Incorporated in 1992, XM satellite radio now has 6 million subscribers across the country. With the biggest, most extensive radio station in the United States, they are based in Washington, DC, and utilize three satellites. With 21 channels alone devoted to traffic and weather updates, 30 channels of news, sports and entertainment, and a playlist of more than 2 million songs, XM entertains, informs and educates its listeners. XM also offers 69 music separate networks.
With XM subscribers can tune into more than 5,000 live sporting events yearly, including major league baseball, National Hockey League games, NASCAR, PGA, and college football and basketball from the ACC and the Big Ten. XM also has a diverse range of talk shows, with popular hosts including Ellen DeGeneres, Al Franken, Jerry Springer and more. Subscribers can listen to XM anywhere without having to use a radio, as the company offers an online streaming service that’s available wherever customers have an Internet connection. This service is part of the standard XM subscription. All XM music is totally commercial free – non-stop radio, with no interruptions.

The marketplace is filled with multiple types of High Definition Televisions (HDTV) such as LCD, Rear and Front Projection, DLP, and LCoS. The number of manufacturers is skyrocketing and new emerging technologies such as SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter display) are coming on strong. Even with all this competition, Plasma TV is still the number one choice of most experts. No other type of technology can consistently give the razor sharp resolution and outstanding brightness and color.

There’s an interesting new type of gadget that is specifically designed to bridge the gap between the home computer an the home entertainment system. This is a gap that the computer industry has been trying to bridge for years- at least since the early nineteen nineties- and maybe before in some way or another. In the past these efforts have failed for a number of reasons. For one thing, many people believe that the home office is where the computer belongs while the living room is where the home entertainment system belongs and the two shouldn’t mix. While some of us might like the idea of being able to relax on the couch or in our favorite easy chair while typing emails and getting work done, most Americans seem to want to keep their work and relaxation separate. Of course, computers have increasingly served as sources of entertainment, but people are still unwilling to bring their computers into the living room, and the cabling and other complications of bringing the content of computers from the office to the living room- without moving the actual box of the computer- has proven to be too difficult for most casual users to manage.
Recent developments in technology have been paving the way for the computer’s entrance into the living room though. For example, it’s already their in the form of digital TV receivers, DVD players, Digital Video Recorders, and video game systems. While none of these devices has the outward appearance of home computer systems or the same type of interface, they do utilize computer technology nonetheless. The increasing number of multimedia applications on home computer systems are also paving the way toward the computer’s acceptance into the living room as well. For example, most of the newest operating systems come with software for editing digital photos, recording video, editing video, and ripping CD’s. All of this media could easily make its way to the home entertainment system, and would be much more enjoyable there for whole families than it would be on the home computer system hidden away in the office.