Saturday, June 10, 2023

DirecTV And Dish Network In Merger Talks, Again...


Dish Network could be in some financial trouble, as its deadline to cover 70% of the US with 5G comes up next month. The company is expected to meet that deadline, however, the company is going to need to spend billions more to cover 75% of America by 2025. And that’s billions that Dish Network does not have right now.

That brings us to Dish Network and DirecTV's potentially merging. The two have been posturing and position around a merger publicly for a few years. They are the two largest satellite TV providers in the US, and with cord cutting accelerating, a merger is likely inevitable. But now, the talks have stalled, reportedly.

Both of these satellite TV companies have their own Streaming TV service. With Dish Network having Sling TV, and DirecTV having DirecTV Stream and DirecTV via Internet, which are basically the same service. Clearly both companies know that streaming is the future, and it would make sense for the two of them to finally merge.

This would be a similar merger to Sirius and XM satellite radio merging 14 years ago, to form SiriusXM. If Dish Network and DirecTV did merge, they could end up being a viable competitor to AT&T. With DirecTV’s satellite and streaming TV service, and Dish’s services along with its internet business.

Now the other big question is, even if they do come to an agreement, would the regulators allow this deal to go through? Since they are the only satellite TV providers in the market right now, there’s likely going to be some pushback. Then again, satellite TV is dying, and this merger would be more about Internet and streaming TV, so it could be allowed to happen.

We’ll likely see a lot more about this potential deal in the coming weeks, especially if this while thing is one side trying to pressure the other into meeting their demands.

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Meet Motorola’s New Razr Device, The Moto Razr+

 


After all the leaks and rumors of the past month or so, Motorola has taken it upon itself to confirm that its new Razr 40 range of foldable smartphones will be unveiled on June 1. It’s believed that Motorola will announce a pair of foldable phones at the launch event which will apparently “Flip the Script. June 1".



Evan Blass, known by his handle @evleaks, today published a batch of images showing off the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra (aka the Moto Razr+) from every angle in three colors black, blue, and the magenta/red.

Source: Twitter

Android 14 2.1 Public Beta, Now Available

 













Google has released the first public beta version of Android 14. Previous beta versions were intended only for developers. This version of Android 14 only includes a handful of minor changes visible to users, compared to Android 13. 

One is a smarter share-sheet, with new, faster options to share content with other people and devices. The "back" gesture has also been tweaked with a new visual interface. Most other changes are "behind the scenes" changes for developers. Google sometimes keeps new Android features hidden until it can announce them at an event like its annual I/O conference. Users wishing to try out Android 14 Beta 1 (on a non-critical device) can now enroll a recent Pixel phone in the beta program to access the software.


Source: Google