Some have been complaining that the Apple iPad will — as ever — cost more in the UK than in the US.

Others, it would seem, aren’t too worried about such common concerns as cost.

Stuart Hughes is the Liverpool based… artist? designer? bling-er? who is responsible for dipping the iPhone in gold and coating it in diamonds, so it’s really no surprise he’s gone and done it again with the iPad.

His version of Apple’s tablet is “for the most elite individual”, he says. “Elite” is one word for it. The Supreme Gold Edition iPad has a 22 carat gold body with the Apple logo made up of 53 diamonds. Of course, the iPad in question is the 3G 64GB version.

Just 10 of the things are being made, and they’ll ring in at £129,995.

If you can’t afford the price but like the look, here’s my five steps to getting your own blinged out iPad for just £880.94:

Step 1: Spend too much on an oversized iPhone/keyboardless netbook. (£699 here.)

Step 2: Carefully coat it in gold paint. (£2.25 here.)

Step 3: Let dry. That stuff stains.

Step 4: Glue sparkles to the logo. (Glue gun, £11.69 here; semi-precious rhinestones, £168 for 53 here.)

Step 5: Look like an idiot every time you pull your iPad out in public, but like less of an idiot than someone who paid £129,114.06 more than you to look just as tacky.

Anyone have an iPad they’re willing to let me test this out on? No? Didn’t think so.

A Gizmodo writer has posted an exchange between himself and Steve Jobs regarding the Apple vs Adobe Flash debate, and the wider issue of “freedom” on technical devices.

Blogger Ryan Tate was inspired to write to Apple’s chief executive - who famously actually responds to such emails from time to time - after viewing an iPad ad referencing the “revolution”, which Tate took issue with, saying revolutions are about freedom — not gadgets.

“Yep. Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash you battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom,” Jobs responded.

This battle — between opening Apple’s products up to firms like Adobe or creating a protective walled garden — really comes down to how you describe and define the idea of “freedom.”

There’s freedom to do something, and freedom from something. Freedom to speak one’s mind, freedom from hate speech. Freedom to choose one’s health care provider, freedom from being ill. Freedom to travel and cross borders with ease, freedom from terrorism and attacks.

The difference in that idea is what Tate and Jobs are arguing about, whether they’re aware of it or not. Tate wants an iPad that has the “freedom to” run Adobe Flash; Jobs wants to offer his users “freedom from” data stealing, battery draining programmes — and porn, for some reason, Jobs doesn’t want you to use your iPad to look up naked people.

Tate sees openness as an important ideal; Jobs points out it’s his platform and he’s free to do what he wants. But here’s where this argument differs from the aforementioned ones: Jobs may seem a dictator to many, but he’s only in control of Apple products, and nothing else.

While it’s the ideas of openness and freedom are worth contemplating in tech areas like the internet and even gadgets like the iPad, there’s an even more important thing to remember, one many seem to be forgetting lately: No one has to buy anything from Apple. Ever.

Want Flash? Don’t buy an iPad. Wait for the HP, Dell and Google tablets soon to arrive this year. Want a tablet without Flash? Uh, buy an iPad.

We already have freedom of choice, you see.

Tate notes that such a setup means developers must create different versions of sites and apps — a Flash and say, HTML5, version of a site, for example.

While that is a bit of a pain, it’s not much different from what mobile developers must do already, developing for Android, Apple iPhone OS, Windows Mobile and whatever else they want their programme to run on. Sort of how programmers have had to create their software for both Mac and Windows, too.

In other words, it’s hardly new, and it’s hardly a big deal.

Apple and Adobe’s ongoing war of the words has started to get interesting — not just because of the issues at hand, but because the parties involved are finally getting pissed off.

Back in October, the words were weak. Adobe set up a special page so that iPhone users denied Flash knew it was Apple’s fault, calling the firm “restrictive”.

But come the launch of the iPad, with Apple promising a “magical” web browsing experience, the whole argument hotted up. Here’s the best insults from the ongoing battle.

In February, Jobs hit out at Adobe, saying the firm was “lazy” for not making Flash more reliable, and saying it refused to include it “because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash – the world is moving to HTML 5”.

Referencing the classic Orwell-themed Apple ad, Flash evangelist Ryan Stewart said: “We’ve come a long way from 1984, but obviously not long enough.”

His fellow employee Mark Doherty’s initial response to the iPad was: “iPad – full internet my ASS.”

So far, not so bad. Apple thinks Adobe is lazy, Adobe goes all “whatever” on them. Hardly an epic battle — I’ve had similar arguments with my mom.

Of course, that was only the beginning. Apple then switched its terms and conditions, effectively dumping Adobe’s Flash from ever showing up in the App Store. Adobe evangelist Lee Brimelow responded with words frequently used post-break-up: “Go screw yourself.”

He accused Apple of using developers as “pawns in their crusade against Adobe,” and said the move was like a spit in the face. (Who hasn’t felt that way, after being dumped?)

His angry words lead to — what else? — a tornado of nasty (and unofficial) remarks over Twitter. (We guess they’ll be de-friending each other on Facebook, too.)

And now, Adobe has dropped development for iPhone. “We are at the beginning of a significant change in the industry, and I believe that ultimately open platforms will win out over the type of closed, locked down platform that Apple is trying to create,” said Flash product manager, Mike Chambers.

The response from Apple: Locked down? We’re not locked down — Adobe is. (It’s not me, it’s you.)

A spokeswoman today said: “Someone has it backwards - it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary.”

We can only hope the so-called “evangelists” on both sides continue to get as shouty as a heart-broken teenager — it won’t get Flash on the iPad, but at least it’ll keep us entertained.

Something big happened in the tech world this weekend, and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the Apple iPad.

While the world was focused on gadgets — and Tiger Woods’ return to golf — Wikileaks released 20 minutes of video.

That may sound rather innocuous, but it is anything but. Dubbed “Collateral Murder”, it’s the reason Wikileaks staff have been followed the past few weeks. The video shows the deaths of over a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.

Horrifying as any war-time death is, it’s not just the bodies falling to the ground that causes any right-minded person to cringe. It’s the running commentary from the soldiers — “Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards” — and the mistaking a camera for an RPG — so much for tech-enabled warfare cutting down the number of innocent victims killed — that feels like a punch to the stomach.

The video is important because the Pentagon refused to release it, despite a freedom of information act request. It is only being aired now because a whistleblower handed it to Wikileaks.

When people talk about online freedom, they shouldn’t be thinking just of file sharing music and Hollywood movies. They shouldn’t worry just about disconnection or sites being shut down over piracy. They should worry about this.

If the US government had the power and ability to stop the Sweden-based firm which hosts Wikileaks from showing this video to the world, they would have done so. There’s a good reason the site is not hosted in the US — or indeed, the UK. Would the government here have allowed such a video to mess with its “special relationship” with the US?

The Swedish government’s refusal to censor the internet lead to the creation of the Pirate Bay, sure, though it eventually jailed the founders. But it also lead to Wikileaks.

If the Digital Economy Bill passes, and the government hands itself the right to shut down sites and to disconnect users in order to battle online piracy, don’t just lament the loss of free and easy file sharing.

Be angry that we don’t have the freedom in this country to use the internet the way Wikileaks does — as a powerful tool to bring the most powerful to face the judgment of the world.

Swedish citizens have that power, that freedom. Why don’t we?

You can donate to Wikileaks here, and view the Collateral Murder video here.

It’s April 1 — the worst day to launch a real product, as Google and others in the tech world announce a host of “funny” prank ones.

It’s been a quiet April Fools so far, but more are sure to pop up over the day — drop us a line below or at comments@dennis.co.uk with any you’ve seen. Did any of these catch you out?

The best so far has to be the Guardian’s story about Labour’s new campaign posters — not least because these would make me much more likely to re-elect Brown. “Step outside, posh boy?” That’s got my vote. “Vote Labour. Or else.” Brilliant.

The Conservatives seem to have gotten their own joke ad in the Guardian, too.

The Pirate Party has one that’s more wishful thinking than April Fools.

Why can’t election campaigns always be funny (well, funny-ish)?

AskJeeves — yup, they’re still around — have gone all out on a bizarre chicken-joke health and safety video. Worth a watch.

Security firm Sophos is in on the act, with a video, press release and blog post pushing romantic literature as an online protection method. Hey, most people find security bewildering, I’m sure they’ll try anything.

Symantec are building a data centre on the moon. Hey, it’s probably good for cooling… But in space, can anyone here admins scream?

Computer Weekly’s got one up about IPv6. Good on them for trying, and it might catch anyone out — if they bother to read a story about IPv6, that is.

TechCrunch have gone one better and claim Google is arming itself with nuclear weapons to take on China. Hey, TechCrunch does get good exclusives…

Google’s got a few, of course. The cheeky web giant is today announcing Google Translate for dogs — with a cute video (in Japanese) for Voice Search — and for Australians, too.

Apparently they also planned to poke fun at prison, too.

YouTube cleverly announces a text-only version. Would that be something like this: “Lol Cat plz piano!” Apparently not, according to this video.

Browser Opera is always up for an April giggle. This time, they’ve got a Space Edition of Opera, so you can “browse comfortably from the vacuum of space.”

There’s also been reports of the Sun trialling new taste tech and the AA using jetpacks to rescue drivers.

The Telegraph suggests ferrets will bridge the broadband divide between urban and rural areas. Someone please make this happen. PLEASE.

Microsoft had a few good ones last year, and celebrated this year by… er… taking on piracy. It’s not a joke, apparently, because “when consumers fall victim to software piracy, you can be sure a pirate won’t relieve their misery with humor.”

Seen any we’ve missed? We’ll keep adding them throughout the day.

Click here for last year’s list and for a roundup of classic pranks.

Update…

Google Wave has in-person notifications — we’ll set ours to “vibrate.” (Thanks @wright_de!)

The First Post is also sticking with election coverage, giving Gordon Brown a super adorable puppy to counter David Cameron’s baby announcement.

A few courtesy Mashable — Reddit gives admin rights to all, iwantoneofthose offers an iPhone to iPad converter, Google changes its name to Topeka, and XKCD goes Unix.

Computer Weekly also have a review of the Apple iPad — perfect for April Fools and SEO ahead of the arrival of the tablet this weekend.

Spotify goes seriously geeky with its new version joke. Had to look up CP/M. How’s that for an educational prank?

Our clever sister title PC Pro has an AMD-themed one about lottery cores, where “the number of functional cores in each part [is] left for the customer to discover.”

And thanks to the x404 forum, which has a good list, including the second generation of the Large Hadron Collider being built in London Underground’s Central Line, Kodak has aromatography, and MacWorld likes the idea of an iPad Nano.

TalkTalk’s labs claim they can boost broadband speeds by over 300 per cent just by changing the colour of the cable from yellow to violet. Well, they get a bit more techie about it, but it’s probably funny to them.

Avanquest software wants us to get fresh with our computer monitors. I’m not feeling quite that lonely, thanks. (Thanks to @jameskendrick for that one.)

A few more via Chameleon PR (how much real work am I not getting done?) CNet has a winner with Apple admitting the iPad is a “massive joke” — it’s funny because it’s true.

And Touchnote is doing a nice job of marketing its real product by offering postcard versions of airport x-ray scanners. A lovely keepsake of your privacy invasion!

Another good one from Google — 3D Street View. Funny because Bing is doing it for real.

The Open Rights Group and 38Degrees have raised nearly £12,000 from 672 supporters in mere hours as part of their campaign against the Digital Economy Bill, which is set to be rushed through parliament next week.

The groups are looking to raise enough funds — they say £20,000 is needed — to place ads in newspapers and websites so that “on the day of the key vote they’ll see our opposition over their cornflakes, on their way in to work and over tea in Parliament”.

The upside to campaigning on digital issues is the ease with which you can raise funds — the people you’re appealing to for support are all online anyway.

The donation page is here, and if you’re feeling cheap, you can also send an email to your MP here — with 38 Degrees being slick new media types, both actions are quick and easy to do online.

I just want to make this clear, because a lot of media outlets today seem to be very, very confused.

A researcher in Teesside has put out a report apparently saying that the rise in syphilis in that area is because of casual sex found over the internet. It’s beyond me how he can pin it so specifically on web hookups and not, say, binge drinking in bars or really rowdy church groups, or but hey, he’s the head of public health for the area, not me.

The original press release from last week about the rise in syphillis is here, and there’s just one bit where the web comes in:

Unprotected sex, especially with casual partners, is the biggest risk for syphilis. Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. It is important that people avoid high risk sexual behaviours and practise safe sex to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections.

If it’s true (and I doubt it) that such sites make it easier to get laid, then surely he has some research to connect this trend with syphilis.

So where’s the evidence? It seems the researcher also spoke to the The Sun newspaper.

Kelly told them:

I don’t get the names of people affected, just figures. And I saw that several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites…

Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms.

A few things to note here.

First, he’s basing his assumption off “several” people. There were over 3,500 syphilis cases UK wide last year. I would assume several out of any 3,500 people in this country did indeed message their friend-with-benefits, or used a dating site to pick up, or made a digital booty call over the year.

That’s not causal, however. That social networking exists and people use it to communicate is a correlation, not the cause, of this disease spreading more. Indeed, we should be studying how the other 3,493 people became infected, don’t you think?

Second, he’s assuming social networking sites do indeed make it easier to get laid — has anyone ever in the history of the universe ever hooked up just using mainstream social networking sites? How would that work — I ask purely out of professional interest, as the amount of time I spend online, you’d think I’d get lucky all the time. Again, does he mean using the sites to communicate or is he talking about dating sites?

Third: he clearly, clearly, clearly pins the blame not on the web, but people failing to use condoms.

Last, where did he mention Facebook? At no point does he mention Facebook. So why does the Sun (and others following its lead) use it in its headline?

Maybe it’s because Facebook is the largest such site in the world and can therefore be used as shorthand for the rest of them. Or, maybe it’s because the Sun — which is owned by News Corp, which owns rival site MySpace — just likes making its competitors look bad.

So unless you’ve got an absolutely filthy keyboard, you’re not likely to pick up a disease from Facebook. But if you do shag a stranger, use a condom, alright?

The yet to be announced but looming election is supposed to be the most web-friendly yet in the UK, with the parties looking to learn from Obama’s winning campaign to gain votes from a younger audience by engaging them with social media.

A major target for that is Twitter.

Proving that they don’t understand the vicious humour on the site, the Tories tried to get “#cashgordon” trending, with any tweet using the phrase automatically pulled into a feed on a dedicated Cash Gordon website.

You can imagine the Tory enthusiasm for the project — “hey, it worked for the #welovethenhs campaign, why not for us?”

But for all its mob mentality, Twitter is an independent beast that doesn’t take kindly to heavy-handed marketing.

Like the epic, hilarious failure that was the Skittles incident, the Cash Gordon feed was soon flooded with crude abuse — click here for some of it.

If that weren’t enough, some cheeky geeks included a bit of javascript in their tweets, which redirected the entire page to the Labour site, as well as more standard web favourites, such as porn and Rick Astley.

Anyway, the tweet for Cash Gordon campaign was quickly killed off and for a while just redirected to the main Conservative site, but it’s now back — with a moderated tweet feed, that as of writing was last updated six hours ago.

The site also asks if you’d like to sign up for the site using Facebook Connect, gaining “action points” every time you help spread the word. The upside of Facebook Connect is the Tories know who you really are — your Facebook account proves your identity and keeps you from doing anything too stupid — but the new game doesn’t let you speak your mind, restricting users to spreading the pre-written Tory word.

So no surprise then, that the Facebook Connect game has just 661 users signed up, while the open and honest and real-time unmoderated Twitter edition garnered headlines — albeit of the wrong sort.

From a marketing standpoint, there may be an argument that the unmoderated Twitter campaign was more of a success, as many of the articles about the epic, amusing failure mentioned the point of the Cash Gordon campaign, which was to highlight the union donations that will help power Gordon Brown’s election run. So points to the Tories for that.

But from a technology standpoint, the Conservatives have managed to look even less web-savvy than before, fitting their stereotype of old geezers who don’t get these new fangled things and certainly don’t understand the youngsters they were trying to appeal to in the first place.

My mum — and yours too, I’m sure — used to say this: “If you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

That’s not bad advice for six-year-olds, but I’d expect better from the government.

Yesterday, I went to a speech delivered by identity minister Meg Hillier, who was telling attendees what’s next for the contentious and expensive programme at an event hosted by think tank the Social Market Forum.

She admitted that the government has had some communication issues with the card roll out, saying it would have been “much better if we talked to people before we made an announcement.”

“Please, feed in your ideas,” she pleaded.

The thing is, I don’t think she wants my ideas. I don’t think she wants the ideas of anyone who doesn’t like the cards. I don’t think she nor the Labour government want feedback from critics — be they campaigners like NO2ID or opposition government parties or people who simply don’t like big databases. I think she and her party only want to hear “nice” things.

I say this because she then accused people against the scheme of using the government’s two year failure to talk about ID cards to “scaremonger.”

A few moments later, a Social Market Forum plant in the audience lobbed a softball of a question at Hillier, accusing critics of “paranoia”.

Hillier noted that the public is “happy to share [personal data] if you trust the system and see some personal value.” She couldn’t seem to understand why we the public are happy to unthinkingly hand our data to Amazon or PayPal, but balk at giving it to her government, despite frequent data losses.

With a tone suggesting she thought the headlines a bit unfair, she said: “Every time a data stick is lost it’s a big deal.” She also suggested the media were being unfair in their description of the scheme, saying she’s “never ever read an article that doesn’t call them the government’s ‘controversial’ ID cards”. (I’ve since decided to use “contentious.” I hope she appreciates it.)

And when one man asked a question about the prospect of being fined or even jailed for not updating the ID card database if you move — which is part of the current legislation — he was scoffed at and mocked by the people standing around me at the back of the room, who were clearly working the event, though it wasn’t clear if they were with SMF or the Identity and Passport Service or something else.

One lady wrote “NO2ID” on her notepad and showed it to her friends, clearly expecting a response, like it was a joke. Another man with an IPS badge couldn’t stop grinning like a fool and looking around for someone to join in with him every time a negative question was asked (I don’t think he realised I was a journalist, despite the notepad). Others flitted around passing notes, showing notebooks with messages on them to each other. It was hard to focus for all the whispering. I felt like I was back in school.

What did I gather from this? The government and its think tanks don’t think much of dissent. They don’t respect your opinion, not if it differs from their own. They don’t want your feedback, unless it’s “nice.”

This differs quite a bit from what the Identity Card Commissioner — who sadly didn’t appear to be at the event — told me a few weeks back. While his office may turn out to be a fairly toothless watchdog, he feels it necessary to talk to critics:

[If] I listen to people who are against the whole thing and get them to tell me why they are against the whole thing, that helps me to decide where to put my effort to scrutinise the system…They certainly are people who have thought about it more than most people… Therefore one wants to hear for oneself what they have to say because it helps to decide what your priorities should be when you scrutinise the whole scheme.

He later added this, in a lesson the government should learn, of the scheme:

It deserves to be scrutinised not just by me but by people completely outside the system altogether.

Right now, when it comes to ID cards, the government isn’t listening to people’s concerns. But come the May general election, I suspect the message will become harder to ignore.

There will be a battle fought in the tech world this year — and it’s over readers.

Not e-readers. I mean readers, people who read books. Really.

The next big thing in tech is tablets, thanks to Apple’s iPad and leaked images of Microsoft’s really rather slick looking Courier. And what are those tablets for? Reading, whether it’s newspapers, magazines, books or web content.

Indeed, one of the coolest looking uses for the iPad is its slick looking ebook reader and store, while the Courier is being described as a “digital journal.”

And then there’s ebook readers themselves — Amazon is betting on the Kindle, while devices from Sony and other makers are popping up in Borders and other bookstores.

Even the iPhone is helping drive it, with today’s news that there are 27,000 books available via the App Store, compared to 25,400 games.

So will 2010 be the year that books and the luddites who turn their paper pages become the target consumer of the tech industry?

That’s what the experts seem to think. Who would have called that? Music, movies, sure. I get that. Better technology means better sound, better pictures, in a portable device.

But unlike music (from vinyl to MP3s) and movies (VHS to streaming HD), the technology behind books hasn’t much changed — ink on paper works pretty well.

Sure, developers have come up with E-ink, making reading on a screen a lot less annoying than it could be, and there’s something to be said for having one device instead of stacks of books on shelves (of course, the opposite is true, too), but unlike music and movies, e-readers aren’t actually much of an obvious improvement, especially given the cost.

But that’s not stopping the big players in tech trying to grab the attention of reading fanatics. So if last year was about apps, will this year be about ebooks? Will this herald a resurgence in reading? Only time will tell, but it’s hard not to see an improvement going from iFart apps to Austen…