If you were among those hoping to get a Mac clone from infamous hardware vendor Psystar, you may want to move fast. It turns out Apple isn't the only company trying to get some money out of the clone vendor.

In a filing obtained by ZDnet, the company filed for bankruptcy protection and outlined its list of outstanding debts. In all, the total or the debt is well into the six figure range (but less than $500,000) and includes taxes, processing fees and outstanding loans.

The company itself credits the filing to a drop in consumer demand due to the economic crisis. Or maybe the demand for Mac clones just isn't what it was 13 years ago...

Apple is no doubt less than pleased, but the leaks on the new iPhone just keep coming.

Last week, a blog cited developer sources in listing several of the key features for the new iPhone. Among the specs are a better battery life, snappier performance, FM radio abilities and, most importantly, a beefy 32GB of storage space.

Now, another leak is pointing to a new 32GB iPhone. This one comes from TMobile Austria, which is said to have mistakenly pushed live a placeholder spot for a 32GB iPhone. Fone Arena was able to grab a screenshot of the gaffe, which has since been removed.

At this point, the new iPhone seems to be a foregone conclusion. Aside from the reports, we're entering the summer, a time in which Apple has made pretty much all of its iPhone-related releases. Aside from that, the iPhone 3G is all of one year old, making it quite ripe for an upgrade.

The smart money is on an iPhone-related announcement at WWDC, followed by a product release in late June or early July.

If you're among those eagerly awaiting the iPhone 3.0 update, you got some welcome news earlier this week. Apple has begun asking all of the third-party developers who have been writing new code to start testing out the data push feature.

What does push do? Well, it allows developers to send data updates for their programs even when the app is not actively running. Much in the way Facebook or Twitter will send notifications or updates through email, the push feature allows the app to notify the user of changes or updates (such as an instant message or new article posting).

Even if the idea of push updates leaves you yawning, this is good news in that it means the iPhone update is one step closer to meeting the ambiguous "summer" release date.

When I first saw the story about Microsoft claiming the iPod costs $30,000 to fill as opposed to a much cheaper Zune subscription, my first thought was "they're still making the Zune?" Then my second thought was "Microsoft has completely lost it."

Apple has in the past been a bit fuzzy and exaggerated with its claims about PCs, but this one is just ridiculous. Claiming that it costs $30,000 to fill an iPod is at worst a major distortion and at best a blatant insult to the intelligence of consumers.

The reasoning is that, to fill an iPod, users must buy 30,000 songs from the iTunes store, one at a time, for $1 a pop.

...anyone see one or two flaws in this reasoning?

Apparently, in spite of all the great music that came out of Seattle in the 90s, the concept of the CD never made it to Redmond. Either that, or everyone at Microsoft threw out their CDs five years ago.

Then even if you don't own a single CD to put on your player there's the concept that, well, you have to buy iTunes songs one at a time, and that you have to fill your iPod to capacity, and only fill it with music rather than, say video files or games. I'm no lawyer, but you have to see how Microsoft is only barely toeing the line of truth in advertising at this point.

If Apple's ads assume that iPod buyers and insecure and desperate to feel hip and look fashionable, then Microsoft must assume that Zune buyers are... well... stupid.

If you get some downtime today, it would be a good time to load up Software Update and install a few patches. Apple has issued updates for OS X as well as Safari 3 and the Safari 4 beta.

Additionally, Microsoft's monthly update contains fixes for security vulnerabilities in the Mac versions of Office that protect against PowerPoint attacks.

And if that's not enough, Adobe has also issued patches for flaws in Reader and Acrobat that should be installed.

Part of good security practice and general computer housekeeping is to make sure you have all of the latest patches and updates, so it's definitely worth taking a minute or two to get everything installed.

It seems that our friends in Cuptertino have some extra cash burning a hole in their pockets. The rumour mill is abuzz with new reports that Apple is looking at two companies for possible acquisitions.

First, there's Twitter. The microblogging site is the current media darling of the startup world and, despite not really having much in the way of a revenue stream, is said to be a hot target for everyone from Google to Facebook. Now, reports are that Apple has added its name to the negotiations with an offer of some $700m.

Then, there's Electronic Arts. The iconic game studio produces some of the hottest titles on the market but has recently fallen on hard times, posting losses of some $42m. The two companies have been working together to boost Mac gaming in recent years and now Apple is reportedly looking to take things to the next level with an outright takeover.

Both rumors seem a bit far-fetched. Apple has shown little interest in either gaming or web services beyond what can be bundled into MacOS X or the iTunes store. And even with the success of the digital content branch, Apple's bread and butter continues to be the manufacture and sale of computers and consumer electronics.

So, would either really improve any current Apple products? Better Twitter integration could be a selling point for the iPhone, but certainly not $700m worth. Right now it seems the only way Twitter makes money is as a part of a much larger network that can sell advertising or beef up the larger brand (Google buying YouTube for example.)

Then there's EA. Of course Apple wants to improve gaming, particularly on the iPhone, but would that really be worth the money and headache of taking over one of the largest game studios in the world? Perhaps it would make sense if Apple wanted to get into the console market, or turn the iTunes store into a fully-functional online software market, but that's just about the only scenario I can think of.

Ever since the acquisition of PA Semiconductor and the hiring of Mark Papermaster, it has been fairly obvious that Apple has been looking to get into the chipmaking space. The question now seems to be just how deep they want to get in.

Most reports thus far have suggested that the company would like to produce its own ARM processors for the iPhone and iPod. This makes a lot of sense, as the iPhone already runs on Apple software and the company likely wants to fine-tune it in a way that a 3rd party would not want or have time to do.

But might it go further than just mobile device chips? Could Apple be looking to go as far as some day using its own line of PC and server chips as well?

The company did spend more than a decade working with IBM and Motorola on the PowerPC line of chips. And while the switch to Intel's x86 line has brought some very nice perks such as dual-boot capabilities, perhaps Apple may be looking in the long term to dump Intel. After all, the pervasive attitude at Apple seems to be that any product the company makes should be better the very best in the world, and that the company is the very best at what it does.

Surely it must grate on the company at some level to have to accept the defects and limitations of what Intel engineers can create.That's not to say Intel doesn't make a good product, but I'm sure there are engineers and execs at Apple who believe that the company could make even better processors if they wanted to.