And the gestalt backpedalling continues! We won't know if it's a Pismo-No-Show-induced dose of overcaution or an unfortunate true reflection of unfolding events until next week, but now AppleInsider has gone from "WWDC May Finally Yield Multiprocessor Power Macs" to "WWDC May Not Bring Surprises." Specifically, the latest dirt is that while Apple's reportedly got fully-functional dual-G4 systems running in its secret underground testing bunkers, it's the software that will likely prevent Steve from introducing these machines as actual, honest-to-goodness, "available now" products when he takes the stage in a few days.

See, Mac OS 9 is about as multiprocessor-capable as two bananas tied together with a length of twine, and Mac OS X is still many months away-- which means that, right now, two G4 chips wouldn't be of any more use than one for any software that hasn't been specifically engineered to harness the power of both processors. Evidently Apple doesn't agree with us that just pumping up some Photoshop benchmarks would be a worthwhile endeavor. While the software lab gremlins in Cupertino are busily trying to cram some basic multiprocessor support into Mac OS 9 itself (which would yield an across-the-board performance boost on multi-G4 Macs), that project's a bit behind schedule-- therefore, no new hardware next week. Sorry, kiddies, but them's the breaks... according to rumor, anyway.

But don't worry; Apple will at least demonstrate Mac OS X's upcoming multiprocessing capabilities; that much is a sure thing. Unless, of course, you see any reason not to trust Apple's own posted session schedules: "See how threading improves your application's performance on both Mac OS 9 and OS X, on uniprocessors today and multiprocessors in the future." (It's that "in the future" bit that bums us out, but hey, life's full of disappointment and misery.) Lucky attendees will get to "see demonstrations of how fast applications can go using Velocity Engine, [multiprocessing], and both together"; the rest of us, however, will have to wait until Apple finally ships those multiprocessor G4s. As for us, we're still keeping our fingers crossed for next week anyway. What the heck; optimism's free.

In "Redmond Justice" news, we're pleased to see that Microsoft's penchant for melodrama is holding strong through Sweeps Month. The company met its deadline and filed an official response to the government's corporate breakup proposal, and those of us hoping for lots of over-the-top whining and barefaced protestations of innocence weren't disappointed. In point of fact, the company actually filed a motion for summary rejection; it asked the judge to throw out the "radical" breakup plan right away, while suggesting its own set of conduct restrictions instead. The New York Times has plenty of details on Microsoft's snit-fit in the shadow of the axe, and its own proposed "remedy."

First, the "poor, poor us" stuff that we all find so entertaining. Get this: Microsoft is actually claiming that splitting the company in two (one to work on Windows, the other to crank out applications) would prompt its employees to "leave the company in droves," at which point "the company's entire business would be destroyed." Okay, at this point all you staunch anti-Microsoft viewers out there should wipe that drool off your chin; if you seriously believe that Microsoft would collapse just because it gets split up into two play groups, we've got two bananas and some twine to sell you. It's a nice fantasy, if that's your thing, but come on. Microsoft's obviously hoping to scare the judge into playing it safe with the American economy, and we just hope Jackson isn't that easily fooled.

As for Microsoft's counterproposal, well, the government feels that it's "inadequate." Translation: "it's got more holes in it than the plot of the average summer action flick." The Justice Department's statement notes that Microsoft's plan wouldn't prevent "attempts to divide markets with competitors; retaliation against personal computer manufacturers and software developers that support non-Microsoft technologies; or tying to require PC manufacturers to ship other Microsoft products with Windows." What it does do, however, is require Bill Gates to have a three-inch scarlet letter "M" tattooed on his forehead. (Well, okay, not really-- but we bet the government would be a lot more receptive if such a provision were tacked on.)

To be fair, Microsoft's proposal does contain some attractive (if narrow) concessions. Of particular interest to Mac users are the bits wherein Microsoft would agree "not to condition the release of its software intended for non-Microsoft operating systems, like Apple Computer's, on the other company's agreement not to distribute or promote competitors' software." Of course, it's a little late now; when the choice was between IE3 and Netscape 4, such an agreement might have actually meant something. But that's pretty much been Microsoft's plan all along-- do the damage, and count on the "remedy" not remedying anything at all.

Next up: in a week we get to watch the government's official response to Microsoft's response. We can hardly wait, especially since Microsoft's prez (and the new star of Microsoft's "The Best Is Yet To Come" commercials) Steve Ballmer is still publicly issuing statements like this: "Our company will not be broken up. It will not happen." Ooooh, it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull...

Hey, how many Pentiums does it take to screw in a light bulb? If you said "2.000001," bzzzzzzt, sorry, that's the old answer-- what do you think this is, 1994? No, jokes change with the times, and the new answer is, "I don't know, because my Intel motherboard keeps crashing before I can even generate a math error." At least, that's how thousands of PC owners may be feeling right now after finding out that a "chip defect" on several Intel motherboards can lead to intermittent and seemingly inexplicable freeze-ups. (And you thought it was just Windows.) Faithful viewer Zach Leber kindly pointed out a Reuters article describing the problem-- and Intel's attempts to avoid a PR debacle of "Pentium Flaw" proportions.

First of all, it's worth noting that this motherboard problem isn't as widespread as 1994's Pentium "erratum." In fact, the number of affected motherboards is "less than a million," which ought to make anyone feel better, right? And this time around, Intel isn't trying to hide the flaw; the company is accepting full responsibility and has offered to replace all affected motherboards for free. Reportedly there's a utility available on Intel's web site that lets customers check to see if their motherboards are flaky, but its location wasn't immediately obvious to us. (If we actually had a PC, we'd probably look a little harder.)

The cost to Intel for fixing this problem is unknown, but apparently it could run into the "several hundred million dollars" area-- which explains why the company's stock tanked almost eleven points on Wednesday. Still, it's nice to see that Intel learned its lesson about owning up to mistakes instead of trying to cover them up. Ideally they'd have also learned a lesson about not shipping defective equipment in the first place, but heck, everyone makes misteaks.