Linked List: November 29, 2010

Monday, 29 November 2010

Irvin Kershner, R.I.P. 

The AP:

Irvin Kershner, who directed the Star Wars sequel “The Empire Strikes Back” and the James Bond film “Never Say Never Again,” has died at age 87.

Empire, of course, is a masterpiece. Never Say Never Again is not, but it’s interesting. The director’s commentary on the latest DVD edition is just great, and really covers the legal hurdles the production faced.

SubZin 

Great site: enter a phrase from a movie and it tells you which movie, the time within the movie, and links to it at Netflix. (Thanks to Jory Prum.)

Smartphone Loyalty Survey 

Reuters:

The survey found that just 25 percent of smartphone owners planned to stay loyal to the operating system running their phone, with loyalty highest among Apple users at 59 percent, and lowest for Microsoft’s phone software, at 21 percent.

Of users of Research in Motion’s BlackBerrys, 35 percent said they would stay loyal. The figure was 28 percent for users of phones running Google’s Android software, and 24 percent for users of Nokia Symbian phones.

Android’s loyalty numbers are much closer to Windows Mobile’s than the iPhone’s, which, of course, proves that Android is winning.

No iPhone? DoCoMo Turns to the Dark Side 

Disuse Wakabayashi, for the WSJ:

The iPhone accounts for about two-thirds of the domestic smartphone market, making DoCoMo’s efforts even more challenging in image-conscious Japan, where the iPhone is starting to become a must-have personal accessory among many young people.

Persuading people to buy a Samsung smartphone in Japan — a country where the South Korean giant has maintained a fairly low profile in the past — may require Jedi mind tricks or possibly a “force” of nature. What pitchman could pull off such a task? You guessed it, Darth Vader.

Lucasfilm is racking up the endorsement dollars on Android phones.

Japanese iPhone Craze Attracts Global App Developers 

Yuri Kageyama, reporting for the AP:

Foreign developers of applications for phones didn’t give the Japanese market a second thought because of its insularity. But that is changing as the iPhone, for which tens of thousands of applications have been created, dominates Japanese smartphone sales.

Everywhere one turns, on commuter trains and urban cafes, people are tapping away at their iPhone screens in a relatively rare Japanese embrace of technology that isn’t homegrown.

Remember when Brian X. Chen claimed the Japanese “hated the iPhone”? That’s a classic bowl of claim chowder.

‘A Waste of Money and Time’ 

Bruce Schneier makes the case against the TSA:

Exactly two things have made airplane travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers they need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money. Add screening of checked bags and airport workers and we’re done. Take all the rest of the money and spend it on investigation and intelligence.

Pinboard Bookmark Archiving 

Maciej Ceglowski on how Pinboard archives bookmarked web pages, by storing not just the page source, but resource dependencies too.