The Droid invasion landed on Friday and so far the iPhone comparisons haven't stopped. Customers showed up for midnight launches to be first to get the new Android 2.0 device, and Verizon stores haven't had any issue burning through their inventory of the new phone. There is at least one other iPhone comparison that bears noticing, though--battery life.

If you actually put the many functions of the Droid to use, your battery mileage will vary. The phone has to be powered up to be of any use beyond a glorified paper weight, so poor battery life could be an Achilles heel for the Droid invasion like the bacteria that took down the alien invasion force in War of the Worlds.

The Apple rumor mill claims that work is underway to develop a 'world-mode' iPhone capable of operating on both CDMA and GSM/UMTS networks. World mode. Rumors also persist that Verizon will begin to carry the iPhone in 2010. All of these rumors suggest that the AT&T honeymoon with the iPhone is nearing an end.

These are just rumors at this point, but when a rumor is both pervasive and tenacious there is usually a reason. That gives AT&T some reason to be concerned. Without iPhone exclusivity, what does AT&T bring to the table that would entice customers to switch to, or stick with the wireless provider?

Businesses planning a move to Windows 7 need a more rigorous planning and assessment tool than the consumer-grade Upgrade Advisor. The early success of the operating system notwithstanding, you need to do some due diligence up front to determine if the existing hardware and software you rely on will work with the new operating system. If you only have a handful of systems to assess the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor should do the trick. For larger deployments, the more appropriate tool is the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0--or MAP.

MAP is a Solution Accelerator from Microsoft that allows you to inventory and analyze the systems in your organization without requiring any sort of agent software to be installed on the endpoints. MAP leverages existing Microsoft technologies such as Active Directory Domain Services, the Remote Registry Service, and the Computer Browser Service to gather information and produce informative reports to help guide your IT planning.

Playing something like Scrabble or Bookworm Adventures? Stuck for what you can make from the random letters given to you? If you're playing at home, alone, no one will know if you cheat... just a little... and JeuDeMots from Neogie is the free tool that will help you do it.

It appears that audacious online retailer BlueBeat won't be selling Beatles tunes anytime soon. The little-known website had been hawking Fab Four tracks for 25 cents apiece until a federal court in Los Angeles slapped the site with a temporary restraining order this week.

A new report from OTR Global says Apple plans to release a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone in the third quarter of 2010. If true, the new iPhone will play nice with Verizon's network and spell an end to AT&T's exclusivity contract in the U.S. -- which is already slated to end sometime next year.

There is no piece of technological wizardry that I want so much as a Droid. Yet, I have decided to hold onto my iPhone. Why? Because the iPhone is the PC of smartphones.

I mean that in the good sense of what a PC represents, namely compatibility. Yes, Google's Android operating system may someday--probably will--become the standard for comparison among smartphones.

Simple photo effects program Akvis ArtSuite ($69, 10-day free trial) offers a generally attractive selection of frames and effects that can be used to decorate your pictures.

WarMouse, in collaboration with the OpenOffice.org community, revealed on Friday a new open-source mouse developed specifically for users of the OpenOffice suite.

The corded pointing device, memorably dubbed the OpenOfficeMouse, features an unconventional amount of buttons, and will undoubtedly be more than welcome in the lineup of the world's weirdest mice. The OpenOfficeMouse packs in a massive 18 programmable buttons, all of which can be double-clicked, in addition to a scrollwheel, 512KB of built-in flash memory, and support for over 60 separate configurations. With that many buttons, let's just hope the OpenOfficeMouse's target users are incredibly dexterous.

This week on the PC World Podcast, Hassle-Free PC blogger Rick Broida joins PC World editors Robert Strohmeyer, Tim Moynihan, and Mark Sullivan for a half-hour discussion of the week's biggest tech stories.

Download the podcast here.

It's an age-old question: When you're done using your laptop, or just taking a break from work, should you put it to sleep, let it hibernate, or turn it all the way off?

Allow me to answer by way of a mnemonic: hibernate is great. You see, sleep mode (a.k.a. standby) puts your system into an off-like state, allowing you to pick up where you left off after just a few seconds (unlike rebooting, which can take minutes). But a PC in standby mode continues to consume battery power, so it's not uncommon to return to a "sleeping" PC to find that it's just plain dead.

It's becoming increasingly easier to make your PC setup more eco-friendly, thanks to a wide range of both software and hardware solutions available to help you go green.

The green-computing movement, which begin with the Energy Star program back in 1992, strives to ensure that the computer industry adopts various environmentally sustainable practices, such as creating more environmentally sound products and ensuring that those products' manufacturing processes, overall design, everyday use and eventual disposal have as small an environmental impact as possible.