Bungie has announced the first ever Bungie Podcast that may sate the appetites of Halo fans.

“It‚Äôs a cavalcade of audio fun and includes the first ever brand new sound effects from Halo 3, as well as interesting interviews, features, special guests, news and reader mail (including the first ever realtime ‚ÄúWaaahmblulance). We want you to download it, listen to it and give us your feedback in the forum link at the end of this update. We‚Äôre excited, but we never did this before, and we‚Äôll take all the advice and input you can give.”

Note: There’s no sign of a podcast feed yet and the audio file is a MONSTER, weighing in at over 60 megs

Podcast directory site Pluggd has joined a growing number of companies using speech-recognition technology to allow text searches within audio podcasts, by introducing a new search feature, HearHere.

“HearHere uses proprietary voice recognition software and search algorithms to create a superior solution for consumers,” said Pluggd CEO and co-Founder Alex Castro. “Our visual and intuitive interface takes you exactly where you want to go within a podcast.”

The HearHere feature lets the user type in a keyword representing a topic he or she is looking for and displays a ‘heat map’ within the media player that visually indicates where in the content the topic is discussed. HearHere lets people find where a conversation of interest starts instead of simply dropping them in the middle of the audiocast, and will identify related topics even if the keyword isn’t explicitly used in the content.

Podbridge today announced that it will be the exclusive provider of audience measurement tools and ad insertion services for Forbes.com podcasts. Under the agreement, Forbes.com will utilize the Podbridge platform to get detailed statistics on the number of downloads and plays, and to dynamically insert targeted ads into Forbes.com video podcasts.“This is a very effective medium for business news and information, and it can deliver an exceptionally engaged audience to advertisers,” said Mike Smith, Vice President and General Manager at Forbes.com.

“Up until now, the big hurdle for advertisers has been the inability to gauge if someone had viewed any or all of the video content that they have downloaded. With Podbridge, not only can we measure actual viewing, but we also get a detailed breakdown by audience demographics and are able to precisely target advertisements.”

Wired has posted an item noting that Apple has sent Podcast Ready, a company that makes software that turns any UMS-compliant MP3 players into independent podcast receivers, a cease and desist letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe Apples trademarks and could cause confusion among consumers. Apple previously targeted names that had iPod in their name, and products including the term “pod” in them.

Podcast Ready CEO Russel Holliman said he’d consider dropping the name myPodder if he had to, but “Podcast Ready”? If that’s infringement, Apple is claiming that it owns the word “podcast.” Sure, the word originated with the word iPod, but most people now see it as a general term for downloadable audio shows that isnt affiliated with one brand more than another.

If it turns out that Apple wants to try and stake a claim to the term “podcast”, it could end up with a mass revolt.

Reaction to Apple’s turf-war has been almost universally negative, ranging from ” What a freaking joke.” to ” Steve Jobs is the Devil!!!!!!!!”

Wizzard Software, a company that specializes in text-to-speech technolgoy, has announced that it is purchasing podcast hosting service provider, Switchpod.com.

Wizzard plans to leverage its text-to-speech technology to benefit podcasters. Wizzard plans to simplify the search process by allowing audio and video podcasts to be fed through its speech recognition system, creating a transcript of each podcast. This feature will give Wizzard a second competitive advantage by enabling listeners to type in key words and find relevant podcasts based on the full content of each and every podcast episode.

“This will benefit our podcast creators in several ways,” says Weina Scott, co-founder of Switchpod.com. “Once we have a transcript of each podcast on our network, our content creators can achieve greater search engine rankings, allowing more listeners to find their podcast. Additionally, this will provide sponsors and advertisers a more sophisticated means of selecting the podcast shows they feel will be the best fit for their product or service.”

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation has released a statement that calls Net Neutrality, the idea Internet providers should handle all Internet traffic equally, whether it’s your traffic or Verizon’s, “onerous” or a burden.

The issue is of importance to podcast and podcast fans. If traffic from large corporations gets favored over indie podcasters, it would mean that podcast fans end up stuck in the slow lane.

According to the Committee, “an overwhelming majority of American voters favor video choice over onerous ‚ÄúNet Neutrality‚Äù regulations”. The Committee cites a nation-wide survey of 800 registered voters that 90 percent of Americans believe it is important to have a choice of service providers for cable TV.

The survey was paid for by Verizon.

Macworld reports that many long-time Mac game developers are disappointed that none of the iPod games that were recently introduced were created by the companies that Mac gamers are familiar with..
“We’re really glad to see Apple start to take the iPod in this direction,” said Glenda Adams, Aspyr Media’s director of development. “It’s the one big piece of entertainment that was missing. Obviously, we’re disappointed that [Apple] launched it as a closed development system. We had pitched several game ideas for iPod at Apple over the past couple years, but it didn’t lead anywhere.

“We think we’ve got a lot to offer the iPod game market,” Adams continued. “Not only have we worked with Apple on Mac games for 10 years, we’ve developed and published several handheld PocketPC and Game Boy games in the last couple years.”

Other developers were less diplomatic. “It was lame of Apple to ignore the guys that have been loyal to them,” said a developer who asked not to be named. “We were ready, willing and able to create anything they wanted.”

The Miami Herald has an article on Weina Scott, a tech-savvy teen that just happens to be the CEO of $200k podcasting website.

Weina Scott answers about 100 tech support e-mails a day. The website must be perfect — one glitch, and 6,000 irate customers will bombard her inbox.

But first, she has to study her physics.

At age 17, Weina is the chief executive of her own Web-based podcast hosting company and makes an annual salary of $40,000 for working 20 hours a week. Her office is her laptop in her parents townhouse near North Miami Beach. She balances her work duties with doing homework for seven advanced placement classes at Krop Senior High School and applying to colleges.

This is the American dream, Weina says. “Start the company with zero dollars and end up with a $40,000 salary. I think Ill take that.

Canadian marketer Dave Forde has announced his intention to organize a podcasting/videoblogging conference in Toronto, Canada.

The event is tentatively scheduled for February 21st, 2007.

“A website will be up shortly, but the call for speakers is now open,” notes Forde. “The format for the conference will be a mix of keynotes, panel discussions and workshops. The conference will cover content for those who create podcasts and vlogs, but also content for companies who are looking to leverage this fast growing medium.”

Added to Podcast Directory List: PersianCast is described as “The First Iranian Podcast Provider”.

The site debuted Sept 20th, and is a free service. According to the site, “all Persian language people can send their podcasts to the site.”