The International Podcasting Expo, an online expo being held October 20-22, kicked off today with a keynote from Podcasting News’ own Elisabeth McLaury Lewin, shown below.

Other Keynote speakers include Matt Mullenweg of WordPress and Andy Wibbels of BlogWild.

The Expo is an online expo, accessible using a Web browser. Anyone with an Internet connection can attend, and participants may download all event recordings.

Tickets to the Expo are $25; the keynote and several other events are open to anyone.

Two seminar tracks (Beginner and Advanced) will be staggered on the half hour, with each seminar lasting 1 hour.

The schedule, subject to change, is as follows:

NBC Universal today announced that it was laying off hundreds and refocusing its strategy with Internet media in mind.

The company’s new strategy, which they are calling NBCU 2.0, is a wide-ranging strategic initiative to assure future growth, streamline and strengthen operations, and exploit opportunities created by the rapidly evolving digital and global marketplace.

“Success in this business means quickly adjusting to and anticipating change. This initiative is designed to help us exploit technology and focus our resources, as we continue our transformation into a digital media company for the 21st century,” said Bob Wright, Vice Chairman of GE and Chairman and CEO, NBC Universal.

UK police chiefs suggested yesterday that the iPod explosion could be behind a 5% increase in recorded robberies.

Ian Johnston, chief constable of the British transport police and spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said the rise was “a lot to do with the products that are available to be stolen these days. The mobile phone explosion is continuing. The iPod explosion is continuing. All of these gadgets that people carry around with them are very attractive to robbers, so that puts the opportunities up. We’ve obviously got to respond to that in a very positive way.”

via Guardian Unlimited

While educational podcasts are becoming more and more accepted as tool for offering anytime, anywhere education, not everyone welcomes the new technology.

Northern Illinois University Associate Professor of Theater and Dance Robert Schneider argues that podcasting not an appropriate alternative to classroom education.

“Students who consent to dilute their classroom experience by forcing it through an iPod are shortchanging themselves. Those of my colleagues who have allowed their teaching to degenerate into mere utterance are shortchanging their students,” argues Schneider.

Earlier this week, Apple issued a warning that some of its iPods are infected with a Windows virus. Some video iPods made after Sept. 12 were shipped infected with the RavMonE virus. The virus affects only Windows computers

In a unusual PR move, Apple blamed their manufacturing problem on Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,” said Apple.

The blogosphere doesn’t seem to be buying Apple’s excuse. No one, however, seems more upset than Microsoft’s Jonathan Poon, who handles virus scanning for releases at Microsoft.

“Where’s your class?” Your integrity?” Poon asks Apple, noting that, instead of focusing on how and why the Virus was included in the first place, the company tried to divert the blame on the Windows platform.

Poon even offers to show Apple CEO Steve Jobs how to practice safe checks.

“Steve, if you need someone to advise on how to improve your quality checks, feel free to contact me, ” adds Poon.

PodcastCon UK, a podcasting convention which takes place in central London on Saturday, 18th November 2006, has announced a full lineup of podcast personalities and sponsors. This will be the second year of the conference, a not-for-profit event organized by a team of UK podcasters with professional expertise in conference organization, law, media, and public relations.

According to organizers, the conference will mark podcasting’s second birthday in the UK and will be a chance for independent podcasters, podcast listeners, the media, the music industry, and business people to come together.

Panelists at PodcastCon UK 2006 will include some of the UK’s leading independent podcasters such as Green Dragon, Mark Hunter of the Tartan Podcast and John Buckley of Dissident Vox, as well as Neil McIntosh from The Guardian, Chris Vallance from the BBC, John Buckman from record label Magnatune and many more. Independent music, an important part of podcasting in the UK, will also feature heavily with live acoustic sets from the likes of Ellie Myles, Jimmy Golding and The Shakes.

Marquette University is offering a video tour of its campus formatted for iPods and other portable media players.

Anyone can subscribe to the Marquette University Campus Tour Podcast, or view the individual videos on the school’s Web site. If they are on campus and a tour guide is not available, they can also be assigned an iPod featuring the podcast.

David Hawkins, of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, says many schools have virtual tours on their Web sites, but he has not heard of any others offering video tours by iPod.
via WBAY-TV

Potion Factory has released a beta release of Tangerine, an application designed to create playlists based on the BPM and beat intensity of the songs in your iTunes library.

“We came up with the idea after I noticed that I was spending a good 30 minutes to come up with about 30 tracks for working out. I would repeat the process fairly often and I was getting tired of it and tired of listening to the same songs over and over again. So we developed Tangerine to automate that process. The app should pay for itself for some people. It should be really handy for Nike+ users and if you‚Äôre not, this app may motivate you to get one because there‚Äôs nothing like running to the beat of the music to keep you motivated,” they note.

The app is Mac OS X Tiger only, and is limited to ripped tracks because it can’t analyze tracks encrypted with Apple’s DRM.

The latest episode of Perot Systems’ Healthcare Tech and The World podcast looks into the advantages and drawbacks of the use of robotics in health care delivery.

Robotics in Health Care (MP3) explores how robotics give doctors the ability to provide care to hospital-based patients, anytime and anywhere. Host Kevin Fickenscher is joined by Dr. Yulun Wang, CEO and chairman of InTouch Health, to discuss how physicians are using. Dr. Wang shares his views on how the combination of robotics, the Internet and wireless technology improve patient care, increase physician and patient satisfaction, and reduce the average length of stay in the hospital.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has launched its BSO Online Podcast, now available on the orchestra’s website and as a podcast.The podcast focuses on the BSO’s two-year Beethoven-Schoenberg project ‚Äî with audio and video clips that include video documentaries about the composers’ lives and historical contexts, plus overviews and analysis of the music to be performed by the BSO.

In this episode, Anthony Fogg, Artistic Administrator for the BSO, offers an introduction to the series (MP3).

via Playbill