Bill Gates was giving a keynote speech earlier this week in London where he was asked to name some of the luxuries he had. He just listed some DVDs and books. Surprisingly he did not list his private jet. During the speech he also mentioned that he wrote a letter to Steve Jobs, which the Apple co-founder kept by his bed-side as he was dying.

In Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, it was revealed that the late Apple co-founder wanted to reinvent television, textbooks, and photography. Apple recently released a new textbooks feature for the iPad and we know that the company is currently building a television set. 9to5Mac has revealed that Steve Jobs took a meeting with Lytro CEO Ren Ng to discuss the possibilities of Apple working with them to develop new camera technologies.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published a series of 22 newly granted patents for Apple. One of these patents was awarded to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. That patent was related to organizing episodic TV content on Apple TV. As the figure below points out, Apple has patented an environment where television content at a higher level interface can be broken down into corresponding episodes. Before Steve Jobs passed away, he told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he wanted to invent a television set that would be seamlessly synced with all devices and with iCloud and would have the “simplest user interface you could imagine.”

This Thursday Apple Inc. is expected to make a huge technology education announcement. So far the announcement is believed to be related to digital textbooks, but sources say that Apple will be releasing tools for publishers to create interactive e-books (i.e. a “GarageBand for e-books”).

When Apple invented the iTunes and the iPod, the music industry changed forever. This is why the Recording Academy has awarded former CEO and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs with a Trustee Award. The award was for “outstanding contributions to the industry in a non-performing capacity.” This is Apple’s second Grammy award as contributions to the music industry. Their work in recording earned them a Technical Grammy 10 years ago. [MacRumors]

The BBC has created a documentary for former Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs. The entire video is currently on YouTube, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is taken down soon enough so I would watch it right away. The documentary features interviews with Steve Wozniak, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and Stephen Fry.

Walter Isaacson was at an event hosted by the Commonwealth Cub of California and he shared some additional information about the Steve Jobs biography. The 630-page biography may be expanded in a special edition. It may be in the form of an extensively annotated version or putting in an addendum that addresses the period during Steve Jobs’ death.

Last month I wrote about how the founding contract of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was for sale on auction. The contract was signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Ronald Wayne had a chance to become a partner at Apple in 1976, but ended up selling his 10% stake in the company for $800. Today 10% of Apple would be worth $36.4 billion. In 1994, Ronald Wayne sold the founding contract of Apple for a few thousand dollars. Wade Saadi bought the contract from Wayne and sold it on Sotheby’s this week. The contract ended up selling for $1.6 million even though it was valued at $150,000. [BusinessInsider]