Former Microsoft blogger and Naked Conversations author Robert Scoble has announced that he’s leaving podcasting startup PodTech to take a newly created position at Fast Company:

First of all, thanks to John Furrier, James McCormick, and the entire PodTech team. I grew a lot over the past year due to the opportunities they gave me and that turned into hundreds of interviews on ScobleShow.com.

Wednesday (today) Rocky Barbanica and I are moving to work for Mansuetto Ventures. They are the producers of Fast Company and Inc. magazines. What will we be doing? Helping to build a new, interactive, online video community called FastCompany.TV which will open on March 3.

Mansueto Digital President Edward Sussman today announced the launch of FastCompany.TV, a new online video network. Scoble will serve as Managing Director of the site, which is slated to launch in March.

Scoble’s daily video series, ScobleTV, will be featured on FastCompany.TV. Scoble’s current video show receives about one million views a month. Scoble will also bring his popular blog, Scobleizer.com, to the Mansueto Digital network of sites, which includes FastCompany.com, Inc.com, IncBizNet.com and IncTechnology.com.

“I decided to join up with Fast Company because I wanted to work with a brand well known for covering innovation and technology in an authoritative, provocative manner,” said Scoble. “And I’m excited that the Mansueto Digital websites are innovating in the social media space themselves.”

By now, you’ve probably seen one of the live blogs of Steve Job’s Macworld Keynote.

You’ve probably also had a chance to read about Steve Jobs’ announcements, includin:

• the new Macbook Air;
• the Time Capsule wireless backup device;
• updates to the iPod touch;
• iTunes movie rentals;
• the new Apple TV software;
• the free iPhone updates; and
• DVDs coming with an iTunes Digital Copy.

It was an solid keynote, with lots of meaty announcements, but no huge surprises and no “one more thing”.

If you read between the lines of Apple’s announcements, though, there is one more thing hidden in Jobs’ keynote: Apple is killing off the DVD.

Four Ways Apple Is Killing Off The DVD

DVDs are dead. Steve Jobs didn’t come out and announce this, but he might as well have – four of today’s introductions pointed to the demise of the DVD as we know it:

1. The MacBook Air gets rid of the internal DVD player. Like Jobs decision to kill off the floppy with the iMac, getting rid of the DVD player is a sign that Jobs sees now sees wireless networks and the Internet as the ways to move bytes around. Apple will offer an external DVD player, but its an option. Apple expects you to buy your movies digitally and get your software wirelessly.
2. iTunes Movie Rentals promise to bring DVD-quality movies directly to your computer, iPod and television. Apple’s has nailed this by getting the major studios on board, offering fair rental pricing and flexible viewing options and by having a complete system that works. This will put more pressure on the already-struggling DVD-rental industry.
3. The Apple TV update turns what used to be an interesting iTunes peripheral into a digital replacement for Blockbuster and NetFlix. Now you can rent movies from your living room digitally.
4. iTunes Digital Copy – at first glance, this looks an enhancement to DVDs. In reality, it immediately establishes a de facto standard for delivering digital movies for portable media players. Apple is so far ahead of the competition here that it would take years for a competitor to catch up with this. The only way the movie industry will be able to keep iTunes Digital Copy from becoming a proprietary de facto standard is by moving to an open standard for digital movies – exactly the same thing that has happened with the digital music industry. In other words, the movie industry is going to have to kill off the DVD and offer DRM-free movies.

Don’t expect Apple to kill off the DVD overnight. It took Apple a few years to get rid of the floppy drive, and there are still some PCs that come with floppy drives.

Nevertheless, Apple is looking ahead, not back, and the future Steve Jobs envisions doesn’t included DVDs.

Apple today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard, the latest release of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system.

Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

“Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost.”

This should be a great option for Apple laptops owners. Add a Time Capsule to your network, and your laptop will automatically back up to the network whenever you’re in range.

We’d like to see Apple support using external hard drives with the existing Airport Extreme, though. A lot of people expected Apple to support this when they purchased their Airport Extreme, and it would be a great upgrade to wireless networking device’s functionality.

When Steve Jobs initially introduced the iPod touch, we were surprised at the things that Apple had decided to leave out. We wanted to know why Apple had handicapped the iPod touch, which buyers were expecting to be an iPhone without the phone:

Why doesn’t the iPod touch have Google Maps, Stocks, Notes & Weather? These apps are all nice features of the iPhone, but are missing from the touch. iPod owners need maps, too!

Apple today announced a major software upgrade for the iPod touch which does exactly what we said they should have done when they introduced it – give touch owners an iPhone without the phone.
The iPod touch software upgrade also includes new features such as Web Clips, a customizable home screen and beginning today, the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals. New iPod touch products shipping from the factory will include the software upgrade and existing iPod touch customers can get the software upgrade for $19.99 by purchasing and downloading it from iTunes (www.itunes.com).

“These amazing new mobile applications make iPod touch not only the best iPod, but the best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With its revolutionary touch interface and software, plus its stunning 3.5 inch screen, iPod touch is evolving into the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform of the 21st century.”

Apple today announced iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including:

• 20th Century Fox
• The Walt Disney Studios
• Warner Bros.
• Paramount
• Universal Studios Home Entertainment
• Sony Pictures Entertainment
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Lionsgate
• New Line Cinema

Users can rent movies for as low as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV.

“iTunes Movie Rentals instantly brings great movies from all the major studios directly to your iPod, iPhone, TV or computer—without having to drive to the video store or wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Movie lovers can now discover and enjoy movies as simply and easily as music lovers discover and enjoy music today on iTunes.”

Apple today unveiled all new software for Apple TV that allows movie fans to rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from their widescreen TV, and lowered the price of Apple TV to $229.

With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TV, users can just click a button on their remote to rent movies from a catalog of over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, with no computer required.

“With the new Apple TV and iTunes Movie Rentals, movie lovers can rent DVD-quality or stunning HD movies from their couch with just a click of a button,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “No more driving to the video store or waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail.”

Just as important, the new Apple TV software rethinks the device’s concept – changing it from an iTunes peripheral to an independent computer for subscribing to video podcasts, viewing Flickr photos, watching YouTube videos and other Internet content.

The update is free to existing Apple TV owners.

Apple today announced a free software update for the iPhone that allows users to:

• automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application;
• text message multiple people in one message;
• create Web Clips for their favorite websites;
• customize their home screen; and
• watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.

“iPhone doesn’t stand still, we’re making it better and better all the time,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve delighted millions of users with this revolutionary and magical product and it’s great to share these improvements with them.”

Twentieth Century Fox and Apple today announced Digital Copy for iTunes, which provides customers who purchase a DVD with an additional Digital Copy of the movie that can be transferred to iTunes and then viewed on a PC or Mac, iPod with video, iPhone or on Apple TV.

“Now movie fans can easily transfer a free copy of the movie they purchase on DVD into iTunes,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “DVDs containing an iTunes Digital Copy allow movie fans to get a copy of their movie which can be viewed on a computer, iPod, iPhone or on Apple TV.”

This announcement isn’t a surprise, but it’s notable because it will result in pressure to kill off DRM’d movies, just like the success of Apple’s iTunes has forced the music industry to kill off DRM’d music.

Apple today unveiled MacBook Air at Macworld, which they describe as the world’s thinnest notebook.

MacBook Air measures 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. MacBook Air has a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support so users can pinch, rotate and swipe.

MacBook Air is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1.

“We’ve built the world’s thinnest notebook—without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “When you first see MacBook Air, it’s hard to believe it’s a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is.”

Here are the details:

WeGame is a new site that’s a bit like Seesmic for machinima. (Machinima are animated movies made using video games.)

The site lets you download a client (Windows only) that lets you record video from a variety of games, including:

Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2142
C&C 3
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 4
CoH Series
Crysis
CS 1.6
CS: Source
DoD: Source
Everquest 2
Garry’s Mod
GTA Series
Guild Wars
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 Mods
Halo
Hellgate London
Misc Gaming
Portal
Quake Series
Second Life
Silkroad Online
SW Galaxies
Team Fortress 2
Warcraft 3

You can also browse the videos others have created at the WeGame site. You can browse and view the most recent, they highest rated and most frequently viewed videos.

Videos from the site can be embedded in blog posts, like the example above.