Here's a pretty shiny bit of Web tech - a site that will search through audio files to help you hear key portions of speeches, broadcasts or podcasts.
To illustrate its product, Pluggd has created the State of The Union Smackdown.
In the red corner is the president, in the blue corner is Sen. James Webb, D-Va.
Let's say you want to know what each said about health care last night. You click a topic (or create your own search) and the HearHere program scans each's speech, highlighting the most relevant portions in red-orange. You slid a bar to hear the portion you're interested in. I just tried it, and it was glitch-free - except that I had to listen to two political speeches.
The whole enterprise is in beta still. The searches of the State of the Union and rebuttal was a demonstration. Down the road Pluggd will offer the ability to search more audio files as well as video. A story in Forbes describes the concept and how a diet of ramen noodles brought it to market.
