The iPhone Dissected. Literally. You’ve just got home with a $500 state-of-the-art* mobile phone. What’s the first thing you’re going to want to do? Rip it apart! (via Boing Boing)

*[If state-of-the-art means a phone that can’t send MMS, use an MP3 for a ringtone or copy and paste text]

Update: I swear I’m not obsessed with destroying expensive gadgets! PCWorld scratch and drop-test the new Apple phone and stick the video on You Tube. Meanwhile, Daring Fireball has a thorough round-up of first impressions of the iPhone.

Monkey: Journey to the West: The latest collaborative project by Gorillaz co-creators Jamie Hewlett (also famous for creating Tank Girl) and Damon Albarn is an opera based on the 16th century Chinese novel “Journey to the West” — better known, thanks to the BBC re-dubbing of the 1970s Japanese TV-series, as Monkey. Lots of info, illustrations and photos can be found on the myspace page.

The show started at the Manchester Palace Theatre last night and continues until the 7th July. It then moves to the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris from 13th September until the 13th October.

“Imagine: Damon and Jamie’s Excellent Adventure“, a documentary on the show, premieres on Wednesday 4th July at 10.35pm on BBC1 in the UK. The site contains clips from the forthcoming show.

Nintendo announce that they’re going to be offering a WiiWare development platform so independents can create their own games which can then be made available via the Wii Shop Channel. Hopefully, then, we’ll get to see some of these delights in the near future.

Unlike everyone else, I didn’t bother to blog the dramatic chipmunk video (Pedantry: it’s a prairie dog) the other week, but I thought I’d take the time to reveal it’s Japanese TV-show origin… and a Victorian-style re-imagining.

Not new news by any stretch, but this is the first time I’ve seen the infamous rejection letter that Disney sent in response to a woman who applied for a job as an animator with my own eyes: “women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing cartoons for the screen in making animated cartoons, as that is performed entirely by young men”. (via Boing Boing)

IGN has an interesting bit (well, a ton) of speculation over the forthcoming fourth Indiana Jones movie now that it’s been rumoured that it will be set in the year 1957.

As for facts, the official Indiana Jones web site states that new film will be set some time in the 1950’s, and will star Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent… and, of course, Harrison Ford. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it’ll hit cinemas on May 22, 2008.

LEGO have a rather cool bit of software available on their site (for Windows and Mac OS X) called the LEGO Digital Designer (currently version 2.1) which allows you to mess about with all the bricks and other weird pieces that they have in their catalogue and make your own vehicle, house, town or whatever crazy idea from your imagination.

When you’re happy with it, you can check the price and, if you haven’t fainted from the price, buy it online to make at home. Fantastic!

According to Ain’t it Cool News, Samuel L. Jackson has joined the cast of the Iron Man movie as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury. I guess that means he won’t now appear in a Spider-man or Fantastic Four movie thanks to them all being distributed by different studios.

Ever wondered where the hell the day went? Now you can become your own “big brother” and track your every move. If you dare!

Slife observes your every interaction with applications such as Safari, Mail and iChat and keeps tracks of all web pages you visit, emails you read, documents you write and much more.

For Mac OS X. (via swissmiss)

SoftBank Pantone mobile phone: A perfect gift for the design geek. (via NOTCOT)