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Early Apple Employees Auction Killer Collectibles

If there’s a good thing about the recession, it seems to be bringing some fine Apple memorabilia out of storerooms and closets.
Cliff and Dick Huston — ex-Apple engineers, for the record employees 27 and 25 — have decided to part with a treasure trove of Cupertino collectibles by auctioning them on eBay.

What’s on the block:

Apple [...]

Video: There’s Sexy Technology, Then There’s This…

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You’re all going crazy with your iPad ordering. Meanwhile, over on Vimeo, BrewBeau has some craziness of his own going on.
BrewBeau writes: “I’m a recent PC convert who waited patiently while Apple worked out the kinks with their latest iMac release of the 27″ Intel powered 2.8GHz quad core i7 iMac. It’s a thing of [...]

Bottom-Feeding Jeweler Unveils Despicable Diamond iPad for $20,000

We all know the wait for the iPad, at least in the U.S., will be over on April 3, right? Wrong. True connoisseurs know they need to wait until June 1, when Mervis Diamond Importers will unleash the hideous and despicable Diamond iPad on the world. It’s a bejeweled and bedazzled monstrosity boasting 11.43 carats [...]

iPhone App Magnets To Appify Your Fridge

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If – like me – your fridge is black, then these shiny iPhone app fridge magnets from Jailbreak Collective will look very smart indeed displayed on the door.
Just 13 bucks gets you a set of these icon almost-replicas. I say almost because if you look carefully, you’ll see they’re not identical to the Apple originals. [...]

CES: The Apple-Shaped TV That Apple Might Have Made (In 1999)


LAS VEGAS — The biggest electronics show in America —  the Consumer Electronics Show (or CES for short) — opens later this week in Las Vegas, but several companies paid big bucks to preview their new wares to the hundreds of journalists at a special preview event on Tuesday evening.

And there, in the middle of the room, was this bright-red Apple TV. Yeah, a high-def, flat-panel TV shaped like an Apple. The question is, what idiot would buy a TV shaped like an Apple?

“It’s unique, it’s fun, it’s apples,” said the flak unhelpfully.

Made by an unknown-to-me Chinese company, Hannspree, perhaps someone thought it might be mistaken for a real Apple TV, made by, you know, Apple? It has a remarkably Apple-like logo on the front (see the pic after the jump). And it does remind you of the old toilet-seat iBooks of old; the transluscent plastic ones with the carrying handle.

But the company was also displaying TVs covered in fur that looked like Polar and Panda bears, so who knows?

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About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is the editor of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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6 comments

    Wait for it……..wait for it, Law SUIT!!!!

    Odd that these are being “launched” now — they’ve been around in Europe for years, if not since 1999, probably 2003…

    What? ~ these people pay good money to go to Las Vegas… and HUMILIATE themselves?!

    A TV by [the REAL] Apple? This THING wouldn’t even be a scribble in Jony Ive’s sketchbook

    You write about tech products and you’ve never heard of Hannspree?

    I agree with the first comment. I see a lawsuit coming to them. The Apple Logo is too similar to Apple’s, and as the article pointed out, its as if this tv has been designed based on the old iBook’s.

    This company has a flagship store near Union Square in San Francisco. I visited a couple of years ago, and they had all kinds of crazy designs, including this Batman one:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/2591981671/in/set-72157605689902892/

    And this one shaped like a teddy bear:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/2592820620/in/set-72157605689902892/

    Etc. In general, “TVs for kids playrooms” seemed to be the market they were trying to corner, though I’m not sure how well it is working — it seemed like we were the only ones in the store, and I almost wondered if they were going out of business.

    But if they’re still around, there must be at least some people buying them…

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