We basically knew the FCC was going to approve the XM / Sirius merger after the DoJ approved it earlier this year, and it looks like the communications agency is just about ready to sign off -- the Wall Street Journal is reporting that a majority of FCC commissioners are close to approving the deal. Word is that XM and Sirius will have to fork over an additional $20M to make it happen and agree to several enforcement terms, but it's all up in the air until this goes official. Let's hope that's soon -- after a historically long delay, it looks like there's finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

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We're usually pretty jaded when people tell us that we "won't believe" what we're seeing in a video sent to tips -- right, right, a cellphone demon, nice one -- but it sure seems like the Golden Shellback waterproof coating is the real deal. Developed at the Northeast Maritime Institute and hopefully headed to production sometime soon, the process involves applying the coating to your precious toys inside a vacuum, after which they're basically impervious to all liquids -- in one test, a coated device spent over 450 hours powered on and functional underwater. There are some downsides: you can't remove the coating, so any repairs will involve "abrasive methods," which sounds like quite a commitment. That said, we'll take a little abrasion in our lives if it means we never have to worry about spilling on our keyboards ever again. Video after the break.

[Via gCaptain]

Interesting that this didn't get announced at E3, but Games for Windows Live is now free for all. Yep, totally free, cross-platform multiplayer with the 360 included -- which obviously raises the question of whether Live will ever be free on Xbox. We think that's a pretty safe no -- unlike Games For Windows, Xbox Live actually makes money, which is pretty hard to turn down, and without a ton of competitive pressure from, say, Playstation Home, it's hard to see why Microsoft would turn that funtime cash fountain off. Still, there's always hoping, right?

ASUS must think that best way to make the Eee PC stand out in the overflowing netbook market is to crank out minor, uninteresting variants of the same models, because otherwise we're at a total loss to explain today's appearance of the Eee PC 1000HD. Yeah, that's the 1000HD, not the 1000H, which we've already seen. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is that it's basically the same machine as the Pentium M-based Eee 904, only with the 1000's 10-inch screen. Right. So now not only are there an endless variety of Eee models, the model numbers themselves don't indicate anything logical: the Eee 901 is faster than the 904, which uses the basic case of the 1000 but shares a processor with the 900 and 1000HD -- but not the 1000 or 1000H, which are Atom-based like the 901. Hmm, Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play -- not easy to buy might be your big problem here, ASUS.

[Via Mobile Stylus]

Fujitsu-Siemens's Amilo 3000 laptops have always been decidedly stylish in their two-tone duds, and now the company's polishing them up a bit with new Centrino 2-based guts. First out the gate is the 15.4-inch Amilo Pi 3540, which features the new platform and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics driving a display Fujitsu-Siemens claims is dramatically better than the industry standard. There's also a spill-proof keyboard, silent mode, and a 15-in-1 card reader. Europe only at the moment, should be out in August starting at £699 ($1,392).

Sure, we've been excited about Intel's Atom CPU being used in netbook-class devices, but UK ISP Bytemark apparently thinks the power-sipping chip has the horsepower to handle low-end server duties as well. For £45 ($89) a month, you can colo a 1.6GHz Atom box running Linux with 2GB of RAM and a pair of 100GB SATA drives -- not a terrible deal, and probably a damn sight more reliable than a pile of duct tape or a dead frog. Still, we're not exactly sure we'd want to run our business on the rough equivalent of an Eee 901, you know?

That nasty Windows Home Server data corruption bug might finally be a thing of the past, as WHS Power Pack 1 has gone live after a month-long beta test. Not much else to the enhancement suite: x64 support and support for backup to external media are along for the ride, but otherwise it's mostly performance tweaks. Go on and grab it now, you crazy home-server admins.

[Thanks, Neal]

Looks like that agreement between Nokia and Qualcomm to postpone the dozen or so lawsuits they've filed against each other worldwide while an arbitrator tries to help sort out the mess is starting to bear some fruit -- the two cellphone giants are headed to court in Delaware on Wednesday to start the healing. In essence, Qualcomm says that Nokia still owes license fees on a CDMA agreement that expired in 2007 since it's been using the patented tech, and Nokia says that it doesn't owe anything because it's shelled out over $1B since 2001 and giving Qualcomm any more cash would be unfair. Not surprisingly for these two, it's likely that the outcome here will essentially be a draw, with the judge ruling that Qualcomm can charge whatever it wants, but that Nokia didn't extend the agreement. We'll see how things go, though -- this is just the beginning of what could very well be the early start of close to the end. Video summary of the entire dispute after the break.

It's only been on sale for six days, but the pricetag on the Eee PC 1000H just dropped by $100, down to $549. We're not sure if early buyers will get that extra Benny back, but it certainly can't hurt to ask -- and ASUS, while you're at it, how about taking a little off the 901 as well?

[Via Mobile Stylus; thanks to everyone who sent this in]

It seems like the endless legal struggle to be allowed to compete in the Olympics took its toll on cyborg sprinter Oscar Pistorious -- he didn't qualify for the South African Olympic team on Wednesday, after failing to run the 400 under the 45.55 second minimum required to make the trip to Beijing. Interestingly, Pistorious's 46.25-second time was his best ever, even though critics claimed that the double-amputee's "Cheetah" prosthetics allowed him to use only 25 percent of the energy used by traditional runners. That's not the last we'll see of Oscar, though -- he says he's happy with his season's results, and he'll be back to try out for the 2012 Games in London.

Man, the EU is really not too fond of Intel, is it? Adding to all the other antitrust charges filed against the chipmaker, the friendly grey suits at the European Commission have slapped on an additional three: paying a "leading European retailer" not stock AMD products, giving incentives to PC makers to switch to Intel chips, and paying an unspecified company to delay the launch of an AMD-based product. For its part, Intel is reacting like it always does when the Europeans get prickly: by steadfastly denying everything. Intel has eight weeks to file a formal response, but as with all of these cases, we wouldn't expect a resolution any time soon.

[Thanks, Ricky]

Well, no wonder Hector Ruiz quit as the CEO of AMD earlier today -- the chipmaker just announced its second quarter results, and they're not good. In addition to an overall $269M operating loss, the company is taking an $876M charge against the purchase of ATI so it can abandon the handheld graphics and digital TV markets. To be honest, we hadn't been hearing much about ATI's plans in those areas, so it's probably for the best the company is focusing on getting Barcelona out the door after the launch of Puma -- but we doubt much is going to happen with a power vacuum at the top and a bottom line that's bleeding red.

[Via Crave]

iPhone unlocking is a little more cash-intensive now that Apple and AT&T are all contract-happy with the 3G, but it looks like would-be unlockers will have a little more time to save up those pennies -- the erstwhile hackers on the iPhone Dev Team say that while a forthcoming version of the sadly-named Pwnage tool will activate and jailbreak the iPhone 3G, unlocking is taking a little longer than expected, and they don't want to release the code until it's exactly right. The tool still unlocks first-gen iPhones running 2.0 and allows jailbreak apps to co-exist with the App Store, so if you're desperate to unlock right away, we'd say a first-gen unit is your best bet.

Although Sony announced that the updated 80GB PS3 "Core" configuration would come to the States in September, it looks like other parts of the world will be getting it a little earlier -- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe chief David Reeves told reporters last night that the new SKU would hit Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand on August 27th. Worldwide pricing wasn't announced, but Sony confirmed that the new model would cost £299 in Britain and €399 in Europe. Sadly, it doesn't look like the Playstation Store's new video service will be making the trip anytime soon, but Reeves said that Sony is "working on it." That's great -- we're still more interested in a 60GB launch console, though.


[Thanks, Matt]