Everybody's favorite fuzzy little Apple clone maker is back from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (we're still waiting on that revelatory outing of creditors that Apple is so hungry for), and already has a new product in the offering. Psystar's new Open(7) hardware runs Intel Nehalem Xeon, which should provide a nice performance jolt to hackintosh land. Psystar is also going to start using a new bootloader called Darwin Universal Boot Loader, which will eventually be released to open source. Oh, and just in case you were wondering: a little bit of bankruptcy hasn't softened the company's confrontational spirit: Psystar says it's ready to "emerge and again battle Goliath," and that when "life gives you apples, make applesauce." It's kind of cute, really.

[Via TUAW]

We have mixed feelings about the news that Psystar is going under. On the one hand, it's wonderful having somebody attempt to create powerful, expandable Macs for cheap, on the other hand the company has been generally abrasive to the grassroots hacker community its work is based on, and pretty bombastic when it comes to Apple and "the law." But hey, everybody needs to make a profit, even companies being sued into oblivion by Apple, and the news of Psystar filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection has interesting legal implications. Not only does it stall Apple's case against the company -- while implying a possibly inevitable defeat -- but Apple has long posited that a mystery investor behind Psystar has nefarious aims, and the bankruptcy hearing on June 5th will name the creditors behind the company. Our fingers are crossed for a "Dan Brown"-style conspiracy, but we're prepared to be "post-2002 Tom Hanks"-style disappointed.

[Via SlashGear]

Take a good look at the box above, folks -- it just might be the first, the last and the only Open(3) you ever see. Psystar's latest Mac clone, which was launched right around a month ago, has miraculously managed to ship out (or, at least one has). If you'll recall, the company has been battling with Apple for months on end for selling OS X-equipped machines without Cupertino's blessing, but apparently it's still doing at least a bit of business under the table. Hit up the read link for a Flickr gallery full of this here slap in the face. It's good stuff, trust us.

[Thanks, Mike]

Other Mac-cloners may know their time is limited, but good 'ol Psystar just keeps on forging straight ahead -- despite being locked in a nasty legal battle with Apple that could result in it getting shut down any second now. Ignoring that (sophisticated looking) elephant in the corner for a moment, the company has released its latest model, called the Open(3). It sports your choice of processors ranging from a 2.8GHz Core2Duo E7400 up to a 2.53GHz Core2Quad Q8200, up to 4GB of memory, 1TB of storage, a 6x Blu-ray burner, and graphics from an NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT, all packaged in a slim case that, while not quite up to Cupertino standards, certainly looks a fair bit more visually appealing than its previous black boxes. Prices start at just $599, but tick all those option buttons and you'll be looking at something closer to $2,000 -- a lot, but close to $1,000 less than a comparably spec'd Mac Pro. Get 'em while you can.

[Via Pocket-lint]

We knew the loophole in German contract law that would-be Mac cloners HyperMegaNet claimed exempted them from the OS X EULA was too good to be true, and it sounds like they do too: in an interview with the New York Times, owner Dirk Bloessl says that although he doesn't "fear Apple," all Cupertino needs to do to shut his PearC machines down is label the Leopard retail box "to be installed only on a Mac" or even just point out that the license is available on the Apple website. Until that happens, Dirk says he'll be selling his hackintoshes to anyone who wants "a fast machine, but does not need a good looking computer," even though he knows "the product does not have a long life time." That's certainly more reasonable than the increasingly wild-eyed defenses mounted by Psystar, but we've got a feeling Apple's German legal team is going to crack down just as hard.

We're never going to get tired of the insane legal theories would-be Mac clone companies trot out to try and circumvent incredibly basic copyright and contract law concepts -- like Psystar claiming Apple has a monopoly on its own products -- and today we've got German cloners HyperMeganet, who'll sell you a 3.2GHz Core i7 Blu-ray-equipped PearC tower with Mac OS X preinstalled for €2,408 ($3,111). According to the wonderfully-named Hypermeganet, German law requires EULAs to be available for review before purchase, so Apple can't enforce its license restrictions since the Mac OS X EULA isn't printed on the outside of the box. Leaving aside the fact that the OS X installer displays the EULA on-screen and that you have to click "Agree" before installing, we'd just like to point out that all of Apple's license agreements are available for your leisurely perusal before purchase right here -- including the German OS X license, which we're damn sure Apple's foreign counsel has made sure is valid and applicable in that country. Oops. We'll see how long Hypermeganet can keep itself out of trouble -- seriously, when will these companies learn that all they're doing is hurting the homebrew OS X hacking scene by tempting Apple into locking down their systems even harder?

[Via TUAW]

Read - Spiegel Online article about PearC
Read - PearC website

So it looks like wannabe cloner Psystar's supposedly hotshot law firm of Carr and Ferrell regrouped for a deep think after pumping out some fairly weak arguments in its case against Apple -- according to a new draft of Psystar's countersuit, the Florida-based computer reseller should be allowed to sell whitebox Mac OS X machines because it legally purchased copies of Leopard at retail. That's the first sale doctrine, if you're into copyright law -- it states that the purchaser of copyrighted materials (like a book) can sell or dispose of them however they want. Here's the thing though: a big part of Apple's case (but not all of it) is based around the fact that consumers license OS X under the terms of the EULA -- and courts are basically up in the air over whether the first sale doctrine should apply to software transactions. It's an interesting tactic with a ton of repercussions beyond Apple if it's successful, but we honestly can't see it working -- in the cases where first sale has been used to overcome a EULA, it's generally been for used software, not companies like Psystar, who are modifying and installing new copyrighted software sold by a first party. We'll see how Apple responds -- things just got interesting again.

Update: World Of Apple notes that this argument has been present from the outset, but it sounds like Psystar's really pushing it now. We'd say so -- we think it's the only plausible one we've heard so far.

[Thanks, iB3nji]

Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer and about to fall over from CES, but he's not your lawyer, and this isn't legal advice or analysis.

It's official -- Psystar's "hotshot law firm" of Carr and Ferrell is desperate. Their latest brief on behalf of the wannabe Mac clonemaker says that Apple's copyright infringement and DMCA claims against Psystar are invalid because Steve and Co. improperly registered the copyright to OS X. Yes, that's right: Psystar's arguing that the most protective and litigious computer maker on the planet didn't take the time to properly register the copyright to its flagship product. If that sounds insane, it's because it is: we found registrations for every major version of OS X, dating from 2001, in about five seconds of searching. Seriously, if an argument this simple was a winner you'd think we'd have heard about it from the get-go, instead of Psystar's dubious, immediately-dismissed antitrust claims. We have no idea who's approving or paying for these flailing tactics, but firms like Carr and Ferrell don't risk their reputations on ridiculous arguments like this for free -- maybe there's something to that crazy "secret backer" conspiracy theory after all.

[Via AppleInsider]

Read - Psystar claims Apple didn't register the copyright in OS X
Read - Apple's OS X 10.5 copyright registration
Read - Apple's original OS X copyright registration

The Mac cloning soap opera just keeps taking crazy twists and turns -- Art Studios Entertainment, makers of the EFi-X dongle, have shut down EFi-X USA's plans to sell "Millennium" machines capable of running OS X just hours after they were announced. ASE CEO Davide Rutigliano sent us a statement saying that EFi-X USA was misinterpreting ASE's EFi-X certification program, that ASE will "NEVER sell machines or condone the sale of machines that compete with any brand," and that he personally ordered the project abandoned. Indeed, a visit to EFi-X USA's page confirms that the machines have been killed, although we're unsure what the terse statement "EFi-X USA LLC fights the clones and the clonemakers" is supposed to mean. All part of another strange chapter in the Hackintosh saga, we suppose. Check ASE's full statement after the break.

[Via Tom's Hardware]

We've always been intrigued by the EFI-X dongle that fools OS X into running on stock Intel machines, Software Update and all, and now it looks like the company a company called EFi-X USA is taking things one step further -- it's planning on shipping pre-built machines capable of running Apple's OS. The EFi-X Millennium 4 will sport an overclocked 3.8GHz Core 2 Quad, 4GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card in an Antec P180 case, all for $1,899 plus the $199 EFi-X dongle. The idea is to avoid any Psystar-style legal troubles by leaving the purchase and installation of OS X up to the end user, but apparently no one at EFi-X USA has talked to a lawyer or even read our previous posts on the matter, since Apple's lawsuit against Psystar turns as much on contributory and induced copyright infringement as it does on Psystar's direct violation of Apple's OS X EULA. In other words, it's illegal to sell a product expressly designed to allow customers to infringe copyrights -- a principle Napster and Grokster made famous, you'll recall. Plus we're pretty certain there's a DMCA argument in there since the EFi-X dongle circumvents Apple's protections on OS X -- the validity of which Psystar is actually testing in its revised countersuit. We'll see how it goes -- we're seriously worried that these companies are doing far more harm to the OSx86 scene than good.

P.S.- Oh, and honestly, Apple, if you want this entire headache to go away, all you have to do is produce a reasonably-priced, configurable midrange tower. Think about it.

Update: We've just been pinged by the original EFi-X team, who tell us that EFi-X USA has nothing to do with them, that they have no plans to sell actual machines, and that they strongly disapprove of EFi-X USA. Shades of Psystar's use of netkas's work on OSx86 without permission, we'd say -- shady shady.

[Thanks, Mark]

Oh, Psystar. Fresh from the court's smackdown of its antitrust claims against Apple, the wannabe Mac cloner has amended its lawsuit to ditch that argument and instead allege that Steve-o is committing the sin of copyright abuse by not letting it sell OS X compatible machines. Yes, copyright abuse. The little-known doctrine is generally used by by those being sued for copyright infringement as a defense, and Psystar's now questionably hotshot legal team is essentially throwing a Hail Mary by arguing that Apple's EULA is anticompetitive because it relies on the power of copyright law to restrict the use of OS X to Apple's machines. If you're thinking to yourself, "But imposing conditions on a licensee is exactly the sort of power granted to a copyright owner!" congratulations -- you have incredibly boring thoughts. You're also exactly correct -- we don't see this argument getting any farther than the antitrust one did. Honestly, at this point we're pretty certain Psystar is hurting the OSx86 movement way more than it's helping -- Apple's started making noise like it's coming after the hackers who make it possible, and that's the last thing we want to have happen. Maybe stop tickling the dragon, guys?

P.S.- The PDF of the new counterclaim is an entertaining read -- the law students out there might want to read it as reassurance they'll eventually be paid the big bucks to spew out some deep crazy.

The soap opera of would-be Mac cloner Psystar was already full of shady twists and turns, but there's a possibility Apple's legal team thinks there's some truth to a few of the wilder conspiracy theories out there -- a paragraph tacked on to an amended version of the complaint filed in California says that Apple believes people or corporations "other than Psystar are involved in Psystar's unlawful and improper activities." That could mean just about anything, of course -- we've always thought Psystar was being a little too cocky, and no one's ever figured out how a fledging company that couldn't even hold on to a credit card processor could retain such a hotshot law firm -- but chances are Apple's just covering its ass in case it wants to sue the major investors of Psystar individually or even the OSx86 hackers that unwillingly enabled the company's dubious business. Either way, with all of Psystar's antitrust counterclaims dismissed and Apple adding new DMCA claims to its lawsuit, we've got a feeling things are about to go boom in Florida pretty soon -- if machines really are still shipping, this is probably your last chance to grab a piece of (semi-functional) history.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Well, we can't say we didn't see this coming -- Judge William Alsup in the federal Northern District of California today dismissed Psystar's antitrust counterclaims in Apple's copyright infringement lawsuit against the wannabe Mac cloner. According to the judge, Psystar's hotshot legal team failed to provide facts "plausibly supporting the counterintuitive claim that Apple's operating system is so unique that it suffers no actual or potential competitors." Not only that, but the judge also found that Psystar actually contradicted itself in pointing out that Apple has to advertise heavily to promote OS X against competing operating systems that perform the same tasks, and that Apple is "certainly entitled" to ask its customers to only use OS X on Apple machines. Yeah, that's a smackdown. Psystar has until December 18th to amend its complaint and try these arguments again, but we can't say we think it's got a shot in hell here -- and something tells us that that court-mandated alternative dispute resolution process isn't going to get very far in Psystar's favor either.

Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer and sells bootleg OSx86 machines out the back of his van, but he's not your lawyer and this isn't legal advice.

[Via Macrumors]

It looks like Psystar really hasn't been hit by either the economic downturn or the lawsuits Apple has brought against it regarding those "OS X-capable" machines. Adding insult to yesterday's injury -- the announcement of desktops with built-in Blu-ray and NVIDIA's GeForce 9800GT-- it also looks like the company is actively developing a Mac laptop clone, according to an email obtained by AppleInsider. A Psystar spokesperson claims that, "Although there is no mobile open computer at the moment, I can tell you that it is something that is in development," and adds "No release day or price has been set for any potential mobile product line. However I can assure you that at release it will be very competitively priced." Well then -- assuming the quality of the laptops will be comparable to those desktops -- we can hardly wait.