I absolutely love Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I must have watched it hundreds of times over the years, so I’m amazed I didn’t spot this iPad similarity in one of the scenes. I guess as it’s such a sci-fi staple device, I wasn’t really looking to make the connection. But someone was.

That someone is Samsung, who are currently in a court battle with Apple over the design of their respective tablet computers, and are citing 2001′s ‘iPad’ as an example of ‘prior art’, basically a way of invalidating Apple’s patent on it. Wow, they must be desperate…

Of course 2001 also shows us all sorts of glimpses into the future, some of which have appeared (10 years late mind you) such as video calling, and the imaginatively titled TV channel BBC12, which presumably means BBC Four will be saved after all. Although if that food they’re eating ever makes it to the supermarket shelves I’ll probably pass.

And of course, as every Apple and design geek knows, old Jonathan Ive has always found a lot of his inspiration in the sixties, so this is nothing new…

…so let’s all be friends shall we? I’m putting the whole thing down as simply another example of Stanley Kubrick’s genius, which is not in dispute.

Spotted via @MatDolphin

It’s Friday, so to mark the end of the week, here’s a treat in the form of Warner Bros “The End” frames from classic films. The real genius of this is that you can hover over any of them to reveal the title frame, so if you can guess the title of the picture, from the style of the ending typography, you’re a true movie geek.

It’s a lovely site, and it’s really interesting to see the development of the type over the decades, as well as marvelling at how differently the start and end of movies are done today. No kooky Ben Stiller out-takes over the end credits here.

If you like this, check out Cinematypography too…

I don’t get very excited about the Oscars I’m afraid. It’s all a bit GMTV for me, but this year there’s been an interesting winner in the short films category. Logorama is a 15 minute film by H5 including a mind-boggling array of (mainly American) logos used in some really clever ways. Watch the trailer above to get the idea.

Apparently it took 6 years to create, I wonder how many of the companies they were using rebranded during that time…

There’s been a bit of a row online about it, as the entire film (which I’ve chosen not to show here) was leaked and – wait for it – the film makers did not have legal permission from all the companies whose logos they’ve used, to, er, use them. People hosting the entire film, or uploading it to youTube etc are getting slapped on the wrists as we speak, but that seems a bit hypocritical – If the film makers didn’t respect the rights of the logo owners, then they can hardly complain if people don’t respect their own intellectual property in turn.

Anyway, let’s all just be friends. If you want to watch the whole thing, it’s available on iTunes, or through some tactical Googling.

Last weekend my wife and I went to the London Apple Store because she needed to buy a new computer. While she was sealing the deal, I went along and watched Adam Buxton interview Spike Jonze as part of the ‘Meet The Film Maker’ series and to promote Spike’s new film Where The Wild Things Are.

Adam took an unconventional approach and read Spike the YouTube comments from the film’s trailer, which weren’t all particularly positive (or coherent)…

Spike took it in good humour, in Adam’s words: “YouTube is like a large toilet wall”. Here’s a rubbish bit of video I managed to record:

You can read more about it on Adam’s blog. The entire interview as a podcast is on iTunes, which is sadly audio only, so we’ll never know what picture Spike shocked Adam with on his conspicuously produced iPhone…

Here’s a bit of Friday nonsense. Cube Dudes by Pixar animator Angus MacLane. Click the link to see the whole collection.

Amazing, love the attention to detail and humour packed into each and every one. There’s even a Cube Dudes Flickr group now where everyone who has managed to find their old Lego sets in the loft are having a go. Found over at io9

Now this is nice. Film The Blanks posts abstractions of movie posters, some obvious, some less so, and invites visitors to guess the title.

The graphics are lovely and the game is a nice idea. I can’t help posting some of my favourites here, but there are loads more on the site and in the Flickr set.

You can also buy the blanks, there are posters and T-shirts. Couldn’t find out who was behind it, they prefer to remain blank…