Like nature, the Apple rumor mill abhors a vacuum, and for much of this month it has been filled with talk of "the Brick."

What is the Brick? The question was first posed the day after Steve Jobs' "Let's Rock" keynote address by Cleve Nettles on the Apple blog 9 to 5 Mac. He wrote that a tipster with "a solid track record" told him that the mid-October introduction of a new line of MacBooks (see here) is "all about the Brick."

"What does 'The Brick' mean?" Nettles asked his readers. "Can anyone out there help us out?" (link)

Readers were happy to oblige. Hundreds of messages, dozens of blog postings, and at least two reader polls later, no definitive answers have emerged. Speculation reached a fever pitch this weekend after The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reported that Apple had e-mailed resellers with instructions to remove and destroy all Apple TV displays and literature by 5 p.m. Sept. 30, when a webcast "kick off" was supposedly scheduled. Could the Brick be the long-awaited arrival of Apple TV, Take 3?

The Sept. 30 deadline, it turns out, is the anniversary of the debut of those Apple TV store displays, which suggests that the company may simply be destroying some outdated print material containing screen shots whose permissions have run out. (link)

But that hasn't slowed the flood of ideas about what Steve Jobs might have up his sleeve next. As is often the case with Apple watchers, the speculation says more about their needs and fantasies than Apple's (AAPL) product plans.

So what's on their wish list? A sampling of what some have suggested the Brick might be:

• An Apple TV with a built-in Blu-Ray disk, TV receiver, digital TV recorder and its own App store (link)
• A new Apple-branded gaming system (link)
• A Time Capsule with "smarts" that functions as an iTunes server (link)
• A redesigned and much more powerful Mac Mini (link)
• The announcement that Apple has aquired TiVo (TIVO) and is discontinuing the Apple TV (link)
• A tablet-sized Mac with a touch-screen keyboard (link)
• A low-cost MacBook to compete in the sub-notebook market (link)
• A wireless USB hub that that links keyboards, mice, DVD drives, networking, hard drives, new displays (link)
• Nothing brick-shaped, but rather a product or group of products sexy enough to "smash" Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows once and for all (link)

My favorite reader comment, posted by "cardiomac" on TUAW in response to a suggestion that the Apple TV was "not meant to be a computer," borrows from the "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock":

No! I am not a computer, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool. (link)

Click above for video of AMD vice president Patrick Moorhead talking about how the chipmaker will face the competition from Intel and turn things around.

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Now that Apple TV offers movie rentals in high definition, the question naturally arises: how does Apple's HD stack up against, say, a Blu-ray disk or the HD content offered by the cable networks?

To get at an answer, the folks at iLounge have done a favor for the rest of us (who don’t necessarily have an Apple TV, a Blu-ray player or even an HD TV): they’ve posted side-by-side comparisons of the latest Bruce Willis vehicle, "Live Free or Die Hard", viewed on four systems.

• Blu-ray
• Apple TV
• HD video on demand
• Standard DVD

If you’re in the market for an Apple (AAPL) TV set top box, you owe it to yourself to read Charles Starrett’s full review. But here’s the money quote:

While the Blu-Ray version was the clear winner of the bunch, we were surprised by how well the Apple TV fared in comparison to the other formats we tested. Its weakest performance was in the straight shot-for-shot resolution test, where we looked at how all four devices displayed a scene with fine details. (link)

That said, Starrett points out that resolution numbers don't necessarily mean as much as compression, color, motion, aspect ratio, download time and price. His conclusion:

From where we stand, frequent and quality-sensitive video watchers will find Netflix or Blockbuster to be better month-to-month values for HD video rentals than Apple TV or on-demand cable services, while Apple TV provides an option that’s in the upper middle of the pack on quality and the best on convenience, so long as you’re willing to pay the $229-$329 cost of entry. The question is: are you?

Photos reprinted by kind permission of iLounge.com. For lots more images, available full size, see here.

The innovative Rolly robotic speaker system, which is not yet available, is emblematic of the company's improved fortunes. Image: Sony

LAS VEGAS – After a rough couple of years, Sony is beginning to look like its old self.

It might be too soon to declare a total comeback, but the electronics giant finally seems to have momentum. Those quarterly losses that at times topped $500 million as Sony (SNE) struggled to turn around its core electronics business? They’re not quite a distant memory. But here at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony does exude a confidence it hasn’t shown in a while.

At a dinner with journalists Monday night, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow was upbeat. Despite the slowing economy, consumers responded to Sony’s risky $100 million marketing campaign, and turned out in force to buy high-definition TVs, camcorders and other gear in November and December. The industry support for Sony’s Blu-ray format for high-definition video is also encouraging. “I think across the board we demonstrated we had a good holiday season,” Glasgow said. More

LAS VEGAS – Why did Warner Bros. choose last week to exclusively back the Blu-ray format for high-definition DVDs and ditch HD DVD, a move that could end the bitterest battle in the electronics industry? More

Journalists prepare for the start of the Sony pre-CES press conference. Image: Jon Fortt

LAS VEGAS – Fresh from its news that Warner has backed its Blu-ray format for high definition, Sony (SNE) is vying to show that it is still an electronics innovator, and isn't languishing in the shadow of iPod maker Apple (AAPL).

To that end, the electronics giant said it will immediately begin selling an 11-inch version of a super-slim TV in the United States. The TV uses OLED techonology, which allows devices to be thinner than today's LCDs and more power efficient. Sony also showed off new cell phones, cameras and the Rolly speaker system, a novel egg-shaped robotic speaker system that actually moves to the sound of the music it plays. Below, the way the Sony press conference unfolded: More

With less than two weeks to go before Steve Jobs' Jan. 15 keynote, analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research offers his best guess for what Apple's (AAPL) CEO might have up his sleeve at Macworld Expo 2008. In a note to clients issued this morning, Wu predicts:

• Blu-ray. Citing unnamed sources, Wu says that Apple will outline an HD strategy that backs Sony's Blu-ray format over the HD-DVD standard favored by Microsoft. (Although Wu hedges his bets and suggests that Apple might also use a combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive.)
• Subnotebook. Wu says Apple will re-enter the subnotebook space (nothing new there) but adds that Jobs may call the new machine the MacBook mini or MacBook slim. Any preferences?
• Movie rentals. Wu points out that the digital movie rental deals expected to be announced at Macworld are a departure driven by necessity, and represent a new business model for Apple. "Whether these movies expire based on time and/or usage is unclear to us," he writes, "But we do believe that rentals are a significant change in its philosophy."
• Speed bumps and external HDD: In the category of smaller announcements, Wu is picking up potential news related to speed bumps and or capacity bumps in current Macs and iPhones, and an external HDD storage/dock/streaming device for the Airport Extreme and the new MacBook mini/slim.
• Apple TV. Wu sees two big shortcomings in the current product: 1. no way to connect directly to the Internet for TV and movie content and 2. lack of a TV tuner. "Our sources indicate that AAPL is working on fixing these weaknesses to make Apple TV a much stronger product," he writes, later in 2008 or perhaps 2009, but not at Macworld 2008.
• 3G iPhone. Coming mid to second-half 2008 at a higher price point, Wu says, allowing Apple to reposition the current iPhone as a "more mainstream" product.

Despite the uncertainty, this much is clear: We won't soon see a run in tech stocks like the one that just petered out.

Break out the orange juice and aspirin: Wall Street's tech party is officially in hangover mode.

Investors don't have to look far to see the signs. Apple (AAPL) shares are down 14 percent from their high of $192 earlier this month. Google (GOOG) shares are down 15 percent, and Research in Motion (RIMM) 22 percent.

Of course, it's hard to feel too much pity for long-term holders of these feel-good stocks, since their recent tumbles have merely put them back at their September and October levels. But now is a good time to face a sobering truth: It will be many months before the markets throw another another tech party like the one that just ended — and holiday sales could be the best gauge of how bad things will get.

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Sony expects that products like this KDL-46XBR2 TV will be a hit this holiday season. Image: Sony

Never mind the mortgage blues: Sony executives say signs already point to this being one of the best-ever holiday seasons for consumer electronics sales.

During an invitation-only press event Monday night in San Francisco, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said that despite recent doom-and-gloom predictions about fallout from the subprime mortgage mess, he is confident that it will be a healthy holiday season for technology spending. Glasgow's gauge is based on orders from retailers such as Best Buy (BBY) and Circuit City (CC) and brisk business in Sony's (SNE) own stores.

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Samsung P-1400 Blu-ray player. Image: Samsung

It's been quite a busy few days for the high-definition format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. First, Wal-Mart (WMT) confirmed that it has begun selling the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player in stores for less than $200. The next day Amazon (AMZN) and Circuit City (CC) began offering the player online for a penny less.

Now there are reports that Wal-Mart today will sell the Toshiba player for less than $100 for a limited time; Best Buy (BBY) might follow suit.

So what's the Blu-ray camp thinking about all this?

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