Here’s a use for podcasts that we haven’t heard of before – the Pasadena Tournament of Roses is offering an audio tour (iTunes link) of the floats featured in the 119th Rose Parade today. The audio files were created to enhance the viewing experiences of visitors at Post Parade: A Showcase of Floats.

The free audio tour is the first-ever produced by the Tournament of Roses. It begins with details about the making of a float and provides info on each of the 46 floats featured in the 2008 Rose Parade, in the order that they appear in the Parade. Tracks on the tour are matched to float numbers, which are displayed on the floats at Post Parade.

“We are very excited about this new way for our guests to enjoy Post Parade and the entire Rose Parade experience. We often hear that guests want to know more information about the floats and our audio tour provides an easy way to do just that,” said Pam McNeely, Chairman of the Post-Parade committee.

More than 50 percent of U.S. households now own a digital television (DTV), according to new research released today by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). As the nation transitions to digital television, consumers are adding DTV to their homes at a record pace.

“With 50 percent of U.S. homes able to experience the reality of digital television, we have crossed a critical threshold,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA. “2008 will continue to demonstrate the growth and success of DTV, with nearly 32 million units forecasted to ship. Consumers are particularly keen to add HDTV to their homes, with high definition expected to account for 79 percent of total DTV shipments in the U.S in 2008.”

With the huge interest in Internet video and the adoption of digital TVs, there’s a growing need for a way to combine the two into a high-definition Internet video platform.

2007 offered a lot of first steps, but nothing that’s polished enough to capture broad interest. Apple TV is easy to use and is a great way to watch video podcasts, but it’s conceptually confusing to a lot of people and doesn’t support DVDs. The XBox 360 supports HD video downloads, but the feature seems to be more of an afterthough at this point. Podcast pioneer Dave Winer’s FlickrFan offers an open platform for getting HD photos to your TV, but is more promising in concept than delivery.

Of the options currently available, Apple TV shows the most promise. Compared to Apple’s other recent introductions, though, Apple TV has been a bomb. There are rumors that Apple is cutting new content deals for Internet video downloads. This will help, but not enough to make Apple TV a hit.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously described Apple TV as a “hobby.” Apple is well-positioned to take advantage of the need for an HD Internet television, but they will need to treat Apple TV as a product, instead of a hobby, if they want to see it succeed.

Despite the fact that prices have plummeted for next-generation high-definition DVD players, the two systems – Blu-ray, developed by Sony, and HD DVD, from Toshiba, have sold only about one million stand-alone players combined.

In June, we suggested that the winner in the war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray could be Internet TV. Increasingly, it’s looking like that may be the case.

According to the New York Times, in the war over high-definition DVD formats, most buyers are sitting it out.

Neither has a clear advantage, either in terms of technology, number of movies or, increasingly, the price of the equipment. According to data from Adams Media Research, 578,000 HD DVD and 370,000 Blu-ray machines will be sold by the end of this year.

The winner of the format wars could be determined by which company has the most content, in the same way the VHS-Betamax VCR war was decided. But both formats offer about 400 movies. Studios allied with the Blu-ray camp include Columbia, Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, Miramax, New Line and Sony.

In the HD DVD camp are DreamWorks, Paramount, Universal, the Weinstein Company, and several smaller TV and motion picture companies. Warner Brothers releases movies for both systems.

In November, Howard Stringer, the Sony chairman, publicly acknowledged that the formats were in a stalemate, and predicted that neither side would fold.

There are a lot of things holding back interest in high-definition DVDs:

• Lack of standardization
• Lack of content
• Lack of availability
• Lack of need – most people don’t have TVs that can benefit from the extra resolution
• Desire to avoid investing in the “Betamax” of high-def DVD formats

Here Comes HD Internet

While Sony and Toshiba fight the HD DVD fight, HD Internet video is slowly becoming a reality:

• There are a growing number of HD video podcasts. Apple has added an HD section to its iTunes podcast directory.
• Adobe Flash Player 9 directly supports HD video, which is likely to make it the new standard for HD Internet video.
• New services, like Hulu, are being introduced that offer streaming HD Internet video.

HD Internet television offers many benefits over high-definition DVDs:

• Standardization – Flash is ubiquitous
• A growing body of free content
• Availability everywhere
• A growing need – Internet video has proven itself, now people want higher quality
• No risk – most Internet users already have monitors that can handle high-definition video, so there’s no risk to trying out HD internet video.

It’s too early to call HD DVDs dead, but it looks like 2008 will turn this into a three-way fight.

The New York Times has a story today about the case of Stacy Snyder, a 25 year-old mother of two that lost her job over a MySpace photo of her as a “drunken pirate”:

In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even a single photograph posted online in one’s off-hours can have career-altering consequences. Stacy Snyder, 25, who was a senior at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa., offers an instructive example. Last year, she was dismissed from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her MySpace profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set.

Her photo, preserved at the “Wired Campus” blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, turns out to be surprisingly innocuous. In a head shot snapped at a costume party, Ms. Snyder, with a pirate’s hat perched atop her head, sips from a large plastic cup whose contents cannot be seen. When posting the photo, she fatefully captioned her self-portrait “drunken pirate,” though whether she was serious can’t be determined by looking at the photo.

Millersville University, in a motion asking the court to dismiss the case, contends that Ms. Snyder’s student teaching had been unsatisfactory for many reasons. But it affirms that she was dismissed and barred from re-entering the school shortly after the high school staff discovered her MySpace photograph. The university backed the school authorities’ contentions that her posting was “unprofessional” and might “promote under-age drinking.” It also cited a passage in the teacher’s handbook that said staff members are “to be well-groomed and appropriately dressed.”

While there are probably a lot of people that don’t want their kids to be taught by a mother of two that posts “drunken pirate” party pics of herself to MySpace, it also seems ridiculous for Snyder to lose her job over a photo, that at worst, is unprofessional.

With more of us blogging, social networking, podcasting and video podcasting, there are probably going to be a lot more Stacy Snyders.

Gear Live has a first look at Apple’s upcoming iPhone 1.1.3 release, and it looks like it will have some interesting new features, including:

• The ability to send an SMS message to multiple people is now there
• Google Maps application can now pinpoint your location using cell tower triangulation
• Google Maps can now display the Hybrid map view
• You can now drag and drop application icons on your home screen
• The home screen supports pagination
• You can now add web bookmarks to your home screen

Drag and drop on the home screen looks especially cool, except that it could make it tough to use your spouse’s or friend’s iPhone.

The New York Times’ “Only In New York” podcast has a fun episode this week, looking at the newspaper’s coverage of the 1907 New Year’s Eve festivities, and predictions for 1908.

The famed mirrored ball that drops from the newspaper’s tower every New Year’s Eve at midnight debuted 100 years ago. Predictions that air travel would happen in the coming year came true with the Wright brothers’ flight. It was interesting to learn that the word “adolescence” was coined a century ago, and to hear about what stories made the front page in the New Year’s issue.

Adam Curry, who along with Dave Winer helped pioneer podcasting, is backing Ron Paul for president and is using new media to do it:

The Mpillow is a bizarre new age MP3 player pillow designed to use light and sound to help you relax:

MPillow can connect to a computer wirelessly and music can be downloaded to it by way of MP3’s or by using the sounds available on MPillow servers. The enterior of the pillow is filled with technogel, which is a translucent plastic gel, and can be covered with various materials. The lighting on the MPillow changes colors and intensity as the music or sounds change creating the perfect ambience for the user.

via Yanko

Internet media is moving to the mainstream, according to research from Deloitte & Touche:

• 38% of Americans are watching TV shows online.
• 36% use their cell phones for entertainment.
• 54% of Americans use social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards to socialize.
• 45 percent have a profile on a social networking site.
• Online ads are second only to TV ads when it comes to consumers saying what has the most impact on their buying habits (65% versus 85% respectively).

More and more people are becoming Internet content publishers, too:

• 54% of those surveyed said they are creating their own entertainment content by editing photos, videos or music.
• 45% are making the content for others to see.
• 32% think of themselves as “broadcasters’ of their own media.

What’s clear from these stats is that new media is going mainstream, and it’s only a matter of time before advertisers follow.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg has a provocative review of Dell‚Äôs XPS One desktop today, saying that “has the guts, design to compete with iMac.”

He explains:

“This new Dell is no mere iMac clone. It makes its own style statement, even though it shares the same 20-inch widescreen display and a similar Intel dual-core processor with the base-model iMac. Where the iMac is squarish and silver, the XPS One is all black and rectangular, with speakers attached to the sides and a wide glass base. It looks more like a small TV set than a computer and, in fact, comes with a built-in TV tuner.

The Dell XPS One is the first Windows all-in-one desktop I’ve tested that I believe matches or exceeds the iMac in hardware design. That’s no small feat, especially coming from Dell.

Unlike the Apple, for example, the Dell has a built-in slot for camera memory cards. It comes standard with a wireless keyboard and mouse, which cost extra on the iMac. Its screen can be turned off with the touch of a button without turning off the computer itself. Its USB and headphone ports are arrayed conveniently on the side, instead of mainly at the rear, as on the iMac.”

It’s great to see Dell coming out with hardware that can give Apple some competition.

There’s no competition, though, when it comes to deciding what’s the best platform for new media.