Hasta La Gadget!

Whaaaaaa?! When it comes to his company’s successes, Steve Jobs can be pretty cocky., sure. He demonstrated that recently when he decided to sit in on an Apple earnings call, taking the opportunity to call out RIM and Google. But Apple buying Sony? That seems pretty far-fetched even for Jobs on a good day.

Word is, however, that Cupertino is looking to invest some of its excess cash into the Japanese electronics giant. The rumors were enough to help bump Sony stock up nearly three percent this morning. A spokeswoman for Sony told The Globe and Mail, “We cannot comment on rumors or speculation.”

Aw, man, Sony, we won’t tell anyone. Blink once for “yes,” twice for “no.”

The rumors seem based at least somewhat on Jobs’s post-earnings call comments about the company’s $51 billion in cash, “We would like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future,” he told the press.

Adobe and Disney were also listed as potential targets for Apple’s funds. That would be one way to get Flash on the iPad, I suppose.

There’s big money in colorful plastic. Just look at how many companies are rushing to wrap your iPhone 4. iFrogz, a company that churns out some of the most colorful plastic of all, has just introduced six new designs. Pictured here is Orbit ($24.99), which comes in four different colors. Orbit is made from form-fitting extra-thick silicone and has a geometric design.

Other new styles include Swerve (which combines a hard plastic core with a jelly exterior), SoftGloss (a semi-opaque case with an etched pattern), SoftGloss Phase (the same as SoftGloss, but with deeper, brighter colors), Treadz (with a tire tread design), and Wrapz (with is also made of extra-thick silicone).

This is probably what it was like the first time the Avengers hung out. World on the street (and by “the street,” I mean Business Insider) is that none other than President Barack Obama is set to meet with Apple chief Steve Jobs this afternoon.

Obama is already on the West Coast, giving a talk at the home of Google executive Marissa Mayer in Palo Alto (for a $30,000 a head fundraiser). Since he’s already hobnobbing with tech execs in the Silicon Valley, why not swing around to Steve Jobs’s place to talk about Flash and turtlenecks and, I don’t know, more presidential type stuff, too?

According to Business Insider, a White House official confirmed the one-on-one meeting. No specifics on what they’ll be talking about–or whether a game of basketball will be involved.

First up on the slate of today’s announcements at Apple’s Back to the Mac event: iLife ’11. The suite contains the usual cast of applications, including iMovie, iPhoto, and Garageband.

The new version of iPhoto offers a number of enhancements, including a “live” full screen, enhancements to Facebook integration, and easier photo e-mailing. The software is more dynamic than in previous versions, including upgrades to slideshows and Places. According to Steve Jobs, two million books a year are printed using the existing iPhoto software.

iMovie ’11, meanwhile, features improvements to audio editing, new one-step special effects, and the ability to create movie trailers from within the application. The application promises to make formerly complex editing possible in just a few mouse clicks. It also features built-in facial detection and keyword filters for editing. The application ships with a number of included music scores. Once edited, the application lets users share movies via Facebook and e-mail.

The latest version of Apple’s music creation software GarageBand, which features updates to timing and rhythm (including the new features Groove Matching and FlexTime) and a number of new instrument options and guitar amps.

iLife ’11 will ship free on new Macs and will run $49 for existing users.

Okay, we’re maybe jumping the gun here–there’s no little blue and white checkmark next to his name, but TechCrunch seems pretty confident that @arubin is, in fact, Andy Rubin, Google’s VP of Engineering and the head of Android, having “confirmed with a couple of people in the know” that it is indeed him.

The fascinating thing, however, isn’t the fact that Rubin is on Twitter–there are plenty of execs and other prominent folk on the micro-blogging site. Rather, it’s the fact that the former Danger CEO used his first tweet to take a jab at Steve Jobs, who, as mentioned before, crashed an Apple earnings meeting to say some mean things about Google’s Android and all of this talk of software openness.

Rubin’s tweet is as follows,

the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make

Our lead mobile analyst Sascha Segan has graciously agreed to translate the above geek speak for the rest of us,

Rubin’s tweet lists the commands needed to start compiling a copy of Android on your home Linux machine. He’s emphasizing that anyone can develop for, hack, and even create their own version of Android. The irony, of course, is that Jobs would probably consider that a negative – Apple likes the uniformity of iOS. Rubin’s declaration of openness also overlooks that some consumers don’t have the freedom to hack their retail devices because of choices made by their wireless carriers and mobile-phone manufacturers.

Rubin hasn’t added anything since that first tweet posted about seven hours ago. We don’t mind. So far he’s battling 1,000.