Star Wars vs. Saul Bass

Well this is just lovely. I want to watch the rest of the 1957 Star Wars right now.

Worst-Case Scenario

 The use of possessive apostrophes in place names in Birmingham on road signs: 

Australia's reasoning for dropping the possessive apostrophe is very relevant, since they argued that with the emergency services using computer databases there was a need for nationwide consistency. It would be tragic if the ambulance couldn't find your street, if you forgot to include the possessive apostrophe when calling 999.

What kind of computer system wouldn't catch all possible variants of place names, whether you type the apostrophes or not? Ah, a Government-built one.. 

Dear Carriers

This is why we don't believe you when you say that you didn't really want to take the iPhone:

iPhone 3G Sales Spur AT&T Wireless Growth in Q4 2008 - Mac Rumors

Of the four 'pluses' that Fortune lists for AT&T, this is the most interesting I think:

About 40% of the iPhone activations this quarter were new AT&T customers, either buying their first cellphone or switching from another carrier.

Those first-time customers are the key to this game. The phone business has been all about churn, but most of those whose first experience is on an iPhone are simply not going to switch easily to something else. Content providers take note too: Once they've learned to expect the kind of things they get on an iPhone, they're not going to accept the kind of crap you dish out elsewhere.

Apple TV is growing

Funny this. I bought a new HD TV just after Christmas, and I popped into the Apple Store to check out the Apple TV specifications (it's likely that my new screen will eventually play host to more digital media than it does OTA stuff). Quite a few other people were doing the same. Richer Sounds informally told me they were blown away by the demand for bigger LCDs, and every other store I went into was boxing up display TVs for collection. The economy might slow this down, but if the last recession is anything to go by people will be saving money on expensive nights out and staying in with their home entertainment more.

AppleInsider on Apple TV:

Speaking in the company's financial results conference call, Cook said, "there was a tremendous tickup year over year [for Apple TV]. In fact unit sales were up over 3 times vs the year-ago quarter.  However let me be clear, we still consider this a hobby."

Toy trains 'Star Wars' fans to use The Force - USATODAY.com

Toy trains 'Star Wars' fans to use The Force - USATODAY.com

The Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films.

Oh yes, I need this.

The Last Physical Movie Format

Daring Fireball: Macworld Expo 2009 Predictions:

"I’m not going to say that Blu-ray is dead because it isn’t. But if DVD isn’t the last mainstream physical medium for home movie distribution, Blu-ray will be. The future, obviously and inevitably, is in downloads. I’m already there, and you, dear DF reader, probably are too, but for the mass market, downloadable movies for the living room remain in the future."

Let's pray Gruber is right on this one. Blu-ray will get big because HD-DVD got the knife. If that hadn't happened then we'd be looking at another year of fighting over a shrinking pie. Even so, I'm hanging back with 1080p-upscaled DVD for the next half year at least. I've no desire to start buying new disks yet, and I'm still hoping I'll never have to do that ever again.

Too Late for Palm

Palm Pins Its Hopes on Nova - BusinessWeek:

"Rubinstein and others say the goal is to create products that bridge the gap between Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry devices, oriented to work and e-mail, and Apple's iPhone, oriented to fun. 'People's work and personal lives are melding,' Colligan says, adding that Palm is aiming for the 'fat middle of the market.'"

A worthy aim for sure, but in the meantime iPhone OS keeps moving towards that centre and there's not going to be any room left there. In hindsight the critical moment might have been when Palm refused to sell to Apple, and when Steve Jobs realised the future of the PDA would be in the evolution of a media player into a primary personal computing device.