Satellite Radio to Offer Portable Receivers

[schwenko]

and will compete with i-Tunes and the like;

from the NY Times December 11, 2005:

"We'll leave it to the gizmo gurus to compare the virtues of the new gadgets, but they operate off the same idea: both XM and Sirius offer 100-plus channels, so why not let listeners keep their favorite songs or shows handy? Why not enjoy the satellite service if you are in a tunnel or leave your car to go into a basement gym for a workout?

Most conveniently, midway through a song on one of the satellite radio channels, a listener can press a button and record it in its entirety; it is automatically sorted by artist. (The Sirius machine even has a clever little heart graphic that pops up on its screen when you do so, signifying the devotion you have just shown.) And you can even prerecord blocks of programming from your favorite channel - and later fast-forward through the songs and cherry-pick the ones to keep. In the same spirit, you can download MP3 files of songs onto these machines from a computer.

In other words, if the devices work as well as they're supposed to, they represent an intriguing alternative to pay-per-download services like Apple's iTunes and its omnipotent iPod. For executives in the satellite radio industry, of course, this sounds like a no-brainer: they are merely mirroring the evolution of the cable model. To some music industry executives who regard this as yet another way for people to circumvent paying the full price for their songs, it looks like another potential doomsday device. "

[Lazlo Nibble]

Do they really allow you to download MP3s directly to the computer, or do they just come with software that'll take a standard line-out signal and encode that to CD?

I'd be really surprised if they actually let you copy MP3 versions of tracks right off the player -- XM had to stop selling their PC-based receiver last year because there was software floating around to do the same thing.