Lots of Apple rumors today following the weekend whispers of a March 24 desktop hardware event , and they fall neatly along the plausibility spectrum: First up, we’d say a bump of the Mac Pro to Intel’s upcoming Nehalem-EP Xeon processors is looking quite likely — famed OS X hacker netkas was poking around in a test build of OS X 10.5.7 and found support files for i7 chips lurking about, as well as drivers for ATI’s Radeon 4000-series GPUs. If you’re making a chart, this one’s right up there with an NVIDIA-powered iMac refresh — it’s a pretty obvious move. Second, new entries for the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule have popped up in the FCC, and while the listed dimensions are exactly the same as the current editions, there are no model numbers and something internal has to have changed enough to raise ol’ Sammy’s brows. That could be as simple as a new radio hardware supplier or bigger drives, but if we were placing bets, we’d say both units are getting updated for simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz operation — Apple’s really high on 5GHz for laptops and Apple TV, but the iPhone and iPod touch are 2.4GHz-only. Let’s call this one even odds, shall we? Lastly, a new picture of that improbable five USB port Mac mini has surfaced, this time purporting to show the outside of the box

Lots of Apple rumors today following the weekend whispers of a March 24 desktop hardware event , and they fall neatly along the plausibility spectrum: First up, we’d say a bump of the Mac Pro to Intel’s upcoming Nehalem-EP Xeon processors is looking quite likely — famed OS X hacker netkas was poking around in a test build of OS X 10.5.7 and found support files for i7 chips lurking about, as well as drivers for ATI’s Radeon 4000-series GPUs. If you’re making a chart, this one’s right up there with an NVIDIA-powered iMac refresh — it’s a pretty obvious move. Second, new entries for the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule have popped up in the FCC, and while the listed dimensions are exactly the same as the current editions, there are no model numbers and something internal has to have changed enough to raise ol’ Sammy’s brows. That could be as simple as a new radio hardware supplier or bigger drives, but if we were placing bets, we’d say both units are getting updated for simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz operation — Apple’s really high on 5GHz for laptops and Apple TV, but the iPhone and iPod touch are 2.4GHz-only. Let’s call this one even odds, shall we?

We’ve never heard of the Mentalists ( because we’re old ), but this four-woman London band just covered MGMT’s Kids using just iPhones . And it doesn’t sound like shit! The foursome used the App Store’s Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth and DigiDrummer Lite to recreate the song. Again, surprisingly not horrible. [ T3 ]

Lockheed Martin has made an awesome video—hosted by experimental test pilot Alan Norman—showing the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II combat airplanes, which include an exclusive view on the F-35 demon pilot helmet targeting system.

Analysts at Gartner are expecting PC shipments to drop 12%, to 257m computers. I’m surprised that number doesn’t go to half that considering, generally speaking, PCs are fast enough these days that we can all wait a year to buy a new one. Gartner also believes that desktop sales will drop 32% and laptop demand will rise 9%, on account of those spiffy netbooks everyone is carrying around in their giant custom attached pants pockets. [ NYT ]

Even the iPhone is getting in on Watchmen madness as Watchmen: Justice is Coming (snicker) heads to the platform on March 6. How is this an MMO? Because it uses Amazon’s web services. You can roam around NYC as a customized “hero”, punching your friends or (random people) in the face.

As long as you live in a submarine, a refrigerator or a steel box, this Striker magnetic LED mine will be extremely useful for odd-angle illumination. If not, not as much. $9 dudes! Then again, sink work and car work would probably benefit from a nicely-placed light. Assuming, of course, that it was brighter than you’d assume a lousy $9 mine light would be.

Much like the next gen OLPC design , Asus’ dual panel laptop ditches its keyboard for a second screen. Spotted at CeBIT, the device features double multi-touch touchscreens that are coupled with software allowing for virtual interface devices—like a resizable keyboard and trackpad—or the laptop can simply be rotated for eBooks that read more like real books. Apparently this dual panel laptop is just a corporate-sponsored entrant into a design competition, so we may or may not see the device ever hit the market. Wait, let me rephrase that: Pleeeease make this, Asus, pleeeeassseee. [ Electricpig ]

If Apple’s Time Capsule excites you, you will be happy to learn that the 1TB model is now available for $387 down from $500. This may signal the introduction of new models soon. That discount is huge. The Apple refurb store is also selling them for the cheap, but the ones at Amazon are completely new.

Sony’s latest Japan-exclusive Bravia W5 and F5 are some fancy LCDs, refreshing at 240Hz and featuring deep contrast ratios. But the neatest thing about these TVs is surely their credit card-reading remote control. By simply pressing your card to the remote, you can make payment for VOD movies without the hassle of navigating an onscreen QWERTY. How is all of this consumer magic possible? The remote contains an RFID reader, compatible with Japan’s popular Edy cards—cards that are, incidentally, powered by Sony’s FeliCa technology. So it all comes full circle