You know the usual drill: the details of future Apple hardware start out sketchy when they first surface months or years before the product is officially unveiled. Then, over time, various conflicting reports start to flicker and fade, other new data joins the mix, and as the release date approaches, the whole confusing mess slowly coalesces into a fairly accurate picture of the product as we'll finally get to see it on store shelves. But while that overall process does seem to apply to the consumer portable, it's a less-than-perfect model. If anything, the "P1," as it's reportedly code-named, is a secret kept under even closer guard than the iMac was; we're willing to bet that if Apple hadn't publicly stated that a consumer portable was in the works, none of us would have a clue about what to expect. But we're still noticing a tendency for the rumored specs to gravitate towards a sort of overall consistency, as the official unveiling is now just six weeks away. We hope.

According to Apple Insider, the final consumer portable will be quite unlike what many of us were led to expect early on. Yes, it'll be curvy, translucent, and colorful like the iMac. It'll have at least a 300 MHz G3 processor with a 512K backside cache, built-in modem and 10/100 Ethernet, and a single USB port. The lithium ion battery will supposedly "last an entire school day without a recharge," and the enclosure takes a page from the eMate's book by being strong enough to "withstand falls from students' desks." The report also claims the P1 will have a "space-saving" handle. So far so good-- there isn't too much detail, but what's there seems pretty trustworthy. It's a far cry from the built-in wireless Internet access rumors we all saw getting bandied about several months ago.

Now Mac OS Rumors, on the other hand, goes into even more detail: they claim the P1 will be called the "WebMate," despite a plethora of reports that it would be dubbed the "iBook;" the screen will be a modest 11" passive-matrix display running at a resolution of 832x624; etc., etc. And while we dig all the info about smoke-grey-and-purple plastics, a possible Mezzanine card slot, and all the rest, what we're really interested to see is Rumors' report of the P1's thickness, which they claim to be "approximately 3 inches thick in the middle and approximately 1 inch thick at the edges." We sincerely hope that's a typo, because a three-inch-thick laptop sets a new standard in sheer volume-- especially for a portable that's only supposed to weigh between four and five pounds. Hmm-- translucent, colorful, dimensions of a smallish throw pillow-- if Apple can just make it plush and squishy, the P1 would be just as at home adorning the sofa as it would on a desk in the classroom. The iMac doubled as modern sculpture; maybe the P1 will double as soft furnishings?

Longtime viewers know that the AtAT staff has very select television viewing standards; things are just too hectic these days to sit down and watch any old show to kill some time. So while we have nothing against PBS' Charlie Rose, it's just not something we're likely to watch when there's a Buffy rerun on that we've only seen twice-- sure, we've got that particular rerun on tape, but it's Spike, people! Priorities, you know? So we missed Larry Ellison's appearance on Charlie Rose, during which he no doubt did his impression of a Silicon Valley stool pigeon threatened with torture by withdrawal of stock options; the man is notorious for talking about stuff he probably shouldn't, but hey, who are we to question his natural enthusiasm?

Now, since Larry is a member of Apple's board of directors and Steve Jobs' best friend, it's safe to say that he's privy to a lot of details about Apple's future projects than any of us are. And that's where his irrepressible gift for gab comes in handy. Take, for example, faithful viewer Bob Sassone's report of the show:

Larry Ellison strikes again! He was on "Charlie Rose" last night, and when the subject of an OS and applications and the Internet came up, Ellison said that the OS is becoming irrelevant. It doesn't matter what underlying OS you use for the 'Net; it's the browser and a cheap device you can use. Then the big news: he said that Apple was coming out with a new computer this summer that is making him switch from being a PC user to going back to being a Mac user exclusively! It will change the way we think about computers. Ellison then stopped himself and said "I really shouldn't be talking about this..."

Sounds like the net-bootable consumer portable to us-- or maybe it's another project, kept under even tighter wraps, like a new Apple-branded Mac OS-based handheld? Who knows? Apparently Larry does, but he isn't telling-- much. But it's good news to hear that the CEO of Oracle will soon be a Mac user again.

See, the thing about "Redmond Justice" is this: when the writers hit upon a winning strategy, they know a good thing when they see it. In the past the show has entertained the drooling masses by casting the Microsoft legal team as the bumbling buffoons, whose mistakes and feeble attempts at chicanery were exposed by the sharp eye and sharper tongue of government legal eagle David Boies-- much to the visible amusement of Judge Jackson, who, in an arguably unprofessional manner, has been known to laugh at Microsoft in court. We, the viewing audience, just love that stuff. And, knowing better than to mess with a sure-fire ratings-winner, they've given it to us again.

This latest episode concerns email sent by Microsoft employees which strongly suggests (and by "strongly suggests" we mean "flat-out proves") that the company tried to downplay the effect that the free-for-download and bundled-with-Windows Internet Explorer had on rival Netscape's market share. Of course, this isn't the first time that Microsoft has been made to squirm in court due to email sent from within the Redmond compound, but what makes this particular incident so entertaining is the fact that the latest email admitted into evidence was sent this past January. As in, long after Microsoft had already been embarrassed in court by its own electronic missives. Apparently some people never learn. NewsBytes has the story.

Never a team to disappoint the fans, the "Redmond Justice" writers had Boies read the email aloud-- and according to the article, "the federal judge presiding over the non-jury case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, laughed." Now that's a crowd-pleaser! The email was presented during Boies' questioning of MIT economist Franklin Fisher, who has been holding his own in his attacking of Microsoft's monopolistic abuses; when Boies asked him to comment on the new email message, Fisher said, "This document speaks for itself louder than most." Indeed.