We thought we were done with this story, because it's so 2006. Down Under, an Australian MacBook owner by the name of mattyb posted on the MacTalk (AU) forums the story of his close brush with Dell death. The short version of this story is that his MacBook battery seemed to have problems and finally went up in smoke (and flames) one early morning one day ago.

Unabridged version of his story is at the Read link, but the gist is that he's been having odd battery problems the past couple of weeks. The real weird part of the story is that he bought his MacBook end of June of last year - so this thing occurred within the 12-month warranty.

Based on the evidence (not to mention the damage pattern), the battery is suspect - but that will depend on whatever Apple Australia finds if and when mattyb sends his damaged unit in for repair autopsy.

Guess we're going to have to repeat the PSA we've aired last year. Don't overcharge the battery, if that MacBook gets abnormally hot, start worrying, if at any point those batteries are swelling up to the point of bursting out of their MacBooks, really start worrying, and don't wait for the smoke to start pouring. You know how hot the MacBook can sometimes get, right?

Oh, and mattyb also suggests on checking your smoke alarm detectors. You don't want them malfunctioning when a fire starts while you're sleeping.

Digit Online reports on an uncommissioned survey by online market firm Compete, Inc. which hints that (a) the iPhone as it is is simply too expensive (well, (sarcasm deleted)), but (b) if the price drops, they would gladly switch to Cingular and AT&T (which owns Cingular) to get one. It's not that "maybe it's a fake survey" survey - different marketing firm, but as it's uncommissioned, it's got nothing to do with Cingular/AT&T or Apple, either.

Still, everyone seems to be testing the waters these days for the iPhone.

While 379 people across the US surveyed doesn't exactly constitute a statistically representative pool, most of these 379 people were aware of what the iPhone was, and have shopped for an iPod before. Only 1% of this pool was willing to lay down US$ 500 for the low-end iPhone. 42% said they'd likely buy the phone if the price dropped to US$ 200 to US$ 299.

In a potential signal to competitors, 60% said they'd be willing to switch to Cingular/AT&T if they purchased an iPhone. Okay, so 60% isn't exactly a landslide in terms of the cellular market, but other cellular providers might be thinking of talking things over with Apple for a small slice of the pie, too, despite (or probably after) the Cingular exclusivity. Especially if the product goes 3G.

Trust the Far East to push cellular accessories tech to new places, new frontiers, and... booze halls everywhere. The cell-centric Textually.org, citing a Telecoms Korea report (sorry, subscription required), notes a new Korean cellular accessory developed by the Bionano Research Team of the Korean Research Institute that takes readings of liver, hook up to a cellphone, and transmit the results to a hospital.

What this bio sensor does is take measurements of GOT (Glutamine Oxaloacetic Transaminase) and GPT (Glutamine Pyruvic Transaminase) in a blood sample. Okay, it's been too long since Biology 101, and Wikipedia's no help in this department, but we can guess that doctors can make sense of the readings and tell you what's up with your liver.

Which means that the next call you receive from that cellphone will be from your irate health care practitioner, who's screaming into your ear why the heck you've been consuming an entire keg of Bud that night. What, you think livers grow on trees now?

Steve Jobs has his iPhone. It's got iPod, it's got wireless, (it's got no 3G), and it's got your attention - not to mention US$ 600 of your money. But that's Apple. Stevie hasn't mentioned (yet) if the iPhone will be open to third-party applications. Still, the iPhone is one alternative - the proprietary one. But here's another, and it's open source.

Meet OpenMoko's FIC Neo1973 Smartphone - "the world's first integrated open-source mobile communications platform". "For the first time, the mobile ecosystem will be as open as the PC, and mobile applications equally as diverse and more easily accessible," says Sean Moss-Pultz, architect of OpenMoko and Product Manager of FIC's Mobile Communication Business Unit.

Like any good smartphone, the Neo1973 offers the usual slate of communications tools for the businessman on the go - push email and PIM, cellular, and so forth. By being open-source, though, it promises to accept a range of software, including and especially just like your PC. Thank goodness then for 64MB of NAND flash memory to store it in. Hmm... open-source MP3 player?

Other features of an open-source cellphone after the jump!

After an entire months-long game of hopscotch, peek-a-boo, and "What Will Jobs Do Next", Apple finally reveals the... iPhone. Steve, you can be quite the stubborn cookie - we shall now have to differentiate between the Apple iPhone and the Linksys iPhone. Anyway, what's probably interesting about the iPhone is not what it has out of the box, but what it DOESN'T have, for a phone that costs as much as a PS3 - 20GB and 60GB.

Let's keep it short: no 3G. As a cellphone, that could potentially be crippling to the iPhone (especially when Steve wants 10 million on the streets by next year). And if he tries to sell the phone to Japan - that country is true-blue (or blood-red) 3G country - it's going to be murder, so we're thinking that Apple might want to keep this as a North American release for now.

Still, the global (let alone NA) cellular industry isn't Apple turf - the iPhone is not going up against late entrants and also-rans (e.g., Zune), but against the monoliths of the cellphone industry: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola. Steve Jobs says that the iPhone is five years ahead of any other mobile phone. Well, not in the 3G department, most definitely.

But we're not going to simply surrender to the belief that Steve Jobs' fair-haired boys didn't think of this when they drew up the iPhone's specs. They could always market it as a luxury product (at that price, it better well be). But for a company that has made its mark as a mass market trend-setter (even given the price of the 5G iPod), that could be a bit odd.

But we still think that the iPhone is, as our gaming cousins in the QJ network put it, FTW!!! 1st post W00t!!!. Find out why after the jump.

Perhaps when Apple gone and patented "-pod," they should have gone and patented the "i-" prefix once and for all. Because according to Gizmodo, there IS an iPhone out and announced. And it's not from Apple (Which means we just lost a bet. We were betting on "iPhone" in a previous article. Dang, there goes this writer's wages for the week).

It's the Linksys iPhone, with the "iPhone" trademark owned (or pwned) by Linksys parent company Cisco Systems. Looking at Linksys' press release, iPhone is their family of VoIP-enabled wireless phones. The Wireless-G IP Phone, in particular, also combines features normally found in cell phones including media streaming from the Internet.

Yeah, of course, if you're an Applephile who's been eagerly waiting for news on the iPhone, all of this Gadgets-related talk is blah-blah yada-yada without the trademark Apple logo somewhere in there. Well, whatever the Apple cellular phone will be, it won't be called the iPhone, that's for sure.

Which now launches the great debate/contest/discussion in Macworld today: what do YOU think Apple will call the iPhone? Because sure as heck, iPhone's been taken (The other alternative doesn't bear much thinking: what if there's no Apple phone at all? What would all the speculators think?).

You gotta love rumors confirmed. Mac OS Rumors started combing the grapevine and all their sources clean of whatever juice they could squeeze out, until they were able to confirm that the "MacBook Thin" (a) exists, and (b) has specs that (c) would probably make the "Thin" "the fastest, most feature-rich ultraportable laptop on the market". Probably because it's a Pro in a smaller package.

Here are the specs that Mac OS Rumors were, so far, able to confirm from American and Southeast Asian sources. Start drooling.

• "Macbook Thin" -- spec-wise, primarily a variant of the Pro family but will probably be branded as separate from the standard *or* Pro MacBook families. Shipping name is unconfirmed.
• 12-inch widescreen display, 1280x800 resolution.
• 2.16 or 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors
• 1GB of DDR2-667 memory standard. Max. capacity 3GB.
• Standard "Pro" ports: USB2, Firewire 400 & 800, Gigabit Ethernet, Digital/Analog Audio minijack I/O ports.
• ExpressCard expansion slot (believed to be /34 type)
• Similar storage to "Pro": 2.5in SATA HDDs at 120GB & up, 'Combo' or 'Super' optical drive.
• ATi Radeon Mobility X1600 or nVIDIA GeForce GO 7600 graphics systems with 256MB of VRAM.
• Mini-DVI display connector with full second display capabilities
• Of course, Built-in iSight, stereo microphone, Airport Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.
• Battery life is expected to be "best in class" at about 6.5 hours real-world, some reports have suggested up to 8 hours is possible.

Final speculation has the "Thin", or whatever they're going to call it, shipping within ten weeks, announced in six. What keeps this speculation iffy is the fact that the upcoming MacWorld Expo is so packed with other high-profile items - such as iTV and the iPhone - that were the "Thin" announced there, it could easily get lost in the shuffle. Not that it won't be noticed by a lot of people who'd love to get a MacBook in smaller dimensions.

Because gaming should not be tethered to a heavy PC casing and a power cord. Toshiba announces the latest in their Satellite P100 family of notebooks optimized for teh pwnage games - the P100-ST9742 (bless its Intel Core 2 Duo heart).

Its significant upgrade from the last batch of P100s we featured is its 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. It's still the same 17-inch display, 7.1-pound package as the P100-ST9012, -ST9412 and ST9612, packing a 512MB GDDR3 GeForce Go 7900GTX, 2GB DDR SDRAM memory, and a 100GB HDD to power your mobile gaming (no, not the one on your mobile phone).

You will be glad to know that this latest Toshiba gaming notebook also packs Bluetooth v2.0 to communicate with Bluetooth-enabled gaming accessories (like a PS3 SIXAXIS perhaps? :P), and 802.11a/b/g-compliant Wireless LAN so you can really reach out and pwn someone. Its other features include:

• DVD R/W drive
• 5-in-1 bridge media adapter for easy file sharing and downloads;
• built-in harman/kardon stereo speakers for a rich audio experience;
• Toshiba's in-house TruBrite technology from for a crisp, clear display;
• Finger Print Reader, Password Security, Security Cable Lock Slot, Hot Key Security, because it's your preciiioussss...
• Windows XP Pro, and it's also Vista-ready.

Its 2.6-hour battery life could be a bit worrisome if you're the type who plays extended, mind-numbing gut-killing marathon gaming sessions (anything longer than 2.6 hours), so you might still need that power cord. The price of power-packed packable gaming? US$ 2,899. Perhaps some writer here at QJ has a spare kidney to sell...

To celebrate the upcoming release of James Bond's latest big-screen adventure "Casino Royale", Sony Electronics is offering these Limited Edition "James Bond 007 Spy Gear." Before you start thinking that (a) you're about ready to enter into the spy business yourself, or (b) Sony's about to drive Q out of business, these "spy gear" are actually uber-gadget promotional bundles featuring some of the latest from Sony's own Q branch. 007 wannabes, meet the TX and UX Spy Gear kits.

The TX features the lightweight Vaio TX notebook and a privacy filter for when you need to compose emails to M (or the girlfriend/s you have) in absolute privacy. It also includes a Cybershot DSC-T50 digicamera for photographic intelligence on-the-go. The DSC-T50 features a 3" touch panel and 7.2 megapixels of detailed digital pictures.

The UX contains the Vaio UX MicroPC (think a Sidekick on steroids), a fully-functional PC complete with 4.5" display, Intel Core Solo processor, and Windows XP Professional. The kit also includes the DSC-T50 camera, and a Vaio UX Bluetooth GPS receiver.

Sold separately from the TX and UX kits is the 007 special edition 1GB MicroVault USB drive. Good luck trying to find somewhere on your body to hide it from the KGB, though.

Both the TX and UX kits are held securely in an aluminum attache case worthy of 007's class (for its looks, not for its secret compartments). They both also include a Welcome Kit that features an exclusive welcome letter, and a serialized glass photo certificate that corresponds to your Vaio.

All in all, a bundle of high-tech to toast with a martini (shaken, not stirred). And, if that Sony battery threatens to blow up, that turns your spy kit into a handy demolition kit to blow up a Bond villain with. Okay, we kid.

Sal Cangeloso writes in XYZ Computing why Wi-Fi is the next innovation for cellphones, especially after T-Mobile announced their "The Only Phone You'll Need" test campaign. Long story short: adding 802.11 wireless to a cell phone will increase the device's usability and versability, turning it - as T-Mobile advertises - into the only phone you'll ever need.

Sal also says that you can trust cellular providers to stumble on the golden opportunity before them.

What is T-Mobile's "The Only Phone..." test run? Consumers in the greater Seattle area will be able to purchase T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home 802.11 transceiver, and use it with compatible cellular handsets such as Samsung's SGH-D500. Sal foresees that consumers using "dual-mode" phones could use their cellular credits while on the go, but when near a hotspot (@Home or @anywhereelse), they could switch over to the Wi-Fi and call through that instead of the cellular network (call through VOIP?).

Theoretically, since you're not using the cell net, you don't have to consume credits for it. T-Mobile itself promotes HotSpot@Home with the benefit that you can make "unlimited" calls from home to anywhere in the US through Wi-Fi.

But to repeat ourselves, Sal's rather pessimistic. He's betting that cell providers would probably restrict their respective Wi-Fi services within their own circle of subscribers, and/or create a separate pricing scheme for Wi-Fi-routed calls. And it still has a long way to go before mass adoption, he notes. Still, it's "something to keep your eye on."