“I think the iPhone and iPod touch may emerge as really viable devices in the mobile games market.”

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, November 2008

Sony doesn’t consider Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone a serious rival to its PlayStation Portable. This according to Sony Computer Entertainment’s Ray Maguire, who says a converged device like the iPhone will always be inferior to a dedicated gaming platform like the PSP. “The iPhone has the advantage of being a single device and is growing a reasonable installed base, but it doesn’t have the production power that a PSP has,” he told MCV. “As a specific games machine, the PSP is always going to win out.”

Not that Sony (SNE) is ignoring the fast-developing market for time-waster, or snacking, games that has arisen around the iPhone. Said Maguire, “We’re in a great position to take on the interest in these snacking games and produce them at better quality, lower prices, with lower cost of development–that’s a great business model.”

With potentially millions of dollars in compensatory damages at stake here, there’s no way Microsoft (MSFT) will allow the motion to go unchallenged.

The trial is currently set to begin April 13, unless the plaintiffs succeed in having it postponed.

But Sequoia Voting Systems is trying–really trying. Earlier this week thousands of phantom votes were cast in a Washington D.C. primary election that used Sequoia’s machines. This not a week after the Computer Security Group at the University of California at Santa Barbara demonstrated how astonishingly simple it is to hack the company’s e-voting systems.

Election officials initially blamed the cock-up on some defective memory in one of Sequoia’s machines. But the company denies this. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the [District's election] database,” spokesperson Michelle Shafer insisted. “There’s absolutely no problem with the machines in the polling places. No. No.”

OK. But if that’s the case, why were thousands of phantom votes recorded in the election? The answer to that question is particularly troubling: Sequoia doesn’t know. Neither does the D.C. Board of Elections. “All I can tell you is that we’re looking into it,” said Daniel Murphy, a spokesman for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.

Well, that’s reassuring. Especially with the November elections nearly upon us …

Diebold Elections Systems is changing its name to Premier Election Solutions. The change to Premier signifies a new beginning for the company.”

– Diebold Press Release, Aug. 16, 2007

So the hundreds of votes that were dropped in Ohio’s March primary elections? The ones that Premier Election Solutions, formerly called Diebold Election Systems (DBD), insisted were caused by faulty antivirus software and not a critical source code error?

They were caused by a source code error–one that’s been present in the company’s software for the past decade. Said Premier (Diebold) President Dave Byrd, “We are indeed distressed that our previous analysis of this issue was in error.”

Yeah, I bet you are. But not nearly as distressed as the voters who will use the company’s machines in upcoming elections. Remember, Premier (Diebold) is the company that designed its widely criticized electronic voting systems in such a way that the the locks protecting them from tampering can be picked open with a hotel minibar key. The company posted a detailed photograph of its authorized key, showing size, shape, and cut pattern, on its online store. It’s the company whose e-voting machines once relied on hard-coded security passwords like “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8″ and “11111.” It’s the company that evaded election transparency laws in North Carolina. It’s the company that can’t seem to safeguard its source code. And it’s the company that modified its machines without notifying election officials. Twice.

So much for that “new beginning.” Once a Diebold, always a Diebold, eh?