"It was quite a shock to hear someone from the BBC defending this government."
Wake up and smell the coffee. Watch or listen to any BBC news programme at the moment, you'll hear they appear to be trying to continuously lick the government's arse.
I've been shocked time and time again by the regurgitation of government stats, half-truths and outright lies recently, to the extent that I've stopped watching even the BBC news. If it's not depressing it's constantly trotting out the government line on just about everything.
What I can't decide, as I don't monitor my opinions on this matter or keep a diary, is if the BBC is constantly sycophantic to any government regardless of party colours. Any comments?
2. Took some pictures, wife took Canon EOS and took pictures too.
3. Uploaded all to SkyDrive from PC (the web interface for SkyDrive photo upload is *outstanding* now - hats off to Microsoft, it even pops up a progress window for uploads which you can add to on-the-fly while it's uploading - excellent for large numbers of files, left it working overnight, did the lot)
4. Started messing with pictures on iPad after downloading from SkyDrive using app (PhotoForge, InstaGram, etc...)
5. Uploaded to SkyDrive from photo gallery, sent links direct from SkyDrive app to bride, etc
I _attempted_ to do this using some iTools for Picasa, and was simply stunned by how awkard a) the web interface was and 2) all the tools for iPad / iPhone were.
I'm genuinely impressed, and have started using SkyDrive again as a result. And I'm not usually a Microsoft product recommending kind of guy.
I'll add my voice to the "you've just met one" brigade - iPhone 3GS replaced after GPS issue, no quibble, applecare does the job. Next machine's a Mac, in part thanks to their attitude towards the consumer.
The trolls in here really are miserable and haughty, aren't they?
Not necessarily.England has "common law", and I _think_ it's based on precedent, which has _nothing_ to do with either common sense or morality per se, more on the accumulated judgements of those making a specific judgment at a point in time, who we hope have a moral leaning, but that does depend on the cash pot of those prosecuting (or defending) their case when it's heard. And then the result goes into the pool of common law...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
"In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts. If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision (this principle is known as stare decisis)"
If enough people want it, the rules will morph over time, I'd have thought.
R C-J is probably the right man for the BBC job, but has overstretched himself here
<sigh> this had to happen, really, didn't it?
I've lamented this awful presenter many times, often vainly tweeting to the Beeb that they should sack the old duffer as watching him attempting to use whatever gadget he was wittering on about on Breakfast in the morning was like watching my grandad trying to understand String theory. Painful, awful...
But now I realise, he's the right man for the job. The BBC's utter inability to go into any detail on tech is a blessing. We don't need to get all socially aware and demand they present tech properly, we need to subvert and work around them to get kids who are interested in tech the tools they need to tinker enough to be consumed by it.
The reason? I'd wager most of us didn't get turned on to programming, or tech, in school. I did, but I suspect I'm a total exception, leaning S-Algol in 6th year at Madras College in 1987/88 (I kid you now), running on a Z80 attached to a BBC.
No, most people who these days, having grown up with simple, low level machines and having a great top-to-bottom view of programming from hardware to editor, probably got there via a rather organic hobbyist attitude, grown from sheer curiosity.
Schools do not generate curiosity. Schools generate grades, league tables and bored, bored children (NOTE: generalisation).
R C-J should stick to kis knittng: doing terrible grandad reviews of mobile phones and tablet computers for numpties who don't care, who are blinking away the sleep from their eyes.
And HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language - MARKUP - it's a page description language, not a programming language. If all C-J was doing was pushing HTML around, he's not programming. If, however, he started doing clever things with CSS, Javascript... different matter.
This whole Reg article nails the coffin shut for me - R C-J is nothing more than an old man equivalent of the skirt which shows off toys in Stuff and on Sunday morning TV shows.
1. The software will never be reliable enough (no entendre intended)
2. Reality cliff - only people who have never, or rarely, had sex with a real person will consistently use the services of a sexbot - I've seen the latest "avengers assemble" trailers and the hulk still looks like a bluescreened add-on with unconvincing skin (ok, he's green, but see my point?). It'll take a lot longer for the reality cliff to get bridged (sorry about the metaphor) as the closer you get, the further away it seems (the more subtle the dissonance, the more unsettling it is).
Also, I reckon if it did ever happen (allowing this idea for a moment) it'd generate a whole new class of personality disorders and artificial psychoses resulting in a lot of very damaged individuals.
No board or banks involved, deal made in a living room... panicking much, Zuckerberg? Facebook should concentrate on making a mobile client that doesn't duck balls instead of trying to buy a popular mobile client which does one job, simply.
BTW the simplicity of apps like Instagram shouldn't be laughed at - that's the whole bloody point, who wants full Photoshop in their bloody pocket? See something memorable, snap, post-process with a little bit of nostalgic flair, post on web.
So sneering at it only shows the immediacy of sharing that the mobile web can bring has passed some people by...
Nice to hear someone pointing out Moody's, S&P et al and their role in stoking the fires of the international finance collapse, and framing their decisions about shares in that light.
While downgrading Nokia doesn't have quite the same potential to being down world capital centres, I'd say that any company which was getting paid to rubber stamp garbage as AAA probably can't be entirely trusted to make balanced judgements about anything in the other direction either.
Looking at the engadget comparison from http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/05/htc-one-x-vs-one-s/ the One S (the dual core snapdragon powered version) actually has *better* gaming performance than the One X(!) - indeed it won 10 of the 17 performance benchmarks.
The screen on the X looks much better, though, but the battery life on the S is predictably better (although not by as much as I expected). The sheer amount of juice to run the same benchmark tests on the X compared to the S probably also shows what it'd be like day-to-day.
Virgin's site text for the 100Mb package - is that the exact text?
"...I didn't sign up for a 50 service at peak times..."
Explain to me where it mentions "peak time" in that text: are you inferring it from the phrase "when the whole house is online at the same time"? If it's not explicitly mentioned then caveat emptor, I'm afraid.
Come on, be realistic when dealing with these large internet access organisations. They've pretty much all had their knuckles rapped at some stage for misrepresenting about every aspect of the bandwidth/capping aspects of their broadband offerings, so when you read their advertising text, don't assume that's a frigging contract detailing how your service will run.
Do what I did, ring them, and demand the details of the package - if anyone else commenting on here has done this, *properly*, no faffing with a "screen-driver" telesales person, but talked to a supervisor, or someone who knows the real deal, then please post a reply detailing that Virgin said you'd always have total freedom and unlimited bandwidth, anytime of day.
Otherwise, shrug your shoulders and walk to another provider who *can* give you those assurances, cast iron, in the contract, which YOU review and check, or put up and shut up and schedule your downloads somehow. Seriously, this is a contention bandwidth-throttled system, right up to the backbone. All this gnashing of teeth sounds like a rather inevitable user-viewpoint of internet infrastructure about to creak under the load of Steam, Xbox360, PS3, Netflix, Apple TV, iPad 3 HD content, ... "No download limits" is a movable feast, and may only be referring to overall monthly usage. In fact you can guarantee it is.
If they can wiggle out, they will. Remember, this text was not produced by a network engineer, it was produced by a marketing suit. And we all know how much *they* know.
----------------------------------------------
What can I do with 100Mb?
Download an entire music album in as little as 5 seconds; a TV show in around 30 seconds, a high quality movie in as little as 1½ minutes and a high definition movie in around 7 minutes. 100Mb really excels when the whole house is online at the same time – whether for streaming HD videos, downloading HD movies, gaming online or accessing everyday services. With 100Mb broadband there is plenty of connection for everyone!
What does unlimited broadband mean?
No download limits. Unlike some of our competitors, you get unlimited downloads as a basic right so you can load up on music, films...whatever you're into.
"People buy iOS apps - people want Android apps for free"
Ah, at last - the core "fragmentation" issue. The fact that android devices **themselves** are cheap. Do you think there's a tie-in between the price of the device and the potential app store profits? Is the Play store (still sounds like a sex toy place) actually suffering from the fact that Android has a majority of owners who either don't care about apps (just want to do calls / texts) or people who don't want to pay for them?
"Unfortunately devs sometimes don't bother to do this."
Your outline of how to cope with Android development for devices is illuminating, but this one sentence is a giveaway. In the same way that iOS is a kiddy-OS (not meant in a derogatory tone, note - my Alzheimer-suffering grandfather can drive an iPad, that's my point), the way in which UI programming is done under iOS sounds simpler: two screen resolutions, simple maths for "retina".
80/20 rule applied, do you think 20% of devs go for the quality approach you described, and the other 80% either fudge something which doesn't work very well under certain circumstances (hence some apps look awful on some devices), or do you think the other 80% will decide Android is just "too hard" and bugger off where it's perhaps simpler, and where the users buy more apps (sorry to drop that last obvious argu-bomb)
OK, you're obviously not the world's biggest optimist when it comes to workplace satisfaction or the idea that a large company could conceivably give a shit about its' employess. Nice turn of phrase with "naive idiot" btw, an exemplary indication of your open-mindedness.
Look up how Gore-Tex organises its' company to see how a large company can think small, grow and still engender employee loyalty.
If google has, or had, one iota of belief in the strategy which James Whittaker says he saw and believed in (remember, he's not a "naive idiot", he's a fricking professor), then they believed that innovation pulled people in to use their services, and they made money from the ads that were viewed and clicked on. They fostered that environment for their staff and allowed them the "room to fail" - or succeed. That's the kind of work environment where engineers at the sharp end of the business thrive, if they're creative, engaged individuals.
A creative, engaged and enthusiastic individual with skills will move mountains for the sake of it to prove themselves and their idea. I agree that soulless corps are a great place to become cynical as hell about company motivation, though.
Sounds to me like your workplace is less than opimtal. Mine is pretty good, we do have some leeway to make a difference - but you have to retain the enthusiasm to do so. And you know what? When you do, you try stuff out: you get noticed, things people didn't even know needed doing get done.
So don't go shouting "bollocks" unless you're willing to engage intelligently in a debate on the relationship between an employee and the company they work for.
BTW I've never applied to work at Google either (did get headhunted once, but politely turned it down). Mr Whittaker's experience doesn't make me think I'd apply now.
Dear god, do netbook lovers still exist? I thought we were all post-PC now?
- Cheaper? But how's the build quality...
- Full keyboard? C'mon, there's cases, bluetooth keyboards... journalists are using these in the field now.
- Storage? What are you doing on this portable, on-the-go netbook that needs more than 16GB minimum (64GB max)? If it's doc production, etc then you don't need a terabyte in your bloody pocket
- Multitasking - fair point, but G33K - people don't care, and arguably on a small screen multitasking with a standard WIMP OS is a PITA (see previous poster comment re:mice
- External devices - this is a portable device... what do you need? You could argue the iPad has just enough external connectivity to do the job (esp with the kits). People aren't impressed with how many bloody USB ports something has, they don't view this device that way. You're comparing cox's pippins with oranges.
- As stated previously in this forum, there isn't a dependency on iTunes anymore and there hasn't been for an age. As for dependency on Apple services... not relevant, personal choice.
- Multiple users - this is a PERSONAL device. Why would it need multi user profiling?
You're better off with a netbook if you're a netbook lover and you hate iPads / Apple / etc etc. Otherwise, just accept the masses have spoken and your mini-laptop is doomed to obscurity.
Doesn't it strike you that a technology company which values employee input would seek to foster an environment where engineers think that - to quote - "their company is some sort of charity whose goal is saving the world through technology"? That perhaps the grunts at the coalface were actually happy under that kind of environment?
These haughty, slightly sneering proclamations about cliches don't add anything useful to the debate about google, or how it might be changing. While I am not fond of some of their user interfaces, they are a company I associate with innovation through allowing their employees to "play" a little with ideas which might pan out into a great, useful, collaborative tool for the world to use.
If Google are "Migrating" their focus to become A.N.Other corporate desk-filler, or otherwise starting to change the "feel" for engineers, they'll see a lot more like this guy leaving. It sounds like he was pretty useful too, if you take the time to read his post.
This is about more than "soundbites", "cliches" and "therapy speak" - it's about a company which had something of a geek "heart" deciding to change direction, and one man has decided to speak out about his disappointment. I for one applaud him for it - and will be enquiring via his blog if his motivations for writing the piece are down to Microsoft suggesting it's a good idea, rather than assuming it _might_ be the case.
I've seen a couple of youtubers posting about how a registry hack turns it back into Windows 7, if you're that bothered and love to dig around (the KDE thread weaving through this forum is an example) then just hack Win8 and stop using Metro... presuming that hack will still work, that is.
There seems to be a general slash and burn attitude from MS regarding legacy support - I applaud their attempts to make their company forward-facing, without having the frankly ludicrous s burden of supporting everything windows flavoured since the year dot, but they may be going a little too fast, if what I read on Reg is anythnig to go by.
On the plus side, that means loads of people might abandon windows altogether, which would be excellent. I still regard it as the biggest patched, hacked-together shitbag of an OS, largely thanks to the piecemeal approach Microsoft have had over the years to its design. IMHO, mind.
"At this point anybody with more braincells than a brick would choose not to install the app no matter how good it seems to be."
Well done. Even using the 80/20 rule with regard to Joe Public on smartphone app permissions is incorrect. It's probably more like 90/10.
Seriously, people just don't want to be bothered wadnig through what they regard as boring, endless, incomprehensible security classifications (I KNOW you understand it - so do I - but we are EDUCATED in these matters - and know _it_ matters!) when they want to PLAY THEIR NEW SHINY THING!
Piously suggesting that people should RTFM won't cure Android's problems. Failing to act to make android properly secure will just result in a platform no "normal" person trusts, especially if news stories like this keep breaking. Smartphone security is getting a bit Zeitgiest...
Wow, how's the view out of your dusty, condensation-streaked window, as you type with your fingerless gloves on, licking your lips at another chance to snipe into the void?
That's one sad post. Come back to the living and smile a little.
While I do enjoy a little constructive banter regarding Apple, the likes of Shitpeas, etc really are starting to sound a bit petulant, sullen and bitter, aren't they?
Is it possible that being a high-profile company, and actively investigating worknig conditions, might be a good combination? It's the easiest thing in the world to shout "they wouldn't, wouldn't they", but what if they didn't? What if they fitted the other stereotype that Apple Inc is often accused off - haughty, silent, stand-offish - and didn't say a word, or do anything?
As for manufacturing in the west - it'll happen eventually, but only after we've had the most enormous crash in living standards and cost of livnig imaginable. The sort where people end up subsistence farming on their gardens.
Since IEs bloody DLLs render a lot more than the browser...
The interdependencies of the bloody DLL subsystems in Windows defy description. Missing browser DLLs can have impact WAY beyond the browser... wasn't this one of the big hoohas when Microsoft "tightly coupled" IE into Windows in the first place?
Either way, I'm not surprised that a missing IE DLL can nuke Windows XP.
Bet the cash isn't flowing from Luxembourg to the UK
Everybody's favourite EU tax haven of choice... the cash is more likely being "lent" to other Voda subsidiaries, as is their scheming little evoidance (not typo)...
Likewise to earlier poster - stop reactively downvoting people who don't want to wade through application permissions and express a preference for the Apple solution. You're talking 99% of the android owning community out there (as the article helpfuly points out, most people just want shiny thing, and will click on whatever it takes to run shiny thing).
Google still have no clear definitive proactive stance on malware. Making excuses about this being "just like PCs" is not enough. Apps must be vetted for security before they go on the marketplace, and presenting users with java-style lists of permissions has got to go as well. You might as well ask non-tech people if they know anything about rocket science...
Apple's model may be draconian, but at least you can have more confidence that the software on there is safer to use, from at least the SMS-sending trojan point of view!
No amount of geek frothing at the mouth about "openness" and suggestions of complicated solutions is going to help here - although the "google approved" sticker is at least on the way to a solution. It's time to kick caveat emptor to touch on app security - it's not just about the user losing faith in a platform once their phone eats their credit because they don't understand app permissions (see what I mean?), it's about Google themselves eventually being tarred with the "they don't care" brush - like Microsoft were regarding windows security!
If your wildfire is still in good physical condition...
Why not load Cyanogen 7.1 onto it? I suspect this might be a bit more up to date, and give you some more time for a more powerful handset for ICS to come through to your price range...
Spotted NetFlix seems to have appeared magically under the "Internet" menu of my apple TV... which is XBMCd and set to skip any auto updates. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Nuclear power plans have leakage of radioactive material. What do you think will happen to the runoff from the plant? How will they decide to treat the liquid left in the tanks (apart from taking off the ethanol)?
You don't need to be some crackpot Gaianist to try to look through the process, apply a little backward-looking logic and see that industrial processes for a lot of products have accidentally released stuff into the environment which had negative impacts.
Get a perspective check and stop being so bloody high-handed. Jeez!
But the idiots who poorly estimate this stuff are still in jobs. Hello Standard and Poors et al, you rubber-stamping architects of the Exotic Financial Vehicles which crashed our economies.
All this shows is that right now market analysts are about as useful as Mystic Meg is to tell you the weather next week.
Did Asus relent? I didn't keep up. Looks like a slick device though, and it's only taken Android what - 2 years to catch up and create a compelling UX tablet? ;-)
If Bing is the only place to get in-the-round social-trending data, and Google stand there with their arms crossed going "shan't. Pay us." then over time Google will, I suspect, find that Google+ becomes even less relevant as those who seek the latest "meme" or social attitudes go to Bing instead. See, it'll be the media and ad execs who use Bing now, this story is in itself only helping Bing to greater audiences. I didn't know Bing had a social search function: now I've bookmarked it. Hell, I may even stop using Google for searches, I'm too lazy to remember one engine for this, one engine for that....
See my point? Does Bing index and search Google+?
Sorry, I do appreciate that American patent law is now the world's biggest ass, but this whole article sounded like someone stamping their feet and shouting "not FAIR!"
I do think something pointing out that patent applications like this should just be thrown out would be better slanted. Turning it into another lazy poke at apple doing what American companies do (they're not alone in acting like this)... Well, it's lazy trolling to get page hits and discussion forum commentaries (like me...) posting!
On another note... This is only an application. Isn't it? Do your irate rain dance when the thing gets granted. Until then, it's just another capitalist speculative blocking patent application.
Anyone got examples from the other hardware manufacturers? Motorola? Nokia?
It's not pretentious rubbish: dress codes are only one visible expression of control...
Squeegee your third eye, drone. Think it through. And the facile "if everybody wears T-shirts, isn't that a uniform / new conformity" crap won't wash either.
Companies who mandate a dress code and enforce it are a controlling force from above. If your company controls from above, then unless the guy at the top is one hell of an excellent dictator who can second guess all creative acts required to create excellent products, you're screwed.
See, the control mechanisms will promote those who conform: those who conform are, by definition, not free thinkers: free thinking is a state of mind which applies to _every aspect_ of your life.
If those who control the company at every level are not free thinkers, they will not look kindly on free thinking - try getting a radical idea past your boss if he's risk-averse and you'll see the point.
Sorry, Woz is right: if you want creativity, either loosen up or have an arm of your company which _is_.
Seems like the quietest thread around... only one ascerbic comment from an Android user? Here's the actual tweet -
"#DROIDRAGE !! Share your android malware story (there's lots going around http://bit.ly/rt7dpD) and you could win a #windowsphone upgrade."
MALWARE, not "given me any trouble". And the current SMS issue with WinPho7 ain't that new, Series 60 had something very similar for a while if memory serves. That'll get patched and the worst it does it nuke messaging if a crafted SMS is sent to the phone. Android's got actual, real, proper malware on the app store (well, who knows? That's the scary part - 22 "refraud" removed last weekend with Premium rate SMS scam capability, estimated 14,000 downloads of the apps concerned - although thankfully a low infection rate IF symantec are to be believed).
Real the story properly before you crow about your handset.
"Among many options consumers can choose, purchasing a Connected TV player/set-top-box from retail is one of the easy options."
See - "easy options" - this is about consumers, not bloody geeks who managed to finagle TV functionality out of their PS3s. Stop thinking the rest of the planet wants a PS3 as they're thinking they would like a games console with - oooo, look - some set top box functionality.
They don't. They want a set top box to hook up to their TV for more TV.
I'm surprised someone so quick to jump to the easiest negative conclusion went AC - unless you have some proof somewhere that Apple bought the study, pipe down. Note - they may well have done so, I just ain't seen proof they have.
Is he a dick for telling it? Plenty of evidence out there suggests he's right. Higher per head spend in the app store. People buy more apps there. The buildup of libraries and experience will go where the money is - why would it go anywhere else, for the quality stuff?
OK, the comment was brusque, but slagging him off like a schoolchild just because he spoke an inconvenient truth doesn't exactly throw kudos at you.
I'd add that the profusion of hardware and OS levels doesn't help android in this regard. The landscape's a mess, OK there are plenty of coping strategies, but it's simpler to dev in AppleWorld. And possibly get paid for your efforts.
"That's the trouble, people. Generally speaking, advertising sells products better than technological virtuosity does."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Apple's got slick ads, but word of mouth and hand-to-hand wow factor is more. People who have iPads tend to be mavens (fandroid's call em "sheep") so they rave about the product. So more people buy it and - guess what - the product actually lives up to the hype.
It's not the hardware specs, it's not just the advertising. It's giving people a coherent, usable and seamless user experience and then letting people sell your product for you.
The old tech is dead. Long live the new tech, where companies have to think of people instead of shitty lists of hardware specs.
You shall be on Facebook and nothing else. Message ends.
We live in dangerous times. No interesting new service is safe. If you get an account and want to try something out, expect it to be gobbled up and shut down, just as you started to enjoy using it.
How long before Diaspora is lost? Zuckerberg already contributed to the development costs!
Thank god Twitter remains untouched so far. I've emptied my facebook account manually (a laboriuos process and no mistake) and left it dormant as a contact point. I just can't stop second-guessing what my information may or may not be worth as I type it, by which point the motivation to post anything at all leaks away, and I don't.
This, combined with the seemingly new threat of Facebook assimilating minds which would potentially come up with the competition in order to shut down their services and pull in their staff, means the whole social media scene is going to start looking very bland indeed shortly.
And yeah, I know - this is how Microsoft have done business for years. But they were just making OSs and applications. This is control over the self-published life-contents of entire populations.
And don't expect Facebook's recent public self-flagellation to carry any weight with me either... don't believe a word of it. Zuckerberg's original assessment of those who use his service will still be at the back of his mind: if he thought that way when he had a few thousand people's information, how will the incredible scaled-anonymity of having access to data from over half a billion people lessen that?
It's pure, corporate evil. The kind that has no moral compass, no idea of what damage can be caused in the pursuit of profit. And everybody will continue to use it like good little drones.
And would any probe these days get the kind of buy-in (and funding) to develop something which could radio home from that distance?
I continue to be enthralled by the idea of a man-made device which can still manage to signal to us from that distance. It's astonishing. I've actually spent hours geeking out on the comms logs, imagining how long it took for each bit to reach us from out there. It's a feeling we need to get into our kids, the wonder of it - to keep them engaged with learning itself.
Also - Lewis, spotted another blunt reference to how great Nuclear power is there. Tut.
Forget security for a moment... a little-discussed angle... power consumption and performance?
OK, this (possibly) operator-loaded spyware operates "in the RAM space" - but how many cycles is it consuming watching EVERY keypress - spying on the OS event loop - seriously, this thing sounds like it's hooked in like a debugger: you don't run anything compiled for debug on your laptop normally, because it's HUGE in comparison and consumes resources with all the extra work.
Now take that overhead, and impose it on a limited-resource platform, 100% of the time, with a mandated download period when the stats are sent to the carrier.
- How much battery life is being wasted?
- How much did you pay, en masse, for the electricity to collect and send this data?
- How much of your device's wow factor and smooth, slick UI transitions has been compromised by this crapware?
The lack of EXPLICIT opt-in (f*** this "operator small print" bollocks) is unforgiveable.
Oh - and the fella who reckoned this would get "most users" rooting their phones to install CyanogenMod? Forget it. Most "users" will poddle along as usual, blissfully unaware anything is going on, apart from having to charge their phone every sodding day. El Reg is not a repository of "normal people" (meant with the best intentions!)
Cool... looks better if launched from a shortcut icon in iOS though
When on the site in iOS, save a shortcut to the home screen, then launch frmo there. No safari controls, only a tiny amount of text at the top - almost looks like winPho live :-)
Impressive use of HTML5. Works quite well.
And I'm impressed with the winPho7 interface, I wanted to know what it was like. it's quite revolutionary, isn't it? Clever.
"Black hat hackers have released tools that unlock the software stored on heavily fortified chips so researchers can independently assess the security and spoy weaknesses"
Karsten Nohl / Christopher Tarnovsky strike again - use of OCR and microscopy (both standard and electron), microscopic needles...
I'm trying my best to nuke the NFC capability on my cards using focussed microwave energy. I didn't ask for this "feature", which is waiting to be hacked to shit.
Register
286 posts • joined Wednesday 16th July 2008 11:38 GMT
Page:
"It was quite a shock to hear someone from the BBC defending this government."
Wake up and smell the coffee. Watch or listen to any BBC news programme at the moment, you'll hear they appear to be trying to continuously lick the government's arse.
I've been shocked time and time again by the regurgitation of government stats, half-truths and outright lies recently, to the extent that I've stopped watching even the BBC news. If it's not depressing it's constantly trotting out the government line on just about everything.
What I can't decide, as I don't monitor my opinions on this matter or keep a diary, is if the BBC is constantly sycophantic to any government regardless of party colours. Any comments?
It's helped me rediscover SkyDrive...
1. Went to cousin's wedding
2. Took some pictures, wife took Canon EOS and took pictures too.
3. Uploaded all to SkyDrive from PC (the web interface for SkyDrive photo upload is *outstanding* now - hats off to Microsoft, it even pops up a progress window for uploads which you can add to on-the-fly while it's uploading - excellent for large numbers of files, left it working overnight, did the lot)
4. Started messing with pictures on iPad after downloading from SkyDrive using app (PhotoForge, InstaGram, etc...)
5. Uploaded to SkyDrive from photo gallery, sent links direct from SkyDrive app to bride, etc
I _attempted_ to do this using some iTools for Picasa, and was simply stunned by how awkard a) the web interface was and 2) all the tools for iPad / iPhone were.
I'm genuinely impressed, and have started using SkyDrive again as a result. And I'm not usually a Microsoft product recommending kind of guy.
Re: Customer service
I'll add my voice to the "you've just met one" brigade - iPhone 3GS replaced after GPS issue, no quibble, applecare does the job. Next machine's a Mac, in part thanks to their attitude towards the consumer.
The trolls in here really are miserable and haughty, aren't they?
Trolling... article?
Every time I see the word "fanboi" in an article, I reach for my gun...
"The law is supposed to be based on morality"
Not necessarily.England has "common law", and I _think_ it's based on precedent, which has _nothing_ to do with either common sense or morality per se, more on the accumulated judgements of those making a specific judgment at a point in time, who we hope have a moral leaning, but that does depend on the cash pot of those prosecuting (or defending) their case when it's heard. And then the result goes into the pool of common law...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
"In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts. If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision (this principle is known as stare decisis)"
If enough people want it, the rules will morph over time, I'd have thought.
R C-J is probably the right man for the BBC job, but has overstretched himself here
<sigh> this had to happen, really, didn't it?
I've lamented this awful presenter many times, often vainly tweeting to the Beeb that they should sack the old duffer as watching him attempting to use whatever gadget he was wittering on about on Breakfast in the morning was like watching my grandad trying to understand String theory. Painful, awful...
But now I realise, he's the right man for the job. The BBC's utter inability to go into any detail on tech is a blessing. We don't need to get all socially aware and demand they present tech properly, we need to subvert and work around them to get kids who are interested in tech the tools they need to tinker enough to be consumed by it.
The reason? I'd wager most of us didn't get turned on to programming, or tech, in school. I did, but I suspect I'm a total exception, leaning S-Algol in 6th year at Madras College in 1987/88 (I kid you now), running on a Z80 attached to a BBC.
No, most people who these days, having grown up with simple, low level machines and having a great top-to-bottom view of programming from hardware to editor, probably got there via a rather organic hobbyist attitude, grown from sheer curiosity.
Schools do not generate curiosity. Schools generate grades, league tables and bored, bored children (NOTE: generalisation).
R C-J should stick to kis knittng: doing terrible grandad reviews of mobile phones and tablet computers for numpties who don't care, who are blinking away the sleep from their eyes.
And HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language - MARKUP - it's a page description language, not a programming language. If all C-J was doing was pushing HTML around, he's not programming. If, however, he started doing clever things with CSS, Javascript... different matter.
This whole Reg article nails the coffin shut for me - R C-J is nothing more than an old man equivalent of the skirt which shows off toys in Stuff and on Sunday morning TV shows.
Never going to happen.
1. The software will never be reliable enough (no entendre intended)
2. Reality cliff - only people who have never, or rarely, had sex with a real person will consistently use the services of a sexbot - I've seen the latest "avengers assemble" trailers and the hulk still looks like a bluescreened add-on with unconvincing skin (ok, he's green, but see my point?). It'll take a lot longer for the reality cliff to get bridged (sorry about the metaphor) as the closer you get, the further away it seems (the more subtle the dissonance, the more unsettling it is).
Also, I reckon if it did ever happen (allowing this idea for a moment) it'd generate a whole new class of personality disorders and artificial psychoses resulting in a lot of very damaged individuals.
Who's the dumb f*** now?
No board or banks involved, deal made in a living room... panicking much, Zuckerberg? Facebook should concentrate on making a mobile client that doesn't duck balls instead of trying to buy a popular mobile client which does one job, simply.
BTW the simplicity of apps like Instagram shouldn't be laughed at - that's the whole bloody point, who wants full Photoshop in their bloody pocket? See something memorable, snap, post-process with a little bit of nostalgic flair, post on web.
So sneering at it only shows the immediacy of sharing that the mobile web can bring has passed some people by...
"you could argue that..."
Nice to hear someone pointing out Moody's, S&P et al and their role in stoking the fires of the international finance collapse, and framing their decisions about shares in that light.
While downgrading Nokia doesn't have quite the same potential to being down world capital centres, I'd say that any company which was getting paid to rubber stamp garbage as AAA probably can't be entirely trusted to make balanced judgements about anything in the other direction either.
Top marks El Reg.
Tiny performance gain at a price? X versus S
Looking at the engadget comparison from http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/05/htc-one-x-vs-one-s/ the One S (the dual core snapdragon powered version) actually has *better* gaming performance than the One X(!) - indeed it won 10 of the 17 performance benchmarks.
The screen on the X looks much better, though, but the battery life on the S is predictably better (although not by as much as I expected). The sheer amount of juice to run the same benchmark tests on the X compared to the S probably also shows what it'd be like day-to-day.
On a cost balance, I'd be tempted by the S.
Virgin's site text for the 100Mb package - is that the exact text?
"...I didn't sign up for a 50 service at peak times..."
Explain to me where it mentions "peak time" in that text: are you inferring it from the phrase "when the whole house is online at the same time"? If it's not explicitly mentioned then caveat emptor, I'm afraid.
Come on, be realistic when dealing with these large internet access organisations. They've pretty much all had their knuckles rapped at some stage for misrepresenting about every aspect of the bandwidth/capping aspects of their broadband offerings, so when you read their advertising text, don't assume that's a frigging contract detailing how your service will run.
Do what I did, ring them, and demand the details of the package - if anyone else commenting on here has done this, *properly*, no faffing with a "screen-driver" telesales person, but talked to a supervisor, or someone who knows the real deal, then please post a reply detailing that Virgin said you'd always have total freedom and unlimited bandwidth, anytime of day.
Otherwise, shrug your shoulders and walk to another provider who *can* give you those assurances, cast iron, in the contract, which YOU review and check, or put up and shut up and schedule your downloads somehow. Seriously, this is a contention bandwidth-throttled system, right up to the backbone. All this gnashing of teeth sounds like a rather inevitable user-viewpoint of internet infrastructure about to creak under the load of Steam, Xbox360, PS3, Netflix, Apple TV, iPad 3 HD content, ... "No download limits" is a movable feast, and may only be referring to overall monthly usage. In fact you can guarantee it is.
If they can wiggle out, they will. Remember, this text was not produced by a network engineer, it was produced by a marketing suit. And we all know how much *they* know.
----------------------------------------------
What can I do with 100Mb?
Download an entire music album in as little as 5 seconds; a TV show in around 30 seconds, a high quality movie in as little as 1½ minutes and a high definition movie in around 7 minutes. 100Mb really excels when the whole house is online at the same time – whether for streaming HD videos, downloading HD movies, gaming online or accessing everyday services. With 100Mb broadband there is plenty of connection for everyone!
What does unlimited broadband mean?
No download limits. Unlike some of our competitors, you get unlimited downloads as a basic right so you can load up on music, films...whatever you're into.
Re: Debbie Douez
Props to this guy to get that in first
"People buy iOS apps - people want Android apps for free"
Ah, at last - the core "fragmentation" issue. The fact that android devices **themselves** are cheap. Do you think there's a tie-in between the price of the device and the potential app store profits? Is the Play store (still sounds like a sex toy place) actually suffering from the fact that Android has a majority of owners who either don't care about apps (just want to do calls / texts) or people who don't want to pay for them?
"Unfortunately devs sometimes don't bother to do this."
Your outline of how to cope with Android development for devices is illuminating, but this one sentence is a giveaway. In the same way that iOS is a kiddy-OS (not meant in a derogatory tone, note - my Alzheimer-suffering grandfather can drive an iPad, that's my point), the way in which UI programming is done under iOS sounds simpler: two screen resolutions, simple maths for "retina".
80/20 rule applied, do you think 20% of devs go for the quality approach you described, and the other 80% either fudge something which doesn't work very well under certain circumstances (hence some apps look awful on some devices), or do you think the other 80% will decide Android is just "too hard" and bugger off where it's perhaps simpler, and where the users buy more apps (sorry to drop that last obvious argu-bomb)
Re: Just because _you're_ all jaded...
OK, you're obviously not the world's biggest optimist when it comes to workplace satisfaction or the idea that a large company could conceivably give a shit about its' employess. Nice turn of phrase with "naive idiot" btw, an exemplary indication of your open-mindedness.
Look up how Gore-Tex organises its' company to see how a large company can think small, grow and still engender employee loyalty.
If google has, or had, one iota of belief in the strategy which James Whittaker says he saw and believed in (remember, he's not a "naive idiot", he's a fricking professor), then they believed that innovation pulled people in to use their services, and they made money from the ads that were viewed and clicked on. They fostered that environment for their staff and allowed them the "room to fail" - or succeed. That's the kind of work environment where engineers at the sharp end of the business thrive, if they're creative, engaged individuals.
A creative, engaged and enthusiastic individual with skills will move mountains for the sake of it to prove themselves and their idea. I agree that soulless corps are a great place to become cynical as hell about company motivation, though.
Sounds to me like your workplace is less than opimtal. Mine is pretty good, we do have some leeway to make a difference - but you have to retain the enthusiasm to do so. And you know what? When you do, you try stuff out: you get noticed, things people didn't even know needed doing get done.
So don't go shouting "bollocks" unless you're willing to engage intelligently in a debate on the relationship between an employee and the company they work for.
BTW I've never applied to work at Google either (did get headhunted once, but politely turned it down). Mr Whittaker's experience doesn't make me think I'd apply now.
Re: Still better off with a netbook.
Dear god, do netbook lovers still exist? I thought we were all post-PC now?
- Cheaper? But how's the build quality...
- Full keyboard? C'mon, there's cases, bluetooth keyboards... journalists are using these in the field now.
- Storage? What are you doing on this portable, on-the-go netbook that needs more than 16GB minimum (64GB max)? If it's doc production, etc then you don't need a terabyte in your bloody pocket
- Multitasking - fair point, but G33K - people don't care, and arguably on a small screen multitasking with a standard WIMP OS is a PITA (see previous poster comment re:mice
- External devices - this is a portable device... what do you need? You could argue the iPad has just enough external connectivity to do the job (esp with the kits). People aren't impressed with how many bloody USB ports something has, they don't view this device that way. You're comparing cox's pippins with oranges.
- As stated previously in this forum, there isn't a dependency on iTunes anymore and there hasn't been for an age. As for dependency on Apple services... not relevant, personal choice.
- Multiple users - this is a PERSONAL device. Why would it need multi user profiling?
You're better off with a netbook if you're a netbook lover and you hate iPads / Apple / etc etc. Otherwise, just accept the masses have spoken and your mini-laptop is doomed to obscurity.
Just because _you're_ all jaded...
... doesn't mean he is.
Doesn't it strike you that a technology company which values employee input would seek to foster an environment where engineers think that - to quote - "their company is some sort of charity whose goal is saving the world through technology"? That perhaps the grunts at the coalface were actually happy under that kind of environment?
These haughty, slightly sneering proclamations about cliches don't add anything useful to the debate about google, or how it might be changing. While I am not fond of some of their user interfaces, they are a company I associate with innovation through allowing their employees to "play" a little with ideas which might pan out into a great, useful, collaborative tool for the world to use.
If Google are "Migrating" their focus to become A.N.Other corporate desk-filler, or otherwise starting to change the "feel" for engineers, they'll see a lot more like this guy leaving. It sounds like he was pretty useful too, if you take the time to read his post.
This is about more than "soundbites", "cliches" and "therapy speak" - it's about a company which had something of a geek "heart" deciding to change direction, and one man has decided to speak out about his disappointment. I for one applaud him for it - and will be enquiring via his blog if his motivations for writing the piece are down to Microsoft suggesting it's a good idea, rather than assuming it _might_ be the case.
I thought you could turn Metro off?
I've seen a couple of youtubers posting about how a registry hack turns it back into Windows 7, if you're that bothered and love to dig around (the KDE thread weaving through this forum is an example) then just hack Win8 and stop using Metro... presuming that hack will still work, that is.
There seems to be a general slash and burn attitude from MS regarding legacy support - I applaud their attempts to make their company forward-facing, without having the frankly ludicrous s burden of supporting everything windows flavoured since the year dot, but they may be going a little too fast, if what I read on Reg is anythnig to go by.
On the plus side, that means loads of people might abandon windows altogether, which would be excellent. I still regard it as the biggest patched, hacked-together shitbag of an OS, largely thanks to the piecemeal approach Microsoft have had over the years to its design. IMHO, mind.
"The second victim died a day later due to excessive blood loss."
So there's an acceptable amount of blood loss????
Re: Just read the permissions
"At this point anybody with more braincells than a brick would choose not to install the app no matter how good it seems to be."
Well done. Even using the 80/20 rule with regard to Joe Public on smartphone app permissions is incorrect. It's probably more like 90/10.
Seriously, people just don't want to be bothered wadnig through what they regard as boring, endless, incomprehensible security classifications (I KNOW you understand it - so do I - but we are EDUCATED in these matters - and know _it_ matters!) when they want to PLAY THEIR NEW SHINY THING!
Piously suggesting that people should RTFM won't cure Android's problems. Failing to act to make android properly secure will just result in a platform no "normal" person trusts, especially if news stories like this keep breaking. Smartphone security is getting a bit Zeitgiest...
Re: But yes, the permissions model does need a bit of a remodel.
That takes the 2012 "understatement of the year" award.
Bitter much?
Wow, how's the view out of your dusty, condensation-streaked window, as you type with your fingerless gloves on, licking your lips at another chance to snipe into the void?
That's one sad post. Come back to the living and smile a little.
0-flame war in under 20 posts
While I do enjoy a little constructive banter regarding Apple, the likes of Shitpeas, etc really are starting to sound a bit petulant, sullen and bitter, aren't they?
Is it possible that being a high-profile company, and actively investigating worknig conditions, might be a good combination? It's the easiest thing in the world to shout "they wouldn't, wouldn't they", but what if they didn't? What if they fitted the other stereotype that Apple Inc is often accused off - haughty, silent, stand-offish - and didn't say a word, or do anything?
As for manufacturing in the west - it'll happen eventually, but only after we've had the most enormous crash in living standards and cost of livnig imaginable. The sort where people end up subsistence farming on their gardens.
Since IEs bloody DLLs render a lot more than the browser...
The interdependencies of the bloody DLL subsystems in Windows defy description. Missing browser DLLs can have impact WAY beyond the browser... wasn't this one of the big hoohas when Microsoft "tightly coupled" IE into Windows in the first place?
Either way, I'm not surprised that a missing IE DLL can nuke Windows XP.
Bet the cash isn't flowing from Luxembourg to the UK
Everybody's favourite EU tax haven of choice... the cash is more likely being "lent" to other Voda subsidiaries, as is their scheming little evoidance (not typo)...
http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=vodafone+luxembourg&d=4695971649556886&mkt=en-GB&setlang=en-GB&w=903829e1,c24d5967
HMRC, hang your heads in shame, or kill Hartnett. Either will make you look slightly less shabby.
Never mind the headline...
Who is the rather comely lass in the cutoffs?
Polymorpic Malware now available for download!
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/server-side-polymorphic-android-applications
Likewise to earlier poster - stop reactively downvoting people who don't want to wade through application permissions and express a preference for the Apple solution. You're talking 99% of the android owning community out there (as the article helpfuly points out, most people just want shiny thing, and will click on whatever it takes to run shiny thing).
Google still have no clear definitive proactive stance on malware. Making excuses about this being "just like PCs" is not enough. Apps must be vetted for security before they go on the marketplace, and presenting users with java-style lists of permissions has got to go as well. You might as well ask non-tech people if they know anything about rocket science...
Apple's model may be draconian, but at least you can have more confidence that the software on there is safer to use, from at least the SMS-sending trojan point of view!
No amount of geek frothing at the mouth about "openness" and suggestions of complicated solutions is going to help here - although the "google approved" sticker is at least on the way to a solution. It's time to kick caveat emptor to touch on app security - it's not just about the user losing faith in a platform once their phone eats their credit because they don't understand app permissions (see what I mean?), it's about Google themselves eventually being tarred with the "they don't care" brush - like Microsoft were regarding windows security!
If your wildfire is still in good physical condition...
Why not load Cyanogen 7.1 onto it? I suspect this might be a bit more up to date, and give you some more time for a more powerful handset for ICS to come through to your price range...
Not sure how/when, but...
Spotted NetFlix seems to have appeared magically under the "Internet" menu of my apple TV... which is XBMCd and set to skip any auto updates. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Nuclear power plans have leakage of radioactive material. What do you think will happen to the runoff from the plant? How will they decide to treat the liquid left in the tanks (apart from taking off the ethanol)?
You don't need to be some crackpot Gaianist to try to look through the process, apply a little backward-looking logic and see that industrial processes for a lot of products have accidentally released stuff into the environment which had negative impacts.
Get a perspective check and stop being so bloody high-handed. Jeez!
Intel do better than expected, Google do worse...
But the idiots who poorly estimate this stuff are still in jobs. Hello Standard and Poors et al, you rubber-stamping architects of the Exotic Financial Vehicles which crashed our economies.
All this shows is that right now market analysts are about as useful as Mystic Meg is to tell you the weather next week.
Unlocked boot....?
Did Asus relent? I didn't keep up. Looks like a slick device though, and it's only taken Android what - 2 years to catch up and create a compelling UX tablet? ;-)
This post has been deleted by its author
The irony is...
If Bing is the only place to get in-the-round social-trending data, and Google stand there with their arms crossed going "shan't. Pay us." then over time Google will, I suspect, find that Google+ becomes even less relevant as those who seek the latest "meme" or social attitudes go to Bing instead. See, it'll be the media and ad execs who use Bing now, this story is in itself only helping Bing to greater audiences. I didn't know Bing had a social search function: now I've bookmarked it. Hell, I may even stop using Google for searches, I'm too lazy to remember one engine for this, one engine for that.... See my point? Does Bing index and search Google+?Not pointing fingers, but...
If anyone at the top of the Russian Space Agencies are pointing fingers, it's probably in the dark, in the wrong direction. here endeth the metaphor.Isn't this whole article trolling?
Sorry, I do appreciate that American patent law is now the world's biggest ass, but this whole article sounded like someone stamping their feet and shouting "not FAIR!"
I do think something pointing out that patent applications like this should just be thrown out would be better slanted. Turning it into another lazy poke at apple doing what American companies do (they're not alone in acting like this)... Well, it's lazy trolling to get page hits and discussion forum commentaries (like me...) posting!
On another note... This is only an application. Isn't it? Do your irate rain dance when the thing gets granted. Until then, it's just another capitalist speculative blocking patent application.
Anyone got examples from the other hardware manufacturers? Motorola? Nokia?
I _Genuinely_ thought this was a comment on our doomed UK electrical retailer.
"Comet Lovejoy spotted plunging toward fiery doom"
Or
"Retail Antiques Dealer spotted throwing itself off cliff into boiling fat"
It's not pretentious rubbish: dress codes are only one visible expression of control...
Squeegee your third eye, drone. Think it through. And the facile "if everybody wears T-shirts, isn't that a uniform / new conformity" crap won't wash either.
Companies who mandate a dress code and enforce it are a controlling force from above. If your company controls from above, then unless the guy at the top is one hell of an excellent dictator who can second guess all creative acts required to create excellent products, you're screwed.
See, the control mechanisms will promote those who conform: those who conform are, by definition, not free thinkers: free thinking is a state of mind which applies to _every aspect_ of your life.
If those who control the company at every level are not free thinkers, they will not look kindly on free thinking - try getting a radical idea past your boss if he's risk-averse and you'll see the point.
Sorry, Woz is right: if you want creativity, either loosen up or have an arm of your company which _is_.
Ay up, where's all the fandroids?
Seems like the quietest thread around... only one ascerbic comment from an Android user? Here's the actual tweet -
"#DROIDRAGE !! Share your android malware story (there's lots going around http://bit.ly/rt7dpD) and you could win a #windowsphone upgrade."
MALWARE, not "given me any trouble". And the current SMS issue with WinPho7 ain't that new, Series 60 had something very similar for a while if memory serves. That'll get patched and the worst it does it nuke messaging if a crafted SMS is sent to the phone. Android's got actual, real, proper malware on the app store (well, who knows? That's the scary part - 22 "refraud" removed last weekend with Premium rate SMS scam capability, estimated 14,000 downloads of the apps concerned - although thankfully a low infection rate IF symantec are to be believed).
Real the story properly before you crow about your handset.
It's a study of actual set top boxes, not games consoles.
From the study at
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=6921
"Among many options consumers can choose, purchasing a Connected TV player/set-top-box from retail is one of the easy options."
See - "easy options" - this is about consumers, not bloody geeks who managed to finagle TV functionality out of their PS3s. Stop thinking the rest of the planet wants a PS3 as they're thinking they would like a games console with - oooo, look - some set top box functionality.
They don't. They want a set top box to hook up to their TV for more TV.
I'm surprised someone so quick to jump to the easiest negative conclusion went AC - unless you have some proof somewhere that Apple bought the study, pipe down. Note - they may well have done so, I just ain't seen proof they have.
Truth hurts?
Is he a dick for telling it? Plenty of evidence out there suggests he's right. Higher per head spend in the app store. People buy more apps there. The buildup of libraries and experience will go where the money is - why would it go anywhere else, for the quality stuff?
OK, the comment was brusque, but slagging him off like a schoolchild just because he spoke an inconvenient truth doesn't exactly throw kudos at you.
I'd add that the profusion of hardware and OS levels doesn't help android in this regard. The landscape's a mess, OK there are plenty of coping strategies, but it's simpler to dev in AppleWorld. And possibly get paid for your efforts.
From the article -
"That's the trouble, people. Generally speaking, advertising sells products better than technological virtuosity does."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Apple's got slick ads, but word of mouth and hand-to-hand wow factor is more. People who have iPads tend to be mavens (fandroid's call em "sheep") so they rave about the product. So more people buy it and - guess what - the product actually lives up to the hype.
It's not the hardware specs, it's not just the advertising. It's giving people a coherent, usable and seamless user experience and then letting people sell your product for you.
The old tech is dead. Long live the new tech, where companies have to think of people instead of shitty lists of hardware specs.
You shall be on Facebook and nothing else. Message ends.
We live in dangerous times. No interesting new service is safe. If you get an account and want to try something out, expect it to be gobbled up and shut down, just as you started to enjoy using it.
How long before Diaspora is lost? Zuckerberg already contributed to the development costs!
Thank god Twitter remains untouched so far. I've emptied my facebook account manually (a laboriuos process and no mistake) and left it dormant as a contact point. I just can't stop second-guessing what my information may or may not be worth as I type it, by which point the motivation to post anything at all leaks away, and I don't.
This, combined with the seemingly new threat of Facebook assimilating minds which would potentially come up with the competition in order to shut down their services and pull in their staff, means the whole social media scene is going to start looking very bland indeed shortly.
And yeah, I know - this is how Microsoft have done business for years. But they were just making OSs and applications. This is control over the self-published life-contents of entire populations.
And don't expect Facebook's recent public self-flagellation to carry any weight with me either... don't believe a word of it. Zuckerberg's original assessment of those who use his service will still be at the back of his mind: if he thought that way when he had a few thousand people's information, how will the incredible scaled-anonymity of having access to data from over half a billion people lessen that?
It's pure, corporate evil. The kind that has no moral compass, no idea of what damage can be caused in the pursuit of profit. And everybody will continue to use it like good little drones.
God help us all.
Was all this in their original mission?
And would any probe these days get the kind of buy-in (and funding) to develop something which could radio home from that distance?
I continue to be enthralled by the idea of a man-made device which can still manage to signal to us from that distance. It's astonishing. I've actually spent hours geeking out on the comms logs, imagining how long it took for each bit to reach us from out there. It's a feeling we need to get into our kids, the wonder of it - to keep them engaged with learning itself.
Also - Lewis, spotted another blunt reference to how great Nuclear power is there. Tut.
Forum has better quality than the story!
Gentlemen, there is more useful discourse and information in the forum postings than this rather "fruity irony alert" default register piece.
Bravo. I salute you all.
Forget security for a moment... a little-discussed angle... power consumption and performance?
OK, this (possibly) operator-loaded spyware operates "in the RAM space" - but how many cycles is it consuming watching EVERY keypress - spying on the OS event loop - seriously, this thing sounds like it's hooked in like a debugger: you don't run anything compiled for debug on your laptop normally, because it's HUGE in comparison and consumes resources with all the extra work.
Now take that overhead, and impose it on a limited-resource platform, 100% of the time, with a mandated download period when the stats are sent to the carrier.
- How much battery life is being wasted?
- How much did you pay, en masse, for the electricity to collect and send this data?
- How much of your device's wow factor and smooth, slick UI transitions has been compromised by this crapware?
The lack of EXPLICIT opt-in (f*** this "operator small print" bollocks) is unforgiveable.
Oh - and the fella who reckoned this would get "most users" rooting their phones to install CyanogenMod? Forget it. Most "users" will poddle along as usual, blissfully unaware anything is going on, apart from having to charge their phone every sodding day. El Reg is not a repository of "normal people" (meant with the best intentions!)
Cool... looks better if launched from a shortcut icon in iOS though
When on the site in iOS, save a shortcut to the home screen, then launch frmo there. No safari controls, only a tiny amount of text at the top - almost looks like winPho live :-)
Impressive use of HTML5. Works quite well.
And I'm impressed with the winPho7 interface, I wanted to know what it was like. it's quite revolutionary, isn't it? Clever.
Yipe. Half the screenshots appeared to be missing as well?
First gut feel? Like the punters who will buy the things? Confused. Messy. BLACK with coloured lines.
When is Android going to feel "finished"? I know it's all open and loveliness like that, but when is it going to SETTLE DOWN?
Too soon...?
This sounds like your old line about Nuclear Power Lewis. Isn't it too soon after Fukushima for you to be trumpeting about Nuclear power again?
That said - this is basic good design principle in action. Good story!
@"You cannot 'copy' the cards (the private keys aren't disclosed by the card)"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/04/smartcard_hacking_tools/
"Black hat hackers have released tools that unlock the software stored on heavily fortified chips so researchers can independently assess the security and spoy weaknesses"
Karsten Nohl / Christopher Tarnovsky strike again - use of OCR and microscopy (both standard and electron), microscopic needles...
I'm trying my best to nuke the NFC capability on my cards using focussed microwave energy. I didn't ask for this "feature", which is waiting to be hacked to shit.
That is all.
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