Though it's disappointingly out of stock until late November, the ThinkGeek TK-421 iPhone Case with Flip-Out Keyboard certainly looks interesting. While its aesthetics and added thickness aren't impressive, the flip-out keyboard works via Bluetooth with your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 to provide the tactile typing sensation that some recovering BlackBerry addicts crave. The $49.99 case is an original ThinkGeek creation and uses its own built-in, rechargeable battery.

The organizers of the MacTech Conference, coming up in early November, have announced the addition of a panel on trends in virtualization, to be moderated by Macworld VP and Editorial Director Jason Snell, along with a study hour and exam session for all current Apple Certification Exams that will take place at the close of the conference.

We realize that most people won't be able to attend this show, and in fact, we were invited to speak but couldn't make the trip (dratted public school schedule!). But if you're in New Zealand on September 10th and 11th, the Creative Tech conference is the country's largest Apple-focused trade show ever, and this preview in The New Zealand Herald makes it sound as though it will be a great time.

Thanks to Ted Landau for pointing out the story behind the shutdown of VersionTracker, which readers had started to ask us about. CNET, which acquired VersionTracker several years ago, is merging VersionTracker into CNET Downloads. It doesn't look like the overall functionality will change much, but the VersionTracker name will go away.

A month after shuttering Google Wave, the company has announced that it will be fleshing out the Google Wave code to turn the current example Web server and client into a complete application called Wave in a Box. Although Wave in a Box won't have the full functionality of Google Wave, it will be made available as open source, and Google's hope is that a vibrant developer community will help Wave move forward and fulfill its initial promise. We're not holding our collective breath, but it could happen.

It has been nearly 20 years since Autodesk last made its AutoCAD design and engineering software available for the Mac. But now, The New York Times reports, CAD-craving Mac users with $4,000 to spend will once again be able to buy AutoCAD for the Mac. Thanks to the Mac's resurgence, Autodesk says more and more customers are asking for a Mac version, and now the company plans to deliver.

Apple has announced that iTunes U content downloads have rolled past the 300 million mark. iTunes U doesn't get much press, but the division of the iTunes Store brings together audio and video educational content from hundreds of universities; it now contains over 350,000 lectures and other content from institutions of higher learning around the globe. Apple deserves kudos for providing iTunes U content for free, and if you haven't yet checked out the iTunes U section of the iTunes Store, we encourage you to do so.

Over at Macworld, Lex Friedman spends more than 1,000 words talking about video codecs. But it's not all nerd-speak. MPEG LA has announced that it will never charge royalties for free H.264 videos. That's important because HTML5 video, which lets you watch Web video without requiring plug-ins like Flash, is currently difficult for publishers and consumers alike, with different browsers providing limited support for different codecs. While H.264 - which Apple already supports in both Safari and Mobile Safari - already has buy-in from major media companies like CNN, Major League Baseball, and YouTube, this announcement could very well spark a unification of HTML5 video formats.

It's always a problem when a name ceases to describe a company or program properly (et tu, iTunes?), so the long-standing Mac software company SmileOnMyMac has now shortened its name to just Smile in recognition of the fact that they now develop software for iOS devices as well. We suspect it's also an experiment in subliminal advertising - is it possible to read the word "Smile" without smiling?

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the departure of Mark Papermaster, Apple's senior vice president for mobile devices. Although there is much speculation that Papermaster was forced out as a result of the iPhone 4 antenna debacle, he wasn't part of the iPhone 4 public launch, and others have suggested that Papermaster's tenure at IBM left him ill-prepared for Apple's corporate culture under Steve Jobs. He will be replaced by Bob Mansfield, Apple's senior vice president of computer engineering.

If you missed the two-week window for free Macworld Expo 2011 registration earlier this year, you have another chance. Through 25 July 2010, you can sign up for a free Expo Only pass at the Macworld Expo Web site. The show floor will be open from 27 January 2011 through 29 January 2011.

The New York Times uses a discussion of the iPhone 4's supply chain as a springboard to discuss how rising labor, currency, and housing costs in China may result in increased prices for consumer electronics. Though the actual assembly of a product like the iPhone makes up only a fraction of its total cost, prices of commodity parts such as circuit boards and batteries also reflect fluctuations in labor costs. And while Apple's wide profit margins may provide some insulation from these pressures, other electronics companies that compete largely on price could be hard hit.