Newspipe: White iPhone 4 release date; Post-PC tablets; DoJ vs. botnet

By Richi Jennings. April 14, 2011.

Welcome to Newspipe: a wrap-up of interesting stories in a handy, easily-digestible size. This time: rumors say we're close to the release date for Apple's (AAPL) white iPhone 4; falling PC sales in a post-PC world of tablets; and the Justice Department wages war on botnets and zombies (oh my!)
 

In case you're not yet bored with iPhone rumors, here's one about the mythical white iPhone 4. Spring has sprung, so where is it? Apple's SVP of PM, Phil Schiller, promised it to us around this time. And, lo, it did come to pass that three of Bloomberg's deep throats came forth and spake thusly: "in the next few weeks, following a 10-month delay." And there was much rejoicing.

Interesting as a mid-life kicker, but if Apple sticks to its usual schedule of announcing "iPhone next" in June... not so much. Of course, credible rumors say there'll be no iPhone 5 until 2012.
 

Global PC shipments declined 3.2 percent year-on-year, according to our cousins at IDC. Arch-rivals Gartner Group broadly agree. Both firms blame it on tablets, which they don't include in their "PC" market figures. Lenovo didn't do so badly though, improving shipments by more than 16 percent -- if Lenovo keeps this up, it'll soon pass Dell and Acer, to become the #2 PC maker.

All the same, total shipments of PCs in the first quarter of 2011 were more than 80 million units, which rather puts the iPad sales hype into perspective. Breathless talk of "the end of PCs" is rather premature -- this is a datum, not a trend.
 

The U.S. Department of Justice has poisoned the Coreflood botnet of 2 million+ zombie PCs. It took a court order to do, but the DoJ now has control of the command-and-control servers, courtesy of the FBI and the Internet Systems Consortium. ISPs will be "persuaded" to help infected users get clean.

It's about time. Good to see the gubmint doing something positive with its powers, rather than making a pig's ear of it by shuttering 84,000 innocent domains. 
 

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. He's also the creator and main author of Computerworld's IT Blogwatch -- for which he has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards on behalf of Computerworld, plus The Long View. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: TLV@richij.com. You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.