It would appear that our concern over the Newton protest was unwarranted. It seems to have been a civilized and relaxed display, with restraint and understanding shown on both sides of the issue-- and nary a pitchfork or Molotov cocktail in sight. Even the media coverage attracted by the event was surprisingly non-apocalyptic, as evidenced by CNET's details on the protest.

About seventy representatives of the Newton community showed up to protest the decision. Apple had provided a space for them in the parking lot of Apple headquarters, and in a true display of coolness, even supplied them baked goods and beverages. A (former) Newton executive met with the group to pick up a list of ten questions that the Newton Developers Group wanted to ask Steve Jobs, mainly centering around the obvious: Why did Apple squelch the Newton, Inc. spin-off if they were only going to kill the project altogether? And why wasn't Newton sold to another company, rather than shut down? (The answer to the latter question is, apparently, that no one was buying. D'oh!!) Apple has also scheduled a teleconference with Newton developers this coming Tuesday to answer further questions.

Rather than take an antagonistic stance against the protesters, or even simply ignoring them altogether, Apple saw the event as an opportunity to hear grievances and try to bring Newton developers over to the Mac OS side. (Apple's next handhelds, due next year, will run a "lite" version of the Mac OS instead of the Newton operating system.) The key, of course, is the baked goods. AtAT firmly believes that there isn't a problem on earth that can't be ameliorated with the liberal application of baked goods, and we're happy to see that Apple is aware of the plan's effectiveness.

We realized with a shock that it's been a long, long time since this show has featured buyout rumors of a highly speculative and unlikely nature. Since we certainly don't like to disappoint, we'd like to mention the item over at Mac OS Rumors that raises the possibility of Apple purchasing Global Village, the makers of fine networking and communications products. Several Rumors sources have confirmed that Apple and Global Village executives have met many times over the past few weeks.

As reported on MacFixit, Global Village has been having trouble lately, since they have traditionally been a Mac peripherals company that is currently trying to break into the Wintel market. Apparently their Mac sales aren't high enough to sustain the company, because "the Mac market is going down the tubes." So they certainly may be ripe for a takeover. What would Apple stand to gain? a top-notch company that makes, arguably, the highest-quality modems available for the Mac platform. Rather than OEMing modems for its computers from other companies, acquiring Global Village would allow for a tighter integration of the communications hardware with Apple's shipping systems. There's also the possibility of faster and cleaner development of new, next-generation systems like the Mac NC.

Of course, just because Apple and Global Village have been having executive meetings, that doesn't necessarily suggest a takeover, but it's an interesting possibility. Could Apple be looking past its current "jettison everything that isn't making money" strategy, in favor of once again growing its business in focused and useful directions?

Remember the last time Microsoft introduced a new version of Java? It caused a lawsuit. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4 with an implementation of Java with certain classes removed, prompting Sun to sue for breach of contract. After all, the point of Java is that it runs anywhere-- it's not Java if you change it.

Which is, of course, why Microsoft's doing everything they can to subvert the language. A programming language whose applications can run on any platform starts to erase the tons-o-software advantage of Microsoft Windows. So it's not at all surprising that Microsoft's escalating the war by screwing with Java even more. According to the San Jose Mercury News, next week Microsoft plans to unveil a new programming language that they are trying "to avoid characterizing as Java," but is "clearly their Java strategy." It's essentially Java with some extra Windows-only extensions thrown in.

It is, however, a great example of Microsoft's legendary chutzpah that, while they're being sued for contaminating Java, they go right ahead and contaminate it even more. At the same time, they're not stupid-- they're apparently tiptoeing around actually calling the new language "Java." Brilliant, isn't it? Take the hippest programming language out there, change it so it doesn't work on anything but Windows, name it something else to avoid further legal action, rely on your 90% of the desktop OS market to force people to use your new implementation, and you've effectively erased the cross-platform danger. Wonder what the Department of Justice thinks about this?