After yesterday's confused rant about the mysterious black and white Powerbook-and-question-mark graphic that appeared briefly on O'Grady's PowerPage only to vanish inexplicably a few hours later, several AtAT viewers wrote to confirm that we weren't simply imagining things. Faithful viewer Darron Froese claims that he saw the graphic, too, reassuring us that it wasn't a vision brought on by "aliens, vampires, or drug-laced pizza." And Jason Kim goes so far as to tell us that we're "not crazy" (he don't know us too well, do he?) because he saw the "enigmatic" Powerbook image as well. At that point, we figured that unless we were the collective victims of a mass CIA-induced hallucination that spanned the continent, we could be pretty sure the image was real-- of course, we like to keep an open mind, especially since today's update on the PowerPage made no mention of the graphic whatsoever...

But the AtAT Gold Star goes to viewer Michael Rosenquest, who brought us the equivalent of a well-preserved alien corpse. Michael, with all the paranoid forethought of a seasoned paranormal investigator, not only saw the graphic, but saved it to disk. And it gets better-- that "stark black and white image" we saw was more than it seemed. In Michael's words:

...While I was adjusting the contrast on my monitor, I noticed that there was more information in the image then was readily apparent. So, I opened the pic up in Photoshop (what would I do without Photoshop?), and started playing with the brightness and contrast of the image until... Voilà! I give you Wall Street... At left is the original image posted by O'Grady's, and at right is the one which I produced in Photoshop, showing much more detail than the original pic. The Wall Street / Main Street bears an interesting resemblance to the much smaller 2400: the slabbish look of the wrist rest, with a sharp angle leading to the bottom of the unit, with a general curviness that far outstrips the current Powerbook G3. Unfortunately, it dosen't use the 2400 Nike "swoosh" mouse button, but does retain the inverted arrow keys of the mini-PB.

Speaking of brushes with Apple's lawyers, you may recall that a couple of weeks ago MacInTouch's Ric Ford received a "gentle warning" after he posted sensitive details of Apple's upcoming price cuts. Ric grudgingly removed the details of the lowered prices from his site. However, tonight MacNN posted their own details on the price cuts, risking potential legal ire to keep their readers informed.

It appears that this weekend, Apple will announce new Powermac G3 systems, new G3-based servers, and a couple of ColorSync monitors. Immediately following the introduction of these products, Apple will whack a few hundred dollars off the minimum advertised price of many of their existing G3 configurations and monitors. (Incidentally, there are also rumors of an educational-channel Apple Store to be unveiled this Saturday.)

Given that the reductions are now only four days away, Apple's legal department probably won't get too miffed. Still, we at AtAT can certainly understand Apple's anguish at seeing price drops revealed too far in advance; sales probably grind to a halt in such an event, as everyone waits the extra few weeks to save a few hundred dollars. At the same time, we consider such information one of the most valuable aspects of the Mac news sites. Oof, we think we'll reiterate our intention to remain "Swissly neutral" in such conflicts... Ricola, anyone?

Oh me oh my, but you just gotta give the guys credit... Microsoft is actually selling beta software to their customers, as pointed out by Mac OS Rumors. That's right, if you're a Windows 95 user with a 486Dx/66 or faster processor, 16Mb of RAM, 125MB of free hard disk space (!), and a CD-ROM drive, you can be a beta-tester for Windows 98-- and it'll only cost you $29.95! Gain stature as a semi-employee of the world's most successful software company! Impress the girls! Just head over to the Windows 98 Preview "Consumer Beta Program" for details.

You know, we thought it was clever when software companies got their beta testing done for free by letting the public use unreleased, buggy software and report problems with it. When you think about it, it's only the next logical step in the progression that people could be suckered into actually paying the company for the privilege of doing their work for them. Of course, it takes a company with real chutzpah to pull it off. We honestly have to admire Microsoft for this move. Sheer brilliance. What's next? Microsoft Excrete 99®, which lets you securely pay Bill Gates by credit card over the internet every time you use your own bathroom? We can see the drooling masses lining up now. Some are even ready to pay to beta-test it.

Of course, given the ridiculously bug-ridden and slow (nay, glacial) performance of the last Mac version of Office, we suppose that this practice of selling beta software to customers isn't all that new. The only new part is admitting that it's betaware...