In the continuing story of the lost iPhone prototype purchased by Gizmodo, Wired has tracked down the person who found the prototype, a 21-year-old who "regrets his mistake," according to a statement from his lawyer.

Nancy Gohring of IDG News Service writes that HP plans to buy Palm for $1.2 billion, potentially rescuing Palm's webOS from obscurity. The Palm Pre and Pixi smartphones, which run webOS, haven't competed well with the iPhone or smartphones based on Google's Android operating system, and Palm has been looking for a buyer. HP hopes to use Palm's technology to power both smartphones and a new generation of tablet-sized devices. Despite its size, HP hasn't been a significant player in either market, and however good webOS may be, it wasn't enough to slow the adoption of iPhone OS- and Android-based devices.

The New York Times is reporting on Apple's recent acquisition of Siri, a startup company specializing in mobile search. The company's iPhone app Siri Assistant enables users to perform searches and tasks like making restaurant reservations, buying movie tickets, and securing cabs with voice-based commands. While it's unclear exactly what Apple plans to do with the technology, the most obvious application would be to provide a native search alternative to Google on the iPhone. The buying of Siri also fits a bigger picture of Apple buying smaller companies to get a leg up in the mobile industry; other recent purchases include the chip maker Intrinsity and the mobile ad company Quattro Wireless.

Apple has announced that the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held 7 June 2010 through 11 June 2010 in San Francisco. Despite the short notice and $1,599 price tag, Apple appears confident that the likely debut of iPhone OS 4 and a new iPhone will ensure strong attendance. Apple's emphasis on iPhone OS development - the Apple Design Awards are open only to apps currently sold in the App Store, for example - is causing some grumpiness among Mac-only developers.

The end of an era is approaching. In March 2011, Sony will discontinue sales of 3.5-inch floppy disks in Japan; apart from a few niche markets, worldwide sales of floppy disks were halted in March 2010. It's not really surprising, and one friend noted in Twitter that it was more interesting to realize that Sony has still been making floppies all this time (other manufacturers have already left the market). The last Mac to support a floppy drive - the PowerBook (FireWire) via a media bay - debuted in February 2000 and was discontinued in January 2001.

Could the story of the iPhone prototype get weirder? Police have obtained a warrant to search a Gizmodo editor's home, and the legal speculation is running rampant as to whether Gizmodo is protected by reporter shield laws, or if California's laws regarding lost property will instead take precedence. Declan McCullagh and Greg Sandoval cover recent events for CNET.

Apple's famous secrecy has resulted in a salacious story of a prototype iPhone being lost, found, purchased by a blog, connected with a specific engineer, and (presumably) returned to Apple. There's no real news involved - the confirmed features were commonly expected and it's unknown whether the next iPhone will use this prototype's industrial design. Either way, it's not actionable information until Apple actually releases the next iPhone, probably in June or July. If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, Andy Ihnatko's Chicago Sun-Times column has the best summary we've seen.

We lost track of this news when it happened two weeks ago, but it's worth getting in the record. For the third year in a row, Apple has topped Fortune's list of the world's most admired companies. Although Google came in second (passing Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway), Apple's margin of victory was the greatest ever. Amazon.com placed fifth and Microsoft was eleventh.

The New York Times has a lengthy article laying out the history of the relationship between Apple and Google, which started close but has now developed schisms due to the huge differences in corporate approaches and increasingly competitive products. Apple prefers proprietary systems and tight control over high margin products, whereas Google's goal is to increase Web usage (and thus ad revenue) via free services and open source software. It's the iPhone OS versus Android, Mac OS X versus Chrome OS, Safari versus Chrome, and Apple's Quattro acquisition versus Google's AdMob buy. All that, and the competition between the companies is just starting to heat up.