Thomas Dolby’s Sole Inhabitant video podcast offers an unique look into the English electronica artist and entrepreneur’s November-December tour.

Dolby uses the video podcast format effectively and does some interesting things with video viewpoints, including using a camera that provides a first-person perspective of what he’s doing during a performance.

The series includes live performances of Leipzig is calling, One of our Submarines, Blinded Me With Science and other Dolby tracks.

Anystream has announced that the latest release of their Apreso products for higher education is the world’s first lecture capture technology to integrate with iTunes U. The integration is a result of a partnership with Apreso customer and iTunes U partner The George Washington University (GW).

“Automation is highly valuable in higher education because it facilitates the adoption of teaching and learning technologies,” said John Arpino, GW academic technologies’ senior programmer analyst and project manager for the iTunes U/Apreso initiative. “By integrating with iTunes U, Anystream best serves the needs of both faculty and their students.”

This fall GW equipped six classrooms with Apreso Podcast to automatically capture lecture content and instantly convert it into podcasts playable on iPods and from within iTunes U. GW was the first institution to develop an automated content upload mechanism for the portal. Using this integration, Apreso lecture podcasts are automatically published to GW’s iTunes U site for immediate student review.

“We wanted a solution that required no special tasks from our instructors. We chose Apreso because it automatically creates content to feed our system,” said Arpino. “The initiative has been quickly adopted because students are familiar with the iTunes U interface and Apreso allows professors to focus on teaching rather than podcasting.”

Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current has launched a new podcast, The Current’s Song of the Day — a free new music download available each weekday.

The podcast features stellar tracks, exclusive performances, rare cuts and previews of anticipated releases by favorite artists, available as free downloads. In addition, songs from emerging Minnesota artists will be featured each Friday, providing a chance for listeners to sample the best of the Twin Cities music scene.

A recent episode featured Phantom Limb, from The Shins’ new album Wincing the Night Away.

Each weekday at 10 a.m. CST, The Current host Barb Abney will feature the song of the day during her live DJ shift, which can be heard on the radio and via the live Web stream, thecurrent.org.

BroadClip has announced a new free version of its MediaCatcher technology that adds the ability to fill portable media players with DRM-free music. Designed specifically for portable media players like the Apple iPod and Microsoft’s Zune, MediaCatcher allows users to easily search for and time-shift music from broadcasts on the Internet.

BroadClip CEO Sam Abadir said, “With this new version, BroadClip answers the demand from consumers for a fast and easy way to search for and enjoy music content that already exists on the Internet. We’ve eliminated the two major obstacles that have prevented people from experiencing Internet-based music.”

“First, MediaCatcher provides a simple, yet effective music search,” explains Abadi. “Secondly, it completely automates the process of capturing and loading the music onto the media player. We have focused on making the MediaCatcher user experience completely seamless. Users simply enter their search terms, select results and later, the music they’ve chosen simply appears on their player.”

Brazilian supermodel Daniela Cicarelli, right, says she doesn’t want YouTube to be banned, just the steamy footage of her and her boyfriend.

The ban has prompted thousands of Brazilian YouTube users to launch an e-mail protest against her and raised calls for a boycott of her television program. Cicarelli said the ban wasn’t her fault because she didn’t file the case that resulted in YouTube being shut off.

“I don’t have to say I’m sorry about anything because it’s not my fault,” Cicarelli said in the interview with Brazil’s Globo TV late Tuesday night.

The video shows Cicarelli and her boyfriend, Brazilian banker Renato Malzoni, in frolicking amorously along a beach near the Spanish city of Cadiz. The order for its removal was issued after they sued last fall and won a ruling that clips of it on YouTube violated their right to privacy.

But Malzoni filed suit on his own in a second case after the video kept reappearing, winning the order from the judge last week that resulted in Internet providers and telecommunications blocking YouTube in Latin America’s largest nation.

via International Herald Tribune

SanDisk, the second largest seller of MP3 players in the United States, has introduced the Sansa Connect, a Wi-Fi enabled MP3 player that lets consumers enjoy and recommend music from almost anywhere. The Sansa Connect un-tethers consumers from their PCs allowing them to connect to music and online photos through any open wireless “hot spot” Internet connection.

Available on retail shelves in the United States in late March, the Sansa Connect will feature innovative Internet capabilities designed to keep music aficionados connected to a wide range of new music via subscription services and streaming Internet radio, with no PC required. Designed to work with premium Internet services, the flash-based MP3 player will also contain community features for recommending music and photos with the simple click of a button and a “live” Wi-Fi connection.

“The Sansa Connect is a new music experience focused on convenience, instant gratification and social connections,” said Eric Bone, product marketing director for SanDisk’s audio and video line. “It’s about accessing music of your choice wherever you are. If you’re listening to new songs from a music service and find ones you want to keep, you can bring them into your library and don’t have to wait until you get back to your PC. If you want to tell your friends about your discoveries, the Sansa Connect will also allow you to share music suggestions over the Web—anytime, anywhere—over an open wireless Internet network.”

The University of California at Berkeley is offering free podcasts of some the same courses that students pay full tuition for.

Students who are actually footing the bill for tuition at UC Berkeley need not panic just yet. It doesn’t appear that one can actually receive any college credit from these freely available versions of the curriculum.

Course podcasts are available through iTunes, or you can subscribe via the feeds at Berkeley’s podcast index.
Courses include:

Arts & Humanities
• Existentialism in Literature & Film
• Foundations of American Cyberculture

Biology
• Animal Behavior
• General Biology 1
• General Biology 2
• General Human Anatomy

Chemistry
• Introduction to Chemistry

Computer Science
• Introduction to Computers
• Operating Systems and System Programming

Information Sciences
• History of Information
• Open Source and Distribution of Digital Information

Natural Resources
• American Environmental and Cultural History
• Introduction to Human Nutrition
• Wildlife Ecology

Social Sciences
• European Civilization from Renaissance to Present
• US History: Civil War to Present
• General Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Introduction to Nonviolence
• Human Emotion
• Microeconomic Analysis
• Macroeconomic Analysis
• Natural Resources and Population
• Undergrad Colloquium on Political Science
• World Regions, People and States

via WebProNews

Wingspan has begun delivering its iLoad, a portable device that copies CDs to an iPod without using a computer or requiring an Internet connection.

According to the company, iLoad is fast, easy to use and all music and track information is transferred to the iPod. The entire CD can be copied or individual tracks can be selected to copy. You can listen to the tracks while deciding which to copy. iLoad allows convenient copy of the media to an iPod without filling up your computer’s disk space.

You can also use the iLoad BackUp service, which backs up your iPod to a remote server, without a computer, through an Ethernet connection. iLoad owners get a free 2 week trial of the iLoad BackUp Service.

iLoad is available on http://www.iLoad.com or by calling +1-888-324-7979,
for $299.

Podcast Ready and iriver have partnered to offer Podcast Ready’s myPodder software preloaded on the iriver U20, B20 and W10 models. The agreement allows iriver device users to easily find, manage, listen and view both audio and video podcasts virtually anywhere.Users can plug a compatible iriver device into any Internet-connected computer and access myPodder to update, subscribe to and manage their favorite audio and video podcasts. Podcast Ready also provides a simple-to-use podcast directory and one-click podcast subscription.

“As one of the top five MP3 device manufacturers, iriver represents the biggest potential ready-made audience for podcasters to date,” said Russell Holliman, founder and CEO of Podcast Ready. “iriver represents as many as a million new users of myPodder and the Podcast Ready directory over the next year, which is good news not only for Podcast Ready and iriver, but for the entire podcasting industry.”

“To remain a leader in the MP3 device industry we must foresee trends in all uses of portable media, and podcasting has become a mainstream medium,” said Kenny Choe, marketing director of iriver parent company, ReignCom. “To serve our customers well, we must make it as easy to enjoy podcasts as it is to enjoy music on our products, and having Podcast Ready’s myPodder pre-loaded makes us providers of truly easy-to-use multimedia devices.”

CES Update: Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, plans to bring video games to its Zune music player within 18 months. Apple introduced iPod video games in September of 2006.

Peter Moore, a vice president in the company’s Xbox video- game business, confirmed the plan yesterday, saying the Zune’s large screen will offer a better way to play handheld games. He didn’t specify what games would be offered.

“I love the interface, I love the screen,” Moore said at a dinner with reporters during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Zune, introduced in November, has failed to steal market share from Apple’s iPod and is seen by many to be a failure. The Zune lacks iPod features like podcast support, games and TV programs. Features unique to the Zune, such as its wireless capabilities, haven’t been implemented in a useful way.

“It’s not like the music enthusiasts have been flocking to Zune,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. “They need to really answer Apple in terms of feature parity. But they will also have to find ways to differentiate. If all they do is hit parity with iPod, they don’t win.”

via Bloomberg