Just a coincidence, or a masterstroke of subliminal marketing savvy? For obvious reasons, we've all spent the past two months thinking more than a little about the dire need to tighten up security in our airports, and suddenly Apple's got the answer to our prayers... sort of. Faithful viewer Wayne Parkhurst was the first to point out that Apple has just announced AirPort 2, now with a slew of improvements including-- you guessed it-- better security. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? (If Apple releases a new version of Mail that automatically detects rare but malicious viruses, we'll know the company's doing this stuff on purpose.)

So, the all-new AirPort: in addition to gaining a long-awaited security upgrade (from 40-bit to 128-bit encryption), the new Base Station boasts a handful of other useful features. The one that grabbed our attention was the addition of a second Ethernet interface; while there's still a 10-base-T WAN port to hook into a DSL line or cable modem, now there's also a 10/100 port to let you connect the Base Station to your wired LAN. In effect, this makes the Base Station a router and firewall for your wireless and your wired computers. We say "computers" and not "Macs," because technically the Base Station supports both-- networking is networking, after all-- but we don't mean to imply that you're tasteless enough to be harboring a Wintel or two.

The new Base Station also supports up to fifty simultaneous wireless clients (up from ten) and adds support for AOL dialup accounts. (Even if you happen to think that AOL is the online equivalent of jamming a red-hot pair of pinking shears through one's own soft palate, the fact remains that it's still the number one online service, so Apple is filling a need.) Lastly, and perhaps most importantly of all, the revised Base Station also boasts a subtle color change so it matches the current Quicksilver Power Macs. For those of you who have been lying awake at night haunted by the shame of owning a Quicksilver G4 and a Graphite Base Station, now's the time to trade up so the world need never know of your heinous Fashion Don't.

Welcome improvements, every one... but longtime rumor fans may by struck most by what AirPort 2 isn't. If you were expecting higher bandwidth, you're out of luck; AirPort still maxes out at 11 Mbps. You won't be getting any more range, either-- the virtual tether is still 150 feet long. On the plus side, the price of the new Base Station remains fixed at $299, so at least we aren't expected to pay more for some nice but relatively minor new features. And really, while other vendors may have wireless access routers at a far cheaper price, these days we bet there are plenty of people eager to shell out $299 for a modern and secure airport...

Drop the Rubik's Cube and saddle up, Junior, because it's time for another in a series of "insider updates" over at Mac OS Rumors-- and as faithful viewer zifnab informs us, this one's a royal doozy. In fact, there's a distinct possibility that it skipped right past "doozy" to land smack in the middle of "lulu" territory. To the best of our recollection, we haven't had an honest-to-goodness lulu around these parts since maybe '97 or thereabouts, so you can imagine our excitement; there's something in this report for everybody.

For those of you looking for feasible and semi-believable dirt on Apple's next pro desktops, MOSR's got you covered. Reportedly yields on G5 chips are now "commercially acceptable," Altivec performance is back to where it should be, and Apple is only waiting for a 0.8 revision of the G5 design (due "within two weeks") before signing off and plunging into production. If true, that would mean that previous reports of 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6 GHz Power Mac G5s surfacing in less than two months at Macworld Expo might still bear out. This latest intelligence also hints at the possibility of low-end G4 systems rounding out the Power Mac line-up until the G5s come down in price; to start, the cheapest G5 "will sell for slightly more than the current 867 MHz G4."

If you're more in the mood for something slightly more outrageous, you're looking at the proverbial Horn O' Plenty. Remember those reports of a couple of mutant G5s running at 2.4 GHz? Well, MOSR has just upped the ante; apparently the 2.4 GHz chip count is now up to 13, and one chip even got as high as 2.8 GHz. If that's not enough to get your salivary glands a-pumpin', there's also an offhand mention of a 900 MHz or 1 GHz flat-panel iMac bursting onto the scene in January. Still not juiced? Then consider the sheer rumorological dynamite of Apple's alleged future PowerPC plans: reportedly Steve Jobs plans to ship Macs built around the G6 running at between 5 and 10 GHz in "mid-2003" before moving on to the G7 running at clock speeds "as high as 20 GHz" in "early- to mid-2005." Fetch the defibrillator!

Are we asking you to believe a word of this? Heck, no; believe what you want. Personally, we'd classify this whole report as little more than a stunning combination of wishful thinking, high drama, and fiction at its most engaging if it weren't for one little detail: the R-rated Steve Jobs quote in which Captain Pottymouth uses the dreaded "f-word" (we're a family show, remember) twice in three sentences. Since we've heard on numerous occasions that Steve really does swear a blue streak when he isn't addressing a crowd of thousands, that gives the report just enough credibility to let us drift happily in the land of make-believe. Visions of G7s dancing in our heads... what could be nicer?

Holy cats-- if you think the back-room deals and political intrigue in the computer industry are out of control, steer well clear of Hollywood, because things over there just seem nuts. See, generally we're pretty sheltered from the seamier side of the entertainment biz, but when faithful viewer Pellaeon tipped us off to some dirt regarding Steve Jobs's other guise as Big Important Movie Guy™ for Pixar, we figured it was worth taking a peek. So we sauntered over to BusinessWeek to get the skinny on why that Episode II teaser trailer wound up attached to Monsters, Inc. instead of to some, er, less Disney flick.

If the scuttlebutt is true, the reason is sort of convoluted. It apparently all started when George Lucas, Captain Star Wars himself, was preparing to make another one of those "The Audience Is Listening" ads for THX sound. (Lucas owns THX, you see.) If you've seen a movie in an actual theater sometime in the past decade or two, the odds are good that you saw a THX spot before the previews; they're shown in a ton of theaters in the U.S. Now, George's friend Steven Spielberg (you may have heard of him) is a partner in a little company called Dreamworks, which produced the hit computer-animated feature Shrek. Well, it seems that THX mastered the sound for Shrek, and Spielberg called up his buddy George and asked him if he'd consider putting Shrek in his upcoming THX ads. George said yes. With us so far? Hang on, because this is where it gets a little wacky.

Cue Steve Jobs, another friend of Lucas, whose Pixar company was just about to release its fourth computer-animated feature film, Monsters, Inc. Allegedly Steve got wind of George's plan to include Shrek in the THX ads and was none too pleased; Pixarians are already a little down on Dreamworks, due to that company rushing Antz (a computer-generated feature about, um, ants) into theaters just before Pixar was slated to release A Bug's Life (a computer-generated feature about... well, you get the picture). Worse yet, the Shrekian THX ads were scheduled to start on November 2nd-- the opening date for Monsters, Inc. So the first thing Monsters, Inc. audiences would see onscreen after those cheesy ad slides is... Shrek. You can see where Steve might be a little miffed.

To make a long story slightly less long, apparently Steve called up George and made his displeasure known; the rumor mill claims that threats of no more Disney/Pixar work for THX may have figured heavily in the mix. Disney and Pixar deny that, but just before the November 2nd launch date, THX announced that it was "canceling plans" to Shrekify its ads, claiming that they decided it "wasn't right to link their sound system to any one movie." Very interesting. And even more interesting is how Monsters, Inc. received a nice little boost in ticket sales from Star Wars fans desperate to catch the Episode II teaser trailer, which suddenly and mysteriously found itself shown exclusively before screenings of Pixar's latest CGI romp. Was it George making amends for having offended his friend Steve? We may never know, but we know this much: this Hollywood stuff sure makes us dizzy.