The demo version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was released a few weeks ago for download through Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. Now, LucasArts has announced that the game shattered records for the number of downloads on Xbox Live, taking only eight days to reach 1 million. The full version is due out next Tuesday, and LucasArts will be holding a launch party in San Fransisco on Monday night to celebrate. The game is part of a multimedia project which includes a best-selling book, a comic, action figures, and other tie-ins. According to Eurogamer's interview with producer Cameron Suey, previous Star Wars games suffered from a "lack of ambition." Suey also shows off some of the gameplay in a video. A video walkthrough of the PS2 and PSP versions is available at Kotaku. The game will not be available for PC. Early reviews for the game are good, but not great, and developers recently mentioned that George Lucas himself provided input on the project.

Starting in November, Queen's University Belfast will offer a course that will use the psychology of the Star Wars Jedi Knights to teach students communication skills and personal development. The university's publicity material reads 'the course "Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way" teaches the "real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks"' and promises to explore 'wider issues behind the Star Wars universe, like balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood and fascism.' The course is very affordable but the droid fees are outrageous.

An anonymous reader writes "George Lucas CGI 'Clone Wars' movie has premiered to reviews ranging from MSNBC's 'Ugly animation and an uninspired storyline drag down the film' to AintItCool's 'I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.' Critics have noted the animation style, music and slapstick humor had more than a passing similarity to Pixar's Toy Story, and wondered if the introduction of new action figures (sorry, characters) like Baby Jabba Hutt and Jabba the Hutt's Gay Uncle may have taken the franchise a bridge too far. Lucas responding by enforcing an embargo, forcing the reviews to be taken down. While sites like AintItCool.com responded, by then it was just a little too late. Still, the CGI eye candy will make it popular with kids. If the 'Clone Wars' movie can't save the galaxy, can it at least save the franchise?"

1sockchuck writes "What happens when you hire Star Wars enthusiasts as the system admins for your data center? You end up with the R2-D2 server monitoring system. The staff at Japan's Syun (only if you read Japanese) have converted an R2-D2 DVD projector into a Nagios-based server monitoring system that alerts them whenever a server goes offline." Say what you will, but that's a lot harder to ignore than a beeper.

lennier writes "How exactly did George Lucas develop the script for the first Star Wars? Why were the prequels so uneven when the originals were so good? Did he really have a masterplan for six, nine, or even twelve episodes, and why did the official Lucasfilm position keep changing? And just how big an influence were the films of Akira Kurosawa on the whole saga? Michael Kaminski's The Secret History of Star Wars, Third Edition is a free, thoroughly unauthorized, e-book that brings together a huge amount of literary detective work to sort fact from legend and reveal how the story really evolved. Download it or have your nerd credentials revoked."

D Ninja writes "Yesterday, Lockheed Martin was awarded the $1.4 billion Air Force contract to build the next-generation global positioning satellite system. This occurred after a series of delays as the Air Force decided between Lockheed and the competing bidding contractor, Boeing Co. 'GPS III, will give new navigation warfare (NAVWAR) capabilities to shut off GPS service to a limited geographical location while providing GPS to US and allied forces. GPS III will offer significant improvements in navigation capabilities by improving interoperability and jam resistance. The procurement of the GPS III system is planned for multiple blocks, with the GPS IIIA portion currently underway. GPS IIIA includes all of the GPS IIF capability plus up to a ten-fold increase in signal power, a new civil signal compatible with the European Union's Galileo system, and a new spacecraft bus that will allow a growth path to future blocks.'"

Rikardon writes "Nikko Home Electronics has created a DVD projector that looks and moves like R2D2 — with a remote control shaped like the Millenium Falcon. The specs aren't bad: a claimed projection area of up to 6.6m; built-in DVD and CD players; analog and digital video and audio ports; various memory card orifices, and an internal iPod dock. Favorite feature: tilt the legs to adjust the projection height, up to and including projection on the ceiling. No word on whether it projects holograms."

eldavojohn writes "With a name like Internet2 and such high press coverage, you might think that's the future of the Internet servicing our homes. But Ars Technica looks more closely at what the odds actually are for it to become mainstream. When will you see the effects of the software, planning and hardware that went into Internet2 in your home? The odds are the very distant future — if at all. From the article: 'The Internet as we now know it is anything but obsolete. The amount of dedicated hardware and personal attention required to get networks like Internet2 and DANTE working simply makes them uneconomical for most common uses. And, unless a majority of networked content moves onto these dedicated networks, then having access to them may not do users much good. If the academic networks change the commercial ones, they'll do it in an evolutionary way, by providing improved hardware and better software for running traffic within the constraints of the existing economic structure.'"

Roland Piquepaille notes the hype surrounding what the University of Texas at Austin is calling the world's most powerful laser. During a tenth of a femtosecond this laser is 2,000 times more powerful than all the power plants in the US, and is brighter than sunlight on the surface of the Sun. On his own blog Roland points out that UT's is not the first petawatt laser; that distinction belongs to a system installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1996.

fm6 writes "According to guardian.co.uk, George Lucas is suing the designer of the Imperial Stormtrooper armor. Andrew Ainsworth took the original molds he used to make the props for the movies, and has been using them to make outfits that sell for up to £1,800 (US$3,600) apiece. Ainsworth has countersued for a share of the $12 billion that Star Wars merchandise has generated since the first movie."

Sasseen writes "George Lucas has announced that the animated Star Wars television show, which we've discussed previously, will be kicking off with a feature-length theatre release. Lucas felt that, 'there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell. I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the animation forward.' A fully animated film will be released in theaters on August 15 with a TV series of more than 30 episodes planned to follow on Cartoon Network and TNT. Also of note from the article, 'A new character named Ahsoka, Anakin's padawan, will be the first female Jedi to be a character of focus'."

StarCraft 2 writes "This composite image shows the jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy striking the edge of another galaxy, the first time such an interaction has been found. In the image, it is clearly seen how the jet from the main galaxy on the lower left is striking its companion galaxy to the upper right. The jet impacts the companion galaxy at its edge and is then disrupted and deflected, much like how a stream of water from a hose will splay out after hitting a wall at an angle. The composite image was made by combining data from Chandra, Hubble and several other systems."

An anonymous reader found that "For the last 30 years, Lucasfilm has created special holiday greeting cards for its employees and business partners. For the first time ever, we have compiled most of the Star Wars-themed Holiday Cards on one page." My favorite is 2005. That would make a cool poster or something.

stm2 writes "As a long time fan of the stories, I watched as Star Wars transformed from one of the better sci-fi stories told to 'Whedon is my master now.' An article at the TechRepublic blog explores the weakness of the sequel trilogy and states that the Midi-chlorians are the culprit. Was it the Midi-chlorians, Jar Jar Binks, the actors? When did Star Wars jump the shark?. A bonus question: Did George Lucas redeem himself in Episode III?"

Given the swirling rumours of a KOTOR MMOG, it should come as no surprise that BioWare and Lucasarts have announced they're teaming up for a project. They don't give any really concrete details, other than to say it is 'a ground-breaking interactive entertainment product'. They've also "launched a cobranded Web site, www.LucasArtsBioWare.com. 'Through our previous collaborations, we know that BioWare has an impressive ability to blend gripping stories with technological advancements, and we believe that our upcoming product will deliver an experience that will span the traditional boundaries of video game entertainment,' LucasArts president Jim Ward said in a statement. "

merg717 writes "George Lucas has confirmed that work has begun on a live-action Star Wars television series. This is the companion piece to the Clone Wars animated series, focusing on entirely new characters outside of the frame of the six movies. 'Lucas joked that the series would be about "the life of robots" but wouldn't let any details slip about the true premise. The "extended universe" of "Star Wars" has come to life already in Lucas-sanctioned novels, comics and games that chronicle the history of the Jedi and tell the tales of bit players in the films, such as the bounty hunters from "The Empire Strikes Back."'"

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the 21-foot X-Wing with four rocket engines? It launched yesterday from Plaster City and here's the video showing what many thought inevitable: total destruction in mid-air. From the post: "I can only say two things. The first is: absolutely amazing. And the second: poor Porkins." "

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that some crazy California enthusiasts have built a 21-foot long model of an X-Wing. While this might be impressive in its own right, this model actually flies. Powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines the group has high hopes for their launch next week. Let's hope the built-in R2 unit makes it out ok.

An anonymous reader writes "So what if the Wii can't handle the awesome 'next-generation' physics engine the other consoles will enjoy when Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is released? LucasArts announced today that Krome Studios is developing a version of the game for the Nintendo console, and players will finally get to use the Wiimote for its intended purpose — as a lightsaber. 'The sword-swinging action will be exclusive to the Wii version, and even then, it will only be available in an exclusive "duel mode." The description in the release says that this duel mode will be a multiplayer affair.'"

Verunks writes "In honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, NASA will launch Luke Skywalker's original Jedi lightsaber into space along with the crew of the space shuttle Discovery. The launch is slated for October."