Stolen passwords, credit card information and personal e-mails were in abundance at a botnet hacked by University of California Santa Barbara researchers earlier this year. The Torpig botnet, like many others, quietly infects Windows computers and harvests personal and financial information. In a project intended to assess the damage, the researchers took over the botnet for just one hour, and in that time they found 300,000 login credentials, 56,000 passwords, 8,310 financial account credentials and hundreds of personal communications. In a ten-day period, the Torpig controllers may have stolen $83,000 to $8.3 million with the help of infected computers. Scarier still, the researchers said breached financial institutions require a “monumental effort” to notify botnet victims. The upswing? If you’re a somewhat tech-savvy computer user with virus scan software and complex passwords (i.e., not the name of your dog), you’re probably fine. [Study (PDF) via Ars Technica]

Have you ever been in a restaurant and thought the kids menu looked more appetizing than the adult offerings? That’s how I feel about the PeeWee, which looks pretty great despite its kid-centric design and features. The PC has a ten-inch touch screen and a swiveling display, but also includes parental lock software and a bundle of other age-targeted childrens’ programs and games. All it really need was a copy of Crayon Physics Deluxe and all ages would be satisfied. Other features include a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive, a 1.3-megapixel camera and Windows XP Home. It also has a carry handle and spill-resistant shell, which, let’s face it, we could all use. The PeeWee’s available now exclusively on its Web site, for $599.99. [via Engadget]

Good news for people who love Steve Jobs: Apple’s head honcho may be ill and out of the public spotlight, but his influence is still felt at the company as he works from home. While COO Tim Cook handles the day-to-day, Jobs weilds a heavy hand on product development, including the newest OS for the iPhone. Talking to unnamed insiders, the Wall Street Journal says this work includes development of a “portable device that is smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch.” A new Apple rumor this is not, but you’ve got to figure every report takes us a little closer to something like the image above. And if it’s true, you can rest assured Jobs is on the case. [Wall Street Journal via CrunchGear]

Call me a curmudgeon, but when a technology blog makes its own tech products, isn’t that a conflict of interest for covering competitors? Either way, TechCrunch is getting a feel for its subjects’ woes now that photos of the prototype TechCrunch Tablet are in the wild. Gizmodo spotted a photo from founder Michael Arrington’s posterous account, and CrunchGear in turn released a set of new photos. This is still a prototype, with a 12-inch capacitive touch screen and Intel Atom processor. Earlier reports on the prototype pegged it with 1 GB of RAM and a 4 GB flash drive running Ubuntu, but no word on whether those specs remain accurate. More details are coming next week. In CrunchGear’s comments section, Arrington said “it certainly isn’t pat ourselves on the back time.” [via CrunchGear]

That’s it, slim and sexy all-in-ones, stroke my tech prediction ego. The latest pair to be strutted about comes from Acer. First, we’ve got the eMachines EZ1600 (pictured), in silver or black, with an 18.5-inch screen with up to 720p resolution, an Intel Atom N270 processor with 945GSE chipset, 2 slots of SO DIMM memory, up to 160 GB in hard drive space, DVD-RW, Wi-Fi and a card reader. The Acer Aspire Z5600 is more impressive, with a 24-inch multitouch screen and 1080p resolution. Other specs include 2 TB HDD, a DVD/Blu-ray writer combo drive, a TV tuner and a webcam. Will they stay inexpensive like most of Acer’s other goods? We’ll have to wait for that elusive pricing and availability announcement to find out. [via Engadget]

Let’s see, a full-featured version of Ableton Live inside a 20-pound aluminum casing with a touch screen and a plethora of buttons and knobs? No, I’m not surprised by the $4,000 price tag. Still, you’ve got to admire Open Labs’ work here. The DBeat features a 12-inch touch screen and integrated trackball, plus drum pads, a DJ crossfader and an iPod-compatible cradle. On the software side, there’s Open Labs’ GURU beat maker and a proprietary virtual instrument host called Riff. Combine that with Ableton’s 14 GB of pre-loaded sounds and you’ve got a palette of 10,000 sounds to work with. USB turntables can be connected directly, and the DBeat is compatible with other software such as Reason and Traktor. About that price tag: Pre-order now and Open Labs will knock $500 off the sticker price. How does that sound? [via DBeat]

So we like to dream. You can’t blame us for indulging, so now we’re doing it again. Russian magazine “mobi” somehow got the scoop on Apple’s alleged netbook, with photos to boot. We’ve even got a bunch of specs to go along with it. The so-called Macbook Mini will include an LED-powered 10.4-inch screen in 1280×768 resolution, running on a 1.83GHz processor with 1MB L2 cache. There’s 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, Nvidia Graphics 9400M, a 64 GB solid state drive, a USB mini-display port, a built-in webcam and wireless a/b/g/n as well. Plus, it looks thin as a pencil. Sounds pretty good, right? One might even say it’s “ideal.” [9to5Mac via Gizmodo]

Could this be the world’s most expensive pc?  Sure, the “701 Jewelry” from Moneual is the world’s most expensive “jewelry computer,” but how well can it run Crysis? The Intel Core 2 Due processor and ATI Radeon HD 4000 GPU can probably handle the task, but good luck seeing anything on that 7-inch screen. Chances are you’ll be distracted anyway by the 3,554 Swarovski Signature crystals that stud the buttons, border and screen frame. The gold plating and cylindrical shape lend to its other-worldliness, which begs the question: Where would you put it? At 77 pounds, it’s probably best to make that decision early on, if you can afford it. The 701 Jewelry is expected to cost around $30,000. No word on a matching crystal-studded keyboard and mouse. [via Aving USA]

From “an industry source,” Engadget got their hands on some convincing photos and specs of Dell’s Intel Nehalem-based Precision workstations. While they’re not as sexy as the new Adamo line of laptops, they do have a beastly amount of RAM. The T3500, starting at $999, hosts up to 24 GB of DDR3 EEC memory and the T5500, starting at $1,620, sports up to 72 GB of memory and Intel Xeon. The flagship T7500 can be equipped with 192 GB of DDR3 EEC memory, plus it has dual native Gen 2 PCIe graphics slots and support for NVIDIA SLI technology. All three models, in addition to having Terminator-like naming schemes, can store up to 1.5 GB in a SATA hard drive. Other features include E-SATA support, dual and quad monitor support and DisplayPort connectors — all in an Energy Star 5.0-compliant package. Availability? Unknown. [via Engadget]