A superquick recap: Psystar releases the OpenMac, a $US400 desktop Mac clone; people debate if this is possibly, technically or legally, and if Psystar is a scam; the hackintoshes turn out to be real; they ship; Apple gets upset; Psystar grandstands; Apple continues to be upset; Psystar gets murdered. To death.

That was the story a few weeks ago, at least. Now Psystar is basically acting like nothing happened, releasing a fresh bootloader, a new computer—the $US1500, i7-based Open(7) desktop—and revisiting their old, defiant tone in an email newsletter:

As you all may already be aware in late May, Psystar filed for bankruptcy protection. Although this was critical to our continued daily operations, we are now ready to emerge and again battle Goliath.

The whole thing is reproduced below, and definitely worth reading.

Psystar’s been subject to all manner or canonisation, criticism, popular support and backlash, but now I don’t know what to think. On the one hand, all their talk about monopolies, freedom and victimisation (David and Goliath? So you’re going to kill Apple?) always stuck me as a little hollow. On the other, it now appears as though the guys who run Psystar are either clinically insane, extremely persistent, or unusually ballsy. Or, of course, all three. [TUAW via Neowin via Slashgear]

Psystar—those guys who were pilfering software from the Hackintosh project to run Mac OS X in blah PC hardware—has filed for Chapter 11. Good riddance, is all I can say. Although this may be a shady legal strategy on their part.

Under Federal bankruptcy protection laws, all cases against the company should be put on hold. This means that Apple will have to wait on their case against Psystar. The first bankruptcy hearing will be held in Florida next June 5. At that time, we may find who the hell are the financial backers behind the company.

But while all this happens, the keep selling machines on their site. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t get near these guys even while wearing a biochemical war suit. [Mac Observer]

You can blame it on the grim economy, or you can blame it on the fact that Ugobe’s entire business depended on plush robotic dinosaurs. Either way, the Pleo has antagonised its last Labrador.

The company has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy—the kind of bankruptcy that’s most like a tremendous meteor—and fired all of its workers. This is sad news for Pleo fans and horrible news for the now-ex-employees, but one part of the report was surprising: Over 100,000 Pleos, which retail at $US350, were sold in the last year alone.

Existing Pleos will be left to act out a sad, allegorical version of The Land Before Time, in which, having seen their mother (Ugobe) killed by a T-Rex (bankruptcy proceedings), they will, uhh, sit unused in a closet until their batteries start leaking. The later sequels were kind of weird, OK? [Idaho Statesman]

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in February, but these 300 liquidations are the first serious manifestation of its decline. This is terrible news all around, but could have been predicted; film developing is a dead business, and the increasingly homogeneous nature of point-and-shoot cameras and the spec-centric marketing of DSLRs favours impersonal, cheap and convenient retailers like Best Buy and Walmart

And that’s not to mention online retailers, bolstered by the magisterial advice of sites like DPReview—a sort of digital equivalent to the archetypal old Grizzled Local Camera Store Vet. That said, for the average consumer this is a loss—good luck asking the kid at your local Target which of their cameras has the best high-ISO noise reduction. [MarketWatch]

Even though service would have likely continued uninterrupted had the freshly-merged company actually filed for bankruptcy, Sirius XM’s days of luring in top radio jock talent on big contracts would have likely been over. Now, thankfully, we can carry on without skimping on the Howard Stern. [NY Times]

Gary at HDGuru checked out a store in Long Island and found that the Panasonic TH42PZ85U that lists for $US1100 was selling for $US990, but PriceGrabber offered it as low as $US930. Ditto for Sony’s $US2800 KDL46XBR6, which sells for $US2520 at Circuit City but online for $US1975.

Lest you think this is a one-off thing, and that the Long Island store might not have been representative, my conversations with someone at an Orange County, California Circuit City revealed more or less the same pricing on mainstream Panasonic and Samsung models. I cross checked them with Amazon, and they were available online for substantially less, and that was before I factored the free shipping and sales tax breaks.

We only checked TVs, but knowing CC’s historically crappy pricing, I can only assume this is a trend. Did any of you make a run for it? And if so, did you get any actual deals? [HDGuru]

Currently, Circuit City is negotiating with “two interested parties” about selling off the company in a going concern transaction. The motion, filed with the Bankruptcy court indicates that an auction of the company and its assets would commence on January 13, and a sale hearing would occur on January 16, 2009. If a sale does not occur, the company can begin to liquidate. The full details are available in the press release, but the long-and-short of it is that the clock is ticking on Circuit City unless they can get a deal done really, really soon. [Circuit City via Yahoo]