Listen... Did you hear that? That was the sound of the other shoe dropping. Ever since Connectix unveiled its remarkable "Virtual Game Station" Playstation emulator at the Macworld Expo a few weeks ago, Sony has made no attempt to mask its displeasure. After all, VGS was reportedly developed entirely without Sony's knowledge or involvement, there's no licensing agreement in place, and the emulator sells for less than half the price of a real Playstation console, so why wouldn't the nice folks at Sony be a little cheesed off at somebody cutting into their action? (Oh, sure, maybe Sony loses money on every Playstation they sell, and every unit of VGS that goes out there makes them money on games, but it's the principle of the thing, darnit.) Anyway, the upshot is that as of Wednesday, we've got yet another lawsuit to follow-- according to MacCentral, Sony has gone ahead and sued Connectix for violation of their copyrights and trade secrets.

No surprise there, though we strongly suspect that Sony doesn't have much of a chance of winning. Connectix claims that they created their emulator entirely through "clean room" reverse-engineering, so that it uses absolutely none of Sony's intellectual property. In addition, Sony alleges that VGS "circumvents" copy protection and regional lock-out technology built into every Playstation that prevents users from playing pirated games or ones restricted to a foreign market; however, Connectix made it clear when the product first surfaced that VGS does include those protections. (Some enterprising hackers have since figured out how to get around that protection in VGS, but by the same token, people have been bypassing the same technology in real Playstations for years.) Lastly, according to Sony's statement, they take issue with VGS' "inferior performance." Well, heck if you can sue someone just for releasing a product that you don't think is good enough, get out of our way-- we've got some Microsoft lawsuits to file.

Connectix's response to all this seems to indicate a profound sense of confidence, as they've just announced that they're shipping VGS 1.1, featuring better compatibility-- and improved protection against piracy. Let's see if they can get it out the door and onto store shelves before Sony can get an injunction halting the product. Actually, this may all work out for the best; if Sony's just angling for a licensing deal and one gets hammered out, then it's definitely possible that Sony would work with Connectix to improve the product in future versions. Imagine if VGS 2.0 features 100% Playstation compatibility and a 40% speed boost. Providing that the price of the product doesn't rise much beyond the current $49, Connectix's latest killer app might get even more vicious.

Are you one of those people who has been constructing elaborate theories about why Apple bought a Super Bowl ad spot, then tried to sell it off at the last minute, and finally decided to use it to show their year-2000-themed HAL 9000 commercial-- previously designated as an "Internet-only" ad? (If so, congratulations-- like us, you apparently have no life. One of us! One of us!) Well, finally, the speculation about the eleventh-hour changes in Apple's Super Bowl advertising plans can wind to a close. The Mac Observer excerpts a San Jose Mercury News article, which tells the whole story of how HAL was hoisted from his net-only perch to extoll the benefits of Macintosh to a hundred million people during what is one of the biggest sports events in the world.

Apparently, Steve Jobs had decided way back last spring, probably even before the height of the pre-iMac-debut frenzy, that Apple needed commercials that focused on the Mac's Y2K compliance. After a few false starts, TBWA/Chiat/Day finally came up with the idea of using HAL 9000 as a spokesmainframe sometime during the summer. Two days and a quarter of a million dollars later, they had completed the commercial we all know and love. Upon seeing it, Jobs decided that he wanted to show it during the Super Bowl, and Apple bought the ad slot. But creeping doubt set in, Apple got cold feet, and they told Fox they were pulling out. Up until a week ago, that's where things stood. In the meantime, the HAL ad was shown during the keynote address at the Macworld Expo earlier in the month, and response from the crowd was huge. Then the ad was posted on Apple's web site, and after being downloaded 250,000 times and prompting "thousands" of email messages to Apple begging them to put the commercial on TV, Apple finally decided to go ahead with their original plans.

So that's what happened: no product delays, no "mystery commercial" that didn't get done on time, no alien abductions (at least, none that we can prove, at any rate). Just a last-minute case of cold feet that got thawed by the enthusiasm of Apple's fans. At least, that's their story, and they're sticking to it.

How many of Apple's problems during the "scary years" were directly attributable to the board of directors? People can argue over whether they were actively detrimental or simply ineffectual, but one thing's for sure: they sure weren't helping matters much. That's why the biggest news at Steve Jobs' August 1997 keynote address was not the "alliance" with Microsoft, but rather the complete overhaul of the Apple board, with Jobs himself instated as chairman. And according to Robert Morgan's latest RFI Report, Apple's taken some steps to help ensure that the board doesn't stagnate again in the future.

In Apple's proxy statement, filed earlier this week with the SEC, it's revealed that the company has "amended its articles of incorporation" in a manner that changes the way that board members are retained. Instead of being assigned and then sticking around until they decide to leave, all board members must now be re-elected on an annual basis; every year, each board member runs the risk of being voted out the door if he or she has been neglecting Apple's best interests. With a little luck, this measure ought to keep the board minty-fresh and on its toes. Sounds good to us.

Now, given Mr. Jobs' reputation for fairly Machiavellian behavior in these matters (here's a few words you can string together in your spare time: Amelio, ousted, shown the door, sayonara), it's not hard to imagine that this change is his attempt to stack the board in his favor and create a puppet regime. On the other hand, controversial as many of his decisions may have been, few will argue that he's turned the company around in a major way, so we figure it's worth the risk. And heck, right now it looks like Steve can do no wrong, but what's to say that in the future he won't burst a blood vessel and decide that the new Apple direction will be Wintel systems and quiescently-frozen dessert snacks? This new policy means the rest of the board can dump Steve, too, if it comes to that. All in all, we like it. Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to grab a couple of Popsicles.