Yesterday, Apple announced that it was walking away from the Macworld Expo. Not only would Steve Jobs be sitting this year out, but the company would also be absent entirely from the 2010 expo.

This of course led to a flood of new speculation on Jobs' health. Was the Apple CEO in such failing health that he could no longer do a keynote address? Probably not.

Even if Jobs were too ill to make it, Apple's track record indicates that they'd keep such information under wraps until they absolutely had to.

Instead, the decision to send Phil Schiller instead of jobs should underscore just how much Apple is trying to distance itself from Macworld. It's the company's way of saying "don't expect much."

Perhaps Apple is just tired of being tied to the Macworld schedule. January really isn't the prime buying season, and we all know how much this company loves to make a big splash with a product release. Most of the time, having to unveil a product months before its release, or give away all of the secrets on a product still in development really kills a lot of the wow factor Apple so desperately craves.

One should also remember one of the central tenets about Apple: they're control freaks. Having to be told when and where he gets to unveil the latest and greatest from his company has to drive Jobs and everyone in Cupertino a bit crazy at times. Not having to come up with new stuff to share every January will without a doubt make things easier for Apple, though it will most certainly make life very, very difficult for the organizers of the Macworld Expo.

What would be an otherwise geek-only piece of news is actually a fairly big deal for Mac users. The first specifications of the OpenCL standard have been approved.

For those that don't know, OpenCL is an open standard for running normal computing code through graphics cards. You see, after years of running demanding 3D modeling and rendering for high-end games, commercial GPUs have become extremely powerful for tasks which call for large amounts of simple simultaneous computational tasks. The idea is to put some of that processing muscle to work on normal, everyday computing code that would otherwise be sent to the CPU.

In practical terms, this system is great for things like physics simulations, medical imaging or statistical modeling. Or on the consumer side, it can speed up things like video rendering.

So how does this involve OS X? Apple has been a major proponent of OpenCL. So much so that the company promised to integrate it into the upcoming OS X Snow Leopard release. By having a working standard, the company is also giving Mac developers every reason to believe that OpenCL is here to stay, perhaps encouraging them to optimise the code for their upcoming products.

How much OpenCL will actually improve day-to-day computing is yet to be seen, but a lot of people are very optimistic about its potential, including the folks at 1 Infinite Loop.

The tech news world was ablaze today after it was noted that Apple is now advising users to run antivirus software on their Macs. The company's reason is that by running AV software, the burgeoning market for Mac malware gets a whole lot tougher and future attacks will see a far lower success rate.

Apparently, this was big news in the eyes of many, though I'm not really sure why. Yes, there's the egg on Apple's face for harping on about how Windows PCs are so prone to attacks, but that's really it. Pretty ho-hum news material if you ask me, and nothing new.

Now, before the "Mac fanboy" monikers start getting thrown around, keep in mind my ongoing stance on the issue of Mac malware and security software. It's the same as many of the so-called "fear mongers" in the security world (and now Apple, it seems).

That's why it isn't big news. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last year or so sees that it's just about time to start looking for a good AV suite.

A couple of years ago, a researcher at one of the bigger security firms predicted that Mac malware would never come as a flood, but as a slow trickle. It appears as though the trickle is finally starting to get the floor wet in Cupertino, and the sandbags are being filled.

Of course, this isn't doomsday. Most of the threats are still obscure, social engineering threats that experienced users will easily avoid with common sense and up-to-date software. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't stay a step ahead of the trend, as Apple's recommending.

A quick word of advice: be a bit careful when picking your Mac security software. There are rogue Mac antivirus apps out there, so make sure you're downloading your software from a trusted source, such as a known vendor or download site.

In addition to the likes of Symantec and McAfee, a company called Intego produces Mac anti-malware products. If you're looking for something a bit more affordable, there's also the free ClamXav program.

Well, they've done it. Or at least they've done about a third of it.

A group of iPhone hackers has managed to get a working copy of the Linux kernel running on both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Granted, there's not a lot else to it. So far there's no support for flash storage, touchscreen, sound, or any of the wireless components, but if you've got a good working knowledge of the iPhone's innards and a working USB/Serial connection, you can install Linux on your iPhone.

And it only stands to get better from here. Now, the development team behind the project is looking to add support for more components and eventually make a Linux build the average user can run.

Some iPhone users are thinking even bigger. Some are even dreaming of a dual-boot handset that can run both the iPhone OS and the Google Android platform.

Now, I'll spare everyone the grandiose predictions or the sad attempt at fortune-telling, but it seems like there's still a long ways to go, and the road is rather bumpy.

After all, Apple does have a knack for finding "incompatibilities" with these sorts of projects every time they post an update, and certain components are going to be very hard to hack into and develop drivers for.

Still, you have to applaud the effort thus far. Groups like the Linux iPhone Team or the iPhone Dev Team do what they do strictly for fun. These sorts of projects require the time and brainpower that rivals what most commercial hardware and software companies can do, and these guys don't get a penny for their work (though they are accepting hardware and pizza donations.)

Congrats to the members of the project. Definitely a very cool achievement.