The PodLounge, a Australian podcast directory and community, has announed the launch of a new mobile phone-compatible podcasting directory, The PodLounge Mobile. According to The PodLounge, the new site is designed with the new Nokia N91 in mind, and provides mobile access to the site for 3rd-generation mobile phone users.

According to John McClumpha, Technical Director of The PodLounge, “One of the most frustrating aspects of using these portable devices to access podcasts or vodcasts is accessing podcast directories that are not designed for small screens. Navigating a directory that’s tailored to fit your screen makes it so much easier”.

The PodLounge also launched a PSP version of their site in June 2006.

JVC has introduced a new line of home and portable audio products that integrate with Apple iPod digital audio players and other portable audio players.

JVC’s new Made for iPod product line includes the NX-PS1 (above), a compact desktop system with a matching subwoofer; the UX-EP25, a CD micro system; the RA-P10, a low-profile boombox for home or portable use with a full complement of clock radio functions; and the RC-EZ38 CD boombox.

WildVoice, a podcasting host and podcast community currently in beta, has announced support for embedding podcasts at MySpace and blog sites. Users can create podcasts with WildVoice and then add those audio messages to blogs and other social networking sites.

“Social networking is all about personalization in the often anonymous cyber world. Nothing is more intimate than hearing a person’s actual voice and WildVoice has worked to help Podcasters add a personal broadcast message to virtually any blog or social network,”¬ù said Michael Levy, co-founder of WildVoice.

The Freak Network provides an alternative to mainstream podcasts, bringing together “a network of freaks” creating podcasts, video podcasts and blogs.

The network features content from the following “freaks”:

• PizzaBabe Goes Global
• A Gay Better ZillaCast
• {{PB&J}}
• Big Phil√¢’s Love Parade
• Sin
• Special Delivery
• Tranny Wreck
• The Post Modern Geek’s Guide To Sex
• The Pete and Renee Show
• Ropecast

You can freakify with the Freak Network feed, or if that’s too much unwholesome goodness, you can subscribe to member shows via the site.

Warning: Scary Baby Dolls

Avast! In case ye be wondering, Podcasting News supports Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Here’s a version of our home page for you TLAP Day pirates.

Arrgh!

Warner Music Group and Brilliant Technologies Corporation today announced an agreement to offer music from Warner artists for streaming and limited download on Brilliant’s Qtrax legal peer-to-peer (P2P) music network.

Qtrax is an ad-supported P2P digital content distribution system designed to provide the legal sharing, distribution and intellectual property protection of content while driving new revenue streams from legal P2P online sampling of music, and promoting digital purchase or subscription.

Audible Magic Corporation’s digital fingerprinting and copyright filtering services will be used to limit unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content transferred via the Qtrax P2P network.

“WMG, being the largest U.S.-based family of recorded music labels, has made major moves in the area of digital distribution, maximizing the earning potential of their extensive catalog,” said Qtrax CEO, Allan Klepfisz in a statement. “We are proud to be in their stable of preferred distributors and look forward to working with them on developing the multi-million-transaction-per month marketplace of P2P.”

XB Stream, a new RSS/XML feed reader/aggregator for XBox 360 users, was released last week and quickly nuked several podcast sites. The software is configured to automatically download content, which has resulted in several podcast sites getting deluged with traffic.

Users are urged to upgrade to the latest version, XB Stream 1.2:

XB Stream and podcast problems – READ IMMEDIATELY

If you have downloaded a previous version of XB Stream please immediately follow these steps below. Several podcast sites are being continually hit by XB Stream and using up massive amounts of their bandwidth. Please please follow the steps below to fix this issue ASAP, as we should respect the podcasts.

1. Uninstall XB Stream completely.
2. Download the new version on this website and install.
3. The new version will not download audio podcasts by default.

Webcasting firm Webcast in a Box is now BOXpopuli, according to company co-founder, Chris Dawson. The company is updating its name to reflect its emphasis on podcasting and its automated podcasting market niche.

The company’s Linux-based appliance, a 1U rackmount device, records audio in a club, classroom or other venue and uploads the encoded files, with optional “intro” and “outro” segments and ID3 tags added, to a server as a podcast. The system has a 200GB hard drive,¬† no manual recording controls and can be configured using a Web interface.

North Carolina State University communication professor Robert Schrag, right, has been asked by his dean and department head to stop selling downloadable versions of his lectures until further notice.

Schrag had made his lectures available to students and the general public online for a fee of $2.50. The University questioned whether this practice was ethical, referring to the inconsistencies in opinion concerning intellectual property and decided to ask Schrag to suspend the Web site until copyright-issue clarifications could be made.

As a result, Schrag chose to delay his usual lecture in class Thursday in an effort to get his students points of view on the situation.

“No one is sure who owns intellectual property [when it is spoken] and how it should be distributed,” Schrag said.

Many universities have been making lectures available as audio podcasts, but no standard approach has developed yet.

Napster has announced that it’s looking for buyers.

“In response to recent third party interest in establishing strategic partnerships or potentially acquiring the company, it has retained UBS Investment Bank to assist the Board and management in its evaluation of strategic alternatives,” the company said in a statement.

As recently as a few weeks ago, Napster CEO Dr. William Pence argued that closed digital music systems, like Apple’s and the upcoming Zune system, were doomed.

”Pundits have concluded that Microsoft will abandon PlaysforSure, leaving online music services like Napster, MTV, Yahoo Music, Rhapsody, and presumably even emerging video services like Vongo and CinemaNow, without an underlying platform on which to offer content protection,” notes Pence.

“I believe strongly that the market in the end must and will be based on interoperable digital formats,” he adds. “If DRM is used to erect barriers to that goal, then there is no question it will be swept aside, and the industry may end up with what many have believed was the obvious choice from the beginning: open MP3 files.”

While Pence may be proven to be correct someday, the success of Apple’s closed system, combined with Microsoft’s willingness to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on the Zune to get into people’s hands, is going to put the squeeze on Plays For Sure providers, and ensure the dominance of closed digital music systems for the near future.