Time to resurrect another suddenly relevant item we first mentioned back in 2009…
Between 1968 and 1972, Stewart Brand published The Whole Earth Catalog. For Kevin Kelly, the Catalog was essentially “a paper-based database offering thousands of hacks, tips, tools, suggestions, and possibilities for optimizing your life.

We originally posted this video back in 2009, and it seems like the right time to bring it back. It captures the first of many times that Steve Jobs thrilled audiences with the promise of what technology could deliver. The video takes you back to January 1984, when Jobs demoed the first Macintosh.

No more top hat and handkerchief. Marco Tempest uses iPods and iPhones to create magic for the 21st century. He calls himself a techno-illusionist. “I explore the borders between technology and magic,” says Tempest, “between what’s incredibly real and incredibly not.

Every so often, we like to bring back a favorite talk of ours, and today seemed like a better day than most. Speaking at Stanford’s commencement in 2005, Steve Jobs gives the graduates a glimpse of his life philosophy. Some pearls of wisdom here for the young, to be sure.

Looking to design apps for the iPhone or iPad? Stanford University now has a course online that will help you do just that.
Simply called Developing Apps for iOS, the course features 20 video lectures (the last installment was uploaded just this week) and, somewhat fittingly, they’re all available on Apple’s iTunesU.

Perhaps you’re accustomed to downloading free lectures and courses on iTunes U. Now, you have a new option. Last week, Apple began introducing free eBooks to its media collection.

Writing in The Guardian, Victor Keegan, a longtime journalist and poet, talks about his new iPhone app, City Poems. The newly released app will run you $2.99 on iTunes, which makes it less than open, I know.

Yesterday morning, I headed to the Palo Alto Apple Store, spent an hour waiting in line, then finally gained entrance to the store. And who entered alongside me? Steve Jobs! An auspicious beginning. I left with a 32 gig iPad, took it home, and started playing particularly with the eBook reader.

Since 2007, Apple has offered universities around the world a way to distribute educational media via iTunes U.

In short, it’s hardly open …