A new amendment bill introduced in the Senate by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will see, if it passes, all analogue broadcasts to be switched off – giving a firm timetable for the switchover to digital television. Australia previously had that all broadcasters must switch off their analogue systems either on March 31 or December 31 next year.

The new law will allow an extension of four years. Also, the new law will allow the Communications Minister the power to permit licence areas to convert to digital prior the end of all analogue broadcasts – with the allowance for a six-month period for the conversion to occur, allowing some areas to become digital-only before the cut-off date.

Now, we need to see if they would bring community television to digital as well – it would be nice to see community-based shows on television again.

Anime fans are rejoicing after today’s announcements. After talking about Hulu’s announcement on anime, Joost has now decided to release an onslaught of new anime titles.

The new anime shows include the original Japanese versions (with English subtitles) of Naruto and Death Note (same as Hulu); the subtitled and dubbed versions of Ikki Tousen, Gun Frontier and Saiyuki; the subtitled versions of Izumo; and the dubbed versions of Astro Boy, Avatar, Blue Dragon, Cosmo Warrior Zero, Mär and Samurai Jack. They also plan to launch more anime titles.

While I am certain that this will work in the US, we haven’t tried it here in Australia – but we will let you know what happens there. At the time of writing, none of the content is up yet.

Is this the beginning where the studios are realising that putting their content online to combat privacy? If so, then our networks need to pick up their game.

While we did report on the launch of several features and new shows on Hulu, we have now know that both Death Note and Naruto will not be getting the dubbed versions – because of license rights, etc. However, as a compromise – both shows will air as their original Japanese broadcast, with subtitles.

However, while they are still trying to work to get the dubbed version – many fans are happy that they can now watch the subtitled versions legally, since many animation studios (mainly those who dubbed them) don’t really like them doing that.

Not letting Joost get a foothold of its market share, Hulu – co-owned by NBC Universal and News Corporation – has launched several new features – including discussion forums, show recommendations and better queue management.

As well, they will be bringing out seventeen new topical channels including Fashion and Beauty, Food and Leisure, Comedy, Video Games and Home and Garden.

But the biggest news is that there will be many more videos being posted, thanks to the Fall Season. They have also struck a deal with FUNimation, Viz Media and Speed Racer Enterprises to bring anime into their already-growing 900 TV and Film Videos. Already up on the site right now are Naruto, Speed Racer, Death Note and Mushi-shi; with all of them having complete episodes of their series (or season run, for the case of Naruto). However, all of them will be the English Dubbed versions.

And if you think you can watch it now from Australia, you are sadly mistaken. The site is still US-only, but you can still view the pages. But with a bit of trickery and using a proxy, you may fool them to show you the full episodes.

Correction: See Here.

SanDisk and the four big major record labels (Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner) have said they will be releasing 1GB microSD cards with music preloaded, with Best Buy and Walmart to sell the new cards. It will also come with a USB “sleeve” to ensure “seamless interoperability” with all computers.

It suppose to allow you to buy the card and then play it on your mobile phone – too bad that the iPhone doesn’t have a microSD slot. Anyway, don’t expect them to become the next big thing just yet – because of iTunes, Amazon, free streaming music sites like Grooveshark, etc.

The good news is that the MP3s will be encoded at 320kbps – a very high quality bitrate, and all the music will be DRM-free – which means you can just drag and drop the music off the card into iTunes.

Full press release is after the jump.

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Vodafone has launched the first unlimited music download service in Australia, allowing customers to an infinite number of songs for $2.75 a week accessing content from all four major record labels – Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner Music – along with a range of independent artists.

Dubbed the “Vodafone MusicStation”, the subscription will be charged on a weekly basis (meaning you’ll cough up $11 per month for the service) and you can switch it off at any time – but there is a catch, the music you download will be disabled until you resume the plan; not even iTunes would go that far.

This DRM is, well, idiotic for a mobile company to do – its just basically music streaming but the file is in your phone’s storage. It’s basically worthless, and it just won’t make a difference to the already increasing number of piracy in the recording industry – especially when you can’t play the music after cancelling your subscription.

However, Vodafone has a solution – spend more dollars on their Vodafone Live! service to get the song permanently on your phone, which might be okay – but not to those who have a 100MB limit on their 3G downloads. That’s like 16 songs you’ll have to download twice – one to see if you like it, and another to keep it on your phone if you cancel your subscription.

However, this service will be joined with Nokia – who would be launching their Nokia Comes With Music initiative to Australia, and some are saying that Apple may get into the business. Nokia’s service is bundled with the phone, with a one-year unlimited subscription. However, renewing it requires you to buy another phone; but at least the music will still be playable afterwards.

US Electronics retailer Best Buy has said that it will be acquiring Napster, making it Best Buy’s first entree into the online-music sector. The deal will see Best Buy buying Napster shares at $2.65 apiece, with the acquisition being valued at $121 million.

Napster previously was a service that is synonymous with the industry, after being hated by almost everyone in the music industry - leading to its demise, but the rise of other alternatives like LimeWire, BitTorrent and Kazza. It has now reinvented itself to be a legit service, reaching 700,000 subscribers.

But the online-music industry is already crowded, from iTunes from Apple to Amazon MP3; and with the arrival of the revamped MySpace Music and a possible music strategy from Facebook.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, with all of Napster’s senior managing team signing deals that will keep them with the company after the acquisition.

Cult of Mac has confirmed that your iPod Touch can support Voice of IP, or VoIP, as it contains the necessary hardware to make free or low-cost phones over its wi-fi connection.

After the introduction of the new 5 wires connected to the the iPod Touch’s headphone jack, instead of the previous four, it now allows an external microphone included with some headsets. This comes after the introduction of a new iPod headphones, that has a microphone included with it.

Of course, the SDK for the iPhone and the iPod Touch does not allow you make VoIP applications using the 3G and EDGE networks, but apparently using it via the Wi-Fi is fine, now we need to find a suitable app.

Here is something I found on the Microsoft Site… I hope you enjoy.

Click here to view it

Want to let you know that the latest software update for the iPod touch is out now for US$9.95 at the iTunes Store. Remember: if you have the 2.0 firmware, it is free.