Posts by Bob H

Web giants gang up to take on MPEG LA, HEVC Advance with royalty-free streaming codec

It is easy to add codecs to computers, but the bigger question is consumer electronics devices. Add a new codec and will it be supported by phones, tablets, set-top boxes, digital TVs, etc? Computers may be getting good use but the most hours watched remains on embedded devices with fixed ASICs. Everyone got excited some months back when V-Nova uncloaked that they had a new codec which, they claim, is more efficient than anything on the market but until it becomes viable for embedded devices I remain sceptical.

MoD gets green light to splash £7.8m on Oracle licences

#security

The MoD procuring software from a company which doesn't like full disclosure of security flaws and doesn't like its customers doing their own pen tests? Doesn't seem wise to me.

Boffins unveil open source GPU

There was also GPL GPU which came out last year but seems stagnant:

http://gplgpu.com/?p=88

Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell: El Reg on the hydrogen highway

Re: "... there is a dearth of renewable power."

To be fair Iceland has loads of untapped energy production potential, there was talk of a 5TWh a year cable being laid from Iceland to Scotland and onward to mainland Europe:

http://bicc.is/gogn/2013_bicc_complete_event_mkvii.pdf

Home Office seeks advice on Police Radio omnishambles

One could create an Airwave module which interfaced to a 4G phone over Bluetooth or acted as a WiFi hotspot. The 4G phone being the interface and controller.

XPoint memory ruminations: Expert says it's not PCM

Knights Hoooo

If those DIMMS were to fit into the Knights Landing board then that would be one mean bastard of a blade.

More UK broadband for bumpkins, but have-nots still ain’t happy

Sounds like some farmer needs to have an accident and accidentally damage the local cabinet or duct.

Re: No pat on the back here

Also if the cabinet is predominantly used by businesses they don't seem interested either. If BT upgraded cabinets used by businesses it would damage their over priced BTNet business.

Data centre disk use is spinning down – Wikibon report

In the grand scheme of things most companies don't generate PB of data and capacities are generally more boring than we expect. The idea that capacities would grow exponentially is a little flawed.

Intel left a fascinating security flaw in its chips for 16 years – here's how to exploit it

Intel Media Processors

Now I am wondering if any of Intel's CE chips used in pay TV are vulnerable to this exploit. Obviously it depends on the ability to execute privileged code to begin with but that isn't improbable.

OK, who unplugged the modem? North Korea's internet disappeared for four hours today

Did no one else read that as China Unicorn? I'm imagining North Korea claiming their internet services are provided by a magical forest creature belonging to their neighbor.

Safe as houses: CCTV for the masses

I think that the CCTV products on DX.com look good and paired with a Synology they make a good IP CCTV system. Nigel, any chance of adding Synology and ONVIF cameras to your schedule?

UK.gov issues internal 'ditch Oracle NOW' edict to end pricey addiction

Re: remotes

To be fair Libre/Open Office isn't as good as MS Office, I've been trying for years to reconcile the issue but it doesn't come out in the wash. I did recently spend two years using mostly Google Docs, it justifies the lack of features because the document collaboration is so immensely good but the formatting and working options aren't nearly as good.

But in contra to my own argument my mother has been using Linux as a desktop for the past few years and is barely concerned that it isn't Windows.

Much noise about cost savings, the departments will ignore it or find ways to show it would be too expensive to change and nothing will happen. Ah the civil service... we do admire your gall.

Giant Facebook SOLAR LASER DRONE to FEED interwebs into YOUR FACE

Re: I so torn

You wouldn't/couldn't use optical communications to provide the links to each customer because you'd need thousands of separate beams. The only ground link laser can avoid clouds by relaying through an adjacent drone that isn't blocked by cloud. If the entire geography is blocked then you can always use wireless as a backup to provide resilience.

Re: Interruptions?

Mesh networking between them and multiple resilient ground links with a satellite backup?

Re: I so torn

They specifically say the lasers are used for interconnection between the drones at 10Gbps, so they are backhaul not the primary link. I think the implications I have seen are that user links would be radio wireless.

Re: I so torn

Is there much in the way of cloud above 40,000 ft? Probably very managable, also remembering that the estimated 3bn people who don't have internet access are generally located around the central belt of the earth and in many of those countries the weather is quite consistent.

Global spy system ECHELON confirmed at last – by leaked Snowden files

Re: Menwith Hill Station

To be fair though Mark Thomas is a bit of a knob (not Brian Cox's spelling). He once turned up at JFB Corsham demanding to be let in and shown the secret tunnels under it. A very nice press relations officer came to the gate and said something along the lines of "Mr Thomas, if you put in a formal request we'll gladly take you down there, but you can't just turn up unannounced", he then cried about them hiding things while she responded that they'd happily show him if he'd only get an appointment.

Having visited JFB Corsham myself and having met people who have been down there I see he was making a fuss about nothing. The tunnels under Corsham have been abandoned and neglected for many years since they were a Cold War bolt-hole. Mark Thomas went down in my estimation after that, and I was also unimpressed by his giving detailed instructions on how to attack the UK's strategic fuel pipelines, even if that wasn't a major threat it was inconsiderate.

Re: Where are the OBEs?

There is a great episode in series one of Yes Minister about Honors that applies here...

Re: Fascinating. @ NoneSuch

Hanlon's razor: "Never assume malice when stupidity is an equally probable explanation."

El Reg touches down at the ESA's Spanish outpost, sniffs around

When is the 170GB ISO data torrent going to appear? ;-)

UK.gov wants to stop teenagers looking at tits online. No, really

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

@Mahatma Coat

I'd also imagine it put much greater strain on their optical fibre links to the US!

Wanted: beta testers for El Reg’s Android app

Newsblur

Or just use RSS feeds and NewsBlur.com like I do...

So what exactly sits behind Google’s Nearline storage service?

You could deal with RAID and resilience by writing it in parallel to RAID-0 with extra CRC and then Blu-ray. The RAID-0 gives you the speed you need to complete the medium retrieval times and the Blu-ray gives you (more) assurance that you can recover the data in a failure.

OnePlus 2: The smartie that's trying to outsmart Google's Android

Given that the MotoX (3rd Gen) is being released tomorrow and if the leaks are to be believed I think that might be the winner for me, main reason? Dual SIM on Android 5.1.1

Sydney adopts 'world's first' e-ink parking signs

Re: Fantastic!

The article says they are "equipped with mobile broadband", I'm a little surprised at this, I would have thought that zigbee/z-wave or similar would have been lower power or even better some kind of MW carrier because the data requirement is low and the update periods are probably very long.

Who knows, perhaps they update them via SMS!?

IT in Iran: Servers sold on the grey market, and the rule of FOSS

@Bloakey1

Indeed, I worked for a few years with an Iranian and we still see each other at conferences once a year. Lovely bloke, very philosophical.

Help! Our Virgin Media TiVo boxes are stuck in a loop! Help! Our Virgin..

Re: SOP for VM

You can't split satellite antenna signals, each tuner (so two for most PVRs and one for a general receiver) needs an individual connection to the LNB. If you're in adjoining properties all you need is another cable down from the LNB on the front of the dish. I understand that most satellite installers fitting PVRs these days don't bother with dual output LNBs and just fit a quad as standard, so there are generally two spare outputs available for future use (or sharing with the neighbors). I'd also put an earth strap on the cable as well, just in case.

Microsoft open-sources Sora software-defined radio

BladeRF

Would be nice if Sora supported the BladeRF, given the presence of the Zinq FPGA that should help.

It would make it much more affordable.

BT's Openreach plots G.fast end-user trials

I've seen BT skip cabinets that were entirely used by businesses, there must be some interesting threshold that preserves the BT Net fibre business by skipping these cabinets.

I used to be on a cabinet which wasn't upgraded to FTTC despite all the others in the area being so, I swear it was because all the properties it served were businesses and it would have killed the local BT Net fibre business.

GOOGLE GMAIL ATE MY LINUX: Gobbled email enrages Torvalds

Re: Finnish Americans don't get irony either

Are you sure he didn't pay for it?

Re: Does not compute!

He probably uses it because:

1) Volume - The quantity of general mail he gets and the amount of spam he might get be vast, so he needs something that can handle the GBs of email smoothly. His inbox size could be huge and difficult to not only maintain but search. Bet he doesn't "Inbox Zero" at the end of the day.

2) Conversation View - Yes I know that Thunderbird or other tools do provide conversation view but Thunderbird is increasingly less performant especially on larger mail boxes (in my experience).

3) Spam - This is the controversial part of the mix because it is the bit that failed, but good spam filters are rare.

I spent many years running my own mail server, dealing with spam filters, I've moved to a hosted solution mainly because I can't be bothered with the hassle any more. My IMAP host isn't google which means it is relatively slow and has terrible webmail, but at least I don't have to worry anymore.

Anyone have any suggestions of good value hosted IMAP providers with decent webmail (e.g. Horde IMP not just Squirrel Mail) and configurable spam filters?

China wants to build a 200km-long undersea tunnel to America

Re: america to china on train

One day someone will realise that nuclear powered cargo ships are a sensible idea for these long-haul roots and actually get it sorted. There was once an attempt at it but the whole thing was rather poorly implemented.

TfL to splash £400m on networking deal, despite GDS opposition

Re: GDS think hardware networks are old fashioned

Infrastructure organisation (TfL) that fails to recognise that digital networking is actually a significant part of their business. Oh the irony.

Cambridge boffins: STOP the rush to 5G. We just don't need it

I've sat on dozens of standards committees for different subjects over the years and almost always the deployment has been a target but it has never stopped roll-out of the previous, well defined, generation. I don't understand why the standardisation of 5G has any effect on 4G roll-out?

I think 5G is just a distraction and shouldn't be used by operators as an excuse for slow roll outs, especially when we are seeing so many software defined base-stations now!

Who wants a classic ThinkPad with whizzy new hardware? Lenovo would just love to know

Re: Dual ThinkLights - already had them for 4+ years

4kg? That isn't a laptop it is a paving slab!

I think the T???s-series are the apex because they are actually portable.

BT: Let us scrap ordinary phone lines. You've all got great internet, right?

The landline carries the ADSL we need but the issue is why do we have to pay for the PSTN termination on the end, when all we want is the DSLAM. Yes there is a public safety issue but I have sometimes purchased several DSL lines for a company and you resent paying for the PSTN component you don't use.

There is a obligation on Openreach to supply PSTN with every last-mile circuit, even if the customer doesn't want it and this is clearly costing consumers. If that obligation was removed Openreach would save money because they wouldn't have to maintain termination and interconnect capacity. I have seen one ISP who offers a "no call" discounted line rental but most ISPs acknowledges they would like to drop that obligation.

I think FTTH ONTs provide backup for hours hours or so, so that should cover 99% of outages but here is a letter from BT to Ofcom on the subject:

http://www.btplc.com/thegroup/regulatoryandpublicaffairs/consultativeresponses/ofcom/2011/batterybackup/bbu_response_060911.pdf

I get power outages a couple of times a year but my mobile phone works and even if I have poor coverage. 999 will work because of cross network sharing of emergency services. And for those who are complaining about not getting any broadband or DSL service? That isn't the point of this article so quit your whining and turn off the stuck record.

10 things you need to avoid SNAFUs in your data centre

Re: Carry a test meter

I dealt with the kit install at a trade show for my previous employer for several years and each year the electrician was different, one year I actually told the stand build company to send the sparky away and that if I ever saw him again they'd never get the contract again. Apparently the liberal use of multi-way adaptors is a substitute for a decent distribution unit. Fortunately there was a lighting contractor on-site as well and I asked him if he had spare power distribution blocks (he had) and between myself and the lighting guy we made it safe(r). The original cables and adaptors were actually warm to the touch, something I hadn't seen to that degree before and never want to see again!

Re: Arse!

I was once baby sitting a vendor who was doing an install at a client site, as I new I was just supposed to be supervising the vendor I got VERY drunk the night before. The vendor turned up and they had put a UK BS1363 plug instead of a IEC60309 (Caravan) connector! The vendors engineer said she wasn't allowed to change the power connector so the day was a washout, I called my boss, told him and he said "get it done". Fortunately I know what I am doing with electrics but unfortunately I had a royal hangover. Not a problem, I'm just wiring a plug aren't I? It all went well until I was about to flip the breaker and the vendor engineer said to me: "You're pretty hungover, are you sure you wired that right?". My confidence was immediately dealt a blow, but I was too hungover to de-construct the connector again to check, so I just plugged it in and decided to let the breakers deal with the consequences! Luckily I am apparently a good engineer even when hungover and it all worked fine.

I worked for a large European telco, we had a control system (PC) which managed some complex broadcast encoding and multiplex systems. The software was written by the vendor because the customer was huge but the vendor subsequently decided the software wasn't what they needed and they depreciated it. It took several years of using it before we found out, to the cost of the poor Ops Director (covering for the Ops Manager's holiday) who was doing some configuration changes, that if you made any changes on the last Friday of the month it would corrupt the database! Then if you reset the PC it would also reset the attached equipment until the control software was back up, but the database was corrupt so millions of people missed their Friday night TV while the Ops Manager rebuilt the database!

This whopping 16-bit computer processor is being built by hand, transistor by transistor

Is there any reason for the slow clock speed?

Any reason not to use SMD instead of through hole?

Mellanox wants to prise OEMs loose from Broadcom

Re: Meanwhile... I'm still waiting

There are some interestingly priced cards from Winyao in China but I can't find any reviews:

www.dx.com/p/winyao-e10g82599af-sfp-10g-dual-port-fiber-sever-network-card-adapter-green-340988#.VYfX6_lViko

http://www.dx.com/p/winyao-e10g82599sf-sfp-10g-dual-port-fiber-sever-network-card-adapter-intel-jl82599es-chipset-296496#.VYfYi_lViko

ZyXel has a 24 port gigabit switch with two 10GbE SFP ports for under £500:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008QBC0YY/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1434966242&sr=8-11

Bound to be lots of criticism for these, but it always takes someone to start pushing prices lower.

The watts in a box that kept West London's lights on

If you have a DR plan then you should know exactly what support you'll get before this happens. Most companies don't have a DR plan or have an out of date one which doesn't apply to their business any more.

Gamers! Yes, gamers – they'll rescue our streaming Fire TV box, hopes Amazon

Amazon website says not available in the UK due to geographic restrictions?

Nice 4G-for-plods demo, Samsung. Good luck actually selling it

Re: ...Replacing GSM-R

Makes me wonder if LTE band 31 at 450MHz might be available in the UK for it, it is only 2 x 2.5MHz, it could be traded. Get whoever wants the old frequencies to do the upgrade then the commercial incentive to get it done quickly and under budget would be there.

Singapore to trial 10Gbps home broadband

From the content provider side 8k is only being developed for public display use currently, although I am sure Samsung and Sony will try and sell it to consumers because they want muppets to buy a display they couldn't possibly appreciate with human eyes at reasonable viewing distances. 1080p140 is actually beautiful and more striking to me than 4Kp50, but the marketdroids haven't noticed and are focused on flogging 4K panels.

Huawei announces tiny 10 KB IoT kernel

Re: 10KB for the OS?

Linux might be viable when you can get 800DMIPS of CPU and 64MB of RAM for <$4, but I'll stick with micro-controllers and an RTOS for tiny, low cost, embedded designs for a while yet.

Apple threw its TV out the window after years of research: report

Apple have probably realised it is really, really difficult to build a TV and that American TV is nothing like the rest of the world. The consumer market and pricing model has killed many players and is a loss-leader for most big brands.