The computer laptop market is changing, but for better or for worse? While Apple is making moves into the cheaper laptop market, Samsung is moving into Apple’s territory by releasing its own premium line—price at $1599 and up. The NP-X360 and NP-X460 (picture right), designed to compete with Apple’s Air, symbolizes Samsung’s reentrance into the laptop market. But perhaps Samsung should have listened to its marketing department before designing its new line.

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Microsoft Tuesday unveiled a prototype computer, Sphere, at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit 2008 in Redmond, Washington.

Sphere is composed of a large spherical screen atop an infrared projector. The projector projects images onto the screen, while at the same time allowing multi-touch manipulation of the images, so that it can be used by several users at once. Sphere uses a special algorithm to show images without distortion, as they would look on a flat screen.

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Apple, Inc. [AAPL] has filed suit against Psystar, maker of Mac clones. Originally called “OpenMac,” Psystar’s “OpenComputer” sells for as low as $399, pre-installed with Mac OS X Leopard. Apple does not permit the installation of its operating system on non-Apple products.

The Miami-based IT consulting company began selling their Mac clones in April under rather strange circumstances, including listing false addresses and being dropped by the company processing their credit-card orders. Some thought Psystar was just a hoax; others believed it was a dummy company set up by Apple. But the OpenComputer began shipping in April, benefiting from the hype and receiving generally positive reviews. OpenComputer’s initial sales exceeded company expectations. In June, Psystar began selling Xserve, an Apple-server clone.

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