Wow, these are strange days indeed; the PowerPC AIM alliance consists of just three entities-- Apple, IBM, and Motorola-- and by some strange twist of fate, our buddy the typically melodramatic Apple is the one not directly involved in the current soap opera. Whodathunkit? Regular viewers are already up to speed on the rumor that IBM has Altivec-enhanced, Mac-ready G4 processors running at up to 650 MHz and ready to go, but they can't announce or ship them until Motorola plays catch-up. Why? Because there's Motorola technology in them thar chips, and Motorola, who's already red-faced from its continued inability to break through the 500 MHz barrier, isn't thrilled with the idea of IBM waltzing in and beating them to the punch. So they've got one hand on IBM's emergency brake and the other hand... well, we're not sure where the other hand is. It's probably too busy tossing the company's Macs out the window to be working on getting those G4s up to speed, though.

Anyway, Mac OS Rumors has more details on this whole sorry situation. It seems that the choke chain that Motorola has around IBM's throat is none other than the Altivec license. See, IBM was never too keen on Altivec; since the majority of PowerPC chips that it makes that don't go into Macs are destined for Unix servers, there wasn't a whole lot of use for what Apple calls the "Velocity Engine." In fact, we're pretty sure IBM only succumbed to the Altivec pressure because of two factors: Apple insisting on it, when they came begging for G4 assistance, and possibly also that next-generation PowerPC chip that IBM's going to produce for the upcoming "Dolphin" game console. Isn't it ironic, then, that IBM-- who's late to the party, you understand-- was allegedly first to reach decent yields of 650 MHz Altivec G4s? And if that's not enough irony for you, consider the fact that Motorola's supposedly using a clause in that very Altivec license to prevent IBM from shipping that little speed demon until Motorola can catch up. Hoo boy...

Meanwhile, Apple's the one taking it in the neck. AMD's Athlon just hit 1 GHz (albeit at a pretty hefty price), and even Intel's decrepit Pentium III is expected to reach the same clock speed in a matter of days. The Power Mac G4 currently tops out at a "mere" 500 MHz by comparison, and Apple's going to be fighting an uphill battle for street cred given that clock speed disparity. It really makes us wonder if faithful viewer Dan Brown isn't on to something when he surmises that Motorola's sole impetus in this whole mess is revenge against the Starmax-killing Steve Jobs. Yes, only two short years after the end of the Clone Wars, Motorola's getting even: they're dumping all their corporate Macs, they were late with G4s when they were Apple's only source, and now that IBM's signed on to help, Motorola's pulling contract shenanigans to choke off that avenue. After all, the parallels are obvious; Steve used clauses in the Mac OS licensing contracts to prevent cloners from shipping any systems faster than Apple's own-- "We won't certify any G3-based designs." Now Motorola's doing the same with its Altivec license to keep Apple starved for clock speed. Payback ain't pretty.

Glory be, hallelujah, we see the light! The light-up rumor lives, and no one's giving thanks more than we are. We've been almost obsessed with the concept of light-up Macs ever since the first erroneous reports from the iMac's surprise unveiling claimed that the whole translucent case glowed eerily while the system was in use. As you all know, the iMac shipped without so much as a light-up mouse (a real feature that was removed early on in the development process), and since then, there's been no end to rumors about upcoming Macs with built-in illumination. The Lombard PowerBook was the first Mac to fulfill the promise; its white Apple logo glows brightly when the unit's on. The iBook's Apple logo also lights up, but it's more understated-- just a dim blue or orange (or grey?) halo when the screen is on.

Anyway, the latest light-up rumor we heard involved Pismo possibly shipping with a glowing keyboard. That turned out to be false, but we're happy to report that the light-up keyboard rumor is still alive and kicking. This time it's AppleInsider to the rescue, claiming that the gnomes in Apple's secret underground labs are in fact experimenting with ways to give the company's laptop keyboards a bit of Indiglo action. Reportedly the latest attempts involve putting "small lights beneath the keys" to illuminate each key from below. See? Translucency isn't just for flash.

And similarly, light-up keys aren't just a "wow" factor, either. Take us, for example; your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff never learned to touch-type, and while we're pretty proficient around a keyboard these days, those little bumps on the D and K mean nothing to us. Home keys? Don't make us laugh. So, yeah, an occasional glance at the keyboard is helpful, and what with our AirPort-equipped iBook making computing in the dark a much more likely scenario, we're really starting to appreciate the potential usefulness of glowing keys. But may we make one suggestion? For the folks out there who can touch type, we'd love to see Apple include a mode in which each key only lights up when it's pressed down. Watching someone type in the dark that way would look so awesome. Like, all Close Encounters and stuff. (We made an iMac out of mashed potatoes at dinner last night. Is that unusual?)

You know, according to the Encyclopedia Smithsonian, there are 200 million bugs for every human being on this planet. Evidently, about 80% of those are in Microsoft products-- but that sure isn't stopping people from buying them. Yes, 63,000 documented bugs notwithstanding, Sm@rt Reseller reports that the company sold 500,000 copies of Windows 2000 in the product's first two weeks of retail availability. That's half a million copies, multiplied by 63,000... lessee, here... yup, 31.5 billion bugs shipped to date. And that doesn't count all the copies sold outside the U.S. or directly to "major accounts."

Windows marketing director Keith White says these sales figures "exceeded Microsoft's expectations," proving once again that even Microsoft can't believe how many people actually buy its crap. And while ZDNet AnchorDesk refers to Win2K's sales as "brisk," we can at least take solace in the knowledge that, according to The Register, Sony sold twice as many PlayStation 2 game consoles in two days than Microsoft sold Win2K licenses in two weeks. So at least the world's got its priorities straight.

Still, though, we can't help but be a little freaked out by the fact that so many people are actually willing to shell out cash for a collection of bugs in a box. We should probably start buying up shares in companies that make bug repellant. At least we can rest secure in the knowledge that those particular creepy-crawlies won't be nesting in our computers. But just knowing they're out there is giving us the willies...