• There's no way I'm touching this "WebGuild Conference" on October 19, but I can get a press pass if a reader volunteers to ride into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell. In return for the press pass, the correspondent will provide live IM commentary of speeches by Google VP Marissa Mayer, MarketWatch reporter Bambi Francisco, and anyone whose speech is especially interesting (or mockable). E-mail tips@valleywag.com if you're interested. [WebGuild]

• DirecTV announces Project MyWorld, a TV show in which three young girls search for their MySpace friends in the real world. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, start your engines. [Mashable]

APC Magazine presents a collection of goofs from Apple keynote presentations, featuring CEO and MC Steve Jobs. Nobody's perfect.

Words in BBC headline ("Google and Apple 'in video talks'"): 6
Words the BBC quotes from Google VP Marissa Mayer to support headline ("engaged in talks"): 3
Total words in article, including photo caption: 250
Words pulled out of BBC's ass: 247

Apple's industrial design lead Jonathan Ive is one of those ultimately profilable characters, an industry superstar with a compelling philosophy (a ready-made metanarrative for profile writers). BusinessWeek just published a profile useful as an intro to Ive. For those who already know him, the angle isn't anything suprising, but it does include some clever stories:

Steve Jobs opened his latest Apple announcement by practically telling the press that he wants to get into their pants, so it's acceptable that a few writers would get lazy and use his words for their headlines. But after so many repetitions, Jobs is starting to sound less like a masterful technologist and more like a high-school makeout artist.

It didn't take long for a real deal to come out of Google CEO Eric Schmidt joining the board of Apple. Forget the rumor that Apple will support Google Video in its new iTV product or other such trifles — Apple will soon run loads of Google ads on its online properties, according to an outside source.

My god, how did we miss this tidbit from Tuesday's Apple Expo:

In this post-Apple-Expo world, we're all still learning to deal with the tragedy of another iPod generation without fullscreen video or a phone. Many have bonded together with a spirit of hope for the future. But the powers that be have decided to numb the public mind to the true threat by perpetuating a high-tension alert system:

Apple's upcoming iTV product, unveiled this week by Steve Jobs, promises to bridge the divide between computers and TV by streaming content from one to the other. But how does it compare to the first A/V cable we could find on Amazon?

After seeing Apple CEO Steve Jobs present the iTV, a box that wirelessly connects a computer to a TV. (And to think that before this, we used cords — how primitive!) Google VP Marissa Mayer told the press, "It's what I always wanted."

At yesterday's big, overblown Apple press conference, Steve Jobs unveiled a magical box that allows people to stream their iTunes purchases from their computer to their television. [Variety]
Producers of the CGI-animated version of Horton Hears a Who will lock Jim Carrey in a sound booth, press record on the console, and return three days later to see what improvisational magic he's added to the shredded script pages littering the floor of the studio. [THR]
At a Hollywood Radio & TV Society luncheon, an atypically diplomatic Les Moonves reserved judgment on ABC's decision to air its controversial Path to 9/11 miniseries, and declined to publicly gloat over Tom Freston's firing from Viacom, "because I'll only get myself in trouble." We're sure he's just feeling a little bit under the weather and will return to his old, rival-taunting self at the next media conference. [Variety]
America still hasn't satisfied its appetite for washed-up celebrities tripping over professional dancers, as the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars leads ABC to an overall ratings victory. [THR]
Perhaps feeling that the unbearably perky Katie Couric is not suited to the task of delivering them sad news, channel-switching viewers drop her CBS telecast to third place on 9/11. [Variety]

• Apparently Apple made some sort of announcement yesterday. [Gizmodo]
• Is the White House spying on journalists? That's the kind of thing that can get you fired! [CBS]
• Hewlett-Packard Chairman forced out for investigation that spied on journalists. [USAToday]
• Of course, sometimes journalists act like spies. [NYO]
• NYT sells off its TV stations to focus on print newspapers, digital media, and launching new glossy magazines about sections that already exist every other month. [NYT]

• Tech reporter John C. Dvorak says hacker Kevin Mitnick should become chairman of Hewlett-Packard. Har har. That's the tech equivalent of "Christopher Walken for President." [Dvorak Uncensored]

In an announcement that surprised approximately no one, Apple reveals that it will offer full-length Disney movies in the iTunes store. Equally unsurprising is Steve Jobs' desire to sell you a slightly improved video iPod on which to view your newly downloaded movies. [Variety]
· Peter Jackson options the historical fantasy series Temeraire, whose dragons-in-the-Age-of-Napoleon setting gets his naughty parts a-tingling: "I can't wait to see Napoleonic battles fought with a squadron of dragons. That's what I go to the movies for." [THR]
Gold Circle Films gives Batman franchise killer Joel Schumacher an opportunity to ply his hacky trade, signing him to direct the supernatural thriller Town Creek. [Variety]
· John Leguizamo dangles perilously close to infomercial-hosting career oblivion, signing up for a Spike TV pilot about a "bank heist that goes terribly awry," as basic cable bank heists are wont to do. [THR]
VH1 casts one of Flavor of Love's "eccentric" (read: utterly, weave-yankingly insane) contestants in her own dating show spin-off. Be very, very afraid. [Variety]

Yep, new Nanos (even smaller and it comes in colors), and a new 80GB iPods that costs more than some desktop computers. Watch the news:

This morning, Steve Jobs will yank a little something from his pocket (that joke never gets old) at a special Apple event. Oh boy, what'll it be, what'll it be? Tell us, big media!

• Hewlett-Packard's pretexting scandal: Today, the board should announce whether it will ask chairwoman Patricia Dunn to resign. [HPQ on Google Finance]

Valleywag has an invitation to spare and one to beg. The spare isn't quite an invite to the Future of Web Apps summit, but to a related dinner on the 14th at TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington's Atherton home. Say what you will about the man, he's hospitable (just ask his two live-ins). And you could sup with tech notables like WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, Dogster founder Ted Rheingold, Odeo founder Evan Williams, and Yahoo researcher (and plasticbag.org blogger) Tom Coates. The invitation is probably not transferable, but we'll see if we can beg the organizers to let you in.

• Oracle chief Larry Ellison will preach the security gospel to the choir at next year's RSA Conference. While some doubt Oracle's security expertise, everyone knows that Larry knows how to stay safe. [Silicon.com]