The idea of a $700-800 computer tablet had thrown me before – more than anything, I didn’t give it much thought. But it’s on now. Apple’s in there like swimwear (we think, as of 11:40 EST). Apple? Tablet? Applet? The technology has a lot of potential applications – video, photo display, etc. – but it’s garnered a bulk of the attention based around what it could do for the e-book market.

What’s the deal with this, though, anyway? The guy at HP uses Star Trek as an example – on the show, slate computers were de riguer. The thin tablets were all around, their touch screens ready to input or display information sans keyboard. Sci-fi is now sci-reality.

On that note, consider this offering from BookBook. Currently, it’s meant for a Macbook but, if we’ll all have tablets around the house within a few years in lieu of worn-in hardcovers, it’d be nice to wrap them up in something that looks this familiar.

This beautiful contraption spotted on Benedict Radcliffe’s site. I had to do some digging and, in the process, uncovered this great post by Animal New York (pictures theirs and Radcliffe’s) on the event in which it was featured – Joyride, an art event included in the Bicycle Film Festival.

Two cultures that seem to intermingle as it is (biking and graffiti) now have a tangible symbol of their alliance. Careful using that on the street, though, cause ‘graffiti bike’ brings one incident in particular to mind – this Wired article from 2007 gives a good rundown.

In summary, kid makes chalk-spraying bike. Kid starts website (BikesAgainstBush.com). Kid is a mad genius, apparently, designing the website so that users could submit messages, which would transmit to his laptop via cellphone, which would transmit to his chalk-spraying device, which would spray said messages on the ground while he rode it during the Republican National Convention. None of it played out this way, though, because he got arrested in what amounts to a really messed-up situation. Bummmmmmout.

I’m intrigued by this image and the accompanying write-up from Wired Magazine’s Gadget Lab. So Polaroid is back at it? In there like swimwear? What does this mean for The Impossible Project, and will it work with the OG Polaroid film they’re busting ass to resurrect? Until some answers surface (and I need ANSWERS, folks), I’ll content myself with gazing longingly at this wood-panel design.

Nooka is on their grizzy these days, racking up collaborations about as fast as Weezy who, God help me, must be some sort of alien for how productive he is while knocking back Styrofoam cups all day of promethazine codeine cough syrup. Seriously. Try even saying that five times fast. Now try saying anything at all after having two Big Gulps worth of the stuff. How is this guy not constantly laid out prone position on the floor? Like, nice Nooka you got there, Weez, but how you still standing upright?

Anyway, enough about the pink/purple stuff. In more pressing business, Nooka’s dropping a collab watch in March with anime-inspired lifestyle brand Gommi Arcade. Keep your eyes open (yes, even while you sleep, like my creepy friend Kevin) because AC Gears itself will have something to do with this product launch. We’ll have more on that shortly.

Nooka’s also working with The W Hotel, with three watches inspired by one of three W locations – South Beach, Istanbul and New York – and will be available in limited numbers as part of their spring collection in-store and online.

Get y’all black tees on
All black everything
Black cards, black cars

and some black on the wrist, too, of which I can’t think of a situation in which Jay wouldn’t approve. As part of the new Nixon Private SS collection, you’ve also got the choice of classic stainless steel/white or the gunmetal/blue you see down below if you’re not looking to go hard like that.

A sharp looking watch from a sharp company, but can I just say that SS is, like, a really odd, and maybe ballsy choice for a name (one would imagine it’s supposed to stand for something like “stainless steel,” but really?), especially paired with the ‘Private’ part, due to some pretty strong negative connotations – and I’m not talking about Privatized Social Security, kids.

The thought of graffiti art as an iPhone app has a really hollow, corporate ring to it (‘Tag’ the back of your McDonald’s cup to build your ‘street cred’ with the McNugget Buddies and the rest of the Happy Meal Gang…but don’t let Mayor McCheese ‘ketchup’ you in the act!).

But when the technology is in the hands of real street artists passionate about graf, it’s a lot more likely you’ll sit up and take notice. Created by Graffiti Research Lab, the app gives artists a chance to record and archive their designs on the fly, creating tags based on finger swipes and alternating thicknesses based on speed, rendering the whole thing in 360-degree 3-d images. Check out the above clip to see what I mean. Spotted on Freshness Mag.

A sharp-looking clip about Futura, spotted on Gommi Arcade’s blog. This is a member of the old guard; a guy who made his bones in the graffiti world way back and has more than justified his seed at every stop along the way, including live-painting on stage with The Clash in the early 80s, exhibiting with Basquiat and just overall kicking major ass and taking respective names.

Click over for GA’s write-up, with a special mention of Futura’s work with James LaVelle of UNKLE (of the Spike-Jonze’d-skateboarders-and-explosions music video) and his now-iconic Pointman figure.