise: it's available in 14-, 15-, and 17-inch variations, and share a Fusion X2 finish we've seen on many models. These laptops do, however, offer the newly announced AMD A6-3400M processor with discrete Radeon graphics, … Read more

Update, June 10, 2011: CEA President Gary Shapiro responds

The Consumer Electronics Association recently commissioned a poll that found that fewer than 8 percent of US households use over-the-air broadcast as their sole means of receiving television programming. This number has been descending, according to the CEA, since 2005.

It is the CEA's position that because fewer and fewer households are getting their TV from over-the-air (OTA), the wireless spectrum used for these broadcasts should be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

In other words, do away with free over-the-air broadcasts as we know it.

While it's true … Read more

Hot on the heels of Seagate launching its GoFlex Satellite wireless external storage device for iOS devices, Kingston has trotted out its own flash-based external drive--the Wi-Drive--which offers very similar features.

With mobile devices like the iPad offering limited memory (and no expansion slot), the idea behind these accessories is that you'd store large video files, as well as other content (including photos, documents, and music) on the drive and then wirelessly access that content via a direct Wi-Fi connection (you don't need an actual Internet Wi-Fi connection to stream content; you stream directly to and from … Read more

Eutelsat Communications' KA-SAT satellite went into service today, opening up a new broadband option for homes and businesses in Europe and the Mediterranean area.

The satellite enables broadband speeds that are competitive with some land-based connections such as ADSL--at least for those in areas too far away from the network equipment--though it won't break any high-speed records. Eutelsat's Skylogic subsidiary offers a Tooway service with download speeds up to 10Mbps for residences; businesses get up to 40Mbps, with a 50Mbps option coming later.

The services come with usage caps, too. The lightweight plan costs 25 pounds or 30 euros ($43) per month, has download speeds of 6Mbps and upload speeds of 1Mbps, and has a 4GB limit. At the high end, costing 100 pounds or 100 euros ($144) per month, the download speed is 10Mbps, upload speed is 4Mbps, and the monthly allowance is 25GB.

Getting started brings some extra fees. A satellite dish costing 200 pounds or 230 euros ($331) must be installed on the outside of the house, too. Self-installation can be done with the help of an iPhone app to point the dish toward the satellite, or people can pay Skylogic 100 pounds to do the work.

Eutelsat launched the satellite in December. It connects to the Internet with 82 "spot beams" that link with 10 base stations. In total, the satellite can send and transmit a maximum of 70Gbps.

The Paris-based company operates 27 satellites commercially, used among other things to beam 3,800 TV stations to people in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and to provide Internet access to buildings, ships, and aircraft. … Read more

A few weeks ago I asked how many people had given up on standard definition completely and only watch high definition. Interestingly, even though the majority of you had made the switch, it seems many were dissatisfied with the picture quality of their HD programming.

At the top of the HD quality pyramid is Blu-ray, of course. Lots of bandwidth, lots of storage, and pristine image quality are the hallmarks of what will surely be our last physical media format.

Quality degrades rapidly, though, as you change media. In many markets, the HD broadcast (over-the-air) signal is nearly as good as Blu-ray. But this isn't always the case. Many stations try to squeeze multiple channels within their allotted bandwidth (such as 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and so on, all from the same station). This has a noticeable and negative effect on the quality.

Worse yet are cable and satellite TV, all of which have limited bandwidth to work with. Additional compression to fit in more total channels is the norm, as is adjusting the quality of more popular programming at the expense of the picture quality of less popular channels. Some providers are better than others, and I'd be very interested to read in the comments how you feel about the picture quality of your cable or satellite provider. … Read more