Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) will be up bright and early today, as the company will be reporting its Q2 financials in a live webcast here in a few moments at 8 a.m. EST.

Of particular note recently has been CEO Mel Karmazin's announcement that a cheaper "a la carte" option would be available to customers of a combined Sirius / XM Satellite Radio Holding, Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR) -- something like $6.95 per month -- which has probably gone a long way toward appeasing regulators who still continue to believe that a "monopoly" would be in place with a single national satellite radio operator.

Sirius is expected to report a loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of $228.3 million for Sirius' Q2 period, down from a $0.17 loss for the year-ago quarter. If the merger (buyout, actually) is approved between XM and Sirius soon, this may be one of the last quarters where a loss is expected and delivered. If you're holding onto SIRI, are you ready for this? Thought so. Remember to use the "Refresh" key to ensure you catch all the updates as they happen below. All times below are in EST.

After about a month of waiting and mixed messages, satellite radio provider Sirius has unveiled its first-ever portable satellite radio unit that will allow serious Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) users (no pun intended) to take their precious satellite radio with them anywhere. In addition to being a battery-powered and portable satellite radio, the Stiletto will play back WMA and MP3 files, making it a portable digital music player as well.

In addition, users can flag a song they like as they listen to it for later purchase on Yahoo! Music. The consumer beef is this sentiment -- can a paying satellite subscriber have the right to record broadcasts on their portable, or non-portable, satellite radios instead of flagging songs for yet another purchase later at a pay music service such as Yahoo! Music? Conventional wisdom says that if you can pay for and receive the signal, you can do whatever you want with it except for broadcasting in a public forum. It's called private home use and has allowed VHS users to tape cable, satellite, and TV shows for decades.

But the satellite companies argue that a pristine, digital copy of the content they provide can now be recorded by some XM Radio units, and of course a huge stink is being made about the situation. There are rumors that this kind of situation delayed the official introduction of the Sirius Stiletto, while the satellite provider probably argues for weeks with the content owners and publishers about the specific capabilities the Stiletto has on recording over-the-air digital satellite content.