Apple’s loyalist, camped-out customer

What greater tribute is there to one of the great innovators of our time than to camp outside a store for weeks on end in anticipation of his latest product?

British app marketer Rob Shoesmith may not have envisioned that his camping outside the Apple store in London would become a sort of public tribute/wake to the late Steve Jobs, but circumstances appeared to have overtaken him.

Shoesmith has spent the last few weeks outside the store in anticipation of the release of the new iPhone 4S. His adventure has involved meetings with minor TV celebrities and an Apple-tattooed Dane. You can read about his experiences here.

Jobs’ passing will probably be commemorated in more conventional fashion with a movie of the great man’s life.

Weekend Reads can only hope that any film based on the Buddhist tech wizard solves one of the great imponderables – what was with the fixation with black skivvies? Wait – someone’s solved the mystery!

Either way, it’s interesting to note that Apple’s great rival, Microsoft, is already dabbling in the film industry, with its first film set to debut in November.

Does being an Australian tech start-up suck? One entrepreneur clearly thinks so, and it’s for reasons that may surprise you.

These five businesses certainly don’t suck, as Kate Kendall explains in her piece on the five Aussie start-ups to watch.

Ever thought about employee stock options? No? Well, maybe it’s time you started.

Finally, South African diamond company De Beers has become the latest, and perhaps most intriguing, business to launch a start-up incubator in Silicon Valley.

Funding and mentorship is all very well and good, but the question Weekend Reads wants an answer to is: will they get de beers in?

Sorry.