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On the evening of the last batch of U.S. primary elections, Presidential candidate Barack Obama wrapped enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.

Although Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton has not formally ended her Presidential bid, it is looking fairly assured that Obama will, after his official nomination at this summer’s convention in Denver, face off against presumptive Republican party nominee Senator John McCain.

Perhaps you’ve been done to death with news stories and tv commercials about Obama. If you would like to see and hear more of the candidate’s views, though, in his own words, check out The Official Barack Obama Video Podcast. You can view an episode above. 

The twenty or so episodes stretch back about a year, and include a couple of speeches given here in Des Moines, Iowa. The feed for the podcast is here, and it is also available (for free) via the iTunes Music Store.

John McCain does not have his own podcast (yet), but he has been interviewed on other people’s talk shows and podcasts, including Instapundit and Captain’s Quarters and a November ’07 Michael Arrington interview on Talk Crunch.

Verismo Networks has announced a sort of poor-man’s Apple TV, the PoD.

The $99 device uses your broadband connection to deliver Internet television to your HD TV. It can play videos from YouTube, BitTorrent and other sources, without the need for a PC.

NewTeeVee got a preview of the device from Verismo CEO Prakash Bhalerao at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA:

Like previous Internet set-top boxes, the PoD has a lot of cool features, but is a long way away from what people want.

While it’s open to a large variety of content, television show and movie rentals are missing in action, there’s no support for watching your personal content and there’s no provision for ripping your media.

The BBC has announced that it will broadcast BBC1 live to the Internet, making it the first of the BBC’s stations to be simulcast online. BBC1 will be available via bbc.co.uk, which is being relaunched.

“Building on the success of the iPlayer, we want to develop bbc.co.uk to include a broad range of the BBC’s broadcast content, as well as new and interactive forms of media that enable audiences to interact with and contribute to the website,” said BBC director general, Mark Thompson.

While the BBC has previously introduced video podcasts and live channels, BBC1 is the first of its traditional stations to make the move.

The plan is expected to be completed in the next year.

Pure Digital Technologies today introduced the Flip Video Mino, a tiny new addition to its line of YouTube-ready Flip Video camcorders. The Mino is designed to be small enough to fit into your pocket.

The $179.99 (MSRP) Mino includes built-in software that lets you plug the camcorder’s flip-out USB arm into your computer for immediate editing and sharing. The Flip Video software lets you upload video directly to MySpace, YouTube and AOL Video.

The Flip Video line has been extremely popular, coming from nowhere a few years ago to become the top-selling video camera in the world.

Here are the details on the Mino:

YouTube has announced a new feature for videos on the site – annotations.

Video Annotations are a new way for you to add interactivity to your videos. You can use them to:

• Add background information about the video;
• Create stories with multiple possibilities (ala Choose Your Own Adventure); and
• Link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video.

Annotations, once published, are shown by default. You can turn them off while watching a video through the player menu—just click the button on the bottom right of the video player.

Here’s an example of the sort of things you can do with annotations:

Here’s how you can create and edit video annotations:

Internet video startup Veoh Networks today announced that it has raised an additional $30 million in funding. Veoh plans to use the capital to enhance its viewer offerings, improve video discovery, expand its advertising products and targeting capabilities, and extend its services across multiple platforms.

“The world of Internet television has changed dramatically in the past year. No longer limited to short-form video sharing, viewers are now tuning in online to watch long-form, quality entertainment,” said Steve Mitgang, CEO of Veoh Networks. “With a near-infinite universe of content now available online, the future of our industry will be led by those who help viewers easily discover new things they like to watch, enable portability, and provide effective targeting across all types of video audiences and all forms and lengths of content.”

For content publishers, Veoh offers free hosting, lets you publish high-resolution video and can automatically republish your content to other sites, such as YouTube.

Daft Punk is working on a live concert DVD, created from footage shot by the audience at the Bercy Live Show in Paris.

The Daft Punk Alive 2007 DVD looks like it will be the Cloverfield of concert DVDs. It will feature high-quality sound recorded by Daft Punk synced to audience footage.

A preview is available at TheWorldIsDaft site.

The Phoenix Mars Mission, which is led by University of Arizona’s Department of Planetary Sciences Lunar and Planetary Lab, has a video podcast that’s available via iTunes U.

The video podcast features videos related to the launch and landing of the Phoenix on Mars. There are also five Open House lectures, led by Victor R. Baker, William Boynton, Alfred McEwen, Alfred Quiroz and Peter Smith, available that cover the background of the mission.

The videos range in length from a minute to a half hour, and offer a great way to follow what’s going on with the mission, on your computer, Apple TV or your portable media player.

One of the stranger iPod accessories we’ve ever seen that still manages to have some practical use is the RadioRaft floating stereo.

It’s a completely submersible iPod dock and stereo system. Your iPod goes inside a waterproof iPod dock, and you control the sound using waterproof controls. The system has 400 watts, 5 speakers and offers 8 hours of play time.

Note: RadioRaft warns that the device “may cause the Girls to go Wild.”

Unfortunately, all this waterproof power will set you back $2,000.

Features:

• Five speakers
• 360 degrees of stereo sound
• Subwoofer (optional)
• Plays ipod/MP3 w/ waterproof drydock
• Sirius Satellite (optional)
• 400 watts of power
• Rechargeable battery w/ 8 hour play time
• 6 Stainless steel cupholders (Beer not included)
• Custom tube cover with your logo (optional)
• Rugged roll bar (optional)

Big Buck Bunny is an animated short, released under the Creative Common Attribution license.

The film is about “a giant rabbit with a heart bigger than himself. When one sunny day three rodents rudely harass him, something snaps… and the rabbit ain’t no bunny anymore! In the typical cartoon tradition he prepares the nasty rodents a comical revenge.”

The film is a project of the Blender Foundation. Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite.

This “open movie” project had as main targets:

• Developing tools in Blender for editing and rendering hair, fur or grass
• Improve character animation tools for cartoonish motion and deformation
• Test Blender with giant outdoor environments, with large grassy fields and many trees with leaves
• Further validate Blender as a professional animation creation suite

And secondary:

• Create a great and good looking animation short, licensed freely as open content
• Provide content for other artists to learn from or to re-use, including documentation and tutorials

It’s a cool project – and it’s an animated flick that’s free for you to remix and reuse!

via No Fat Clips