All over the world, casual viewers and faithful AtAT addicts alike are reading O'Grady's PowerPage and groaning out loud, because they foresee yet another AtAT rant about the merits of light-up computers. Yup, there's a new rumor in town, and this time it looks like more than just the Apple logo may be glowing on the upcoming "Pismo" line of PowerBooks. Indulge us as we ramble on and on about our pet subject, won't you? Ever since the first iMac was rumored to glow with an eerie light, we've been tracking Apple's hot-and-cold love affair with making various parts of its new Macs light up. Rumors of various levels of luminescence in prototype models may have been true, but if they were, Apple has almost always removed the glow in the shipping systems. The exceptions are the current PowerBook G3, with its brightly-glowing Apple sigil, and the iBook, whose Apple logo gains a faint halo when the unit is in use.

So here's the latest rumor: you know how the current PowerBook's keyboard is a translucent root beer color? Well, the keyboard in Pismo is expected to be translucent as well-- and it may light up when the system's on. Think of it! Sparkly little keys merrily glowing away, just begging to be tickled. What better incentive to work could there be? Just turn off the lights and type away, bathed in the magical light of the LCD screen and the friendly glow of the keyboard. Fear not the additional power draw and subsequent early battery death-- the feature can be turned off at will. And isn't a shorter battery life worth the ability to compute away in a dark movie theater until the manager comes by and kicks you out? Looks like soon we may have to add yet another Mac to the AtAT stable.

Of course, it's just a rumor at this point, and we'll find out the truth (probably) on January 5th, when Uncle Steve delivers his keynote. We're keeping our fingers crossed down here in the AtAT studios. Then again, given the current state of our credit card accounts, maybe we should be hoping that Pismo isn't so cool. The iBook and AirPort equipment just showed up on the most recent statements. Uh-oh...