Back in December, SIRIUS Satellite Radio CFO David Frear mentioned that Sirius will be power optimizing the S50 chip to receive live satellite radio while on-the-go. The release date was expected mid-2006 at the time. And remember last month when Mel Karmazin gave some highlights of the upcoming Satellite Radio/MP3 device? There we learned again that the release is still on track for Summer 2006, as well as having their own "Buy Button" capabilities.

Now according to anonymous sources, the rumored release date is in the month of July. The device will also supposedly come with more storage capacity than the Inno or Helix. Since the S50 is 1Gb, the logical progression would be for 2Gb (especially since both the Helix/Inno are increasing capacity later this year as well).

So could we be seeing a live portable Sirius S100 this July?

Since there is no official word on this, let's be clear that this is still unconfirmed information and until I know further I will treat it as such. Still, a live wearable receiver + Buy Button + 2Gb storage capacity, shows that Sirius might be making serious headway on the technology front. Exciting news.

Still the question remains - with the "Buy Button" functionality, who will they partner with to fulfill the songs?

(Sirius S50 pictured above) 

Is Apple preparing to stream satellite radio content as podcasts in their iTunes music store? That apparently is what The Register reported recently. The president of Universal Music Group's digital division, Larry Kenswil, was speaking at the Digital Music Forum in New York and drew some attention to three groups he called "pie throwers" who are apparently holding up progress in digital music.

The RIAA director specifically highlighted Samsung and Pioneer (Note: The Register article actually labels "Samsung and Helix" but I'm going to assume that was a typo), who he highlighted for producing hybrid MP3 players and satellite radios that record the streams.

Here's where it gets interesting, to quote the article:

Thanks to a loophole in US copyright law, satellite radio recorders are the next big legal battleground - with Apple believed to be in the advanced stages of adding satellite streams as podcasts to its iTunes store.

"It's a great example of how you can lose it all for everyone if you set out to gain an extra cent for yourself," said Kenswil.

Now, SIRIUS already features several shows as Podcasts on iTunes. But they're mostly samples of content meant to drive awareness to the satellite radio service. This sounds like Apple is close to working out a deal with either XM or SIRIUS to stream satellite radio content as Podcasts. There's also been separate chatter about Apple charging for Podcasts. Could we be seeing a combination of the two? Could my wish for Satellite Podcasts soon to come true? Let the speculation begin!