The mpion is one of the most bizarre variations on the MP3 player that we’ve seen.

The Japanese gadget promises to give you an ionic facial while you listen to music. It also promises humiliation, though, as you realize you spent ¥20,790 (about $170) for an MP3 player that only has 128MB of memory.

The mpion has a negative ion generator on its back. The idea is that negative ions can clean skin pores when applied to the face more effectively than soap and water.
That’s all well and good until your friends see you caressing your face with your MP3 player…..

A new robotic iPod dock, Tokyo-based ZMP Inc.’s 14-inch long Miuro robot, can do more than just amp up your tunes. – it does table dances:

“We aim to create a new form of life that moves freely and spontaneously in ways human beings can’t predict,” said ZMP President Hisashi Taniguchi. “We’re hoping to turn Miuro into the ultimate virtual pet.”

The latest Miuro (music innovation based on utility robot technology) prototype is fitted with software based on what scientists call chaotic itinerancy, a mathematical pattern similar to the movements of a bee circling from flower to flower as it collects nectar. The software lets the Miuro act unpredictably, “just like a child playing,” said Tokyo University researcher Takashi Ikegami, who developed the software.

Other improvements will let users set the Miuro like an alarm clock so it wheels into the bedroom and blasts music at a certain time.

The Miuro lists for $1299.

The team at SWsoft has announced a new version of Parallels Desktop for Mac. Named Desktop for Mac 3.0. The forthcoming update,due in a few weeks,has over 50 new features….including Windows 3D graphic support (that’s Quake 4 running under vritual Windows XP on a Mac above).

Parallels lets you run Windows apps on a Mac, without needing to boot into a different operating system.
Another new feature is SmartSelect, a tool that lets you map any OS X or Windows application as the default for any Mac or Windows file type. This means that when you right-click on any file in either OS and selects “open with”, SmartSelect automatically populates the recommended application list with compatible applications from both operating systems.

Parallels 3.0 will be available in a few weeks for $79.99, upgrades will be $49.99.

Buzz about Apple’s introduction of iTunes Plus, which offers DRM-free music tracks for $1.29 each, has turned into concern for some. Posts at Ars Technica and TUAW have revealed that Apple is embedding personal information, such as your name and email address, in¬†music files (including the DRM-free ones) purchased at iTunes.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit that fights for digital rights, is looking into¬†whether Apple’s music downloads are being used to help track what you do with your music purchases:

We’ve found that there isn’t a watermark in the compressed audio signal itself, but there are surprisingly huge differences in the encoded files. Much bigger differences than just different tags, or even different signed/encrypted tags.

We compared two DRM-free copies of the track Daftendirekt by Daft Punk. When decoded to PCM/WAV data, both copies produced an identical audio signal (the MD5sum is e40b006497f9b417760ca5015c3fa937). So there is no audio watermark. But one of the .m4a files is almost 360K larger than the other!

We haven’t finished examining these differences yet, and we don’t have in-house expertise on MPEG codecs, but some of them have an intriguing amount of structure. There’s a region (see around offset 0x11470 in the Daft Punk track for example) where the files contain what look like tables with sequential indices but different data in the table.

We’ll post again if we learn more about what’s going on here. In the mean time, some pure speculation: it may be that large amounts of iTunes library data are present in each file. It’s also possible that Apple has found a way to watermark the AAC encoding itself, such that users would need to either crack the watermark or transcode the audio signal in order to produce a file that does not identify them as the source.

It’s not clear yet how much information Apple is embedding in its “DRM-free” tracks or what it does with this information. It is clear, though, that there is information¬†in Apple’s¬†music downloads¬†that could be used by the RIAA or others to track what you do with your music.

It looks like the recording industry has learned that the promotional value of music videos is worth more than revenue from digital music video sales. Both EMI and Warner have announced plans to offer free Internet music videos.

EMI Music, Google and YouTube Announce Partnership

EMI Music, Google and YouTube today announced an agreement which will give YouTube users unprecedented access to authorized videos and recordings from EMI Music artists, including those featured in user generated content.

YouTube users will now be able to enjoy professionally-produced music videos from EMI Music artists including David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz, Lily Allen and Norah Jones. EMI will make authorized video content available to YouTube for the first time, helping artists to reach and interact with a new audience while enhancing the entertainment experience on YouTube.

EMI Music has agreed to work with YouTube and Google to develop business models in which the YouTube community will be able to access user generated content featuring EMI-owned and copyrighted audio and video works. EMI Music will use YouTube’s industry-leading content management tools which feature a content identification and reporting system that will help EMI track and monetize its content and compensate its artists.

“With this deal, all four of the world’s major music companies are now official YouTube partners,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder of YouTube. “EMI is a proven leader in the emerging digital music landscape and one of the world’s largest and most respected music companies. We’re excited to add EMI Music’s stellar roster of artists’ content to our site and make it available to our community.”

Warner To Offer Free Music Videos

Warner Music Group Corp has also announced that it plans to put up its entire music video archive online for free access by fans.

The world’s fourth-largest music company said it would enter into a partnership with the online TV company Premier TV to offer the content on an ad-support basis.

Steve Jobs made some interesting comments in his discussion with Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal’s D conference. He saves the best comment for last:

Apple today announced that it is offering a new Apple TV build-to-order option with a 160GB hard drive, addressing one of the most common complaints about the device, its relatively puny storage space. The new larger hard drive offers four times the storage for up to 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each.

The larger hard drive paves the way for HD video downloads, HD video podcasts and other advanced Internet television services.

Apple TV connects to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theater systems, bringing iTunes content such as movies or video podcasts to the living room. Apple TV comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports.

Using 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Apple TV can auto-sync content from one computer or stream content from up to five additional computers right to a TV.

Apple today announced that it‚Äôs it’s updating Apple TV to bring YouTube to the living room.

Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will be able to wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube and play them on a user’s widescreen TV. Viiewers will be able to browse, find and watch free videos from YouTube directly using Apple TV.

“This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch, and it‚Äôs really, really fun,” said Steve Jobs, Apple‚Äôs CEO. “YouTube is a worldwide sensation, and Apple TV is bringing it directly from the Internet onto the widescreen TV in your living room.”

Hackers actually had added YouTube support to Apple TV previously, but Apple’s announcement will bring this option to mainstream Apple TV users.

Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalog is available this fall. YouTube members will be able to log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.

Audible has announced that it is shuttering its proprietary podcasting alternative, Audible Wordcast:

Dear Audible Wordcast customer,

Regretfully, as of September 1, 2007, the Audible Wordcast service will no longer be available for public use. In the coming 90 days, we’ll provide you with details regarding the process of shutting down or moving your podcasts to another provider.

Thank you for your business, we genuinely appreciate your patience during this process and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Glenn Rogers, COO
Audible Inc.

From the start, Wordcast appeared to be a solution looking for a problem. Podcasting took off at the end of 2004, in large part, because podcasts were based on established standards (MP3s & RSS), they were interoperable and they were free. Wordcast, on the other hand, was proprietary, exclusive and designed to be a platform for paid podcasts.

When Wordcast was introduced, advocates of Audible’s approach went as far as predicting the death of podcasting. Mitch Ratcliffe, who consulted for Audible, suggested that Wordcast was the future of podcasting:

And if podcasting is going to plant its feet firmly in the ground of the legendary summer of 2004, when it was invented and canonized, then, I’ll bet, based on all the experience I have as an observer of and participant in technological markets, that “podcasting” will give way to smarter, more flexible approaches that make no pretensions to be immovable doctrine. So, there, you have my “death of podcasting” prediction: It could perish one foot outside of Dave Winer’s garden gate, because he seems intent on stomping on everything beyond that threshold.

Despite Audible’s best intentions, though, Wordcast appeared to be dead on arrival. It was almost universally panned in the blogosphere, and it never gained any traction with podcasters.

Apple today announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store, featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.

With the introduction of iTunes U, Apple is largely burying the idea that these audio and video shows are podcasts. There is no mention about podcasting in Apple’s press release, and there’s nothing in iTunes to reveal to typical users that the content might be podcasts.

Slightly confusingly, the free content is available through the iTunes U section of the Apple Store, but shows up in iTunes’ podcast section once added.

iTunes U provides a dedicated page for each university, with custom branding and links to significant university resources.