You know, if Nostradamus were alive today, he would probably be a financial analyst. The closest we have, though, is Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. A mild-mannered one, Gene is expecting Apple to sell 8 million iPods by the end of this quarter, citing a good sales report from the company in recent weeks.

According to MacObserver: "Mr. Munster noted that Apple's iPod market share in May was 76%, which was flat with April. However, he said: "The iPod number will likely be a nonevent for the June quarter. More importantly, we believe the Mac number has room for upside. We expect new versions of iPod and positive seasonality will be a catalyst for this segment of the business in the back half of 2006."

In a constantly changing battle with Apple Computers, Singapore-based Creative has filed a formal complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission. The crux of Creative's battle against Apple revolves around a copyright issue.

Creative asked the commission to consider blocking imports of the iPod for infringing on its system of accessing and organizing music on digital music players. Creative accuses Apple of downright copying their system, the suit being the result of a stalemate in discussions between the two companies earlier this year.

The agency is expected to make a ruling within 45 days. We'll be watching this one closely.

You know I watched that movie a long time ago with Natalie Portman, pregnant, and how she decides she's going to spend a night at the Wal-Mart after her boyfriend ditches her. Yeah, that was a good movie.

But anyway, somebody out there has made up her mind that she's going to spend a full week at Apple's new store in NYC (that's New York City for those of you outside the know) and, here comes the good part, blog about it!

Disregarding the sense behind it all, it still makes for some interesting reading, I'm sure.

According to MacNN: "The Suicide Girls have recruited member named "fakecake" to document this event as "she attempts to channel her inner David Blaine and survive in midtown Manhattan's new Apple Store, trapped underground with little more than moxie, MacBooks, and the desire to blog about her sure-to-be-thrilling experience in ultra-nonstop realtime..."

Standard & Poor's Equity Research, on Businessweek's Web site, raised its projections for Apple stock from a 'Hold' to a 'Strong Buy.' Basing their decision on a number of variables, including the company's strong performance in recent quarters, and predictions that the company will continue operating at the steady pace, the analysts are urging investors to buy.

According to the analysts: "Our upgrade comes after the recent pressure on AAPL shares. Our discounted cash-flow analysis, which assumes a weighted-average cost of capital of 11.8% and a 10% 15-year free cash flow growth forecast, remains intact but we are adjusting our price/sales analysis to include a calendarized 2007 revenue estimate."

Um. Huh? Yeah ... this just means Apple is kicking serious ass.

A Vermont man is insisting that Apple Computer ripped off his idea for iTunes and has experienced much success with a formula that he originally came up with. In a court appearance, the man demonstrated just how iTunes had taken his ideas.

David Contois, the man behind the suit, claims his design was finished a full two years before iTunes exploded onto the scene. Lawyers for Apple (quite possibly the hardest working lawyers on earth) took offense to the claim and are fighting the suit.

It is uncertain if the case will go to trial or if the judge presiding over the case will make the final determination. Why it took the man so long to figure out that Apple had ripped off his idea, no one really knows.

Tom Yager of Infoworld was lucky (unlucky) enough to meet with Apple representatives after running a story criticizing the company for not delivering on old promises. He took issue with the closing of the OS X x86 kernel source code.

In his meeting with the reps, Tom said they took issue with him citing something that only a "fraction of a fraction" of the geeks who are his regular readers. Safe enough to say Tom was not happy with the choice of words.

Tom responded with another post on his site: "I go on the defensive whenever a vendor suggests that any portion of my readership is an underclass because of its numbers," he said. "It is our fraction of a fraction that is the bellwether for the next leading edge. My readers donÂ?t gaze at my torch or carry othersÂ?. TheyÂ?re too busy lighting new ones.

"My story got such wide attention because lots of people understand why breaking a promise, and saying nothing about it, matters. ItÂ?s not about code. ItÂ?s about character."

You said it, Tom.

Information Week is reporting that the city of Boston is considering whether to allow Apple to locate one of their retail stores in one of the more prominent districts in the city. Apple is eyeing a location in Boston across from the Prudential Center.

With the possibility of attracting hordes of people to the site, the design process isn't going as smoothly as the company would have liked. To be set in an area with older brownstones, the modern design associated with most Apple stores has already met some resistance.

According to the Web site: "Earlier plans for a striking glass faade store were criticized by Boston's Back Bay Architectural Commission."

We'll just wait and see how this plays out.

According to iLounge, several radio stations will be incorporating the iTunes Music Store in their Web site. Power 106 in Los Angeles and Hot 97 in New York have implemented the new feature that allows users the chance to buy music after listening to it being played on the radio.

iLounge writes: Â?Now, when listeners hear new music on our stations, a countdown, or mix they wonÂ?t have to work hard to find it, they just visit our station websites,Â? said Hot 97 Program Director John Dimick.

Sure beats the old days, when all you had was a piece of paper and pens that sometimes wouldn't write and you went around asking your friends if they'd heard that new song and you'd try to hum along to the beat or try to say one of the words so they could help you out. Yeah, beats those days bad.

Maybe in anticipation of Apple's announcement that it would be releasing a new version of the Macbook, Dell slashed the price of one of its laptops, which, if you look closely, seems to compete directly against the new Apple machine.

Cnet reports: The Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker is selling an Inspiron E1505 notebook with an Intel T2300 Core Duo processor, 1GB of memory, an 80GB drive, a 15.4-inch screen and a DVD burner for $699 on Monday, down from the usual price of $1,234. A similar notebook from Toshiba on CompUSA's site sells for $1,249, while a similar Hewlett-Packard sells for $1,199. Gateway clocks in at $999.

The PC maker may just be feeling the heat a little bit, now that Apple seems intent on making a sizeable dent in overall desktop and laptop sales. The fact that the new Macbooks seem to rival the features-set of much more expensive units will surely serve to drag down prices on any machine that competes against it, much like the lowering cost of the iPod over the years has had an effect on competitor prices.

Dell for years seemed unbeatable. It may have finally met its match.

According to analyst Shaw Wu, who is known to have pitted himself against the great Gene Munster in a free-for-all death match for the title of world's most kick-ass Apple analyst, Apple seems on track to exceed its sales goal for the third quarter. According to Wu, the introduction of the new version of the Macbook a little earlier than expected should serve to give the company a boost in sales.

"MacBook is shipping one to two months ahead of our checks," wrote analyst Shaw Wu in a research note. "We thus have a higher degree of confidence that Apple is on track to hit the upper-end, if not exceed, its guidance."

Wu thinks that the pricing scheme for the latest Macbook makes it an attractive alternative to many consumers out there in the market for a good laptop. With its ability to boot Windows XP with Boot Camp, the computer is poised to see record sales, though Wu believes the $1,499 black version may be a little overpriced. I guess he didn't read one of our previous posts, huh?