During the past week Sirius Satellite Radio Inc (Nasdaq: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR) stocks have both gained ground over recent optimism in their merger. One Citigroup analyst, Eileen Furukawa, has even stated that the merger prospects are likely to be about 69% by December 5th. Meanwhile, both stocks have been priced at much lower probabilities of the merger occuring. Some have said that the Sirius stock has a 41% chance of merger built into the price while the XM stock has a 29% chance of the merger occuring built in the price. Because of this, this analyst continues to put both companies as a “buy” and only time will tell whether they are right.
With the recent supporters of the merger from Members of Congress, consumer advocates, and Kia Motors all voicing that they are in favor of the merger I believe the FCC will do the right thing and allow the merger to take place. The reason why I really like the merger is for the possibility of getting the benefits from both services. I would really like to listen to the NHL broadcasts but that requires XM but I don’t want to leave behind all the benefits of Sirius.
At the Nintendo Fall Conference in Japan, Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart Wii will be featuring bikes as well as the usual karts. As well, they have it set to be shipped sometime in Spring 2008. This is great news for all the Mario Kart fans. The series has been through many different iterations and any sort of new element is sure to make things all that more interesting. The series has been through many different evolutions over the years and I expect this one to be the most fun yet. Now, if they would just come out with a date instead of the saying an ominous Spring 2008 I would be happier.
The graphical line separating video games and real life has been getting thinner and thinner with each passing console generation, and the Gran Turismo series always seems to be the one leading the charge. If you follow the links to engadgets site you will see the quiz.. I took it and only got 10 out of 15 pictures correct. It is amazing what they can do with pictures these days. Now that the graphics are almost life like, its also time to increase realistic car damag. This is on the list of features for GT5 and I really hope they do a good job on it. This has been one of the main things that keeps it from being truly realistic. Once they get realistic AI, realistic graphics, and realistic damage, it will be the true Driving Simulator.
Some people put up all sorts of motivational posters in their offices and all over the place. Well, this site has a top 40 of demotivational posters. I found most of them to be really funny and enjoyable. Take a look.
The Chris Harrison project has created a series of maps that show the geographical structure and distribution of the Internet. At the site you can view a global, geo-spatial map of the global internet. These maps are pretty neat as they really show places in the world without the internet. I’m actually more surprised there aren’t more connections through Canada but I guess we aren’t that heavily populated to need big pipes going across the country.
On Wednesday Saskatchewan Labour Minister, David Forbes, announced the governments plan to increase minimum wage. It will be increased over three intervals. The first increase will increase the minimum wage from the current $7.95 to $8.25 on January 1st, 2008. Then it will be increased again May 1, 2008 to $8.60 per hour. Then the final increase will occur one year after that, May 1 2009, and set the minimum wage to $9.25 per hour. Increasing the minimum wage can be helpful and harmful to business. On one hand it might cause more people to look for jobs and might increase the amount of people willing to work. On the other hand, doing business will cost more as more money will be spent on labour. Right now with a booming economy, finding employees is hard to do and this wage increase might help out. Could this be a pre election tactic by the NDP to gain votes? Most probably, expect an election call soon.
Halo 3 broke all records this week selling around 2.63 million copies in just five days, 2.3 million coming on day one alone. The release of the most hyped title of the year pushed Xbox360 hardware sales to 125,000 for the week, beating Nintendo’s Wii console but still not able to match the juggernaut that is the DS. If you look at how many copies were sold and multiply that by the average cost, of say $60, you get a total of $138 million dollars. It is interesting that when you compare this total to almost any other form of entertainment that video games are truly a major form entertainment now. Ten years ago people would laugh if you said a video game would become the highest grossing first day entertainment medium. This is great news for Microsoft who has been pursuing a long journey into peoples living rooms to control their entertainment. This is more than just a positive sign for Microsoft but a positive sign for the entire video games industry.
A while back IGN Wii editor-in-chief Matt Casamassina made a blog post, claiming that he had played Halo on Nintendo DS. Well, he’s updated his blog today with proof that such a game at one time really did exist. He released a short video clip of him playing some pre-release build of Halo on DS. The game itself has been said to resemble Goldeneye Rogue Agent. I think it looks like a lot of fun and it would have been interesting to be able to play it on the DS. There are a lot of rumors floating around that Bungie is going to be developing for other the Microsoft soon. Which seems hard to believe as Microsoft bought them and have been making games for Microsoft since then. I have to say that this Halo DS would sell quite a few copies and really provide some awesome multi-player action on the DS.
The Canadian economy has been the talk of the town recently with the dollar reaching parity with the American dollar for the first time since 1976 and the housing market really heating up. These things are both offsetting the effects of inflation and helping to keep the economy running along smoothly. Luckily our economy right now is really based on trading natural resources and with our agriculture. Grain prices are reaching their highest levels in a long time and thats helping farmers make money. Oil is always at or near the highest level it has ever been so thats helping out the Oil companies. The problem with such a hot economy is that it is bound to cool off eventually its just a matter of when. The USA is having a lot of problems recently with its crisis on sub prime lending, a cooling housing market and the poor state of their economy. A lot of that will have trickle down effects into Canada. Today, to add to the whole mess, is a strike by GM workers at their Saginaw plant. This is going to cause over 80,000 workers in Canada to be layed off as a result of the disruption in the automobile creation chain. With such a large lay off this will be a devastating blow to our economy. Unemployment numbers are going to rise big time and the longer the strike lasts the more harm that will be caused to the economy.
So with the high Canadian dollar hurting exports and then the GM layoffs raising unemployment, the economy is going to be in for a great shock. It is hard to believe that this will all just pass by and we will be unaffected. My prediction is for a recession in the USA followed by a recession in Canada. The USA will be harder hit but Canada will be going along for the ride with this one.
Not since 1976 has the Canadian dollar been worth more than the American Dollar. It has been a long road with times where the currency was worth almost half as much as the US Dollar. Times have changed and the USA currency isn’t the machine that it once was. The rising dollar has less to due with the super strong Canadian Economy and more to do with the very weak and troubled US economy. When you compare the Canadian Dollar to the Euro, it has been rising slightly but it is basically the same level it was a year ago. 1 Euro is 71 cents Canadian. One thing for certain with the new found parity with the US dollar is that some prices are going to have to change soon. Most prices have been set at an exchange rate of 1 CDN = .80 USD and that is no longer the case. It would be nice if all the prices of goods fell in Canada but I expect that the United States will have to raise their prices more to keep up with the rest of the world. This dramatic rise in the Canadian dollar has sure helped to keep inflation very low. Hopefully our exporters won’t be affected too badly by the change and the economy can keep on chugging along.