SanDisk today introduced the Sansa Clip, a tiny MP3 player that could put the Kabosh on inexpensive, but limited MP3 players like the iPod shuffle.

The Sansa Clip is inexpensive and wearable, like the shuffle, but offers an FM radio, recorder, microphone, and a bright screen. The Sansa Clip is expected to be available this fall for $47.99 for a 1GB player and $70.99 for a 2GB unit. The 2GB Sansa Clip comes in sleek black, candy apple red, hot pink and ice blue.

Digg announced an update today that puts viral videos front and center on the site’s home page.

“We’ve gone live with improvements to our home page that allow you to see both news and videos on a single page,” said Digg’s¬†Daniel Burka. ¬†”We‚Äôve gotten a lot of feedback that the videos are entertaining but people miss them because they‚Äôre isolated.”

“Bringing them back into the stream on the homepage will hopefully bring more life to videos on the site. If you prefer just news or only videos, you can easily customize your view by setting either as your default home page (login and choose ‚ÄòCustomize‚Äô),” adds Burka.

The changes should make it much easier for Digg users to find viral videos, and could also bring the “Digg effect” to more vlogs and video podcasts than ever before.

TNC New Media, organizers of the Podcast and New Media Expo, taking place September 28-30 in Ontario, California, have announced their plans to move the 2008 show to Las Vegas. The 4th Annual convention will take place on August 14-16, 2008 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“After three years in Southern California at the Ontario Convention Center, the event has outgrown the current venue. It‚Äôs an exciting time to be involved in online multimedia content,” said TNC’s Tim Bourquin. The larger Las Vegas venue will allow the event to continue to grow and offer additional education and networking opportunities for independent audio and video creators who attend each year.”

The Podcast & New Media Expo is an annual convention devoted to the industry of creating, delivering, and profiting from unique digital content delivered via the Internet.

Photo: fadedpictures

The Guardian Unlimited has an interview with Vint Cerf, aka the godfather of the Internet, about the future of television.

While mainstream television networks may have some trouble seeing and adapting to where things are going,¬†the 64-year old Cerf expects television to change rapidly, as it approaches its “ipod moment”.

“85% of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time,” said Cerf at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival. “You’re still going to need live television for certain things – like news, sporting events and emergencies – but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later.”

Dr Cerf predicts that we will soon be watching the majority of our television through the Internet.

“In Japan you can already download an hour’s worth of video in 16 seconds,” he said. “And we’re starting to see ways of mixing information together … imagine if you could pause a TV program and use your mouse to click on different items on the screen and find out more about them.”

The Hollywood Reporter has an article today looking at the baby steps that major networks are taking towards putting their new shows on the Internet. All the networks except ABC are putting out at least some of their pilots on the Web, while ABC is limiting sampling opportunities to large screening events:

• NBC is offering downloads of the premiere episodes of the new dramas “Chuck,” “Life” and “Journeyman” on Amazon.com starting Sept. 10. It’s also doing an Facebook promotion. In mid-September, NBC will offer streaming video versions of the pilots.
• Fox began offering viewers streams of the premiere episode of its new drama series “K-Ville” as well as the first 17 minutes of the Season 3 premiere of “Prison Break” on Thursday across 200 Internet portals and Web sites.
• CBS said that it will be offering sampling of premiere episodes.
• ABC¬†is previewing the premiere episodes of “Pushing Daisies,” “Carpoolers” and “Samantha Who?” at screenings in local markets nationwide.

Instead of making it easy to watch new shows on-demand as video podcasts or as free iTunes show downloads, the networks are making more tentative steps. This cautious approach to the Internet means that:

• You can’t expect to be able to try out new shows when you want to;
• You probably can’t watch the shows without a proprietary video¬†player;
• You can’t expect to watch the new shows on your iPhones, Apple TVs, portable media players and other gear;
• You can’t embed shows in your blog and write about them;
• You can’t easily share new shows with your friends.

All these barriers mean that you’re less likely to watch the major networks’ new shows and you’re less likely to help generate buzz about them on the Internet.

Other winners include:

• The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd – Best Family Friendly Podcast
• SwingerCast – Best Adult Podcast
• Barely Podcasting – Most Original Concept
• Mighty Mommy – Best Newbee Podcast
• Truth Seekers – Best Political Podcast
• Skepticality – Best Science Podcast
• 7th Son – Best Serialized Fiction Podcast

Google has announced video podcasting support for its blogger service.

To turn on enclosure links, just go to Settings > Formatting and set the “Show Link fields” option to “Yes.” This will add the enclosure link fields to your post editor. From there, just paste in the URLs of your recorded media, and your blog will instantly become a podcast.

• Blogger supports adding multiple enclosures to a post, but for maximum compatibility with popular podcatchers, you may only want to include one enclosure per post.
• By default, Blogger feeds are in Atom format. The defacto standard for podcasts is RSS 2.0 feeds. You can find your Blogger RSS feed at http://yourblog.blogspot.com/rss.xml.
• Blogger¬†auto-detects the MIME Type for common podcasting file extensions. You probably want to leave this alone unless you‚Äôre really sure what you‚Äôre doing.

Forget the iPhone., forget the gPhone….the Zune Phone is here!

This ad for the Microsoft Zune Phone may be bogus, but it somehow rings true:

Love the flashing 12:00……

via tuaw

SoundExchange has announced that it had reached agreement with several large webcasters on SoundExchange’s proposed cap on the minimum fees charged for playing traditionally-licensed sound recordings on Internet Radio. 

Recently-enacted regulations by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) require each webcasting service to pay a $500 minimum fee “per station or channel”, regardless of the overall number of stations/channels they are streaming. Today‚Äôs agreement addresses the concerns of certain webcasters about their liability for per channel minimums by calling for a cap of $50,000 per service on the $500 per station advance against royalties.

The $500 per channel minimum fee has been a huge concern for Webcasters that offer customizable or topical streams of music, which could be considered thousands of stations by SoundExchange.

Although this agreement applies only to signatory services and only on behalf of SoundExchange members, it is the intention of all parties to present this agreement to the Copyright Royalty Judges and seek its adoption industry-wide.

The New York Times has an interesting article today that looks at how disputes over Internet gambling in the tiny country of Antiqua could lead to free digital music downloads.

Antigua is best known to Americans for its pristine beaches and tourist attractions like historic English Harbor. But the dozens of online casinos based there are vital to the island’s economy, serving as its second-largest employer.

The US has banned gambling over the Internet, which Antiqua legitimately believes has hurt its economy. Antiqua took this to the World Trade Organization, which found that the US was violating the country’s free trade rights.

Complying with the W.T.O. ruling….would require Congress and the Bush administration either to reverse course and permit Americans to place bets online legally with offshore casinos or, equally unlikely, impose an across-the-board ban on all forms of Internet gambling ‚Äî including the online purchase of lottery tickets, participation in Web-based pro sports fantasy leagues and off-track wagering on horse racing.

Not complying with the W.T.O. ruling presents problems of its own. Antiqua’s lawyers are claiming $3.4 billion in damages on behalf of Antigua, and have asked the trade organization to grant a rare form of compensation if the American government refuses to accept the ruling: permission for Antiguans to violate intellectual property laws by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among others.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the free music downloads, though. The controversy is likely to pit the US against the W.T.O, and could test the strength and support of the relatively new organization.