MySpace today announced the launch of Take Down Stay Down, a new feature for copyright holders that prevents users from re-posting video content in the MySpace community after that content has been removed at the request of the copyright owner.

“We have created this new feature to solve a problem that has long frustrated copyright holders and presented technical challenges to service providers ‚Äì how to prevent copyrighted content from being re-posted by the same or a different user after it has been taken down by the copyright owner,‚Äù said Michael Angus, EVP and General Counsel for Fox Interactive Media.

Take Down Stay Down utilizes a number of steps to ensure the content is identified, taken down, and kept out of the MySpace community. When a content owner informs MySpace that a user has improperly posted its content onto MySpace Videos, not only is the video promptly removed by MySpace, but MySpace also creates a digital fingerprint of the video content and adds it to its copyright filter, which is based on Audible Magic technology.

If any user tries to upload the same content that has been removed, the filter will recognize the digital fingerprint and block the content from being uploaded. This way, when copyright owners remove content from MySpace, they will have greater comfort that it will stay down and not be reposted.

For people with pacemakers, iPods could be deadly.

iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday. The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart’s pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.

The study was held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University. The results were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver.

via Yahoo

Details are leaking out about a new round of Microsoft Zune portable media players and updates to the Zune’s operating system. The changes look to be incremental, rather than revolutionary, and don’t look like they will be enough to turn the Zune into more than another iPod wannabe.

According to an iLounge report, Microsoft reviewed new Zune designs with developers yesterday:

Microsoft apparently previewed more than one upcoming Zune at the event. The one that people expected Рa flash memory-based Zune Рis definitely coming. But it’s physically larger than the iPod nano, and apparently not anything amazing: ‘not bad’ is how we’ve heard it described. If you liked the last Zune but wanted something smaller and with less storage capacity, that’s the flash Zune.

The surprise was the preview of an updated hard drive-based Zune. We’ve heard that it will have a bigger display (yes, this surprised us, too) and most likely additional storage capacity, matching higher-end full-sized iPods as the prior Zune matched the lower-end ones. Our guess is that this is Microsoft’s response to the oft-mentioned iPhone dilemma: “great video screen, but how do I store more than 4 movies on it?”

Engadget also has some info on a possible new build of the Zune operating system. Most significant in the build are improvements to the portable media player’s wireless capabilities, which many consider worthless in their current implementation.

Apparently you’ll finally be able to put your WiFi to good use (other than being a part of “the social”) by using open WiFi hotspots (no word on WiFi you have the key for) and Microsoft points for downloading tracks. (Sorry, no word about subscriptions, syncing, and the like.

Microsoft will have to address the Zune’s basic problems, not offer incremental improvements, if it hopes to save the Zune brand.

Amazon.com today officially launched the Amazon Podcasts network, an original podcast offering that features four channels of free content: Amazon BookClips, Music You Should Hear, Significant Seven and Amazon Wire.

The company expects to offer several additional channels in the coming months to meet its customers’ increasing demand for rich content related to the products they shop. Each podcast is available via streaming and download from Amazon.com, and through RSS and iTunes. Amazon Wire is also available on TiVo.

The announcement highlights the growing importance of podcasting for reaching the growing population of people that use the Internet as a primary source of information and entertainment.

“Amazon Podcasts offers customers exclusive content and interviews they won‚Äôt find anywhere else,” said Amazon’s Kristi Coulter. “Listeners can get more exclusive information about the artists, authors and actors they love.”

Podcast aggregation site Odeo today announced that its assets have been acquired by SonicMountain, a New York based company focused in the digital media hosting and search marketplace.

Odeo was among the first commercial podcasting sites, launched in July 2005, and is designed to make it easy to listen, download and subscribe to podcasts. The site had struggled to meet the goals of its founder, Evan Williams, and was put up for sale in February.

While Odeo has been one of the most successful podcast aggregation & communit sites, the site has faced monolithic competition from Apple’s podcast offerings and has also struggled from fact that it didn’t eat it’s own dog food. Williams attention recently has been focused on another startup, Twitter.

Internet television service Joost today announced that five parties have collectively invested approximately $45 million in the company. This funding will enable Joost to accelerate development,of its ad-supported Internet video offerings.

The investments highlight growing interest in Internet video business opportunities, along with an interest by content creators to see an alternative to YouTube.

CBS Corporation and Viacom are content partners, providing channels and programming on Joost. CBS has provided more than 2000 hours of entertainment, sports and news programming. Viacom is providing content from all of its properties, including MTV, Comedy Central and VH1.

“This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost’s platform,” said Janus Friis, co-founder of Joost. “We’ve carefully selected these investors from a variety of interested parties, as they are best-in-class in their respective arenas and bring unique assets to Joost that will enable us to significantly accelerate growth and development of the Company.”

London-based social networking/music website Last.fm has announced that it will be using its connections with major and independent record labels to bring video recommendations to the site this week.

This new offering enables users to create their own personalised video “channels” filtered according to their musical tastes – much like the way that users can already create radio stations based on their Last.fm musical profiles.

Last.fm also boasts the quality of videos on its site “will be significantly higher than that of YouTube”, with audio encoded at 128kbps (compared to YouTube‚Äôs 64kbps).

Initial content will be provided by leading independent music labels, including Ninja Tune, Nettwerk Music Group, Domino, Warp, Atlantic and Mute, who have artists including the Arctic Monkeys, Moby and Aphex Twin in their catalogues.

Last.fm has secured partnerships with EMI, Warner and over 20,000 independent labels – and is in negotiation with Universal and Sony Music Group, offering its users personalised channels from the largest legal catalogue of music videos on the web.

Last.fm says it aims eventually to have every music video ever made on the site, from the latest hits to underground obscurities to classics from the past.

Angel Learning, a developer/marketer of enterprise e-learning software, has announced that the latest version of their Learning Management System program has built-in podcast support.

Responding to strong interest in the educational community for podcasting, ANGEL 7.2 contains a native feature to support content syndication in all forms. Faculty simply create a “Content Syndication” folder and load their media content. With a single click, students subscribe to the folder and receive the media on their iPods or other MP3 players.

Angel Learning is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and develops and markets enterprise elearning software. Their clients range from K through college educaitonal institutions, to corporate customers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit Tuesday against Uri Geller, a “paranormalist” best known for bending spoons, for bending the law to silence his critics.

EFF’s client, Brian Sapient, belongs to a group called the “Rational Response Squad,” which is dedicated to debunking what it calls irrational beliefs. As part of their mission, Sapient and others post videos to YouTube that they say demonstrate this irrationality. One of the videos that Sapient uploaded came from a NOVA program called Secrets of the Psychics, which challenges the performance techniques of Geller.

Geller filed a takedown demand with YouTube under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). According to the EFF, that violates the DMCA requirement that copyright holders only send takedown notices for infringing content.

Because of Geller’s DMCA notice, Sapient’s YouTube account was suspended, and his videos were removed from the site. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, EFF is asking for damages due to Geller’s violation of the DMCA, a declaratory judgment that the NOVA video does not infringe Geller’s copyrights, and that Geller be restrained from bringing any further legal action against Sapient in connection to the clip.

“Uri Geller may not like it when people question his paranormal abilities. However, he is not allowed to stifle public criticism by misusing the law,” said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hoffman. “If the publication of a video does not infringe his copyright, then he cannot block its use — it’s as simple as that.”

Natalie Portman, star of the Star Wars prequels and V is for Vendetta, is rumored to be shopping around for funding for a new reality Internet video project:

Natalie Portman’s effort appears more in the line of Justin.tv, the Yale graduate who had been filming every minute of his life, or Lonely Girl 15, the Youtube character who recorded a spectacularly popular video diary from her fictional bedroom. We know this only because one of Zachary’s colleagues asked, rather indiscreetly, on Twitter: “How big of an audience do you think natalie portman lifecasting could attract?”

While the idea of an Internet television station devoted to one star doesn’t seem far off, this rumor comes via Valleywag and is unsubstantiated, so it could be 100% false.