The maker of Rex, the talking pill bottle, scooped up its second podcasting company this week.

Oakland-based Wizzard Software Corp. has jumped into the increasingly crowded pool of podcast hosts -- buying Washington, D.C.-based Blast Podcast this week and Switchpod.com last week.

Seventeen-year-old Weina Scott launched Switchpod.com last year with her Internet buddy, Jake Fischer, 16, and the duo, working thousands of miles apart, quickly persuaded thousands of podcasters to use their site to showcase their audio and video shows. Ms. Scott hails from southern Florida, and Mr. Fischer, from Minnesota.

Wizzard Chief Executive Officer Chris Spencer paid $200,000 in stock to reel in the upstarts and is keeping them on staff with $40,000 salaries.

Wizzard is known for its voice-interactive computer applications and technical support that Mr. Spencer hopes to exploit in the blossoming podcasting arena. He said Wizzard's "text-to-speech technology" will allow podcasters to proliferate even more, turning their written blogs into audio. That'll mean more listeners and advertisers, Mr. Spencer said.

He's joining his podcasting brethren this weekend at the Portable Media and Podcast Expo in Ontario, Calif.

The big deal at Pine-based TrueCommerce this week is Intuit, the Silicon Valley-based software maker of favorites such as TurboTax and QuickBooks.

TrueCommerce will be the firm Intuit points to when tens of the thousands of small and midsize business wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors say they need help tracking transactions, orders and bills.

"We get unprecedented marketing access and access to their sales people," said TrueCommerce President and CEO George McKee of his firm's deal to partner with Intuit's QuickBooks accounting software for small and midsize firms.

This is a big deal for TrueCommerce, since market research shows 30 percent of small businesses use QuickBooks, he said.

The partnership will allow TrueCommerce is expand, Mr. McKee said. The company expects to close the year with 90 employees, up from its current 80. It also is in talks with a few undisclosed software makers and expects to make an announcement in the next few months. But it won't be about raising money, said Mr. McKee. "We're cash flow positive," he said. "Our business has gotten past the stage where we're worried about whether we're funded or not."

Tired of hearing about Facebook -- the social networking site formerly exclusive to the collegiate set and now exclusive to no one?

If so, skip this item.

Carnegie Mellon University H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy Professor Alessandro Acquisti and computer science graduate student Ralph Gross surveyed a sample of Facebook members and found that privacy concerns wouldn't make or break students' decisions to join and even showcase themselves on the network.

Undergraduate students that Dr. Acquisti and Mr. Gross found were concerned with their privacy still joined FaceBook and in some cases revealed "great amounts of personal information." The duo also found that 77 percent of the students they surveyed said they never read Facebook's privacy policy. The students said they were only mildly concerned about who accessed their personal info on the Facebook site and how it would be used, because they believed that they had the ability to control who sees them on the network -- and what they see.

Todd Jochem, Applied Perception Inc's founder and chief executive officer, was in Washington, D.C., this week to receive the Tibbetts Award, which recognizes achievement in technological innovation in the Small Business Innovation Research program.

Dr. Jochem and his staff at API developed a robotic system prototype to support battlefield medics in finding injured soldiers in the field and safely and quickly moving them to medical care facilities.

This is the second honor for API in recent months. The company received the 2006 Army SBIR Quality Award in August. By the way, API is leading the effort to develop an industrywide standard, known as JAUS (Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems), which will accelerate the development and commercialization of robotic technology.

Also on hand in Washington this week was the University of Pittsburgh's SBIR guru Paul Petrovich, who also received a Tibbetts award.

Southwestern Pennsylvania tech engine Innovation Works has fueled Pirox, a local maker of powdered metal oxides used for pigments in the coatings, defense and construction industries, with a $37,000 "Innovation Adoption Grant."

The award will help Pirox work with Penn State's Materials Research Institute to implement new milling processes that should result in improved products, lower costs and more environmentally friendly production, said IW spokeswoman, Terri Glueck.

The increased market opportunities and lower manufacturing costs that will yield from Pirox's project with Penn State are expected to help the firm grow. Pirox said it planned to launch two new products by the end of this year and begin hiring additional staff throughout the next 12 months.

West Deer tech firm PM Computing launched its latest product, the "Safe Den" system, which provides wireless connectivity for all the gadgets in the home -- including personal computers, laptops, iPods and personal digital assistants. Safe Den includes video home surveillance and a service package. For more information, check out www.safeden.com.

Chris Allison, who was CEO of Cheswick-based Tollgrade Communications Inc. from 1995 to 2005, will headline a breakfast meeting at 8 a.m. on Friday hosted by the Don Jones Center For Entrepreneurship at CMU's Tepper School of Business.

Mr. Allison will discuss "The Role of The CEO," which he said will help answer the question, "If I am the CEO, what should I be doing on a day-to-day basis?"

He should know. Mr. Allison led Tollgrade from startup to sales of $115 million and a $2 billion market value in 2000 and was named Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005.

If you'd like to attend, RSVP to John DiRicco by e-mailing diricco@andrew.cmu.edu or calling 412-268-7758. The event will run until 9:30 a.m. in Room 146, Posner Hall at CMU.

Now a Pittsburgh institution, Geek Night, the bimonthly happy hour gathering for avowed and proud tech dorks, kicks off at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville. If you're in the job market, this Geek Night, the 49th, is hosted by American Eagle. For details, check out www.pghgeeks.org.

First Published: September 30, 2006, 4:00 a.m.