We saw it first over at Mac OS Rumors, and then NoBeige picked up on the story, too... If you thought the Volkswagen Beetle was the iMac of the automotive world, it's time to take a look at the Toyota e-com. It's small, round, even cuter than the bug (albeit in a vaguely disturbing manner), and sports a very familiar two-tone silver-and-teal exterior that looks suspiciously reminiscent of a certain translucent personal computer that hit the market last August. Heck, even the names are similar. iMac. e-com. Two vowels, an "m," and a "c." (Give or take a hyphen.)

And it's not just looks and names that make the e-com so iMac-like; the e-com thinks different, too. Or rather, it runs different. It's an electric car that's powered by twenty-four "sealed nickel-metal hydride batteries." One charge gets you about 60 miles of travel, at a top speed of 62 miles per hour. And this is very cool-- when you apply the brakes, some of the kinetic energy being lost as the e-com slows down is actually redirected back to the batteries to charge them. Innovative? Undoubtably. As innovative as a completely round translucent mouse with a two-color ball that you can see spinning? You be the judge. And get this-- we hear the e-com ships without a floppy drive. Imagine!

But the thing about the e-com that really kills us is the size. This thing looks teeny. Presumably it has to be, since it's pretty much running on old PowerBook batteries, but still... You know that McDonald's commercial with the business traveler who, at the end of the day, just wants to be "Super-Sized"? It was Katie, AtAT's resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae, who noticed the distinct similarity between the e-com and the "two-door Speck." How cool is that?

Well, well, well... Where "Redmond Justice" is concerned, "ask and ye shall receive" seems to be the order of the day. Yesterday we mentioned that government lawyer David Boies, despite an auspicious beginning, has been slacking off a bit in the courtroom melodrama department in recent weeks. But scarcely a day elapsed following our offhand comment when we received word from faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil that things were changing fast. Quoth he: "Apparently in response to what you said earlier, Mr. Boies was heard to say, 'I'll show those AtAT guys.'" And then he pointed out a nifty Yahoo News article which, indeed, shows a Boies returning to his old witness-shredding form.

The poor sod who bore the brunt of Boies' remarkable comeback in the Cool Race was Gordon Eubanks, the CEO of Oblix, Inc., who was testifying on behalf on Microsoft in this ever-so-epic trial. Reportedly, Eubanks had an easy morning as he defended the Redmond Giant's alleged predatory and anticompetitive practices as just run-of-the-mill Silicon Valley business. But once Boies launched into his cross-examination this afternoon, poor Gordie didn't stand a chance, and by the time the dust settled, Eubanks was bleeding profusely from the gaping wound where Boies had torn out a solid chunk of the witness' credibility. Boies "seemed to have a document handy to contradict every statement Eubanks made," and also managed to make the poor guy look like nothing more than a Redmond lackey who occasionally does personal favors for Bill Gates; for instance, he "wrote" a pro-Microsoft op-ed piece for the New York Times-- an article whose first draft may in fact have been penned by Microsoft. When Boies was through, he characterized Eubanks as "someone they call on when they want someone to talk to the press, to write an op-ed piece, who believes monopolies are good."

It's good to see Boies get back into the game. After all, there's only one witness left-- economist Richard Schmalensee (all together, now-- "SCHMALENSEE!"), who takes the stand on Monday. After that, we'll have to see whether Microsoft feels beaten down enough to offer a real settlement deal, or if they want to fight it out to the bitter end. And if it's the latter, we're very interested to see just how bitter the end can be...

While it's not strictly germane to our usual subject matter here at AtAT, we've just got to take a little time out to do a happy dance on Divx's grave. That's right; as of today, Divx is history. Kaput. Deceased. Relegated to History's Dustbin of Bad Ideas™. The Divx web site now displays nothing more than a press release about how Digital Video Express, LP (the evil collective who tried to destroy modern civilization with their foul invention) is "discontinuing operations" and the technology will be phased out over a two-year period.

For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what Divx is (er, was), here's the basic gist: imagine you've got a DVD player. When you buy a regular DVD, it's like buying a higher-quality, longer-lasting videotape-- you pay for it, bring it home, and watch it whenever you want, as often as you want. Now imagine that you go out and buy a copy of "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" on disc because you don't want to miss any of those subtle nuances. Well, if that disc happens to be Divx, then when you pop it into your "Divx-enhanced" player, a built-in modem dials out and charges you $3.25 for each viewing period. Think of it as pay-per-view that you still have to go to the store to buy. And even leaving aside the whole "pay for each viewing" issue, there's the additional joy of knowing that the Divx people are tracking your viewing habits. Sure, it's probably no different from your video store logging every movie you rent, but the prospect of a video player in one's own home actually dialing out, reporting one's viewing choice, and charging money to one's account was just too much for many consumers to handle.

Hence, Divx has gone the way of the dodo. There's a good Wired article that examines the likeliest reasons for the technology's demise-- and discusses the sheer joy many people are feeling now that it's officially gone. As for those of you who jumped on the Divx bandwagon, you might be interested to hear that you're eligible for a $100 cash rebate to reimburse you for having spent extra on a technology that's been canned. Can we all breathe a little freer now?