This is the last week of Apple hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing.

Oh wait, I mean the last week of pre-iPhone hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing Д we have a few more post-iPhone months left on the calendar.

I am sick of it. It’s all anyone talks about. It dominates the news. It dominates the podcasts and videocasts and magazines.

Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland.

Exactly what new meditation sequence learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me. He should become a guru and teach it to the likes of Chrysler Corp. executives. Seriously, this whole thing is creepy in some mystical way.

I know at least two guys who are big fans of this unseen phone. It is all they talk about no matter what the topic of conversation. Both have glassy eyes and stare straight ahead.

You talk football and the conversation switches to the iPhone. You talk baseball and the conversation switches to the iPhone. TV, movies, stock market, community theater Д it all switches to the iPhone.

“Yes, what about them Raiders? Many players will buy the iPhone, I bet. Yes. I think so. They will. They will have to, I think.”

I swear (though I have unsuccessfully tried taking pictures to prove it), when you look at these people closely, there is a spinning disk in each pupil that you can barely make out. It’s like a spiral that turns and turns toward infinity. And, I can assure you, a hard slap won’t help.

These pod people are everywhere, and I’m beginning to think some sort of infection may be involved. Mass hysteria may also be a factor.

What’s especially amusing is the pod peoples’ cavalier attitude toward the price of this phone. Yeah, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than buy a $600 pocket phone to show off. I’m guessing that kind of idiotic thinking will wear off after they’ve broken the screen more than once.

The International Herald Tribune had a huge story this week about the iPhone possibly becoming some sort of iconic “it” device. The author goes on and on about how Braun became an “it” factor company with its sleek designs, as I’m reading and thinking to myself, “What is this guy talking about? Braun? Cripes.” I can assure you he has the little spinning disks in his pupils.

The Globe and Mail out of Toronto ran the screwy Associated Press story titled “iPhone Buzz Building into a Frenzy.” «www.foxnews.com» you’ll find these screwball, spinning-disk paragraphs:

“Remember the television ads for the Motorola RAZR?

“The commercials showed off the sexy, thin profile of the clamshell handset and seduced more than 50 million people from 2004 to 2006 to buy it, making it the most popular cell phone ever sold.

“But people want more now. There are plenty of slim, ultrathin options out there, but not many make finding photos, saving phone contacts, picking up voice mail, and selecting ringtones insanely easy.”

Is this an op-ed? What reporter describes the function of anything as “insanely easy”? What does that even mean? “Holy crap! This is so easy that I’m going insane!”

In a hotel room there is a button you push on the phone and you get your voice mail. Is that insanely easy, too? Or not? Can something be easier? Maybe the iPhone injects the voice mail into your brain from a distance without you doing anything.

And “finding photos” is now insanely easy? I have close to 50,000 photos. I guess I can find them, but will the phone somehow help me find the one photo I am looking for? With magic, maybe? To be honest, unless I presort the pics, there will be nothing insanely easy about any of it, ever.

Besides, the phone won’t hold all the photos, and I doubt it will display any RAW pics, either. And anyway, is this a phone or a photo frame?

And what’s this about ringtones? I usually want to set one and be done with it. I will admit that most phones make it an ordeal to find and change ringtones, so maybe making it insanely easy would be useful. I hope the phone switches to vibrate in some insanely easy way, since that function tends to be painful on too many phones.

Anyway, I digress from my point, which is that this week is going to be pathetic. Articles like the “insanely easy” analysis or the “it factor” piece are going to be coming out daily.

Wake me when it’s over. I’ve even told all my writers on «www.dvorak.org» that this topic is dead and verboten until the friggin’ phone actually comes out! Sheesh.

Copyright 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis Media Inc. is prohibited.

Police hunting a paedophile seen sexually abusing young children in newly unscrambled pictures believe they have identified him as a teacher of English who may now be in Thailand.

The suspected child abuser was identified by five different sources from three continents as a man teaching at a school in South Korea, Interpol said.

His name, nationality, date of birth, passport number, and current and previous places of work have also been established, after more than 350 people worldwide contacted Interpol in response to a global appeal.

The international police organisation released a picture of the man, who flew from Seoul to Bangkok international airport on Thursday, where his image was captured by security cameras.

Earlier last week Interpol said the man had appeared in 200 images on the internet sexually abusing young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Some of the boys were as believed to be as young six.

His face had been distorted by swirls. But the images were unscrambled by experts from German’s federal police agency. Pictures were then published on Interpol’s website.

He is said to have distinguishing marks on his body that would prove he is the man in the photographs if he is eventually found.

The manhunt has been codenamed Vico because of the links to Vietnam and Cambodia.

But today the secretary general of Interpol, Ronald Noble, said Thailand was now the focus for the search.

He said: “The response and contribution we have had from the public has been remarkable, as has the support from the media, which has enabled officers in our specialised unit, our office in Bangkok and police in other member countries to make such remarkable progress in such a short space of time.”

Mr Noble called for the public’s continued support to pinpoint the man’s new location.

The coach of a six-year-old boy who ran a marathon in an attempt to set a world record last year, has been charged with torturing the youngster.

Biranchi Das was arrested after the mother of Budhia Singh claimed her son was being severely beaten, and that she had found scars all over his body.

Budhia became an instant celebrity in India when he ran 40 miles at the age of four - a feat that drew widespread condemnation from medical officials and child rights activists.

Despite the criticism, the boy’s mother, Sukanti Singh, continued to support Das’ efforts to train her son for further marathons.

Today, however, Sukanti alleged that her son was being badly mistreated and claimed “Biranchi was beating him up regularly.”

She added: “He even once tied Budhia up from a ceiling fan and threw hot water on his body.”

Yesterday, authorities took Budhia, who had been living with his coach, to hospital for a series of medical examinations.

The boy was also assigned security guards after his mother claimed Das had threatened their lives.

Das has denied the allegations, however, and has called the charges “a conspiracy against me hatched by the state government’s child welfare department.”

In 2006, Budhia attempted to run a 43-mile marathon, sparking protests from child rights activists. But doctors stepped in after he had run 40 miles and found the child to be undernourished, anaemic and under cardiac stress.

In May this year, child welfare officials in India branded the boy’s participation in marathons as “torture.”

A month later, police stopped the youngster from making a 60-mile walk in scorching heat across east India.

Today Sukanti, who was once allegedly close to selling her son to another villager for 800 rupees (7), also complained that Das was not sharing the money he had earned from the boy’s long-distance exploits.

“He has given me very little, but he was earning a lot of money from my son’s hard work,” she said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Budhia’s father died when the boy was seven-months-old. Das, who met the family two years ago, has said in the past that he has raised the boy as his son.