2005 October 12

Video iPod: a podcaster’s dream machine?

Prior to today, the only way to lift the artificial 8khz “ceiling” for recording on the iPod — beyond telephone quality) which some of us wanted to do for portable podcasting — was to install the iPodLinux Project operating system (which facilitated up to 44.1khz recording).

While it’s perfectly understandable that Apple artificially capped recording capability so as to appease the record companies — and now that they’ve got the power tipped in their favor they can do more — what I don’t understand is that they didn’t provide a microphone accessory (say, a USB powered condenser mike that plugged in to the dock connector) and gave Griffin a heads-up so that there’d be a way to use an iTrip with this device.

Obviously someone will make one if Apple doesn’t. At first glance I thought, “Oh geez, I just bought the M-Audio Microtrack for $400″ but realize now that its capabilities for field recording far surpass what I could achieve with the iPod…without lots of additional accessories.

So no….this is not a podcaster’s dream machine (video, audio, photos, and podcast recording all rolled in to one). It’s cool…but it’s just a handy, dandy playback device.

*Trust, but Verify* in Web 2.0

Do you have multiple usernames and passwords for web sites? Do you get phishing emails from Lord-knows-who? As web services explode and you want access to them (and they to you), are you prepared to fill out dozens more forms and have still dozens more usernames and passwords?

At the Web 2.0 conference my horizons were raised about the state of identity management (a long way away from being real, ready and ubiquitous) and the importance of it being in place before the next generation of the Web can truly explode.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of constant form completing and the multiple passwords we all use. At last count, I had 121 separate sites/web services that required my credentials (username, password) to access. 121!?! It’s no wonder that most people use the same username and password across the multiple sites they visit and I sometimes do too (only on sites with little value…the big deal stuff like banking and stock trading get my double super secret, industrial strength hexadecimal passwords).

There is a lot of effort, energy and brainpower focused on identity management. Using tons of web offerings simultaneously will *demand* that we have a single, trusted authority that allows each one of us to have a trust/verified identity that can be federated across multiple sites and web services. In fact with all the buzz about social software and Web 2.0 — and the power of people all over the world connecting up with others that share their affinities — trusted, verified identity is critical and is well thought out here.

To learn more, you can read articles here and here or visit Doc Searls’ fabulous list o’ links.

Filed Under: Web 2.0