6:15 pm EDT April 16, 2008 - A first-hand investigation by Gizmodo appears to cast doubt on the identity and even the existence of Psystar as a company, after its team found no evidence of a computer company doing business at the address listed on its Web site, and especially after that address appears to change several times at random over the course of a single day.

4:42 pm EDT April 15, 2008 - Miami-based Psystar is now offering a Mac clone for $399, and is vowing to fight for its right to produce the device should Cupertino's lawyers come a-knocking.

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Still playing catch-up to Yahoo, Google and other rivals around attracting Web site visitors, AOL is now adding Web content engine Sphere to its growing list of acquisitions.

Before snapping up Sphere this week for an estimated $25 million, AOL had partnered with the Silicon Valley start-up anyway, using the company's widget-driven content search service for creating links from AOLnews.com and myAOL.com.

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Research in Motion and the Indian Ministry of Telecommunications have yet to reach a decision upon the security concerns raised by the BlackBerry's system of communication.

Indian security officials are reportedly wary of the lack of traceability of BlackBerry-delivered messages. The government's need for an unencrypted BlackBerry message scheme was reported by many to have been delivered as a threat to shut down the network if a solution wasn't reached. These rumors were promptly dispelled by India Telecoms Secretary Siddhartha Behura, who said a ban was out of the question.

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A Microsoft spokesperson declined this afternoon to confirm reports circulating on technology blogs today citing purportedly leaked documents as saying the online release date for Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be April 29.

"We expect Windows XP SP3 to be available in 1H 2008, provided it meets our quality bar for release," stated the spokesperson, in response to BetaNews' question about the specific date.

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The new South Korean portal for MySpace claims it will succeed where others have failed because it will cater to local culture more than its competition in the social networking space.

Music and video will be the first content available through the new Korean MySpace site, which bodes well because an estimated 70% of home users there have access to broadband Internet. Yet the company may find it has to conquer the language barrier if it wants to be perceived as competitive.

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Last year at a conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft introduced spectators to its new efforts to reach emerging markets and build innovative new form factors...to somewhat mixed results. This morning, there was a mix-up of another kind.

At last year's WinHEC conference in Los Angeles, the opening session featured Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' proclamation that the telephone and the PC were merging, followed soon thereafter by a demonstration from Chief Research Officer Craig Mundie. It was obvious to everyone that what Mundie's team produced for him couldn't keep up with Gates' presentation of Unified Communications, especially when Mundie found himself extolling the virtues of a piece of assemble-it-yourself furniture that had been converted into a device to remind seniors to take their medication.

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The press service said Monday that it would be soon offering its stories and videos to mobile users, including a site designed for Apple's iPhone.

Users will input a ZIP code, much the same way as for a weather service now. The press site will return local as well as national headlines. The service will be free and ad-supported, with local papers also able to place their ads on the site as well.

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A developer has found a way to host Google Apps on Amazon's Web services platform, and is open sourcing his solution.

When Google released App Engine, some saw it as a way to lock in applications created within Google Apps from being transferred to to any other Web services provider. This would essentially diminish the attractiveness of start-ups from an acquisition perspective, analysts said, for anyone other than Google, or those who may not mind allowing Google to continue hosting its data.

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The mobile search field is still anyone's game, and AOL looks to be approaching it by tailoring its search to one of the most popular devices of the last five years: the Apple iPhone.

AOL Mobile Search for iPhone was designed for the mobile Safari browser also found in the iPod Touch. The site's AJAX technology is built around the multi-touch interface of Apple's devices and is currently in public beta, powered by Google. Google itself has had a mobile Safari-customized search site since late last year.

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Things are not as they seem in online advertising, or at least not as they've been characterized in political and financial circles. While Google has been receiving scrutiny of late, AOL's strategy to take the lead while no one's looking may be working.

While Google continues to be the Internet's principal search engine, now with a 67% share of US searches according to Hitwise numbers released last week, the popular presumption is that its reach in search translates directly to its reach in advertising. Microsoft was counting on that association in its campaign against the Google + DoubleClick merger -- a campaign which, of course, completely failed.

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Officials for the city say that it has come to the point where Corpus Christi will move ahead with its municipal wireless network without EarthLink.

Corpus Christi signed an agreement with the ISP in March of last year for about $5.7 million in total. While the network was said to be completed in August, plans were thrown into chaos after EarthLink backed out of muni Wi-Fi.

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To help lure more users into mainframe Linux deployments, Novell on Monday dramatically reduced its pricing on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for IBM's System z mainframes.

Under the new pricing program -- which is available through both Novell and IBM resellers -- customers can now buy three-year subscriptions for 33% less than before, and five-year subscriptions for 47% less.

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The first time Microsoft launched a Trustworthy Computing initiative, it was met with skepticism, especially with the way Bill Gates played it up. But six years later, a key Microsoft executive suggests it may be time to revisit the subject.

In a surprisingly frank white paper from the man in charge of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing strategy, released this morning, Corporate Vice President Scott Charney writes that his company's own first two major initiatives toward providing greater security for software and Internet users fell short of their intended goals, and that a third initiative just now getting under way may still fail to completely address the problem of ensuring consumer safety and privacy.

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On Friday, Toshiba's Japanese-language Dynabook dedicated site announced a delay in availability of its 128 GB solid state drive for the SS RX model ultra portable. Then, on the company's European site, a Portege R500 (the Dynabook's western counterpart) appeared to be configurable with a 128 GB SSD.

Most other features are standard for the Portege line, an Intel Core 2 Duo ULV U7700 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 12.1-inch backlit LCD display, a 7mm dual-layer DVD superdrive, all weighing in at a meager 1.72 pounds.

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In a deal that might possibly help thwart a Microsoft buyout of Yahoo, AOL's Platform-A sales network will now start handling all of Verizon's ad inventory for online video and display ads, as well as on the mobile side.

Unveiled today, a hefty and lucrative agreement between the Time Warner division and the huge telephone carrier covers all of Verizon's ad serving, sales, management, targeting and placement requirements.

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