Ladies and gentlemen, we have a denial! What was perhaps the most striking thing about the recent rumors of IBM/Motorola G4 gridlock was the marked lack of on-the-record comment from either of the involved parties. And don't go telling us that none of the folks at these companies ever heard the accusations. We're talking about Motorola allegedly holding back IBM from shipping faster, cheaper processors while Apple's pro desktop Macs get left ever further behind in the Megahertz Wars-- c'mon, there's enough juice there for a Starburst commercial. Mac OS Rumors broke the story, and that's probably one of the highest-traffic sites on the Mac web. Furthermore, commentary on the rumor has appeared in both The Register and MacWEEK. Is it really possible that no one at Motorola ever heard about this? (Actually, now that we think of it, given the ongoing anti-Mac initiatives at Motorola, perhaps it's not all that unlikely after all...)

You know how rumors work; the longer they go without a denial, the more likely they are to spread. That's why the world of Apple is such fecund ground for rumormongering; the company's official stance on rumors is never to comment, and therefore never to deny. But finally, it seems that someone kicked a Motorola spokesperson awake long enough to issue a statement regarding the G4 gridlock allegations. According to MacUser U.K., Motorola's European marketing manager Paul Clark has responded by "categorically denying" any such contractual hobbling: "Motorola has placed no restrictions on IBM that will prevent it from manufacturing and selling the MPC7400, at any clock speed, to Apple."

So does that mean the rumors will now shrivel up and die? Not likely, unless you're willing to accept the word of Motorola's European marketing manager as the end-all-be-all authority on what kinds of contractual strings the company pulls behind closed doors; who says this guy has the faintest shadow of a clue? Maybe he just never read the memo. Plus, while Motorola's utter lack of denials as the rumor spread for a full two weeks seemed suspicious at best, this late denial seems almost even shiftier. See, when Apple doesn't deny a rumor, that's par for the course. And if Motorola had clammed up about the whole thing until the end of time, that'd be one thing. But for the company to issue a denial two weeks after the rumor first made headlines, well, they can't very well claim they "don't comment on rumors," can they? So why the delay? Maybe they're just as slow at PR as they are at getting clock speeds up...

Print is dead, or so they keep telling us. And we're inclined to agree; after all, why tote around a cheap, durable paperback or newspaper when you can read the same content on the breakable screen of an expensive, battery-chewing electronic device? Don't get us wrong, we're no Luddites on this matter. If we were fundamentally opposed to the electronic distribution of information, AtAT wouldn't exist and you'd be reading the back of your cereal box right now. It's just that certain frustrating experiences tell us that there's always going to be a need for hard copy. Trying to read Joyce on a Newton screen? Not much fun-- and no cracks from the philistines about the medium being irrelevant when discussing the enjoyability of Ulysses. Also, while you can whip a paperback copy of Dante's Inferno against a brick wall six or eight times with no particular loss of legibility, we know from painful experience that a single four-foot drop onto a hardwood floor is all it takes to send a Palm V off to the repair shop for a couple of weeks.

So while we're not ready to bury the print medium just yet, we'd have to consider Stephen King's latest novel another nail in the coffin. King's latest work, Riding The Bullet, is the first mass-market book only available in "e-book" format. Which means if you own an e-book, you can get Riding The Bullet for a mere $2.50. Of course, the Rocket e-Book Pro itself will set you back $269, it weighs 22 ounces, and we're more than a little skeptical that it'd survive a four-foot drop onto a hard surface. Count us out for now. We consider this "e-only" policy a shame, because it means we won't be able to pick this title up in a used paperback store sometime down the line and read it in the tub, secure in the knowledge that if we were to fall asleep, we'd be out a whopping buck and a quarter. (Whereas falling asleep in the tub while reading an eBook would set us back a couple hundred dollars and probably reinforce old lessons about what happens when water meets electricity.)

Worse yet, as faithful viewer Michael Kaplan laments, while a piece of software called Glassbook lets people read e-books on their Wintel computers, no such beast exists for the Mac yet. So even if you want to read Riding The Bullet on your iBook, you're out of luck; even King himself isn't too thrilled about that. Scott Dailey pointed out a Boston Globe article in which King calls himself a "dedicated and long-term Mac user" and says he's disappointed with the e-book format's current Mac-unfriendliness. We've received reports that Barnes And Noble's web site allowed visitors to sign up to receive a PDF copy of the story via email, but if that offer ever existed, it doesn't seem to be there now. Oh, well... Guess we'll have to dredge up an old paperback copy of Skeleton Crew instead. At least we won't have to worry about the financial ramifications of accidentally leaving it behind in the Food Court at the mall...

You know, we're really starting to rethink this whole issue of Apple's victorious press release being "misleading." Originally we could see Future Power's side of things; if you're engaged in a trade dress lawsuit with a much larger competitor, you generally don't want your opponent issuing press releases announcing victory nearly a month before the trial begins. As faithful viewer Guy McLimore pointed out, Future Power's even issued a full-blown press release demanding a retraction.

But as we read Apple's statement again, we've got to side with Apple on this one. Nothing Apple says is incorrect or false. The headline says "Apple secures worldwide injunctions against Daewoo and eMachines," and that's true. Later on Apple mentions that "the Court also granted an injunction against Future Power's distribution or sale of the E-Power computer," which is also true. Details are given about the settlements worked out with the other three litigants, but Apple never states that its suit against Future Power is over. So what, exactly, is there to retract? Furthermore, how exactly is Future Power hurt by the allegedly "misleading" nature of Apple's press release? The E-Power isn't on the market yet, so it's not like sales are suffering. And yet apparently the folks at Future Power have got their collective undies in a bunch because Apple announced that Daewoo's blue and white E-Power will not be sold-- again, true. The distinction here, of course, is that Future Power's not planning to sell the "E-Power." They're planning to sell the "E-Power By Future Power." Catchy name, that.

Anyway, we're left wondering what exactly Future Power was hoping to accomplish with this press release calling for a retraction. The odds of Apple actually complying are ridiculously slim, so perhaps it's just a grab for attention. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar somehow... Could it be? Following his spectacular defeat in the Imatec ColorSync lawsuit, did our old buddy Hanoch Shalit take his press release-writing skills over to Future Power for another shot at Apple? Stranger things have happened, but we'll have to wait and see if Future Power issues press releases about the lawsuit every other day for the next three months before we can know for sure.