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Satellite Radio on Your PC

Techstination feature for Monday, May 19, 2003

Satellite radio, on your PC. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. XM Satellite Radio, one of two companies selling satellite radio systems for cars, is out with a new receiver designed to work with personal computers. The 70 dollar system plugs into the USB port on a Windows based computer... while an antenna is placed near a window. XM VP Chance Patterson...

"It allows you to use the monitor on your computer to have access to XMs 101 channels of programming and the reason it's so revolutionary is you will be able to see all the programming on the screen and see what songs are playing, by what artist. You can choose your favorites so if you're fan of, let's say, Led Zeppelin, whenever Led Zeppelin, a Led Zeppelin song come up, the XM PCR will alert you and you can go to that channel instantly.

There are already lots of radio stations broadcasting online. But the system does have advantages over Internet streaming...

"It actually doesn't use the Internet so you're not hogging bandwidth or slowing down your computer. If you're at work you're not having issues with your IT department who doesn't want you to be downloading things."

What remains to be seen is whether XM will be able to convince music lovers who may have hundreds of digital songs stored on their computers... .to pay 9.95 a month to subscribe to the satellite service. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.