The Philadelphia Orchestra has launched Podchestra, a trial series of orchestral podcasts.

The Orchestra’s first podcast features:

• interviews with young artists who perform with the Orchestra in April, the ‚ÄúMonth of Rising Stars‚Äù;
• stories about memorable Orchestra debuts; and
• a look into the lives of the Orchestra‚Äôs musicians.

You can preview the podcast below, or subscribe to the podcast by adding this feed URL to your podcast software:
http://podcast.philorch.org/feed.xml

Podcamp, a free unconference about podcasting, is coming to New York this weekend. The New York PodCamp Conference will be held April 7th at the New Yorker Hotel, at 481 8th Avenue at 34th St.

The event is organized by attendees, and will focus on topics like the future of podcasting and video podcasting.

Organizers offer 10 reasons to attend Podcamp NYC:

YuMe Networks, a dedicated advertising network for broadband video, today announced it will launch an ad campaign that lets a marketer insert dynamically served video advertising into downloadable content.

“Today we are launching a game-changing capability that will take online video advertising to another level,” said Jayant Kadambi, CEO and co-founder of YuMe Networks. “We are excited to bring advertisers a solution that enables them to insert dynamic, targeted and customizable campaigns in content downloaded from online destinations such as BitTorrent to any device — PC, mobile, IPTV and more.”

“We have been working diligently with a range of video publishers from the largest movie studios to the creators of independent video to advocate the role advertising can play in delivering their content to the BitTorrent community,” said Ashwin Navin, President and co-founder of BitTorrent, Inc. “The combination of our extensive user base, worldwide content relationships and powerfully efficient distribution model, is enabling a rapid shift toward free, ad-supported content available on the BitTorrent Entertainment Network.”YuMe’s technology tracks user activity to measure “view-throughs” rather than “click-throughs”, so it can report back exactly how many people viewed and the number of times they viewed, in addition to whether they clicked. Because this new “view-through” metric directly measures and reports the viewer’s behavior, expects it to become the new performance metric for determining how an advertiser pays a publisher for online video advertising.

Eidos Interactive in North America, one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, is the first advertiser to launch a download campaign with YuMe. The Eidos campaign will promote the upcoming video and PC game Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary. With YuMe’s technology, Eidos can geographically target its ads, customize ads in real time and update creative messaging in content that has already been downloaded.

Napster today announced that it now has 830,000 paid subscribers and anticipates reporting more than $28 million in revenue for Q1 2007.

“Napster concludes our fiscal year 2007 with over 830,000 paid subscribers, which we believe makes us the largest on demand music subscription service in the industry, with a paid subscriber base that is both larger than Rhapsody, as well as larger than all of the remaining subscription competitors combined,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“In mid-March, we successfully integrated over 225,000 AOL Music Now paid subscribers onto the Napster service, and our payment to AOL will be adjusted accordingly to reflect the actual subscriber count. We also enjoyed healthy organic growth adding another 40,000 net paid subscribers during the quarter,” said Gorog.

“Napster ends the fiscal year with over 785,000 premium subscribers, including Japan, and approximately 45,000 university subscribers for a total of over 830,000 paid subscribers globally,” adds Gorog. “Napster’s number one market share position in on demand music subscription, together with our leadership position in wireless marketing partnerships, including our recently announced partnership with AT&T, creates a very healthy foundation for the continuing development of our business.”

A new Web poll survey, conducted by rock radio consultants Jacobs Media, has found that, among rock radio listeners, an FM radio tuner is the most desired new feature for portable media players. The survey also found more people than ever are interested in getting portable media players.

The study asked about the most important new feature that consumers want in their next personal mp3 player. Overwhelmingly, respondents want an FM tuner (33%). That feature outpaces increased capacity, a larger screen, and video playback in importance. According to the survey, more than four in ten iPod owners (43%) want an FM tuner.

“iPods are showing no signs of stopping,” according to Fred Jacobs, President of Jacobs Media. “Last year, our data showed that the growth of personal mp3 players was far from over. This year, our new study confirms that this phenomenon continues to have lots of life, and we expect strong growth throughout ’07.”

Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro offered his support today for an announcement from Apple and EMI Music that Apple will offer the entire digital music catalog of EMI Music DRM-free in a high quality format.

“CEA applauds Apple and EMI Music for recognizing what consumers really want out of their digital music experience–high resolution recordings worthy of both home and on-the-go listening, along with the freedom to move music among devices,” said Shapiro. “This is the future of digital entertainment.”

“Traditional MP3 files are compressed for space purposes, a process which strips frequencies and important details from each recording. For consumers, this announcement means there is no longer a need to sacrifice quality sound simply for convenience. We think music fans are going to like what they hear.”

The wonderfully-titled Le Journal du Geek (French) has the scoop on this bizarre iPod dock, the Dragon 1:

The Dragon I iPod dock features tentacles that house individual speakers, with a collective output of 20 watts. The speaker tendrils can be bent to direct sound in any direction you like.

The Dragon I speakers costs €249( $335) and is styled to match the U2 iPod.

via Newlaunches.com

The EU has launched an inquiry into what Apple’s online music store iTunes charges users across Europe, accusing it of restricting customer choice, resulting in higher prices for some consumers.

The EU is considering whether agreements between Apple and record companies violate EU laws by preventing users in one country buying music from a site elsewhere.

Apple establishes customers’ country of residence through their credit card details and only allows people to buy tracks from the website for that country. As a result, iTunes users in one part of the EU may be forced to pay higher prices than in another area.

“Consumers can only buy music from the iTunes online stores in their country of residence and are therefore restricted in their choice of where to buy music,” said EU competition spokesman Jonathan Todd.

According to Apple, it would prefer to offer a pan-European service, but is restricted by its music partners from doing so.

via BBC NEWS

Advanced Technology Office has updated its iSee 360i Video Recorder, an iPod accessory that lets you record video content directly on an iPod for portable viewing. ATO also announced that it will offer bundled iSee-iPod packages in three different configurations – 2GB nano, 4GB nano, and 30GB video.

The second-generation iSee package now includes adapters for iPod 1G/2G nano and iPod 30GB video models. The adapters formerly sold as optional accessories for $19.95. In addition, ATO has lowered suggested retail pricing by $50.

The iSee 360i includes:

• iSee video recorder
• Adapters for iPod 1G/2G nano and fifth-generation 30GB iPod video models
• iSee docking station
• AV in/out cables
• AC power adapter and rechargeable battery
• Software CD
• User‚Äôs manual, software manual, quick setup guide
• iSee protective sleeve
• One-year full warranty and unlimited toll-free technical support.

The iSee 360i Video Recorder for iPod has a new MSRP of $199.00 USD.

Wizzard Software, a software company that specializes in speech-recognition technology and also a podcast service provider, today announced record revenues for 2006, thanks in part to (we’re not making this up!) “Rex” – the talking pill bottle.

Wizzard recorded record revenues of $2,943,578, an increase of $1,249,503, or approximately 73%, from revenues of $1,694,075 in 2005. Wizzard credits Rex for part of their increased revenue.

“Rex” is a prescription pill bottle that “talks” to the patient, using text to speech technology, allowing them to distinguish what type of medication is in the bottle and hear critical information on dosage amounts and refill parameters.

Wizzard generated a gross profit of $1,064,115 in 2006, versus a gross profit of $703,070 in 2005, an increase of 51%.