I went down to the local Apple store this evening with my son Lyle. The store is usually packed, and paying for something isn’t always easy.

That’s what Apple has developed EasyPay, a new system for scanning and paying for goods yourself using your own iPhone. You just scan the barcode and hit “Pay.” It’s so easy, Apple staffers joke it should be called “EasyTheft.” But it’s a pretty radical new way to go shopping.

Here’s a short video of us buying some goods, showing how quick and easy it is to use:

Back in 1978, an upstart company called Apple Computer moved into its new headquarters at 10260 Bandley Drive in Cupertino, California — a building soon to be known as “Bandley 1.” One of Apple’s first employees, Chris Espinosa, sketched out a floor plan of the Bandley 1 offices and labs in the new building at the time.

A copy of this historic Apple document recently showed up on Espinosa’s website.

A few years ago, everything was peaceful in the Valley of Silicon. The relationship between Apple and Google was cozy and friendly. The two rising and dominant superpowers pursued compatible, non-overlapping businesses, for the most part, and helped each other fight mutual competitors like Microsoft, Amazon and others. Google’s founders worshiped Steve Jobs. Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board.

But then Google recklessly chose to attack Apple head-on with Android.

The future of Apple’s most profitable businesses will run iOS, including iPods, iPhones, iPads and probably laptop and desktop systems of the future — not to mention TV. Google’s decision to compete head-on with Apple for multi-touch platforms ended the alliance.

Steve Jobs took it personally, and told biographer Walter Isaacson that he was “willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

But what did he mean by that?

Spotted by 9to5Mac, artist Guilherme M. Schasiepen has posted a gallery of concept iTV images. The images depict a multi-touch TV set with 3D that doesn’t require glasses.

Color us skeptical, but the idea of a touch-screen television seems absolutely unrealistic. This concept is still pretty gorgeous, however.

Bloomberg and DirectTV have both announced live video streaming services today that offer on-demand video content for iPad users.

Bloomberg TV+ offers free, live 24-hour coverage from its network on the iPad and the ability to download content for watching offline. DirectTV’s iPad app offers free, live TV for its customers.

We thought we’d put this Apple television business to rest as a pipe-dream, but then Steve Jobs’s biography came out, where he claimed he had finally “cracked” the TV problem. Now the rumor mill has started itself up again with renewed vigor, and the latest report from Nick Bilton over at The New York Times: his sources tell him that Jobs thought that the “industry was totally broken” a real Apple-branded television set “isn’t a matter of if, but when,” a “guaranteed product.”

Gene Munster must be having an orgasm right now: in an interview for his upcoming bio with Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs said he had finally ‘cracked’ the ‘integrated’ TV problem.

Don’t read too much into this, though. Jobs may not be talking about the iTV, and just the plain AppleTV.

Apple has today opened up iPhone 4S pre-orders through its online store for an additional 22 countries, where the Cupertino company will launch the device a week today, on Friday, October 28.

CBS Helicopter and Cnet captured some incredible aerial footage of Cupertino HQ’s memorial to Steve Jobs, where both Norah Jones and Coldplay performed for an audience of tens of thousands of employees around the world. Look at the size of the family that Steve built.

Here’s a new exercise workout tip courtesy of Motorola: next time you’re considering buying that 8,000 calorie heart attack on a bun, instead layout your cash on an iPod Nano clone that costs $100 more than the real thing. You’ll surely work up a sweat kicking yourself for buying that new MotoACTV watch.