NOTE: This post was edited after the fact for clarity and some faint hope of lucidity.

Things are just about to get underway. Two different people have reported “might be Bono” sightings. Could the “fun” product be a “Red” iPod? Quite possible … Steve Jobs takes the stage to the sounds of U2.

The first item unveiled is the new Mac Mini – as speculated in These Very Pages it is based on the “Core Solo” Intel chip. Score one for me. Surprisingly, there is also a Core Duo version for a couple of hundred dollars more. The all-new Mac Mini now sports a remote control, as it comes loaded with Front Row. Steve shows some “other” media centre remote with about 100 buttons on it – in a startling coincidence, it just happens to be the remote from the Microsoft Media Centre. He then whips out the Mac Mini remote, streamlined down to a mere 6 buttons. “Even Bill could use it,” says Steve. Big laffs.

The new box hits at two price points – $599 (1.5GHz, Core Solo, Combo Drive) and $799 (1.7GHz, Core Duo, Super Drive). Both versions have gigabit ethernet, and Bonjour/Rendezvous networking is now built-in to Front Row. This adds up to the delightful fact that you can have the Mini attached to your A/V system and stream content from any other Mac in your house or (if you are that kind of person) on your extended network.

Next on the stage … the iPod boom box. Official name: iPod HiFi.

iPod HiFi will retail for $399 and be target at the high-end audio consumer. Interestingly, the next iPod software update will include a menu item to control speaker balance and bass response. No messy controls on the HiFi itself.

And … that’s it. No video pod. No iFlix Video Store. And no “Red” iPod. Was this event cut short? Everyone knows that there is going to be a RedPod. And they were playing U2, for crissakes. So what happened? Enquiring minds defintiely want to know.

Just a few moments to go … instead of a succession of posts, I will keep updating a single post this time around. Keeps things cleaner.

In the meantime, if you want to really get into the spirit of things, why not dress like Steve while you enjoy the release of the new products. You can get all the elements of an Authentic Steve Jobs wardrobe right here. Don’t forget that you shouldn’t shave for a few days prior to wearing.

On the literal threshold of today’s “fun” announcement from Apple comes the quiet news that our friends in Cupertino have purchased a honking big data centre. Way more than they could ever need for any future expansion of the .Mac service. What could this mean? Why could they need this much storage? Could today’s announcement be the unveiling of an “iMovie Video Store” to bookend the iTunes Music Store?

Speculation abounds. Answers forthwith.

Yes, you cretins, that really is Annette Norberg and her Olympic gold medalists. What did you think, that HammerFall went out and hired some lookalikes for the video? That would not be the Swedish Metal Way!

I want to point out that these guys have the most awesome fucking heavy metal avatar ever in their logo, and the assorted ravens and wolves in there are just like sprinkles and whipped cream of this particular headbanging slice of pie. HammerFall seems like they are pretty much obsessed with hockey and curling and are therefore totally awesome dudes. After reading the posts in the newsblog part of their web site, I can say without any reservations whatsoever that if I ever got to Sweden I would want to sit down and watch a game or two with the boys.

HammerFall rules large!

One of those great self-evident truths of life on this planet is that everyone will find their lives enriched by a Swedish heavy metal curling video.

UPDATE: I had oringally linked the video from the band’s web site, but it was glacially slow – I think that the band’s ISP throttled back their bandwidth because so many people were downloading this puppy. Big thanks to Sockmonkey for pointing out the mirror on YouTube.

5.9: The weight in kilograms of the largest lemon ever grown.

The classic “Guitar” episode has been added to the portable/podcast archive of Strong Bad emails. Enjoy.

The supposed photo of the new “all-video” iPod that I posted last week is, of course, fake. That was pretty much suspected at the time. Look for tomorrow’s big announcement to forgo any sort of video ‘pod and instead be either an Intel iBook, an Intel Mac Mini, or an Apple-branded iPod “boombox” attachment.

Details as they come.

Yes, I realize that I wrote that really poorly. No, I was not trying to say that there will be exactly 6.5 billion people on our rather overtaxed planet at the end of day today. What I meant was that, at some point on February 25, 2006 the population will reach that staggering number and then (obviously, or so I thought) race past it. As I write this, it is now at 6,500,035,717 and by the time you read this it will be significantly higher.

Levels of accuracy are not the point here. What matters is that there are way too many bodies and not enough planet. Some “blue sky” estimates say that Earth can support about 5 billion people, but that assumes that all available space and resources are directed towards keeping people alive. People with a better mindset – who assume that the rest of the species on the planet might also like to stay alive – put the number as low as two billion. Either way, the math adds up to a problem.

Something’s gotta give eventually. And it probably won’t be pretty.

6,500,000,000: The population of the planet as of Saturday, February 25

It would appear that you guys are obsessed with this ongoing emergence of geek/sex toys. Three different pervs … er, readers dropped me notes about the JeJoue programmable vibrator, with full USB support. The thing comes pre-loaded with 10 vibrating modes, but you can write you own “Grooves” and upload them to the vibe for custom wanker action. Better, you can trade patterns with your friends for remote diddle action … sort of a “share the love” concept.

What is really interesting is that the software is free, and you can download it and play with it even if you don’t own the vibe. Obviously this is done with an eye at marketing, and it is – IMHO – fucking brilliant. Better yet, the PleasureWare is availalbe for both Windoze and Mac, and is tied to a worldwide directory of other users’ creations, so you can build up a global network of like-mined pals who have similar tastes in jerking it.

Go crazy.

In what comes as a giant surprise to no one, the judge in the RIM/NTP case didn’t hand either side a win. He refused to order an injunction or set a value on damages, but also said he would do both if they didn’t come to a settlement soon. This gives some of the lost leverage back to NTP … based on this, let’s bump the settlement estimate to $800 million. Look for it to happen within a month now.

Yeah, so check this out: Samsung’s newest digital camera is a swank tribute to the old single-lens cameras of the 1960s. There are times when retro is very cool, and this is one of them.

Taking a peek through the Google Pages service agreement (like Foamy, I read the things before I agree), I found this interesting little passage:

You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or other materials (”Content”) are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated. Google reserves the right, but shall have no obligation, to pre-screen, refuse or move any Content available via Google services. You understand that by using Google services you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable, and that you use Google services at your own risk.

This would seem to indicate that (unlike MSN Spaces or the proposed new YahooWeb service) Google does not plan on restricting adult content. This could be partly because the Google guys actually have their shit together, and partly to thumb their noses at the Bush administration who is aghast at the idea of adults having actual access to adult material. Either way, good on ‘em

Hot on the heels of the invitation to the “fun” Apple event next Tuesday comes this intriguing picture of what some people are claiming is the production prototype of the new widescreen video iPod.

True? Maybe, but probably not. The characters on the connector are Kanji, not Cantonese, and since the new ‘pod would be made in Taiwan that is a bit of a disconnect. Also, the sticker on the front is the part number label from an Apple OSX 10.2 Server, which would be an odd coincidence indeed. Methinks this is bogus. But, in the grand spirit of of journalism, you can all decide for yourselves.

The war of words continues unabated …

A few months ago we mentioned the “super fun” iBuzz, which (for those just tuning in) is a vibrator that gets its control parameters from your iPod. Those of you who may have been waiting on this because of the odious task of getting it shipped from the U.K. can take heart – as of Feb 24th the iBuzz will be available in North America.

Not coincidentally, that is Steve Jobs’ birthday.

And a couple of eagle-eyed readers pointed out that the concept of the iBuzz is not even remotely new … the Audi-Oh has been around for a couple of years, but doesn’t have that iPod cachet and therefore gets little or no media attention. Sucks to be them, I guess.

1744 : The year that the first official Rules of Golf were issued, by the Edinburgh town council.

Some people have been cutting them down, but I think that Frank and Gordon are awesome.

Just saying.

In the past we lusted over the lovely cufflinks with the built-in LED illumination – a delightful blend of tech and tradition that makes a geek heart go all a-flutter. Now those crafty Germans have upped the cufflink ante with these stainless steel ingot-style beauties that both secure your cuffs AND store your portable data in integrated USB flash drives. Der Bling indeed.

If you are the kind of person that is willing to wade through the dreck I post on this site, then you probably already know how to create and host a web page or three. However, there is still a lot of academic value to be had with the new Google Pages service (beta, natch) which lets you use a WYSIWYG interface to “point and shoot” your way to an instant web page from a series of pre-defined templates. What is interesting here is that the HTML is actually pretty clean, which puts it about 38 notches about MS Pages right there. The whole thing is driven by AJAX, so you could whip up some code to script the creation of endless reams of pages automatically, giving rise to all sorts of bad ideas.

The resulting pages are hosted on the Gmail User Pages – ie: yourgmailname.googlepages.com – in case you were wondering. And the best result of all of this might be the reduction of reliance on blogs for hosting non-blog stuff. Now people of limited intelligence can actually have a site as opposed to trying to shoehorn their crap onto LiveJournal. About time.

UPDATE: The categorization of the generated HTML was somewhat premature. If you edit the same page a few times, you get all sorts of leftover code fragments laying around. Eventually you have to manually edit the HTML, so caveat emptor.

I have ranted in the past about morons who don’t read the EULA when they install software. Sadly, people still install MSN Messenger and WinAmp and then wonder why their emails (verbatim, I might add) and credit card numbers end up in a data mine in Indonesia. Obviously, people don’t listen to me. Maybe they will listen to Foamy.

I am not, however, holding my breath.

There are nasty rumours afoot that the shiny new PlayStation 3 will (a) be delayed by up to a year, (b) cost Sony at least 900 bucks per unit to build, or (c) all of the above. It has already been discussed at length how much money Microsoft has lost (and will lose) on selling the Xbox … and while Sony is no stranger to losing money on hardware in a strategic move – the PS2 just started turning a profit this year – they might not want to get into that kind of a financial hole.

The bigger problem might be the delay, though. You don’t want to be the third console in – it happened to Nintendo with the GameCube and despite the little console’s strengths, they have been swimming upstream ever since. Xbox 360 is already on the market, the Revolution is now locked in for a fall ‘06 launch … coming to market 6 months after that with a console that costs more than the average mope can afford might be a stumble that changes the balance of power in the console wars forever.

I got an invitation to attend a “fun” event at Apple in Cupertino on February 28th. Annoyingly, I cannot make it to the shindig, where Steve and the gang are going to unveil a new product. What could it be? Some possibilities:

Widescreen iBook: There is an expectation that the current 12 and 13 inch iBooks will be replaced at some point this year with new models that are both widescreen and powered by the new Intel chips. Widescreen is good. However, I would guess that the 12 inch would actually disappear, and the “consumer” model be reduced to a single screen size at 13 inches to reduce consumer waffling at purchase time. Also, it is rumoured that Intel is working on a “Core Solo” chip, and if this is ready, look for it to show up in the iBooks to lower the price point a little further. Odds on this being the subject of Tuesday’s gathering are very good – call it 75%.

The “Real” Video iPod: As discussed here, you can expect to see a new iPod with a much larger video screen soon. But this soon? Probably not … 5% chance of this.

“Something Much Cooler”: Ever since the MacWorld keynote we have been waiting for something wacky and interesting, as different now as the iPod was when it was announced 5 years ago. “It” was supposed to have been on the bill at MacWorld and was pulled at the last second. What is “it”? Who knows – but I have been told that it is Way Fucking Cool. Could this be “it”? Maybe – 20% chance of “it” happening.

The usual sources of info for these things are suspiciously silent, which is wildly annoying. I’ll be getting email from a friend who is going to be there on that august day, so as soon as I know, you’ll know. Stick around.

I had a dream that my friend had a Strong Bad email. It was the email of my dreams.

I am sure that you all remember the famous grilled-cheese sandwich that had the image of the Virgin Mary on it, and how much it sold for on eBay. Now we have an Xbox with Jesus on the back, except that it is just about the WORST fucking image of Jesus to ever show up on a consumer product, and even the heavily annotated picture doesn’t do much to make the image spring easily to the mind’s eye.

On the plus side, at least it is on a premium model and not one of the shitty “core” systems that doesn’t actually play any games.

On the minus side, I am not sure why the dude thought to put the pictures of the shroud of Turin in the ad. Maybe he thought that people might need reminding of what this Christ dud supposedly looked like. As helpful as that may be, however, adding the images of a documented fraud to an already dubious “miracle” would seem to be a bit counterproductive from a sales point of view.

8850: The distance in kilometers that the average polar bear travels each year while searching for food.

This is the second-most-awesome audio device on the market. Delicious Bluetooth-driven speakers and headphones with a lovely organic form factor that just drips with 1960s bachelor pad cool. Absolutely delightful.

Within the next few days there will be much made in the tech press about Leap.A the “first virus for OSX to be found in the wild.” A few days after that the mainstream media will catch on, except for CNN, who will feature it sometime in June. There will be dire warnings about the honeymoon being over, about X being as easy to exploit as Windoze, and all of the sad little Microsoft lovers out there will be having glee parties and running about saying “nyah, nyah nyah.”

Repeat after me: Tempest, teapot, mostly bogus.

No, there is not a virus. Nor is there a worm. Yes, there is a trojan and yes, it is called Leap.A. That much is true. Sadly, that is where the story will end for most of the media that reports on it. The mainstream news morons will run it as a 20-second bite and not have time for actual facts, instead relying on nothing but doom-ridden press releases from security “researchers”. Fortunately, there are some facts that put this whole thing into perspective:

Fact: Leap.A is a compiled AppleScript and is renamed as a graphics archive called Latestpics.gz. The idea is that you think that it is pictures of the new OSX “Leopard” system or Paris Hilton’s tits or whatever, and uncompress it. But instead of uncompressing it, you are actually executing the script.

Fact: Since it is an application, OSX is aware of it even thought it has a .gz extension. That means if you download it through Safari, Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, or Mail, your Mac will tell you that this is not an archive, has no pictures in it, and is instead an application, and that you shouldn’t download it. The only way you could download this as an unsuspecting user is to by using Explorer for your browsing or Entrouage for your email … both or which are situations that mean you are already a complete fucking idiot and you get what you deserve.

Fact: The only way you can actually get this file from a remote source is by a file transfer in iChat via Bonjour/Rendezvous. Bonjour/Rendezvous connections are to local users and iChat assumes that these are people you personally know and (supposedly) trust, your Mac will allow this transfer and not warn you. If the file comes from an internet iChat buddy, the normal checking and warning routines are in place. The file can not be sent via an AIM, .MAC, or Jabber iChat connection.

Fact: This does not mean that the program will infect your iChat and start sending itself out willy-nilly to your pals. You would still have to run the file yourself and you would still have to send it on to the next person yourself. The fact that iChat would be the only way to send this has mutated into “in infects your iChat” by the media dorks who don’t actually understand what they are reporting on.

In a nutshell, this is a program that has been renamed to look like an archive. That is all. End of story. It has to be sent to you manually from someone who is already on your iChat buddies list and is on your local network. And when the program executes, it doesn’t actually do anything – another fact that won’t get much play when the breathless reporting starts. You will have to fill in that little tidbit yourself.

One of the pinnacles of 1970s edutainment (and there was a lot of edutainment back in the day – Afterschool Special, anyone?) has made it probably inevitable way to the iTunes Music Store. The first and second seasons of Schoolhouse Rock are now available for your purchasing and viewing pleasure. If you have iTunes installed, click here for a direct link. If you don’t have iTunes, what the fuck is wrong with you?