Kiptronic, a podcast advertising company, has announced the completion of a $4 million round of Series A funding, led by Blueprint Ventures and Prism VentureWorks with participation from existing angel investors.

Kiptronic provides targeted ad insertion for content publishers delivering video and audio to disconnected devices such as iPods, mobile phones, and laptops. Kiptronic’s technology lets major media publishers and independent podcasters seamlessly insert ads at download time without altering existing publishing processes.

“The collective industry experience, market insights and operational know-how of Blueprint Ventures and Prism VentureWorks was the ideal match for Kiptronic as we looked for investment partners to meet market demand for our technology service,”¬ù said Jonathan Cobb, Founder and CEO of Kiptronic.

Bart Schachter, Managing Director for Blueprint Ventures, and Paul O’Brien, Venture Partner for Prism VentureWorks, will join Kiptronic’s Board of Directors.

“Existing solutions can insert ads into streaming video viewed over the Internet, but Kiptronic has also solved the hard problem of inserting dynamic ads into offline time-shifted video and audio,” Schachter said. “Kiptronic will appeal to rich-media publishers looking to ad-enable their content for both online and offline consumption.”

Miglia has introduced TVDuo, described as a complete DVR experience to your Mac desktop. By integrating two digital terrestrial tuners, TVDuo lets you watch and record programs without having to decide which to miss and which to watch.

TVDuo is compatible with the DVB-T standard (called Freeview in the UK and TNT in France) and works in most European and Asian countries.

Bundled with Elgato’s EyeTV2, TVDuo offers these digital video recorder features:

• Record TV
• Remove ads from recorded footage while watching live TV
• Access EPG data from the Internet
• Schedule recordings
• Export recorded shows to your iPod Video or other Mac applications such as iDVD and Toast.

HDNet’s Mark Cuban is skeptical about the future prospects of BitTorrent technology for the distribution of large media files.

He cites several reasons:

• Conflicting Clients. There are a ton of clients, with the number growing all the time. Although they work on basically the same source code and protocols, they all install and operate as if they had exclusive access. They want to control the PC so that they are in charge of what resources are available. At some point they get considered to be malware and the clients will get uninstalled
• End Users dont understand how P2P works, and once they do, they get concerned about giving up bandwidth. Most users dont know how to go in and edit the default settings. So even if they settle on a single client and are happy with just the content available on that network or to that client, they arent going to be happy about their banwidth being in constant use to save a content provider money .
• The P2P model of seeding is a huge problem for those using wireless broadband with bandwidth constraints or per bit or per minute costs. People are going to wake up and find that they owe Verizon, Sprint, whoever a lot more than they ever thought possible because they installed a client on their laptops. That could lead to these networks blocking the protocol.
• There is a misconception that there is bandwidth savings for the end user. If you want to download a 1gb size file, 1gb of data will be delivered to your PC. There is no savings of bandwidth on the client side. In fact, the client is charged a bandwidth premium because after they have received the entire file, they are asked to particpate in the peering by delivering parts of the file to other users.

Cuban view may be influenced by his investment in traditional television, but BitTorrent hasn’t seen the widespread adoption of some file-sharing technologies, possibly because the publisher benefits more than then end user.

via TorrentFreak 

Real Networks is pushing for abandoning DRM’s music formats, which some are interpreting as a sign that record labels are contemplating removing restrictions from digital downloads.

“There is a groundswell, and I say that on the basis of private conversations,” said Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, which sells digital music protected against piracy through the Rhapsody subscription service.“It will happen between next year and five years from now, but it is more likely to be in one to two years,” he said.

Real’s music offerings have struggled to compete with Apple’s iTunes/iPod combination, and now the company faces stiffer competition with the introduction of Microsoft’s Zune platform and the company’s apparent abandonment of PlaysForSure technology.

The future looks bright for video podcasting and Internet video, based on a new report by JupiterResearch. According to the company, 37 percent of broadband users are interested in having TV programming delivered to their PC.

While the company notes the growing interest in Internet video, it doesn’t see a clear business model emerging for some time.
“Broadband video nicely complements TV today, but this grace period won’t last forever,” said Joe Laszlo, Senior Analyst and Research Director with JupiterResearch. “Substitution of Internet video for traditionally delivered video will grow over the next few years, and media companies must account for this coming audience shift in their mid-to-long term plans.”

Malachi and Company have announced the rollout of its second-generation MP3-compatible fitness shirts under the new name, SyncWear clothing.

The short-sleeve fitness shirt includes two key features: a redesigned dual-layer, 3-in-1 side pocket to hold a flash-based MP3 player such as the iPod Nano and cord management via two fabric loops along the side and shoulder area of the shirt. The company’s first-generation shirts, previously known as PodWear ProActive‚Ñ¢ short-sleeve fitness shirts, sold out of much of its inventory in the early part of the 2006 Christmas selling season.

The new dual-layer pocket is unique in that it has two side-by-side inner pockets; one to hold most flash-based MP3 players on the market and the other to hold other items, such as one’s car keys or ID. The larger outer pocket can be used to stow away any excess cord from the user’s earbud wires.

The shirt’s other key feature, features two fabric loops, one on the right side between the pocket and armpit and one near the right collarbone area, help keep the user’s earbud wires from flying around and getting caught on gym equipment or the user’s own arms.

A prescient email by a senior Microsoft executive shows that there were concerns in 2003 about Microsoft-based portable media players “sucking”, to the point that partnering with Apple was considered. Microsoft’s Jim Allchin was so distraught by his user experience with partner digital music devices on the market in 2003 that he considered calling Steve Jobs, documents show.

“I think I should talk with Jobs. Right now, I think I should open up a dialogue for support of the iPod. Unless something changes, the iPod will drive people away from WMP [Windows Media Player],” he said in a Nov. 13, 2003 internal e-mail that was marked ‘highly confidential’ and carried the subject line “sucking on media players.”

The e-mail was one of a three made public that begin with a message from Allchin to Amir Majidimehr, currently head of Microsoft’s consumer media technology group, documenting Allchin’s thoughts and experiences using Creative Technology’s Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra.

In 2006, Microsoft released the Zune media player, which by many accounts, “zucks”.

Massachusetts‚Äô Governor Deval Patrick is joining the ranks of political podcasters. Patrick is planning to launch his podcast at the end of the week. The governor will record three-to-five minutes of remarks, then making them available for downloading from Mass-dot-gov, the state’s official Web site.

Although the details are still being finalized, Patrick says he might record a podcast each Friday to recap his activities that week. In the future, the governor says he hopes to allow constituents to speak directly to him through a blog on the Web site.

Speaking today to the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, Patrick said he learned during the campaign how important it was to communicate directly with people.

via Eyewitness News

Warner, Sony, Melodeo and Access China Media Solutions today announced they are working together to develop and distribute world-class solutions for delivering mobile music and multimedia entertainment to wireless customers throughout China and other Asia Pacific marketplaces and beyond.

Melodeo is known to many in the world of podcasting for its mobile podcasting offerings.

Access China Media Solutions develops cutting-edge music-based mobile platforms for wireless carriers and handset manufacturers. These platforms provide consumers with the highest-quality music experience available on the mobile handset, incorporating user-friendly interfaces and innovative mobile music products.

Warner and Sony have each made strategic investment in Access China Media Solutions, a company formed by Access and Melodeo. With this investment, Warner and Sony are now key partners in Access China Media Solutions.

“Our participation in this company is an integral part of our overall strategy to innovate and develop the legitimate music marketplace around the world,” said Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. “At Sony BMG we are particularly excited about the opportunities from distributing music on mobile phones in China, and this project complements our successful Chinese direct licensing activities for digital music.”

RM has introduced Podium, a podcasting tool designed for educational institutions.

Podium is designed to allow students and teachers to communicate by creating enhanced podcasts, which incorporate audio, text and images. The tool, available for Windows-based systems, provides simple input fields for podcast and episode names, as well as credits. Images can be added to the podcast, and users can control audio via a waveform editor in the main interface.

“Podcasting allows educators and students to move closer to the ideology of 1:1 computing,” said Kevin Pawsey, managing director of RM Educational Software. “Many students already have access to iPods, and this allows teaching and learning to be done in an environment that is both stimulating and motivating using technology that they relate to; this is a simple to use but effective educational tool that will help increase student attainment across all areas of the curriculum.”