Apple has finally started filling our their board of directors again, announcing today the addition of Northrop Grumman CEO Ronald D. Sugar.

“Ron is an engineer at heart, who then became a very successful business leader. We are very excited to welcome him to Apple’s Board,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “In addition to having been the CEO of a high-tech Fortune 100 company, Ron has a Ph.D. in engineering and has been involved in the development of some very sophisticated technology.”

“I have always had enormous admiration for the people of Apple,” said Sugar. “It is a special privilege to serve on the board of such an amazing company.”

So, swing-wing hypersonic Mac Pros in the future?

Mosspuppet, the hand puppet parody of Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, is back and this time once again using satire to speak the truth none dare speak out loud -- that freshly resigned Eric Schmidt was a actually a spy sent by Google to steal Apple's childhood sense of wonder restoration engine. Or not.

For more salty-language laced rants, check out Hoggworks Studios YouTube Channel (and like our pal Phil from WMExperts, we hope we do get old Mosspuppet's take on WinPho 7, and other smartphone related topics...)

[via Fake Steve]

Apple PR has just announced that Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and member of the Apple board of directors since August 2006, is resigning that position.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

This comes on the heels of Schmidt announcing he would "talk with Apple people", and on the controversial rejection of Google Voice and Google Latitude applications from the App Store, both now constrained to WebApp status on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Schmidt already recused himself from meetings involving the iPhone, which with 5.2 million sold last quarter and an platform install base in excess of 45 million, was increasingly core to Apple's business, even as Google began to explore the platform space themselves.

No word on who, if anyone, will replace him (though Apple's own chief operating officer, Tim Cook, has widely been rumored as a potential board member for a while now).

When he's not borrowing CrackBerry Kevin's personal handset to snap quick pics and give Android Cassey conniptions, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is responding to reporters about his role as a member of Apple's Board of Directors in light of Google entering the operating system space -- again:

"I'll talk to the Apple people. At the moment, there's no issue,"

Since Google Chrome OS is little more than announce-ware at this point (or, "darn, we should have made webOS instead of Android?), that may be true, but it's hardly a tenable situation going forward. What this will mean to Apple/Google relations is unknown. Though right now the iPhone clearly benefits from Google data pipes, especially in the Maps app, how much do they benefit from Schmidt being on the board?

Our guess? Schmidt was using that BlackBerry camera to zoom on the unlicensed Mercedes -- and glaring Steve Jobs -- that's been shadowing him since Tuesday, and carefully penning his resignation letter...

[via Macrumors]