It only took Tom Foremski from SiliconValleyWatcher to announce that Apple Computers acquired from a British company a multimedia chip, that before you could say "multimedia iPod", rumors about the new generation of white players with wheel controller have invaded the Internet.

What has really happened? Alphamosaic developed the VC02 chip, one of the most advanced multimedia processors which is able to display video images on 3.5 inch LCD displays and take 8 megapixels photos. All these features make it ideal for a mobile equipments.

What is known for sure is that Alphamosaic has been bought by Broadcom, an American company involved in the multimedia chip production. The cost of this acquisition was 124 million dollars and took place in September 2004; the technology will be used by Apple Computers.

From here until assuming the chip will be used by Apple to launch a generation of equipments which knows not only to playback music, but is also capable of video recording and image capturing it was just one step.

It remains to be seen if Apple acquired the chip or not. The future will tell us if the VC02 chip is the heart of the new IPod or other products that will rival with gaming consoles, cell phones or portable video players.

What iPod did for music it is expected it will do for the movie industry. With a service from Sony similar to iTunes, but oriented toward movies and with the launching of Microsoft Video Download Service it looks like downloading movies will be the next successful business.

Apple didn't make any comments about this and until we have a confirmation, welcome to the world of guessing! iPod Movie, iMovies, iPod HD, multimedia iPod, iPod phone, iPod gaming, choose what you like best!