The Amergence Group announced today that it acquiring SonicMountain, the parent company of podcasting community Odeo.com. Under the terms of the agreement, SonicMountain will become a wholly owned subsidiary of The Amergence Group.

According to the Amergence Group:

Now, SonicMountain will have the resources to revolutionize Odeo’s environment and add exciting new features to its platform. Collaborating with The Amergence Group will accelerate SonicMountain’s business model to become the first social networking/podcasting company offering a powerful suite of tools for an all-in-one, online and mobile media experience.

Rick Arturo, SonicMountain’s president, explains, “Our alliance with The Amergence Group provides us with the capital necessary to accelerate improvements on the Odeo site and take it in exciting new directions. I think the community will be pleased with the new user interface along with other innovative features we are planning. We truly want to be the next-generation platform for all digital media search and delivery in the ever-evolving Web 2.0 world.”

Check out the comments, though, for a different perspective on this deal.

Cortex has released a new iPod DJ mixer, the dMIX-300 Digital Music Control Station.

The dMix-300 is a compact all-in-one iPod mixing solution for Digital DJing. The mixer includes a 2-channel audio mixer and a built-in iPod Dock (suitable for all iPod models), and lets you search, cue, play, pitch, mix and even scratch digital music files (MP3 or WAV) directly from their iPod or any other external USB storage device.

Features:

• Fully CBR and VBR MP3 compatible
• iTunes playlist compatibility
• Two Tri Mode Jog Wheels for search or pitch bend
• Two 80 character dot matrix playback info displays
• A rear mounted USB port for storage device sharing and external CD/DVD-ROM drive option
• Individual RCA outputs for Master, Booth and Record
• USB keyboard connection offering faster search and navigation

The mixer section comes equipped with a 3-band EQ per channel, with Gain Control, blue “Fluid” diffused VU meters, cue fader, Master/Cue select for headphone output, 1/4″ mic input with 2 band EQ, Auxiliary Inputs for Phono or Line devices, ultra-precise Pitch Control with a range of +/- 24% and a 45mm SuperSmooth Crossfader with selectable cross fader curve.

The dMIX-300 has a MSRP of $999.00 (street price approximately $600.00).

While updates to Apple’s OS X, iPhone app development and Safari for Windows may be the most talked-about introductions from Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote address, updates to Mac OS X Leopard Server include significant features for podcasters.
According to Apple, Leopard Server is the most significant improvement to the server operating system since Mac OS X Server was launched. It introduces:

• wiki server, making it easy to connect groups over a shared intranet;
• Podcast Producer, a way to automatically produce and publish podcasts to iTunes or a blog;
• Spotlight Server to quickly find content stored on other servers; and
• iCal Server, based on the CalDAV open standard. that works with Leopard‚Äôs new iCal application.

Podcast Producer is an end-to-end solution for encoding, publishing, and distributing podcasts. Podcast Producer is designed to simplify the process of recording content, encoding, and publishing podcasts for playback in iTunes and on iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV.

The combination of Podcast Producer and Leopard’s Podcast Capture app create a client-server system for publishing podcasts.

Here’s Apple’s explanation of how the system works:

Leopard includes the new Podcast Capture application for capturing and uploading content to Podcast Producer. Podcast Capture makes it easy to capture high-quality audio and video from local and remote cameras, record screen captures, and upload existing content into Podcast Producer for encoding and redistribution.

Audio, video and record buttons

Recording a podcast is a snap. Simply launch Podcast Capture, log in to Podcast Producer, and select the type of podcast you‚Äôd like to record ‚Äî audio only, video with audio, screen capture with audio ‚Äî then click Start. When finished recording, click Stop. Or publish an existing QuickTime media file. That’s it.

Podcast Capture records audio and video from a wide range of devices, including digital video cameras connected via FireWire, USB microphones, and iSight cameras.
iPod

It’s automatic.

As soon as recording is completed, the file is automatically uploaded to Podcast Producer for processing. Podcast Producer utilizes the power of Xgrid to encode content into multiple formats such as H.264 and MPEG-4 for playback on a Mac, PC, iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.
h.264 and MPEG-2 icons

Podcast Producer includes a dozen built-in workflows to automate publishing of podcasts to blogs, iTunes, iTunes U, or even multimedia-enabled cell phones over high-speed wireless networks using QuickTime Streaming Server. Workflows include the ability to archive recordings, applying custom Quartz Composer compositions with titles and watermarks, add opening and closing videos, notify the iTunes Podcast Directory of the new episode, and send out an announcement email.

Podcast Producer uses Xgrid distributed processing technology for large-scale podcast productions — encoding tasks are automatically distributed to other servers. All that is required is another server running Podcast Producer and a shared file system such as Xsan or NFS.

The new podcasting features look like they will be a powerful option for producing podcasts, especially for organizations primarily targeting the iPod/iTunes platform.

Apple today unveiled a near final version of Mac OS X Leopard, the sixth major release of the Mac operating system. Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features, including:

• a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new way to organize files;
• an updated Finder featuring Cover Flow and a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs;
• Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application;
• Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac;
• Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and
• enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which easily allow users to communicate even more creatively.

“Leopard is the best release of Mac OS X to date, surpassing even Tiger, and will further extend Mac OS X’s leadership as the most advanced and innovative operating system in the world,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think current and prospective customers are going to love Leopard, and that it will help make the Mac even more popular.”

Apple today announced that the iPhone will run applications created with “Web 2.0” Internet standards when it begins shipping on June 29.

Developers can create applications which look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and which can seamlessly access iPhone’s services, including making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhone’s capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.

“Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great these applications look and work on iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable.”

Completely out of left field, Apple today introduced Safari 3 for Windows PCs and Macs.

According to Apple, Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari joins iTunes in delivering Apple’s user experience to both Windows and Mac users as well as full support of open Internet standards.

Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information. Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.

“We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience too.”

If Steve Jobs gets his way, iTunes and Apple TV may soon become the digital version of Blockbuster or Netflix.

Apple is working with Hollywood studios to make movies available for rental via iTunes, according to a story today in the Wall Street Journal. The rental service is being pitched aggressively by Apple, with titles to rent for $2.99 for a set number of days before expiring.

Apple has had little success persuading major studios to give up their new releases for sale on iTunes. Only Disney sells new movies through the service.

Studio concerns center on Apple’s copy-protection policies & pricing. Apple wants titles to be playable not just on the computer but also on a second device such as a video iPod. Some studios believe that policy might result in lost sales or rentals.

Filmmakers Arin Crumley & Susan Buice have released their film, Four Eyed Monster, in full on YouTube. The movie’s creation was documented as the Four Eyed Monster video podcast,and the movie is said to be the first full-length film officially released on YouTube.

Crumley & Buice’s work is notable for the ways that they have experimented with using the Internet to raise awareness of their film. They debuted the Four Eyed Monster video podcast in October of 2006, gave the movie a virtual showing in Second Life in January of this year and have been distributing the DVD independently via their site.

Unfortunately for Crumley & Brice, Four Eyed Monster is no El Mariachi – it’s more of a quirky art-house flick, and they managed to rack up tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt making the film.

So they are now experimenting with using YouTube to promote the film and Spout.com, a filmmaking online community, to help pay off their debt. It might be a revolution in filmmaking or it could be a little pathetic, depending on your perspective:

You can find out more about the project at the Four Eyed Monster site.

The Diffusion Group reports that, based on their latest research, 11% of adult broadband users (some 12 million US consumers) listen to podcasts at least once per month. They also predict that the podcast audience will more than double in the next five years, to 24% of broadband users (38.5 million Americans) by 2012.

While the audience for podcasting continues to expand, TDG identifies two specific factors that are keeping a lid on usage:

• Podcasting continues to be perceived as too complex for average consumers to use; and
• People remain unaware of the quantity and quality of content available for podcast consumption.

While TDG’s conclusions¬†may seem obvious to¬†most podcasters, they¬†confirm¬†the opportunities still available in the world of podcasting.¬†

“Despite the fact that the Oxford University Press selected ‚Äòpodcast‚Äô as Word of Year in 2005, most consumers have a very poor understanding of the medium or the variety of content available for consumption by podcast,‚Äù said Dale Gilliam III, director of primary research and author of the report.

TorrentSpy, one of the most popular sites for .torrent sharing, has been ordered by US federal judge Jacqueline Chooljian in the Central District of California that, despite the site’s privacy policy, which states they will never monitor their visitors without consent, they must start creating logs detailing their user’s activities.

This information could then be turned over to the MPAA and other organizations that want to limit sharing of movies and other media files, effectively putting TorrentSpy in the position of spying on their users.

The site owners have been granted a stay of the order in order to make an appeal, which must be filed by June 12, says Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy’s attorney.

“It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users,” said Rothken. “If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.”