Meanwhile, what of the iMac's distinctive physical design? While it's nice that the "Translucent Space Egg" look has now entered the collective consciousness as an archetype for the ages, it's simply no longer "gee whiz" enough to hold the attention spans (and, therefore, the wallets) of a world of fashion-fickle consumers. So will these imminent Tokyo iMacs boast a spiffy new look? Well, as his MacEdition colleague CodeBitch was kind enough to inform us, the Naked Mole Rat has once again emerged from hibernation, and you know what that means: it's Mole Rat Day!

You all know how this works, right? If Punxsutawney Mole Rat shakes off his hangover and stays out in the daylight, then tonight's new iMacs will boast a dramatically different chassis that'll have tongues wagging from pole to pole. However, if he sees his shadow, he experiences a bad-trip flashback, pops back into his hole to fortify his shaken nerves with various self-prescribed controlled substances, and it's five more months of iMac industrial design stasis. Drum roll, please...

...And there he goes, scampering back into the darkness, screaming about tiny Phil Schillers crawling all over his latex bondage gear! Sorry, folks, but we guess that means that tonight's iMacs are just more of the same, at least on the surface. Perhaps we'll get lucky anyway and Apple will at least throw us a new color palette. If you were hoping for a whole new look, however, you're going to have to wait five months-- for Macworld Expo New York. Even as the Rat went scurrying for cover from illusory Apple marketing execs, he could be heard babbling minor details about the iMac's next big revamp this summer, which will feature a "significant wedgie" in the industrial design area. Details are agonizingly thin, but according to the Rat, the next-generation iMac is code-named "Kiva" and will be released alongside a whole new set of peripherals.

Assuming this isn't all just more drug-induced hallucinatory wackiness (and that's not necessarily a wise assumption), said peripherals will include "Click, a mouse; Clack, a keyboard; Orbit, a new set of speakers; and a new USB microphone to be named later." Hmmmm... what with the timing and all, we would guess that these new iMacs would be the first ones to ship with Mac OS X pre-loaded; given that operating system's built-in multiple-button mouse support, do you suppose that "Click" will mark Apple's historic departure from the single-button ideal? As for a new keyboard, all we ask is that the power key makes a triumphant return. A set of external speakers might indicate that the Kiva iMacs will abandon some of the simplicity that made the line so famous. And a new USB microphone? Bring on the speculation of Internet telephony software, integrated voice recognition support, and more. But that's the Rat-- always giving us food for thought.