Rob Beschizza of Boing Boing created a montage featuring almost Every Apple Design Ever in 30 Seconds.

Rob also created a complementary montage of Every Next Product Ever in 30 Seconds.

The Elevation iPhone Dock from Oregon-based industrial design firm Elevation Lab is a well-crafted aluminum dock for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and iPod Nano. Casey Hopkins, founder of Elevation Lab, began a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to bring this dock to a larger market. The docks will be machined and assembled in Oregon.

The current Kickstarter fundraiser record is held by MNML for their iPod Nano watches that we covered in the post, TikTok and LunaTik iPad Nano Multi-Touch Watch. There is a chance that the Elevation Dock campaign will break that record (and surpass the $1 million mark) within the next (and final) days.

via PandoDaily

Two brothers, Andrew and Nathan McMurry of andrewmfilms, have created Psycho Siri, a short horror film about an iPhone gone bad. The film makes Siri, the voice of the iPhone’s virtual assistant, the villain in this action-packed short filled with special effects.

An abandoned iPhone turns out to be a killer of a deal.

iVictrola Gramophone by Schreer Design is a 3D printed analog amplifier for iPhone that is inspired by the early 20th century Victrola wind-up phonograph. iVictrola Gramophone is produced by Shapeways, a rapid manufacturing platform.

via Anthony Volodkin

Apple has unveiled three new tools to compete in the digital educational realm through their Apple in Education program: iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U. The iBooks 2 app for the iPad will host digital textbooks, ones that are “an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive”. By using the iBooks Author app, Multi-Touch e-books can be created for the iPad by anyone with a Mac. Also unveiled today is an all-new iTunes U app that gives “educators and students everything they need on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to teach and take entire courses”. iTunes U will give access to the “world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford”. Beginning today, this content is provided free to K-12 schools to teach full courses through the app. All three apps are available to download for free from Apple.

images via Apple

The Zen Of Steve Jobs is an 80-page graphic novel authored by Caleb Melby that tells the reimagined story of Jobs’ relationship with Zen Buddhist priest Kobun Chino Otogawa. Produced by Forbes and JESS3, The Zen of Steve Jobs is a fully-illustrated book that was inspired by “a documentary in 2009 that touched on Jobs’ study of Buddhism and how its teachings affected the aesthetic of Apple products” viewed by JESS3′s CEO and founder Jesse Thomas.

A behind-the-scenes short of the making of The Zen of Steve Jobs:

An illustrated depiction of Steve Jobs’ friendship with Zen Buddhist Kobun Chino Otogawa and the impact it had on Jobs’ career.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs (1955-2011) had such an enormous impact on so many people that his life often took on aspects of myth. But much of his success was due to collaboration with designers, engineers and thinkers. The Zen of Steve Jobs tells the story of Jobs’ relationship with one such person: Kobun Chino Otogawa.

Kobun was a Zen Buddhist priest who emigrated to the U.S. from Japan in the early 1970s. He was an innovator, lacked appreciation for rules and was passionate about art and design. Kobun was to Buddhism as Jobs was to the computer business: a renegade and maverick. It wasn’t long before the two became friends–a relationship that was not built to last.

This graphic book is a reimagining of that friendship. The story moves back and forward in time, from the 1970s to 2011, but centers on the period after Jobs’ exile from Apple in 1985 when he took up intensive study with Kobun. Their time together was integral to the big leaps that Apple took later on with its product design and business strategy.

Told using stripped down dialogue and bold calligraphic panels, The Zen of Steve Jobs explores how Jobs might have honed his design aesthetic via Eastern religion before choosing to identify only what he needs and leave the rest behind.

images via JESS3

This highly detailed Steve Jobs action figure is by toy company in icons. It features interchangeable hands so that Steve can hold a 1/6th scale iPhone (not included) or clasp his chin thoughtfully. The action figure is not authorized by the Jobs camp so it is unlikely to survive the imminent legal barrage (and the site is currently down due, presumably, to overwhelming traffic). The figure is scheduled for release in February.

via The Next Web

Santa Claus embraces technology in a new Apple ad, using Siri to help out on Christmas Eve.

Designer Aaron Wood has come up with more wonderful tech company war propaganda posters. They’re available as prints on his Etsy store. Back in July we wrote about the first posters in the series, which had a social media focus.

Google has released the new Google Currents, a new mobile app for Android and Apple phones and tables that is optimized for magazines and online content.

Google Currents is a new application for Android devices, iPads and iPhones that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger. It brings together this content in a beautiful and simple way so you can easily navigate between words, pictures and video on your smartphone or tablet.

Laughing Squid is one of the inaugural publications on Google Currents. You can find us in the Entertainment section.

The MirrorBook Air is a compact mirror designed to look like a tiny Apple MacBook Air laptop.

Here is a little gadget that will appeal to fans of Cupertino. The MirrorBook Air is a small pocket mirror design which incorporates the famous MacBook Air from Apple. Practical, beautiful and incredibly fun!

via The Next Web

Megaphone is an unpowered amplifier for iPhone in the form of a giant ceramic horn (video demo). The amplifier is by Italian design firm en & is and can be purchased for $540 to $800.

via etre & curiosity counts

AirCassette is a simple music playing app for iPhone that is designed to look like a retro cassette tape (video). The app is by Finnish mobile developer Majasalmi.

AirCassette is a cassette player application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Choose your favourite cassette from a variety of nostalgic cassette models. The playing song information is written on the cassette label and you can also share your cassette view with friends on Facebook or via email.

AirCassette is also a music player with an intuitive user interface. Play queue, sharing, AirPlay and the possibility to create your own mixtapes guarantee an outstanding music experience.

Steve Silberman of NeuroTribes has posted a fascinating article about graphic designer Susan Kare, the icon and font designer for the original 1984 Apple Macintosh graphical user interface. The article includes Kare’s original hand drawn icon concept sketches for the smiling Mac, hand pointer, and other still recognizable icons.

Kare has published a book, Susan Kare: Icons, that features icons from her Apple days to the present.

via Techmeme

Samsung’s new “Next Big Thing” commercial for their Galaxy S II Android phone makes fun of Apple fanboys, along with throwing in a nice jab at pretentious baristas.

via Business Insider

Siri Argument by CollegeHumor

The Insanely Great History of Apple by Pop Chart Labs featuring every computer released by Apple.

The world’s most comprehensive mapping of Apple products, this print shows every computer released by Apple in the last thirty years, from the original Mac through the MacBook Air. Products are sorted according to type, including the connections between various form factors which have arisen as Apple has invented–and reinvented–insanely great products.

Goodnight iPad is a new book by children’s author David Milgrim under the pseudonym “Ann Droyd“. It’s a parody of the classic bedtime children’s book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown with art by Clement Hurd which was first published in 1947. Milgrim’s updated story shows a very different homelife 50 years later, with mobile devices, social networks, and non-stop streaming media. Even the cat has headphones on.

In the original the bunny-child says good night to all the things in and around his house, while effectively postponing going to sleep (for a little bit). But in the modern home everything talks back. And ultimately (spoiler!) the only way the whole family can get to sleep is by dumping the noisy technology out the window. Not sure that works on a nightly basis. The book is cute, it’s kind of a children’s book that’s more for grownups, but still rated G (as opposed to Go The F**k to Sleep).

Other parodies of Goodnight Moon include Goodnight Keith Moon, set on the night the drummer for The Who OD’d:

And Goodnight Dune, which features a night in the world of Frank Herbert’s novel Dune:

Siri has a hard time understanding Furbish.

via Say OMG

YouTube user onemeeeliondollars used two iPad2s to create the illusion of a see-through hole in his chest.

A description of a relatively simple Halloween costume using 2 iPad2s to make it look like you have a huge hole in your torso. You’ll also need a MiFi hotspot (if you don’t have a WiFi network available where you want to use the costume). Basically you start a FaceTime chat between the iPads and then tape one to your front and one to your back. Add a little red paint and you’re good to go. It’s supposed to look like you have a gaping hole in your torso.

via Gizmodo

Nick Douglas of Slacktory takes a look a how Siri reacts to philosophical questions when you get her high.

Beeri by Redpepper is an automated beer pouring system that is activated by a command to Siri, the voice assistant app in the iPhone 4S. Siri sends a text to the Beeri Twitter account which triggers a remote controlled truck to open (burst) a beer can, pouring beer into a glass (see a video of Beeri in action).

Our friends at Photojojo have just release a set of CF and SD card readers specifically created to work with an iPad making it really easy to transfer photos from a camera to an iPad.

These handy accessories are ultra-portable, make for fast uploads between your DSLR and iPad, and are super convenient for reviewing shots on a set, a photo shoot or during your delightfully nomadic traveling adventures.

Iris 9000 by ThinkGeek is a retro futuristic speakerphone dock for the iPhone 4S and its Siri voice assistant inspired by the power hungry AI computer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It allows an iPhone 4S owner to speak to Siri from up to 50 feet away. Iris 9000 will be available in April, 2012.

via Gizmodo

Steve Jobs, his official biography written by Walter Isaacson, is now available for download via iTunes and Kindle.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Walter Isaacson was recently interviewed on 60 Minutes about his Steve Jobs biography and here’s the New York Times book review of Steve Jobs written by Janet Maslin.