Podcasters Across Borders 2007, a podcasting event scheduled for June 22-24 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, will feature sessions, panels, an audio production workshop, two major concerts and even a boat cruise.

“We are approaching a second consecutive sellout,” said Mark Blevis, one of the show organizers. “We’ve attracted people from across Canada (including Whitehorse which is extremely north), the US, UK, Argentina, and Trinidad and Tobago.”

The organizers offer some amazing facts about PAB2007:

• 19 sessions (including a workshop) over 3 days
• 2 concerts in 2 nights, 3 bands in all
• 1 boat cruise
• 2 continental breakfasts (Saturday and Sunday)
• 1 buffet lunch (Saturday) with vegetarian and vegan dishes
• 1 free t-shirt for each registrant
• 1 free Freddy Litwiniuk CD for each registrant
• 1 lounge with couches for hanging out
• 1 participant-managed breakout room
• Crazy low registration fee‚Ķ $100 Canadian per person!!!

More information is available at the PAB site.

It looks like the mobile phone industry is starting to face the music – they’re introducing new features to try and close the gap between their offerings and those of Apple’s iPhone.

Nokia has released its Nokia Media Transfer 1.0 beta, which lets you transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and other files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.

The app is a free download.

Parallels today released Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac, a new version of its software that enables Mac users run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems at the same time as OS X on a single Mac desktop, without rebooting. For people that need access to both Mac and PC software, Parallels can eliminate the need to have a second computer.
Parallels Desktop 3.0 introduces over 50 new features, enhancements and improvements.

One key new features is SmartSelect, which lets users use any OS X or Windows application to open any file type, regardless of whether that file is on the Mac or Windows desktop. Users can select the right application to open a file each time via right click, or can set a default application association to ensure that a given class of file always opens in a specific application.

For example, if you set Word for Windows to be the default application to work with .doc, .rtf and .txt files, you could double click a file with that extension in either OS and instantly open the file in Word for Windows.

SmartSelect is also automatically configured to mount and open Mac .dmg installer files in OS X, even if they were downloaded in Windows via Internet Explorer or Outlook, and to automatically open .exe files in Windows, even if they reside in Mac OS X.

Other key features include Snapshots, which save the state of a machine’s virtual system; Security Manager, which lets users limit interaction between Windows and OS X; and hardware accelerated 3D graphics – which lets you frag away in Quake and Half-Life 2.

3D Graphics Support

“Parallel Desktop 3.0 for Mac on Intel-based Macs is enabling a new era in virtualization,” said Doug Fisher, Intel Vice President of System Software Division. “Users can now run multiple operating systems while enjoying blistering performance, energy efficiency and powerful resource management on desktop and mobile computers.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization that fights for online rights, is publicly asking why Apple is embedding its customers’ names and email addresses in files purchased from the iTunes Store.

The name and email embedded into the file can easily be read, and iTunes can display the name and email of the person who purchased the song. This means that anyone who has access to the file can see the original purchaser’s name and email address.

“Apple, why is my name and email embedded in the clear in the songs I’ve bought?” asks EFF’s Fred von Lohmann. ” Why won’t you explain what it’s for and why it’s necessary that my PII (personally identifiable information) be in the clear?”

Podworks, being held June 9th & 10th at TIDEL Park, Chennai, promises to be India’s largest ever event focusing on audio and video podcasting.

The event is a two-day unconference style workshop which intends to share the knowledge around audio and video podcasting, blogging, and video podcasting. The event is open to anyone curious to know more about podcasting as a form of new media.

“We are concentrating on both sides of the coin which includes audio and video podcasting,” said Podworks’ Kiruba Shankar. “With a wide range of topics which include basics of how to create a podcast meant for the beginners to advanced technological aspects for the regular users, this event aims to educate and cultivate a truly knowledge sharing experience ”

Vator.tv has launched (or relaunched) as a sort of YouTube for entrepreneurs.

The name Vator comes the idea of an “elevator” pitch. Users can upload business pitches, where they can be rated & discussed. The company hopes to become a platform for making starting a business more efficient.

The startup was launched on a limited scale previously, but was mired in controversy because of co-founder Bambi Francisco’s coverage of Vator.tv clients in her role at Marketwatch. She has since resigned from Marketwatch.

Content delivery network Akamai Technologies unveiled today a new service that lets you interactively view real-time statistics on Internet traffic.

In addition to letting you view Latency, Traffic and Attacks for the Internet, the service provides net usage indexes for Music, News and Retail.

The information is captured by Akamai’s content delivery network. Akamai has over 25,000 servers in more than 750 cities around the world. According to Akamai, they deliver 20% of the world’s Internet traffic.

With its Visualize service, Akamai is providing a visual understanding of why some Web traffic may be slow, infected, or simply non-existent.

“Its easy to take for granted that the Internet will always be on, and always working,” said Tom Leighton, co-founder and chief scientist of Akamai. “Reality shows us that there are many factors, on any given day, degrading the Internet‚Äôs performance. Some are malicious, and some are the result of the incredible amount of content being requested at any one time. Akamai is in a unique position to monitor the Internet in real-time, identifying where and when the Internet is being taxed.”

The Nielsen Company today announced that it will begin tracking mobile phone owners’ media activity with a new service called Nielsen Wireless. The service will track how many people use content services such as mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this has on established media behavior.

The service is designed specifically for the wireless industry and complements Nielsen’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which will measure television usage on all television and video platforms, including personal video devices such as mobile phones.

Nielsen Wireless’ first product – Mobile Vector – will launch in the U.S. in July 2007. It will use information culled from Nielsen’s existing National People Meter TV sample to report on media behavior and audience demographics segmented by wireless carrier.

According to Nielsen, Movile Vector will:

• Help wireless carriers develop more efficient advertising campaigns to reach their most valuable subscribers, while helping mobile content producers decide which mobile content distributor will be most effective in extending their brand.
• Help the mobile media industry establish competitive positioning and differentiation.
• Identify how the subscribers of different wireless carriers consume media in the home (i.e. TV viewing preferences, video gaming activity, media technology adoption)

“Reliable and accurate measurement of mobile consumers will enable advertisers to properly evaluate the mobile marketing opportunity,” said Nielsen Vice President Jeff Herrmann. “Independent measurement of the cross-media behavior of the growing mobile audience will support and accelerate the evolution of mobile media business models.”

Media analysis company Bridge Ratings and radio service provider Ando Media announced today that Bridge will now offer Ando’s suite of services designed to help Internet radio stations measure and monetize their audiences.

The arrangement lets Bridge offer Ando’s three Internet Radio products through its new division called Net Radio Data:

• Ad Injector, an ad injection service;
• Webcast Metrics, a 3rd party audience measurement system; and
• Podloc, a service that tracks podcast listening

“We’ve wanted to offer Internet Radio metrics for a while,”¬ù says Bridge Ratings President & CEO Dave Van Dyke, “and Internet radio needs credibility for sales campaigns and audience trending. The power of the Internet is its ability to measure impressions and our research has shown that Internet Radio will continue to offer ever-widening audiences for advertisers and programmers alike.”

Podcasting network PodShow appears to be getting some unwanted attention from hackers.

Some PodShow members have reported getting emails like this:

—–Original Message—–
From: hacked.by.xxxxxxx@podshow.com [mailto:hacked.by.xxxxxxx@podshow.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 10:18 AM
To: xxxxx@xxxxxx.com
Subject: HACKED!

podshow.com got HACKED by yeknom!

PodShow has contained the issue and released this statement:

At approximately 10am PST today, an attempt was made to compromise our network. Our systems recognized the attempt and immediately reacted by shutting down certain functions.

During this attempt, spam emails were sent to certain users on our network. If you received unsolicited emails from a PodShow.com address, we sincerely apologize. We take this type of interruption very seriously and are constantly upgrading our systems and processes to prevent interruptions and abuse.

The entire PodShow team appreciates your support and we work diligently to bring you the best in new media and new music. Should any additional issues arise, we will keep you informed.

Sincerely,
Ron Bloom, Adam Curry and the PodShow Team