Podcasting

Remember the announcement earlier this summer about how a Silicon Valley company had patented podcasting? Not surprisingly, the EFF is none too thrilled about this: EFF and the law firm of Howrey, LLP aren’t willing to just sit by and watch. This patent could threaten the vibrant community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. We want to put a stop to it, but we need your help. The Volomedia patent covers “a method for providing episodic media.” It’s a…

So this Sunnyvale ad company, VoloMedia, has been awarded U.S. patent 7,568,213 for podcasting. The abstract: A personalized media service provides, e.g., user customization of radio channel selections, immediate availability of multiple preprogrammed and/or customized channels, the ability to intersperse different types of content including periodically refreshed information content, availability of personal radio functions on devices such as car audio systems, PDAs, smartphones, MP3 players, etc. Available channels include, e.g., pre-programmed channels selected for the user based on an interest…

I was on two podcasts that went out over the series of tubes today. (Yes, it’s 2 am on April 26, but in my head it’s still April 25.) I was on The World’s Tech Podcast Episode #192, talking about my upcoming trip to the Baltics. And I was on the latest episode of Chuck Joiner’s new podcast, The Mac Jury. Enjoy!

My new freelancer buddy Mia Lobel asked if I wanted to do a story for her new chemistry podcast, Distillations, sponsored by the Chemical Heritage Foundation. I filed a piece about using Second Life to teach chemistry, and the efforts of Prof. Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University, who has set up an online world with larger than Second Life in-world molecules. Have a listen here — my story starts at the 7:20 mark.

Macworld: by Cyrus Farivar With Macworld Expo less than a week away, whet your technology trade show appetite with talk of January’s other major event, the Consumer Electronics Show. Intrepid editors Jonathan Seff and Christopher Breen are spending this week in the oasis that is Las Vegas, driving Macworld’s coverage of this massive trade show. Jon took a few moments out of pounding the pavement of the Vegas Strip to report on the Mac-compatible products on display at CES. Download…

Macworld: by Cyrus Farivar No final 2005 podcast would be complete without a look forward as to what to expect from Apple in 2006. The next big event is Macworld Expo—to be held Jan. 9 – 13 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco—so the Macworld editors have been pondering what they might see at the biggest Mac-related trade show of the year. I spoke with Paul Kent, Vice President of IDG World Expo, one of the head honchos in…

As a Christmas gift to everyone, tonight I put up some photos from West Africa on Flickr and finally finished Episode 3 of The Wanderlust Geek Podcast

Macworld: By Cyrus Farivar Around the Macworld offices, we don’t need a calendar to tell us when we’re getting close to the end of the year. All we have to do is take a look around at all the Eddy Award statues waiting to be doled out to the makers of the best Mac hardware and software of the past 12 months. It’s that time of year once again, as we’re devoting this week to unveiling the winners of our…

Head over to Wanderlustgeek.com for the skinny, or download it directly here.

Over the weekend, I did an interview with Cyrus Irani (who is of Parsi/Indian origin, not Iranian, despite his name) of Strix Systems. They’re building WiFi in Macedonia. It “aired” today on The World’s Technology Podcast: Download it here. I’ll have a piece on The World (broadcast locally here on KQED every weekday at 2 pm) coming up in the next couple weeks. Thanks to Clark Boyd for making this possible.