Linked List: March 12, 2009

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Names Never Spoken in the Original Star Wars Trilogy ★

With regard to the item below, regarding Star Wars names and terms which became well-known even though they were never spoken by the characters in the films, Cameron Daigle is compiling a list. AT-AT? Y-Wing? These things are all so deeply ingrained in my brain that it never occurred to me that they were never mentioned by name in the films themselves.

Ewoks, Ewoks, Ewoks ★

From Dan Vebber’s outstanding “50 Reasons Why Return of the Jedi Sucked”, written in 1996:

But aside from what we see onscreen, the Ewoks are miserable little creatures for a completely different reason: they are the single clearest example of Lucas’ willingness to compromise the integrity of his Trilogy in favor of merchandising dollars. How intensely were the Ewoks marketed? Consider this: “Ewok” is a household word, despite the fact that it’s never once spoken in the film.

I’ve seen this movie dozens of times over the past 25 years, but when I read this claim — that the word “Ewok” is never even mentioned in the film — I immediately thought no, that couldn’t be. That’s really rather amazing. (Via Kottke.)

Update: DF reader Aditya Sood blew my mind with this nugget: Boba Fett is never mentioned by name in The Empire Strikes Back.

Google Voice ★

Major expansion of what was once GrandCentral. Seems worth the wait. David Pogue has a preview of the new service in the NYT.

My Guesses Regarding iPhone OS 3.0 ★

From my Macworld Expo announcement predictions back in January:

As for what might appear in iPhone OS 3.0, here’s my wish list. First, a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

Now that we’ve seen a preview of Palm’s Pre, I wonder if Apple is prepared to bring back the Dashboard-style JavaScript/HTML/CSS APIs for creating iPhone widgets that were slated for iPhone 1.0, but yanked for performance reasons.

Update: Another good guess, suggested by several DF readers: syncing of notes between the iPhone and Mac. And Boy Genius Report says MMS and network tethering.

Apple to Preview iPhone OS 3.0 Next Tuesday, March 17 ★

Media event on Apple’s campus, much like last year’s debut of the iPhone SDK and OS 2.0.

‘Forever’s Not So Long’ ★

Good new 13-minute short film, written and directed by Shawn Morrison, produced by and starring Garrett Murray, and with an original music score by Robert Andersen. That’s right, the same Garrett Murray who just released Ego — quite a busy week.