Wizzard Software has announced 2010 financial results, recording a $4.1 million net loss, on revenues of $5,5 million in 2010, a drop from their $6.5 million net loss in 2009..

Wizzard notes that, in terms of net loss, this was Wizzard’s best annual performance in over 8 years.

They also note that “We have a history of losses and we may never achieve profitability.”

Wizzard derives its revenue from podcast publishing platform fees, podcast advertising sales, App sales as well as through speech recognition and text-to-speech programming tools, distributable engines and speech related consulting services and support.  Additionally, Wizzard derives revenues through the offering of home healthcare services through its wholly-owned subsidiary Interim Healthcare of Wyoming, Inc.

Revenues increased in 2010 by 7%. The increase was driven by Wizzard’s Healthcare segment.

Apogee Electronics has introduced the Duet 2 – the next generation of their Duet recording interface.

Duet 2 features balanced outputs, independent speaker and headphone outputs, configurable touch pads and improved sound quality. Duet 2 can record from sampling rates of 44.1 to 192kHz.

Highlights:

• Completely redesigned mic preamps and converters
• 4 outputs, Independent speaker and headphone outs
• Balanced outputs
• USB 2.0 high speed connectivity
• 24-bit/192kHz recording
• Full color OLED display
• Configurable touch pads
• Maestro 2 software
• Breakout box (sold separately)
• Redesigned Breakout Cable
• Soft Limit

http://vimeo.com/21648733

Vimeo has made an interesting move – releasing a free iPhone app, designed to let you upload and manage your videos, right from your phone.

And they’ve got big plans for mobile video apps – including a version for the iPad and Android devices.

Here are the details. 

The big news today is that Amazon has released a new cloud-based music service, Amazon Cloud Player.

The service gives any Amazon customer a free 5GB Internet locker for storing music. Amazon provides a free uploader and both Web-based and Android clients.

Files are securely stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

Amazon Cloud Player Pretty Useless For Music

While the focus of Amazon’s announcement is on music, it’s actually pretty useless for storing and using your music.

It’s free and pretty simple to use, but uploading 5 GB of music will take all day, for most users, because of the limitations of current broadband connections. The Uploader estimates that it would take over a week to upload my 70 GB library of music and podcasts.

Most users interested in storing their music libraries online will immediately max out the 5 GB free space. And for what it costs to host a decent-sized music library online for a couple of years, you could buy an MP3 player.

Because of these issues, Amazon’s Cloud Player is interesting as a proof of concept, but less useful than the technology it’s based upon, Amazon Cloud Drive.

Podcasting network Wizzard Media has announced the launch of a web-based “premium podcast” subscription service for publishers using the Libsyn platform. This service allows podcast publishers to sell individual podcast episodes, and create paid subscription packages for their premium content, delivering the content via the web, which the company calls “a natural extension” to the mobile App subscription products recently launched by Wizzard.

Content creators who have been testing out the new subscription service over the past two weeks have reported initial sales of premium content subscription packages via the web already rivaling those for mobile App subscription sales, according to Wizzard spokesmen. “We continue to build tools and services for our publishers so that they may reach their audiences and monetize their content no matter where or how the content is enjoyed,” said Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO.

Wizzard Media partnered with online subscription expert MediaPass to offer this new service to its publishers. Integrating MediaPass extends podcasters’ smartphone-based monetization models to the web. The potential benefit to the subscription revenue model is that it builds on itself over time through renewals, unlike advertising-only models.

“While a lot of current podcast content will continue to be free for audiences, this new feature allows our publishers to boost revenues through customized subscription models, targeting the optimal mix of free and paid content,” says Laurie Sims, President, Wizzard Media. “Implementing this new service is as easy as AdSense and takes less than 15 minutes, delivering to our publishers the benefits of a sophisticated paywall without the immense startup costs.”

Blubrry has announced the release of an upgrade to its podcast plugin, PowerPress 2.0. PowerPress lets users embed audio and video podcasts into their WordPress websites and create correctly formatted feeds for syndication.

Some of the new features and enhancements include:

• HTML5 video player and HTML5 audio player
• Embeds your audience can take with them, “just like YouTube”
• WebM video support
• Ogg audio/video support improvements
• MP4+WebM (for mp4/m4v video, a new alternative WebM URL field is available. This is ideal for supporting all browser-based HTML5 video players)
• Flow Player Classic can now play m4a audio and mp4/m4v video
• New Video Player settings page added
• Settings pages enhanced with new options such as location, frequency and T.V. options
• Episode Entry box enhanced with new ‘isHD’ option when video entered into Media URL box
• Episode Entry box now includes option to configure video player width/height on a per-episode basis
• Upload image option added to supplement the video poster image field. Images are uploaded to the built-in image gallery in WordPress.

Blubrry / RawVoice CEO Todd Cochrane says of the release, “We have an amazing number of new features and improvements in this new version for both audio and video creators….  PowerPress 2.0 provides an optimized viewing experience for the widest spectrum of hardware/software including  web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari), mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android), and TV’s (e.g. Google TV, Roku, Boxee).”

Find out more about PowerPress 2.0 here.

Apogee Electronics has introduced Mike, described as “the most compact studio quality USB microphone available for iPad, iPhone and Mac”.

Here’s what Apogee has to say about Mike:

Mike by Apogee is an extremely portable, easy-to-use and powerful microphone for use with GarageBand on your favourite iOS devices.

Finally, you can capture your best take with incredible quality, wherever your music takes you. Record any sound you can imagine, from vocals to vibraphones, acoustic to lap steel guitars, pianos to percussion and everything in between, and build a track right on your iPad with GarageBand. With the unique flexibility to also plug Mike into your Mac, the possibilities of recording are endless.

“With Mike, GarageBand and an iPad,” says Betty Bennett, CEO of Apogee Electronics, “Customers can record vocals and acoustic instruments with their iOS devices anytime, anywhere, and sound fantastic.”

Features:

• PureDIGITAL technology delivers pristine sound quality
• Designed to record vocals and acoustic musical instruments
• Great for voice overs, interviews and podcast recordings
• No configuration, just plug in and record
• Easily adjust input levels without accessing software
• Multicolor LED for status indication and input level monitoring
• Made for GarageBand on iPad and Mac
• Includes desktop stand and mic clip
• Size: 4.5″ tall

Pricing and availability for the Apogee Mike are to be announced.

Tascam has introduced the DR-07mkII digital audio recorder, an updated version of its popular DR-07 recorder.

The stereo recorder features a pair of adjustable condenser microphones that can be moved from an XY position, for tight imaging, to an AB position, for a wider ambient sound.

Other features include:

• separate analog & digital circuit boards
• records to microSD or microSDHC media,
• recording in MP3 or WAV (BWF) file format
• up to 96kHz/24-bit resolution
• Variable-Speed Audition – which changes playback speed without affecting pitch
• 17.5 hours of longer battery life at 44.1kHz/16-bit, WAV (BWF)
• Overdub mode, which records over your previous take but keeps a copy of the original.
• Auto Record and Auto Mark settings for hands-off operation.

Harmony Systems has released Delora gbTouch 2, a free update to their $7.99 iPad application that functions as a remote controller for Apple’s GarageBand.

gbTouch 2 includes the most requested new features by gbTouch 1.0 users: track names and color-coded track type.

Tracks now have individual volume faders that adjust and show each track’s current volume setting. A “sound generator” edit panel has been added to tweak software instrument details, and all edit panels now show the corresponding track name.

gbTouch 2 also has “skins” – the look of the app can be changed to one of four styles from the iPad Settings application.

Wave Arts has introduced Dialog – an app for Windows and Mac that combines the tools to clean up, adjust, and sweeten spoken voice recordings.

Features:

• 10-band EQ section with 11 different filter types and 64-bit processing
• Low and high pass brickwall filters with various rolloff slopes
• Hum and buzz removal
• Broadband noise reduction
• De-plode function for plosive or wind rumble attenuation
• De-ess function for sibilant attenuation
• Compressor
• Peak limiter
• Comprehensive metering
• Master preset manager and preset manager per section
• Latency compensation
• Fully automatable
• Up to 192K support
• Mono or stereo

Dialog includes brickwall filters, de-hum and de-buzz processing, broadband noise reduction, de-ploding, de-essing, 10-band equalization, compression, and limiting. Separate presets are available for each section.