I love this time of year. You get to bundle up in your Steelers stadium jacket, sip some hot Starbucks coffee in the neat little Christmas cups, and enjoy the Christmas cheer at the mall. Oh yes, the Macworld rumors ramp up, too! With the iPod entrenched in its fifth generation and the PowerBook lacking speed, those two are always a given for rumors but what about the new kid on the block? You know, the Mac mini. Well don’t worry, children, the little guy’s got his fair share of rumors, too.

Think Secret is reporting that the next budget computer from Apple, code named Kaleidoscope, will be the true digital hub it was set out to be. It will have a new edition of Front Row in it and will also include a TiVo like PVR. Now I say like and not killer because let’s face it, Front Row really didn’t match up to Microsoft’s Media Center and I doubt the PVR will hold a close second to the ultra easy-to-use and eye candy dressed TiVo. But, if the rumors are true, then with Apple’s previous successes as any indication, TiVo may just be quaking in its Alviso shoes.

The Mac insiders site continues to say that the top of the mini will be different as it will, “sport a built-in iPod dock,” to allow for one to download those PVR based movies onto your iPod video easily. Maybe. Also a maybe is the use of a standard 3.5″ hard drive instead of the current 2.5″ which would improve storage capacity as well as bring cost down.

Lastly rumored for the mini update is a new processor. Yes, an Intel processor. Since Intel inside means cheaper outside on the price sheet, this would make great sense and would also give the benefit of a speed bump up as well as premiere the next (minor) update of OS X…which all reports indicate runs faster on Intel chips then IBM’s designed PowerPC CPU’s.

I’ll keep you all posted as the rumors keep coming in and report to you from the Moscone Center floor what became fact and what was fiction come this January.

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