John Brownlee on why there’ll probably never be an ARM Mac on store shelves , despite Apple’s porting of OS X to the platform. [Cult of Mac]

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No ARM Mac for you

I’m in this picture, but even I don’t recognize me. It’s because we’re all dressed up in bunny suits: light cloth or paper coveralls and booties and hoods and face masks you wear in a clean room where microchips or sensitive equipment is manufactured. If you don’t wear a bunny suit every day, you feel (and look) silly. Over the last 25 years or so, I’ve donned many a bunny suit during visits to numerous factories in Japan and South Korea and witnessed a sea of young, bunny-suited or uniformed factory workers toiling in stultifyingly sterile factories repetitively assembling cellphones, PCs, TVs, VCRs, DVD players, washing machines, microwave ovens, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc. It’s how our gadgets are made, like it or not. So the recent “expos?s” about working conditions in Chinese factories making iPads, iPhones and iPods perhaps shock but don’t surprise me, and they shouldn’t surprise you.

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Apple and China: What did we know and when did we know it?

Apple made a slew of announcements today as it revamped its iBooks presence on the iPad to make it more friendly to educators. There’s iBooks 2, which adds textbooks from big names; iBooks Author lets anyone create periodicals for iDevices; and iTunes U, a learning center full of free video and more. Pretty exciting stuff, but not the most exciting announcement of the bunch.

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Apple’s big iBooks 2 win isn’t in the tech it’s the price

At CES, we spotted Liquipel’s nano technology that completely coats iPhones with a waterproof layer. Looks like HzO , a competitor that does the exact same thing managed to pique Apple’s interest at the show.

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Next gen iPhones and iPads to be waterproof with HzO nano tech?

Somewhere buried in a closet or garage you have a pair of beloved old speakers you couldn’t bear to part with. Why not use them to construct your own AirPlay iPhone/iPad speaker dock?

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Make any old pair of speakers go wireless with Griffin’s ‘Twenty’

There’s a reason that we’re all still carrying physical keys around with us: they’re simple, they’re reliable, and while you might forget the key itself somewhere, you don’t need to remember anything else besides how to put the key in a lock. A recently-spotted patent from Apple suggests that it’s trying to make laptop chargers work the exact same way.

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Apple patent gives your charger the keys to your laptop

The folks at G-Form wanted to demonstrate how well their Extreme Edge sleeve protects the iPad, so they hooked one up to a weather balloon, and sent it up 100,000 feet to the edge of space. Then the the balloon was popped, and the whole shebang came tumbling back to Earth.

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Watch an iPad (and GoPro) survive a fall to Earth from space

Ugh, of course they release it right AFTER Christmas. This is a $100 Steve Jobs action figure. The company that’s making it is billing it as ” ultra-realistic ” but I can almost guarantee Steve’s wrists DID NOT look like that in real life. That said, I’d still play with one. “Help, help, my hand just swallowed a pool ball!” Dammit Steve, stop being so dramatic, you’ll be fiiiiiine. Say, what do you think of the dollhouse I made you? “Honestly GW? I really like it.” Ha — I bet I know why. *in unison* “Because there’s no Windows!” LOLOL. Oh Steve, you’re my only friend. Hit the jump for a ton more pictures.

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Finally, A Realistic Steve Jobs Action Figure

I’m not a Mac person. I don’t like the culture, I don’t like the cost, and I definitely don’t like having Apple tell me what I can and can’t do. But if Apple manages to create a MacBook powered by a fuel cell (and new patents suggest they’re working on it), then that’s it. Game over. I’ll be buying a MacBook.

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Integrated fuel cells might just convince me to buy a MacBook

On December 20, 1996, Apple announced the $429 million purchase of NeXT , bringing Steve Jobs back and starting the process toward the new and improved Mac OS. What would Apple have looked like today without this merger?

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Image of the Day: December 20, 1996, Apple acquires NeXT