Cautious outlooks from Oracle and Research in Motion take down tech stocks.

Shoppers are spending their government stimulus checks on apples -- and Apples.

Earlier today I reviewed a desktop chat client called Skabble, which had potential as a bookmarking and browser-integrated service, but fell short. Shortly after I was introduced to another new chat service, Browzmi, that does all the things Skabble should do. Browzmi doesn’t require a long download process and works directly in your [...]

Skabble’s new desktop chat tool has a lot of potential, but not many practical features just yet. If you’re going to launch a new chat client, you’re going to have to consider the fact that there are established chat tools that support integration, which will make growth a bit easier. Skabble doesn’t appear [...]

Finally, George Lucas has gone from making movies that look like cartoons and video games to making cartoons and video games themselves. At least these products will be honest.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which looks almost as cheesy as the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. So far, Lucas also has a mixed record on the video games that have stretched out both the franchise and its financial performance. While the Rogue Squadron trilogy was great, the Battlefront games were about as entertaining as The Phantom Menace.

My new favorite - it came out in November, but I've been obsessed with it lately - is Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. The game is exactly what it sounds like: a meta-licensed mash-up between Star Wars and Lego that offers gamers the chance to play through all six movies with Legoriffic incarnations of their favorite characters. This is both as ridiculous and as entertaining as it sounds. The cut scenes alone -- which replay scenes from the movie with Lego spaceships and little Lego figures -- are worth the price of admission.

Like the original Star Wars movie - I'm talking about the first film, not the first episode - Lego Star Wars shows that Lucas is best when he keeps it simple. Back in 1977, Star Wars dealt in pure childlike joy, and the Lego game does the same. Watching Darth Vader strut around on stubby little Lego legs just never gets old. If that doesn't make you smile, you probably hate puppies and kittens.

By the '90s, the movies got both too cute and too serious - filled with characters that seemed made for McDonald's Happy Meals and weighed down by both spiritual nonsense and political intrigue (what is the Trade Federation and why do I care?). Lucas's games went in the same direction. The massively multiplayer Star Wars Galaxies introduced fascinating ideas, but it had the depth and detail that fans demand of Lord of the Rings. In the world of Star Wars, no one cares how far planets are from each other - everything happens "far, far away."

Lego Star Wars throws all this seriousness right out the airlock. It's easy to accept Jedi mind tricks when they serve to build Lego bricks. And it's easier to suspend one's disbelief for Lego laser-gun fights than for Lucas's dialogue, which the game avoids in favor of sounds that serve to evoke emotions without getting specific. When Lego Jar Jar Binks no talk, he no sound like racist-y parody. If he still gets on your nerves, you can slice him up with a light saber.

The Clone Wars movie should be this much fun. But I doubt it will be.

Robert Levine is the MOLI View contributing editor for Business and Technology.

The business world has never been easy to understand. But at some point, about a decade ago, it started getting much more confusing - on purpose. Laid-off employees were "right-sized" as company public relations statements became "media releases."

Nowhere is this more of a problem than the Internet. Or "Web 2.0" - which looks the same as the original Web, to me, except that it features "user-created content," or what we used to call "stuff written by amateur writers for free."

Britain's Local Government Association is now trying to disincentivize - sorry, discourage - this behavior by publishing a list of "non-words" that should be avoided. Among them is "thought-showers," which sounds like something that happens at a drunken party at an Internet convention but is really a new-fangled synonym for brainstorms.

I'd like to expand this idea to the world of technology, which is mired so deeply in jargon that it risks becoming out of sync with its community - or, in plain English, confusing the hell out of people.

Here are some of my nominations for words I never want to hear again:

Citizen journalism - Like the old joke about the Holy Roman Empire, this has little to do with citizens or journalism. Since "essays by legal residents" is a little wordy, just say "amateur political commentary" - journalism doesn't pay that much better, anyway.

First-mover - Where are you moving? Not near me, I hope. What's wrong with "first"?

Intellectual property holder - Why not just say "author?" Or "person whose content I just stole"?

Liquidity Event - This usually refers to an initial public offering. Just say "excuse to get a call girl." (See online community, below.)

Online community - A town is a community. A subculture is a community. The people who use a website are a "customer base" - especially if they're buying used couches or cruising for call girls. Or both.

Politics 2.0 - A Twitter-hosted duel of soundbites is not change I can believe in. And remember: Government 1.0 built the Internet in the first place.

Sticky content - Unless you're describing a porn page, just say that a site keeps users coming back.

Web 3.0 - I'm still sketchy on the exact definition of "Web 2.0," and this seems to be a low-rent way of implying that the word's user will make lots of money. If the site can be monetized, that is.

Robert Levine is the MOLI View contributing editor for Business and Technology.