XM versus SIRIUS
The idea of America’s biggest two satellite-radio joining forces has been up in the air for almost four years. Although XM had a year’s start, Sirius came back on the market, eventually with both companies sharing the market in half. So, what’s to choose? XM or Sirius?
First thing’s first. XM and Sirius are based on the same principle, each of them providing music, news, sports, etc. on their channels, but, every service has its ups and downs so we will try to discuss it in this present article. A careful analysis shows that XM Satellite Radio provides a total of 136 streams, where two are premium channels (Playboy and High Voltage), twenty-one are traffic and weather based channels and nine are sport-dedicated ones. On the other hand, Sirius offers a total of 119 streams, the premium streams not being available. Let’s take a closer look now on two – music and news - of the categories that the two major satellites are battling.
Music streams comparison
The number of music streams that both services offer is pretty much the same: 65 on Sirius and 68 on XM Satellite Radio but the difference is not in the number, but in the music genres that the radios offer.
Music – Decades
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How does satellite radio work?
Satellite radio is one of the biggest improvements in broadcasting since the introduction of FM. Satellite radio signal can be broadcasted for more than 35,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) with complete clarity and high quality sound. You will never get static interferences while listening to over 100 radio channels. The idea behind satellite radio has appeared in 1992, when the United States Federal Communications Commission granted a spectrum of the S band (the 2.3 GHz frequency) for Digital Audio Radio Service. The license to broadcast in that band was allocated to Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio in 1997. Now there are three companies that provide satellite radio in the world: Sirius and XM in Northern America and WorldSpace in Asia, Europe and Africa.
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Choosing a Touch Screen Display
Touch screens have been with us since the early 1970’s but it has only been in the last few years that the technology has expanded into personal applications as well as business.
Traditionally touch screen displays were expensive and only to be found in industrial applications but recent advances and falling cost of technology has meant that the touch screen display is now in everything from the mobile phone and pocket computer to ATM machines and information points.
Touch screens work in one of a number of ways from using infrared to detect the heat of a finger to the more accurate resistive and capacitive touch screens that use an electrical field.
Touch screens have an obvious advantage over conventional monitors in that using a graphical user interface (GUI) and touch screen means that the display can act as both an input and output device so there is no need for a separate keyboard and mouse and their associated wires.
In selecting a touch screen display several questions need to be asked - what tasks will the display be used for, how clear does the monitor need to be, what environment will it be placed in and how responsive does it need to be? Read more
