Stand back! The Palm Pre -- a.k.a. the latest iPhone killer -- may launch by May 17, according to several hot rumors. Responding to questions via e-mail, Sprint has apparently confirmed that the company is "in the process of providing the training for the new Palm Pre" to its employees, according to the blog PreThinking. Also, multiple online sources say Sprint is forbidding vacation time to its retail store employees during the month of May -- another indication of imminent action. And adding even more buzz to the Pre is a leaked internal memo, which says Sprint stores will start to receive Pre shipments in late April to early May for a May 17 launch. However, the launch could occur as late as June 29, according to PhoneNews.

As always, it's important to take these rumors with a really big grain of salt, but considering how many blogs are coming forward with information it looks like we may finally see the long-awaited Pre by next month. This latest news also builds on a previous rumor that said Palm Pre stockpiles would arrive in Sprint warehouses around March 15. It's unknown whether Sprint is actually sitting on an inventory of Pre devices this very minute, but if you combine the stockpiling rumor with today's assertions, then the Pre's launch starts to look a little more imminent.

Afraid to install Windows XP SP3 "out of fear it will cause problems with my current settings," Nirvana asked the Answer Line forum for advice.

Hundreds of LGBT book titles were stripped of their sales rank by Amazon.com over the weekend in what the online store is calling a "glitch." The books involved in the apparent snafu -- which included such classics as D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room -- were deemed "adult" by Amazon, which, due to an unexplained new adult policy, removes a title's sales rank. The problem was revealed by author Mark Probst.

Is Apple preparing the ground for Steve Jobs' early return? Saturday's The Wall Street Journal reports that Jobs was deeply involved in important decisions at Apple, despite a leave of absence announced in January. Reportedly, Jobs still has his hands on the controls for Apple's business strategies, products, product plans, and upcoming project development.

Unidentified sources, apparently in the know about Jobs' involvement, say in the WSJ report that Jobs had a big say in the user interface for the recently announced iPhone operating system 3.0. The sources also revealed that Jobs is helping with new iPhone models and some kind of Apple tablet device -- reinforcing the two most popular Apple rumors du jour.

The malicious worm affecting Twitter over the weekend has now mutated and continues to invade the popular microblogging network. Although Twitter is taking action against the problem, security analysts fear that further mutations of the worm will continue to wreak havoc on the network over the week.

The worm, appearing as "" or "StalkDaily", was created by the 17-year-old Mike Mooney "out of boredom" and is now generating thousands of spam messages containing the word "Mikeyy." This is the fourth attack by the worm in the last four days, which sends Twitter messages from infected accounts, without the owners' knowledge.

Drift City is a massively multiplayer racing game with a fabulous Korean comics ("manhwa") coat of paint. Instantly recognizable to those that played the classic Sega arcade and home console game Crazy Taxi, the object of free game Drift City is to run missions for the government and private delivery services in order to protect the populace from menacing unmanned vehicles that roam the city. All of this story serves as an excuse to race around the city at breakneck speed.

If you've been collecting iTunes or MP3 files for any length of time, you've probably gathered some duplicates. Programs that compare file size, file names, and tags are largely effective in rooting out these storage wasting redundancies, but they're not perfect. For instance, you may have renamed a tagless file and re-encoded it to another format without removing the original. Audio Comparer ($30, 30-day free trial) takes the process a step further and as you might've guessed from its moniker--compares the actual audio.

TwonkyMedia Manager is not just another iTunes knockoff. It's a full-fledged DLNA (Digital Living Network Association) UPnP client/server that allows you to play any media found on PCs or DLNA devices (TVs, game consoles, A/V systems, digital media adapters and mobile devices, game consoles, etc.) on your network, as well as local media found on your PC. Most non-DLNA certified UPnP devices will work as well, and TwonkyMedia ($40, 30-day free trial) can also access media from Flickr and YouTube after you provide your online username for these services. Internet Radio streaming is offered as well.

In order to stop the slaughtering of baby seals in Canada, animal rights group Peta 2 plans to kill a few of their own, virtually speaking, in World of Warcraft on Saturday, April 11. Peta 2's current 'Stop the Seal Slaughter' campaign hopes to draw attention to the mass killings and is protesting the Olympic Organizing Committee's approval for Vancouver as the location of the 2010 Olympic winter games.

The following is not an unfortunate April fools joke. A team of four Undead Horde on the Whisperwind realm will be slaughtering baby seals in the Howling Fjord at 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST. Peta 2 claims that the honorable shaman Warchief Thrall has ignored the Alliance's multiple requests to ban the killing of seals. Peta 2 continues to provide misinformation on their blog, stating that you have to be level 70 to enter the Howling Fjord. The suggested level to start questing in the Howling Fjord is 68, and anyone, regardless of level, can take a Zeppelin to the zone as long as you have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Leaked artwork of the supposedly upcoming Microsoft Zune portable media player has found its way onto the Internet. The artwork labels the new device as the Zune HD, and shows it to feature a large widescreen display housed in what looks like a bushed aluminum enclosure and glass.

Images obtained by Engadget show what appears to be a marketing campaign for Microsoft's new Zune portable media player (PMP), coming only weeks after rumors that the Redmond company will release a new Zune model later this year.

Can you use netbooks for business? The answer depends on your specific needs, but there's a good chance you can with current hardware. And more powerful, upcoming hardware is even more likely to work. Here's how to figure out if you can save money with netbooks.

Why Do You Need New Systems?
Don't rely on netbooks beyond their light-use design. If you're replacing aging desktop PCs, netbooks will likely run at similar speeds without any perceived upgrade over the old hardware. A smaller case is nice but probably nets a result of wasted money.

This week, PC World Editors Robert Strohmeyer, Denny Arar, Darren Gladstone and Ginny Mies talk about the neatest mobile phones and accessories of the not-so-distant future, as well as the new Nintendo GameBoy DSi.