The little mouse that could, did.

Generate a lawsuit that is. Apple Inc. and CBS are being sued by a Maryland-based company called Man & Machine for use of the name “Mighty Mouse” for Apple’s innovative little input device. Apparently Man & Machine had dibs on the name as it pertains to input devices, as in waterproof and chemical-resistant industrial-strength mice.

It’s a very circuitous story, actually. I thought naming Apple’s new mouse after the super-rodent we all know and love might result in legal tussles, but when they never materialized I figured Steve took care of it ahead of time. And he did. Apple bought the rights to the name from CBS, who had owned it since 1955, for their new benippled, buttonless wonder.

Then, suddenly, out of a blue sky swoops in Man & Machine, coming to save the day. Apparently they came out with their hospital/lab-friendly version of Mighty Mouse more than a year before Apple’s version, and they now claim that the name, in the context of computer peripherals, belongs to them, thereby compelling themselves to sue both Apple and CBS for the injustice. Man & Machine wants to block Apple’s use of the Mighty Mouse name and get some cash for their trouble. (I think we all know why they took this long to sue, don’t we?)

If they succeed, any suggestions on a new name for it? Mightier Mouse? Rodent Roller? Mouse-k-Steer?

(Via 9to5Mac)

Let’s take a little time off this frenzy of talking about the new iPhone and when it’s coming out and who’s carrying it and what features it has and how it looks like and if I should sell my old one now so I can still get a good price and snap up the new one even though I have no idea if I can actually use it in my country just yet…

Ahem.

See what I mean. Let’s talk about other things for a moment. Like phishing.

Just a heads up. A new scam is doing the rounds that involves the iTunes Store. Scammers con people into giving up credit and other important info by luring them to a faux iTunes site where you’re asked to update your billing info. iTunes account holders get email telling that they have a problem with their account and request you to fix it by updating your critical info on the fake page. Old and tired phishing scam, but a fresh and rich field of harvest.

Just a little Public Service Announcement from the Doodler. (I know you guys would never fall for such a silly thing, but it’s nice to be reminded. Right?)

It’s funny how the Macbook Air is turning to be a finicky little customer. Lotsa little quirks.

This afternoon I found out that even the power cord is a bad thing if used carelessly.

Risky business using an MBA these days in my country, where the temp this summer is starting to hit a hundred fahrenheit. So I used it on my very flat table in the office, eight feet from an air conditioner. No chance of overheating much, right? Wrong.

The outlet was underneath my table, and the cord wasn’t long enough to comfortably and leisurely coil around the environs. So I put it out behind the MBA and let it stretch back and across the rear edge, and down to my power strip.

Soon after, I started getting a core shutdown. Didn’t need the iStatPro widget to tell me that the MBA was overheating; I could feel it on the palmrest.

Apparently I had blocked the air vent out back with the cord of the power adapter and had boxed in the heat. I repositioned the cord and everything went back to normal. Sigh.

It’s a tough life being an Early Adopter.

Here’s a poser for the experts among you: Does anyone know which time server the iPhone updates its clock by, or how?

Common sense would tell us it either gets it from the Mac it’s synced to, or online from a specified server (in which case a server endorsed by Apple), but whatever the case it should tell the same time either way, right?

Maybe it’s just my unit, but my automatically-time-synced desktop Mac and my iPhone are constantly five minutes apart. I can’t find a time-server choice anywhere on the iPhone’s settings, or on iTunes.

Why is my iPhone always 5 minutes late? That’s a big deal. It syncs to something for sure - I know this because I sometimes manually set it to the right time, but after syncing it with iTunes, it moves back again.

A possible answer is that it time-syncs with the carrier it’s connected to (in my case Smart), but I can’t tell for sure.

This mystery bugs me no end.

Jesse Derris, an Account Manager at Sunshine Sachs & Associates, the PR group for Product(Red), got in touch with the Doodler to give the real story behind the previous post we wrote about the campaign. So as not to make any mistakes, we reproduce Mr. Derris’ reply here verbatim:

Hi Adel—

Realizing it might be difficult for us to speak on the phone, I wanted to write to you to correct some of the facts in your story regarding (RED). We’re so glad that you like the products!

First, (RED) products generate funds for the Global Fund to fight AIDS across Africa, not just in Rwanda. (RED) money is currently at work in Rwanda, Swaziland, and Ghana. While you’re right that a portion of sales of (RED) items goes the Global Fund, that portion is at least 40 percent of gross profits – a very large amount.

Up until this point, (RED) has generated more than $60 million for the Global Fund, $22 million of which is being used in Rwanda.

The Advertising Age story you quote in your post is from March 2007, almost a year ago. That story accused (RED) partners of spending upwards of $100 million on advertising and generating only $18 million for the Global Fund. However, both numbers are false. Advertising Age has never revealed the source of the numbers they used, nor how they were calculated. In short, we have no idea where they came from.

Now, back in March 2007, the actual figures were an estimated $50 million spent on advertising, generating $25 million for the Global Fund. This is a very successful figure. Why?

The amount of money that went to the Global Fund at that point – $25 million – represents 40 percent of the profits. Remember, the companies get to keep the other 60 percent of their profits. The reason we do this is because (RED) is a business model that is meant to help companies give to the Global Fund and make a profit at the same time. By ensuring that companies profit on their (RED) partnership, we can make it sustainable in the long run. Unfortunately, when Advertising Age calculated their figures, they left out the other 60 percent of profits.

It is important to point out that (RED) itself doesn’t spend anything on advertising. Our partners each divert a portion of their existing advertising budget towards ads for their (RED) products. It is money that will be spent on advertising whether or not (RED) exists. It’s not money that would be earmarked for charity. We’re so grateful to our partners for advertising on our behalf.

I hope this is helpful in explaining what (RED) is and how we are doing.”

That’s that. Straight out of the horse’s mouth. Now to get that red nano.