Apple plans to launch new iPods featuring Wi-Fi in the second half of 2007, according to information from suppliers.

Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) will produce the Wi-Fi modules and Foxconn will perform as the OEM system assembler.USI will begin shipments later in April, while Foxconn may do so in the third quarter, the sources pointed out.

Microsoft’s Zune has popularized the idea of Wi-Fi portable media players, and Creative and SanDisk both showcased wireless players at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Wireless players have failed to generate much excitement because of limitations in their implementations.

UK’s Daily Telegraph reports that EMI and Apple agreed to settle a dispute over underpayment of record royalties on sales of Beatles records between 1994 and 1999. Executives at Apple Corps and EMI can now sit down and work out a new royalties deal to cover music downloads of their singles and albums through iTunes and other online services.

Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of John Lennon and George Harrison had alleged that EMI underpaid ¬£30 million in record royalties on sales of Beatles’ records between 1994 and 1999. Details of the settlement are confidential, but it is thought that the Beatles will receive a multi-million pound sum as part of the settlement.

The claim related to every album recorded by The Beatles as a group and later as solo performers between 1963 and 1976, including Help!, Rubber Soul, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road, as well as John Lennon’s Imagine.

The royalty settlement means that EMI and Apple can work on royalty terms for the sale of Beatles’ songs over the internet.

Microsoft’s top lawyer Brad Smith, right, warned Apple yesterday not stop complaining to record labels about music copyright restrictions, saying the computer giant was already selling plenty of iPod music players.

“I’m not a big believer in just blaming the music industry for Apple’s inability to sell every conceivable iPod,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at the US software giant.

“I think they’re (Apple) doing pretty well from what I can tell. In fact I think the music companies are the ones who right now are doing a little less well,” he told reporters.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs recently challenged record labels to abolish security software that prevents music bought online from being played on different types of MP3 players.

“At the same time I wouldn’t go as far as Steve Jobs did and suggest that everything is the fault of the record labels,” added Smith. “People who produce content and who own the rights to that content deserve the opportunity to make their own decisions about how they want to provide that content to the public,” added Smith.

Apple has issued a statement that the iPhone will be released in June, but that the next version of OS X will be delayed:

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS¬Æ X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.

Since the iPhone has already passed some of its certification tests, one has to wonder if this announcement is subterfuge, distracting people from the four-month delay of Leopard with a tidbit of news about the iPhone.

Apple appears to be moving its focus from the Mac platform to platform-independent devices. At the recent MacWorld in January, Apple’s announcements were all platform-independent.

Make has a note on their site today saying that the awesomely empowerful Make: Video Podcast is optimized for AppleTV.

You can subscribe and watch the standard MP4 or mov at 640×360, or select the HD version which is set up to look awesome in HD.

“I shoot in hdv so it’s not up-res-ing,” says Make’s Bre Pettis. “All that at detail is there to start with! If you don’t have an AppleTV or an HDTV to enjoy the resolution, you can watch it in hd on your computer.”

Scoble voices a complaint that is becoming common among Apple TV owners:

I’ve been watching a TON of Internet videos with my son the past few days. I haven’t found one that really looks awesome yet that can compare with the Discovery Channel’s HD content, for instance.

Today I spent a few hours at Adobe seeing its CS3 Suite (ships on Monday). I wish I could push high resolution versions of the videos down, but I don’t have the machines, nor can I afford the bandwidth. Now some companies are offering the bandwidth for free, but that gets back to what Apple’s suggesting for Internet video producers: doing one format for iTunes that’ll play on both Apple TV as well as iTunes.

I don’t think that’s the best practice in the end. I think if we really want Apple TV customers to be happy we’ll offer them one feed for that (translation: something that’s 16:9 and has more resolution than 640xsomething) and another for iPods (cause they can’t deal with more than 640xsomething resolution).

One other thing? Most Internet video content just is really boring. Mine included. Gotta work on that too along with the resolution.

While Apple TV is a cool piece of gear, it also makes you view Internet video from a different perspective. You’re used to seeing DVD-quality video on HDTVs, and most video podcasts (and most Internet video) look awful on an HDTV. Apple TV leaves you wanting longer, better-quality high-definition widescreen video podcasts.

Traditional HDTV content is stuck in a quagmire of old technology and competing formats. It will be years before this is all worked out.

With video podcasts, though, the technology (if not necessarily the speed) is here for anyone to make HDTV and get it into people’s homes. Apple is going to be working hard to get good high-definition content onto Apple TV, and this offers a unique opportunity for video podcasters.

We, like Scoble and just about everybody else that’s purchased an Apple TV, are looking for great 720p video podcasts. If you’ve got one, let us know in the comments!

Apple has updated its podcasting specs and is sending out emails to video podcasters with tips on how to make them look great on Apple TV.

The tips include:

• Encode at 640√ó480 or 640√ó360. This will look much better than 320√ó240 on HDTV, and will still port to the iPod. While 720p looks great, they say, it won‚Äôt work on an iPod.
• Don‚Äôt make two formats for different resolutions – it dilutes the popularity of the podcast and reduces exposure in charts.
• Don‚Äôt add letterboxing to make videos to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Leave them at 16:9.

If you’re creating video podcasts, recognize that Apple’s recommendations are a compromise that sacrifice Apple TV quality for compatibility with video iPods. While they recommend using just one format to get the highest ranking within iTunes, there may be enough interest in HDTV that there could be benefits to moving to 720p widescreen and treating lower resolutions as legacy formats.

Here’s Apple’s updated spec:

Zune Scene has reports on “leaked” details of upcoming Zune media players:

Zune 2.0 and a smaller flash based Zune will be sold this year. He would not tell me the marketing names but referred to them as the big one and little one. The hard drive version looks like the generation 1 Zune, but is thinner. It has a larger hard drive and still uses the doubleshot.

The flash based player he said is about “3 by 1 1/4 by 1/4 inches” in size. It is video capable and he said the screen covers about 75% of the front, similar to the hard drive Zune. The flash player has Wi-Fi and also uses a double shot. We discussed colors, he said there were several but did not disclose them. He had some interesting points about the clamshells saying that they can’t be opened easily like the current Zune. Both devices have completed the design phase, although some last minute minor tweaks to the hardware will occur.

When I asked about memory capacity he said “you have to beat the competition you know” he also said the flash memory fills the smaller device from top to bottom.

Surprisingly he gave some hard numbers: 2.4 million next gen Zunes will be fabricated prior the 2007 holiday season. About 2/3 of them are the smaller flash units. ” A new building is currently under construction in Dao Min China, next to the one that makes the XBOX 360″ he said. In Zune Scene’s opinion, based on that statement, it appears the Zune 2.0 will not be another Toshiba Gigabeat based device.

Based on the poor critical reception that the Zune has received and its failure to make a splash in the marketplace, Microsoft will need offer more than a flash-based Zune if it wants the platform to ever be an iPod-killer.

High-Definition-starved Apple TV fans have reportedly been wreaking havoc at a Internet video site that is offering a Wages of Sin, a B-grade crime movie, formatted for Apple TV.

Here’s the description for this future classic:

Wages is the story of a sting operation gone array and a botched assassination attempt that leaves Johnny “Trigger”, AKA deep cover officer Nathan Matthews framed for aiding and abetting in the murder of undercover officers, Tarantino and Rodriguez, and for the slaughter of several FBI agents. To clear his name he must go on the run. Not knowing who to trust Matthews befriends Teresa, a hooker who wants out of the street life. As luck would have it she’s got the goods on Nathan’s previous mark, up and coming drug kingpin Eric Constantine. Matthews must find the dirty cops who betrayed him, protect Teresa and evade goons, hit teams, a would-be Yakuza boss and an infamous assassin called “Mona Lisa”.

According to Internet video site Hungryflix, fans looking for cheap content for their Apple TVs have inundated the Hungryflix servers downloading the feature-length film.

Slingbox’s Dave Zatz has confirmed that Slingbox is working on support for Apple TV. This offers the possibility of using Apple TV content on thousands of devices, anywhere you’ve got an Internet connection:

Several people have gotten in touch regarding yesterday’s CNET blog post:

Apple TV does not stream over the Internet or across a cellular phone network, but the SlingBox does. And Sling Media, the maker of the SlingBox, confirmed to CNET News.com on Monday that the company is working on making the Slingbox compatible with Apple TV. The most likely–and compelling–scenario would be to allow the streaming of Apple TV content to a mobile device.

Yes, I can confirm this is accurate. (I work for Sling Media.) The Slingbox currently supports over 3,000 AV devices (cable boxes, DVRs, DVD players, etc) via IR and we’ve got many more in the pipeline. For Apple TV, you’d use the component pass-thru on a Slingbox Pro with HD Connect to remotely view, or listen, to your content. Our SlingPlayer software (computer and mobile) offers an audio-only mode, so we’re not just talking iTV video here… Select an iTunes playlist, switch to audio-only if you’d like (reducing bandwidth), and listen to your music anywhere you’ve got Internet. I don’t have anything to say on availability other than we’re currently in testing and it is coming…

The announcement confirms that Apple TV is becoming a hot new platform for hacking and development, with hackers installing larger hard drives, turning the device into a Macintosh, adding support for more file formats and more.