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Two days 'till Christmas and what are we thinking about over here? Not sugarplums, that's for sure. There've been a couple of big stories developing over the past week, and one that we heard yesterday has been tugging at our heartstrings ever since. (We'll give you a hint...we saved it for last.)

Microsoft Minus Word?
If you're using the 2003 or 2007 version of Microsoft Word, you've just become part of another big legal battle, this time between Microsoft and i4i Ltd., a Toronto based company that had a copyright on a special XML algorithm Word's been using on the sly. Not so sneaky sneaky, sir.

Basically, the XML is code that tells Word how to make the changes to the text requested by the user, and this specific instance of code was already spoken for when Word dropped in and kidnapped her. Microsoft has been ordered to cease sale of the programs that contain that code, remove it from the program entirely and send it back to live happily ever after with i4i. After they pay $290 million dollars in damages. Merry Christmas??

Between this and the EU's concern over bundling Internet Explorer Microsoft has had a tough year!

Apple TV to Change World
No seriously...if this actually works (and you know Steve Jobs, he's not going to sleep until it works) the TV watching world will be forever altered. Good old Steve has proposed an iTunes based subscription to cable networks that will bypass the cable carriers entirely, and CBS is already in, if you believe word on the street. Oh, so is Disney...but we figure you'd already guessed that since Jobs owns, like, half of it. Apple can't sit still, rest on it's laurels, whatever you want to call it. These guys are tireless and they will not stop until every single industry that can be seriously altered by them has fallen prey.

In a good way.

This goes totally against the iTunes pay-per model, as it is rumored to be a monthly flat rate sort of thing, but the networks would have to sneak around their cable providers, cutting them out of revenue. Hey, if Apple TV shows ended up being more affordable than our massive cable bills, we'd switch. So basically? Cable TV providers beware...

Cue the Violin
We want some background music for this next sob story--on December 21st, the App Store gained an awesome NES emulator called Nescaline. You can understand the obvious excitement--we grew up on that system and being able to play the games on our iPhones made us run to our friends, yelling lke crazy people about Christmas coming early.

Alas, it was not to be. Apple pulled the app yesterday, citing the fact that it was an emulator...though there are other emulators available in the store, like the C64. Perhaps Nintendo put the spurs to these guys, but Apple don't take no nonsense from nobody; we'll be checking back with this one to see if our frowns will be turned upside down any time soon.

Have a happy holiday season, folks, and we'll get back on schedule next Monday.

Best wishes to you from the staff at MacTribe!