So you like the idea of living in the romantic past, but only to the extent that it doesn’t inconvenience you, huh? You’re the kind of person who wants the personal pleasure of sending letters, without the trouble of having to write and send them? If that’s the case, you probably also want a typewriter that’s also an iPad because, lets face it, you’re a hipster. All that aside, an iPad typewriter —  the Typescreen – really does exist and it lets you gleefully drink in a pre-”word processor” nostalgia. All that while reaping the benefits of the modern world. Come to think of it, that sounds pretty awesome. Sign me up.

According to Global Equities Research, Apple’s outing into the textbook market with iBooks 2 seems to be off to a good start with some 350,000 textbook downloads in a mere three days. Add to that about 90,000 downloads of Apple’s free textbook creation tool Author, the amazingly low cost for producers and consumers of digital textbooks, and it would seem that education is finally ready to jump the digital divide. Or is it?

Are you speechless, or just surprised no one thought of this earlier? Behold: The Fleshlight Holding iPad Case for all your, you know, needs. Let’s not qualify that with an adjective; it speaks for itself. Now, it’s worth noting two things here. This is neither a real thing — it’s a concept mockup — nor is it officially endorsed by Fleshlight in any way, shape, or form. Last thing we need is letters from Fleshlight to start showing up at the Geekosystem office. But yeah. This is a thing someone thought of. Welcome to the future, everyone.

As part of an education event in New York City today, Apple announced iBooks 2 for the iPad which will attempt to use tablet technology to make textbooks better and more interesting. Naturally, iBooks isn’t going to be dealing with straight electronic representations of traditional several-pound, text-and-image textbooks. No, iBooks is all about the bells and whistles. Bells and whistles like 3D images, video, and multitouch gestures. No word on whether any of this actually makes reading for class fun.

There seems to be no end of possibilities for Apple’s iPad tablet: You can explore stonehenge, Orangutans can play with it, cats can slice fruit with it, and you can fake a grievous bodily injury with it. Now, you’ll apparently be able to help run a government with one, too. At least, that’s the plan for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is having a specially made “government dashboard” app developed especially for him.

In an Internet singularity most welcome, videos of adorable animals playing video games are rising to the forefront. This time, we have a cute kitty playing Fruit Ninja on an iPad. The cat is pretty good, but doesn’t get nearly as mad as this bullfrog, or as suspicious as this bearded dragon when playing video games.

It seems like just about everyone else is getting better and better options for in-flight entertainment while we here in the US struggle to simply get a seat that won’t crush our bodies. First there was the possibility of bringing porno and gambling to airline customers, and now Gameloft has announced a partnership with Australian airline Jetstar to provide a dozen games on rentable iPads.

With Notch busy over at Minecon and the entire Minecraft world eagerly awaiting the game’s graceful departure from Beta, there was just one thing missing: Minecraft on your iPhone. Though it has long been known to be in the works, the game apparently launches tomorrow, November 17, or now if you’re in New Zealand.

See more pictures and read get more information on the game, after the break.

You may choose to passcode protect your iPad for any number of reasons, but what it ultimately comes down to is privacy. And that’ll work, so long as you aren’t running iOS5. It turns out that there is an exploit in the new operating system that allows Smart Cover to unlock the device without entering the passcode. It seems that if you take a locked iPad to the power down screen, place a smart cover on, take it off, and hit cancel, you will be taken past the passcode screen into the most recently opened app.

While that sounds pretty bad (and it is), there are some mitigating factors. First, you need a Smart Cover in order to do this. Second, the flaw only allows access to the app that was open upon locking. If it was the home screen, bypassers will be treated to a desktop of unresponsive icons. Third, while Apple has not issued a fix, the exploit can be disabled if you turn off smart cover unlocking. So granted, the bypass requires somewhat of a perfect storm if a malicious user wanted to actually get your info, but if you lock your iPad from the email or messages app often and leave Smart Cover unlocking on, it’s a possibility.

As you may or may not be aware, Apple is in the process of suing Samsung for imitating the iPhone and the iPad. While the devices are fairly similar, you really have to ask if that’s a matter of imitation or, in the case of the iPad vs the Galaxy Tab, the fact that tablets in general pretty similar; they’re like 95% screen. I guess that’s what court is for. In any event, the Samsung lawyers have been arguing that any normal person would be able to tell the difference between the two devices, largely because of the fact that Samsung is printed clearly on the Samsung one. Go figure.

Well, Judge Lucy Koh decided to test this hypothesis with a fairly simple experiment. She held both of the tablets above her head, and had the lawyers identify the one they were defending from 10 feet away. Neither one of Samsung’s two lawyers was able to accomplish the task at a glance. Now, whether that illustrates the similarity of the tablets, or the incompetence of Samsung’s legal team, they clearly didn’t deserve to win that case either way. Needless to say, Judge Koh decided against Samsung.