Back in 2007, Microsoft brought wireless syncing to the Zune.

Something that Zune owners have been happy to point out for years.

Now UK developer Greg Hughes has created an app that brings wireless iTunes syncing to the Apple iPhone, and he’s released the YouTube video, above, to raise interest in the app:

Sneak preview of my upcoming app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

For the first time ever, sync your device with iTunes over a wireless network – no USB cable required.

Coming soon to the App Store.

Will Apple let Hughes bring wireless iTunes syncing to the App Store?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know about Gizmodo‘s stolen-phone scoop on the 4th generation Apple iPhone.

Gizmodo paid an unnamed source $5,000 for the stolen phone, and, in exchange, got the biggest Apple scoop in many years.

They found that the new Apple iPhone features:

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• An improved display.
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic
• Larger battery

It’s a huge story for Gizmodo – but a bigger story, for people involved in new media – is the aftermath.

Henge Docks has introduced a new line of docking stations for Apple notebook computers that are designed to make it easy to use your MacBook as a media center.

Each Henge Dock model is designed for a specific type of MacBook computer. Included with each dock is a compliment of USB, Ethernet, Audio cables and in some models Firewire cables, designed to work with the Henge Dock system.

Setting up a Henge Docks unit is straight forward, allowing you to select only the cables you need making docking and undocking the computer as easy as possible. For more information visit the Support Page, watch the Henge Docks Demo Video, or download the User Guide.

The docks start at about $60. Details at the Henge Docks site.

Podcasting network Wizzard Media announced on Wednesday that it has surpassed 200 podcast-related iPhone Apps in the iPhone App Store, bringing the total number of paid Apps to 260 for the iPhone and iPod Touch platform.

The company also announced first quarter unique monthly podcast audience numbers of 18.5 million, up slightly over the first quarter of 2009. When adjusted to account for the shift of the Company’s free podcast hosting services to an all paid platform in mid 2009, Wizzard estimates unique monthly audience for its podcast network up approximately 23% “on a pro forma basis.”

“Our revolutionary podcast App allows podcasters to monetize their already-established, iTunes-based podcast audience, said Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO. [Our podcast App lets podcasters sell listeners] paid access to bonus content, the ability to charge for virtual goods and sell subscription packages for reoccurring revenues. This new product changes everything for our industry.”

Wizzard Media provides podcast publishers with distribution and monetization services to clients like Microsoft, National Geographic, Harvard Business Review, Usher, NPR and more than 13,000. Wizzard Media products measure clients’ podcast audience, deliver popular audio and video entertainment and enables podcasters to “monetize content” through advertising and App sales. According to its own calculations, in 2009, the Wizzard Media Network received over 1.4 billion podcast requests from approximately 50 million people worldwide through iPods, iPhones, iTunes, Zune and many other devices and destinations.

This two-part video looks at how to create a podcast.

Topics covered include:

• What a podcast is
• The benefits of podcasts
• Podcasting in education
• Podcasting microphone tips
• USB microphones
• USB audio interfaces
• Microphone pop guards
• Podcasting software
• Apple Garageband
• Adobe Soundbooth
• Audacity
• Podcast recording tips
• Saving your podcast
• Uploading and distributing your podcast

If you want to create a podcast and you’re just getting started, this video series explains what podcasting is and offers a fairly comprehensive basic podcasting tutorial in about 20 minutes.

Part 2 below.

Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont take a look at some of the best podcasting microphones under $100.

Veronica’s picks include the Alesis USB Mic Podcasting Kit, the Marshall Electronics MXL Studio 1 USB and the Blue Microphones Snowball USB.

These are all popular choices for podcasting mics and you’ll get good results if you record in a quiet place.

Many podcasters, though, move on to using traditional mics with XLR connectors and running them into a dedicated audio interface (and possibly a compressor and other audio effects).

Got a podcasting mic setup that you like? Leave a comment!

Remember Star Wars Uncut – the crowdsourced remake of Star Wars?

Organizers chopped Star Wars into 473 chunks and asked people to make their own versions of one of the chunks.

Now the circle is complete. The parts have been recombined, and the entire Star Wars Uncut: A New Hope will be screened in Copenhagen at CPH:PIX Festival April 19 and several screenings in NYC are in the works.

Star Wars Uncut is impressive as a work of crowdsourced citizen media and, better yet, it’s more fun than Episode 1.

Are you ready to let your hoodie update your Facebook account?

Jennifer Darmour’s Ping is a social networking garment – a hoodie that updates your Facebook account wirelessly and lets you look swankadelic at the same time.

It’s an example of wearable technology that supports social networking.

According to Darmour, the social networking hoodie offers a new way to network:

It allows you to stay connected to your friends and groups of friends simply by performing natural gestures that are built into the mechanics of the garments we wear. Lift up a hood, tie a bow, zip, button, and simply move, bend and swing to ping your friends naturally and automatically.

No phone, no laptop, no hardware. Simply go about your day, look good and stay connected.

A sensor integrated into the hoodie, allowing the natural gesture of lifting the hood and putting it back down to communicate to Facebook.

Lifting up the hood automatically sends a message and updates your status. Putting the hood down sends another message. A Facebook application allows you to customize your messages, assign them to groups of friends and even manage many different types of messages based on where you are, who you’re pinging, or what your mood is:

Ping is a design concept – and I’m not sure if I’m ready to get Facebooks updates that say “I’ve put on my hoodie and I’m looking superfoxy.”

Darmour’s interested in exploring the idea, though, that the clothes we wear could communicate in new ways that “become a core part of our expression, our identity, and our individuality.”

Got ideas for other garments that should be social networking? Leave a comment!

Enough griping about old media – maybe it’s time to get your press on!

Newspaper Club is a new service, now in beta, that promises to let you make your own print newspapers online:

You can make a 12 page newspaper using ARTHR, a simple tool we’ve built. ARTHR helps you lay out pictures and the text, preview it and send it to print.

Here’s how they describe the service, in a nutshell:

We think the web is wonderful and printed newspapers are a tremendous, highly-evolved way of reading stuff. We think combining the two is a good idea. We’re not about news or any particular form of content, we’re about ink on newsprint.

Whatever you think would be good to print that way; we think you’re probably right.

Pricing starts at £35 for 5 B & W newspapers and £500 for 500 full color newspapers.

You can also design your paper in your favorite software (Quark?) and supply PDFs.

It’s not cheap – but it could put short-run newspaper printing within reach for a lot of uses.

Remember: The First Rule Of Newspaper Club – check the PDF upload details.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt trashed bloggers in a speech at the American Society of News Editors conference in Washington, DC today, saying:

We’re not in the news business, and I’m not here to tell you how to run a newspaper. We are computer scientists. And trust me, if we were in charge of the news, it would be incredibly accurate, incredibly organized, and incredibly boring.

There is an art to what you do.

And if you’re ever confused as to the value of newspaper editors, look at the blog world. That’s all you need to see.

So we understand how fundamental tradition and the things you care about are.

Emphasis ours.

It’s obvious that there’s value in the old model of news gathering and distribution – but Schmidt seems to be over-eager to dismiss efficiencies pioneered by bloggers and new media.