So I just came across this collection of iPhone 4 cases from CollabCubed which feature a life-sized print of an ear. When you hold it up to your ear, it looks like, er, an ear.

At the moment they have five different ear prints in varying skin tones and with varying amounts of jewellery. It’s bad news for left-handers though as they are currently only available in the right ear design. You’ll just have to hold it upside down for now.

More gadget covers that aren’t what they seem

It turns out there’s a bit of a trend for disguising gadgets. It’s a bit early for Christmas but here’s some to put on your list in the coming weeks.

This book laptop case is designed to look like a leather-bound weighty tome so it will disguise your computer when you don’t want it to be seen, perhaps if you’re carrying it in a crowded place or are leaving your house empty for a long time. However, there is a small giveaway – the inscription on the spine saying Hard Back Laptop Case.

Over on Etsy, people are going further than fake book covers and turning actual novels into covers for the Kindle and other e-book readers. You can pick from vintage copies of Nancy Drew, Dr Seuss or Huckleberry Finn. But why not be a bit more bold? How about Jilly Cooper’s Riders or the Da Vinci Code? Which is probably what people are reading on their Kindle anyway. They just won’t admit it.

Also on Etsy is something for the geek that likes looking like a geek – an iPhone and iTouch case that looks like a calculator. On a similar theme, here’s an iPad case that looks like a cassette tape (also comes with a matching iPod or smartphone case in a rather fetching retro brown and orange).

And here’s a USB stick that looks like a twig. Made by Dutch designers Oooms, who also offer a roadkill carpet and a lamp shaped like a wineglass, it comes with a product warning: ‘If you have small children, it might be an idea to give them a quick demonstration, otherwise you could come home to find he or she has copied their daddy and rammed a twig into the hard drive.’