Last year around this time, Sonos introduced its Controller for iPhone, a free application that essentially turns the device into a remote control for any Sonos system. The software performed nearly all of the tasks of the $399 Sonos remote and drastically lowered the price of entry for the otherwise spendy wireless system.

A year later, Sonos is building on the success of that app, launching an all-in-one wireless music system specifically designed for it. The ZonePlayer S5, as the company calls it, encapsulates Sonos’s multi-component system in a single device that can be controlled by an Apple (AAPL) iPhone, iPod touch or computer.

It’s a sort of iPodless iPod speaker dock or, rather, an iPod speaker dock where the iPod can be carried with you. The S5 can stream music from the iTunes library of any computer or networked hard drive. And with five speakers–two tweeters, two three-inch midrange drivers and one 3.5-inch woofer–and a 5 Class-D digital amplifier, the sound is likely to fill a room pretty well. Priced at $399, the S5 is expected at market on Oct. 27.

About 1987 word got out that the Ingres database would soon have a sexy new function: It would be able to do distributed queries… Ellison told [Oracle ad man Rick] Bennett to prepare an advertisement announcing Oracle’s distributed capability. Then he assigned an engineer to whip up a distribtued feature so the company would actually have something to sell when the ad appeared. Ten days later Bennett’s advertisement hit the trade press: “Oracle Announced SQL*Star,” it said. “The First Distribtued Relational DBMS…”

“The fact of the matter was Oracle didn’t have anything,” said George Schussel, the trade show promoter who had followed Oracle from the beginning. “But that was the way they worked. Everything was marketing, everything was image. You simply announced the product and then figured out later how to deal with it from a technological point of view.”

– Excerpt from The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison

If you’re going to claim in an advertisement that Transaction Processing Council benchmarks show that a hybrid Sun-Oracle server runs faster than a competing product from IBM, it’s probably wise to make sure you have the TPC benchmarks to back up your claim.

Not if you’re Oracle (ORCL), though. On Aug. 27, the company ran an advertisement in The Wall Street Journal and the Economist claiming that “Sun + Oracle is Faster” compared to a TPC-benchmarked IBM (IBM) system. “Oracle and Sun together are hard to match,” Oracle said in the ad. “Just ask IBM. Its fastest server now runs an impressive 6 million TPC-C transactions, but on October 14 at Oracle OpenWorld, we’ll reveal the benchmark numbers that prove that even IBM DB2 running on IBM’s fastest hardware can’t match the speed and performance of Oracle Database on Sun systems.”

A boastful claim. Thing is, at the time it was made, the Sun (JAVA)-Oracle system hadn’t yet been audited by the TPC. In other words, it was based on an unsubstantiated benchmark. And that didn’t fly with the TPC, which fined Oracle $10,000 and ordered the software maker to pull the ad. “Oracle’s claim that it is faster than IBM using a TPC-C benchmark result it claimed would be announced on October 14, 2009 was not supported because Oracle did not have a TPC result at the time of publication,” the TPC explained in an official statement. “The TPC requires that claims based on TPC benchmarks must be demonstrable using publicly available data from official TPC benchmark results.”

• 600 MHz Samsung ARM processor
• 256MB system RAM
• a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus
• 32GB of storage
• a digital compass
• FM

These specs were submitted to a rumor site by someone who claims to have a friend inside Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn who has handled iPhone “model MB717LL 9.” As such, they should be taken with a grain of salt, if not an entire salt flat.

That said, the rumors do seem reasonable. A 600 MHz chip is a nice improvement over the a 400 MHz part in the current iPhone, as is the doubling of RAM to 256MB. FM transmission and reception capabilities have been rumored before as has the compass. What’s missing, however, is an improved battery, a better GPU–perhaps the PowerVR SGX that’s been rumored to be heading for the device, a new, more elegant housing less prone to those hairline cracks that seem to plague the current one, and–in a perfect world–an OLED display and a second front-facing camera for video conferencing. Of course if OS 3.0 proves to be even a third as robust as Apple claims, we’ll be so enamored of the device we might not notice any of those things are missing.

Confirming recent speculation, Sony this morning said that it’s dropping the price of the PlayStation 2 from $129 to $99.99 as of April 1. “With this new price, we intend to introduce a new generation of consumers–some of whom weren’t even alive when the system was first introduced in 2000–to the immense entertainment value offered by PlayStation 2,” John Koller, Sony’s director of hardware marketing, explained in a blog post. “In the gaming industry, the typical lifecycle for a console is around five years, but because we build each of our platforms for a large and diverse consumer base, we design our platforms differently. With the original PlayStation and now PlayStation 2, we’ve proven that consumers can rely on our platforms for their gaming and entertainment needs for at least a decade.”

And that does indeed seem to be the case. Though nearly 10 years old, the PS2 remains quite popular. Indeed, Sony expects to sell eight million of the consoles in its current financial year–not so far off from the 10 million PlayStation 3s it expects to sell in the same period. And it will certainly grow in popularity at this lower price point, giving Sony (SNE) a means to really take Nintendo’s Wii to the mat.

Now, about that PlayStation 3 price cut rumor: Sony isn’t planning one, though arguably that’s exactly what the console, which is being outsold two-to-one by the Xbox 360 and the Wii, needs. “As we have stated previously, we do not have plans for a PS3 price drop, and any rumors to that effect are false and are the result of speculation,” Sony Computer Entertainment America said in a statement. “SCEA remains focused on the long-term momentum of PS3. With the industry’s best software lineup this year, combined with our most aggressive marketing campaign to date, we remain confident in our approach and the value we’re delivering with PS3.”

On information and belief, PSYSTAR alleges that APPLE intentionally embeds code in the Mac OS that causes the Mac OS to malfunction on any computer hardware system that is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System. Upon recognizing that a computer hardware system is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System, the Mac OS will not operate properly, if at all, and will go into what is colloquially known as ‘kernel panic.’

PSYSTAR is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that APPLE is engaged in anticompetitive conduct that prevents the proper operation of the Mac OS on any computer hardware system that is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System–a Mac OS Capable Computer Hardware System–thereby forcing customers of the Mac OS to purchase–and only purchase–an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System if they wish to have the Mac OS operate sans kernel panic or an infinite loop.”

That’s an intriguing allegation. Risky though, since it’s also an admission that Psystar has circumvented the technological copyright-protection measures built into OS X, just as Apple claims in its amended complaint against the company. Apple contends Psystar has done so illegally, in violation of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Psystar says that’s impossible because the kernel panic-forcing code at issue here isn’t a copyright-protection measure.

Who’s right? Who knows? But if it’s Apple, then Psystar presumably is guilty of circumventing Apple’s copyright protection systems under the DMCA. And that’s a felony, because Psystar profited from the circumvention.

“[Microsoft is] the biggest hacker in China with its intrusion into users’ computer systems without their agreement or any judicial authority,” said attorney Dong Zhengwei, who filed a complaint against the company with the Ministry of Public Security. “Microsoft’s measure will cause serious functional damage to users’ computers and, according to China’s Criminal Law, the company can stand accused of breaching and hacking into computer systems of Chinese. I respect the right of Microsoft to protect its intellectual property, but it is taking on the wrong target with wrong measures.”

So what are the “right” measures, then? Offering Microsoft (MSFT) software for free in China? Sounds like it. According to a survey of 574,923 PC users on Chinese portal QQ.com, 73.33 percent of respondents said they were using pirated versions of Windows XP, and 51.58 percent said they intend to continue using pirated versions. Just 15.55 percent said they plan to buy a licensed copy of the software.

Eventually we’d like to make money out of it.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on YouTube

It’s been two years since the $1.65 billion acquisition and Google (GOOG) has yet to truly monetize YouTube. And while Google CEO Eric Schmidt insists the company has the “luxury of time” as it searches for ways to recoup its investment in the popular video site, it’s clear the issue is gradually becoming more pressing. “We’re waiting for the innovations,” Schmidt said recently. “The innovation will come. We know it will come. We know it’s there.”

Could the “it” to which Schmidt refers be the new e-commerce platform YouTube is launching? Perhaps. Beginning this week, YouTube is embedding “click-to-buy” links in certain videos on its site, which refer users to affiliate services selling the music featured in them. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features,” YouTube explained in a post to the Official Google Blog. “Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products–like songs and video games–related to the content they’re watching on the site.”

An interesting idea. And should it prove successful, it could begin to justify YouTube’s jaw-dropping $1.65 billion purchase price. “This is just the beginning of building a broad, viable e-commerce platform for users and partners on YouTube,” the company explained. “Our vision is to help partners across all industries–from music, to film, to print, to TV–offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted, audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos. And those partners who use our content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.”