Posts by Simon Harris

It's JUST possible, but Apple MIGHT not make an iWatch in 2013

Re: Intel chip?

For all of 3 minutes before the battery gave out.

Would that be before or after it's burned a hole through your wrist!

2012: The year that netbooks DIED

Definitely a retrospective article on Asus EEE girls* is needed!

* girls in the plural - if I remember rightly there was the original blonde beach girl and later on the brunette.

Major new science: Women more nude, more often online

Re: What a waste of a morning

@Pete 2

I wish I could upvote this more than once as I am still giggling at your theory

Amazon outage whacked Netflix US customers on Christmas Eve

No more than any other sector really...

Apply buying parts from Samsung...

Nikon buying image sensors from Sony...

etc.

Cameron defends U-turn on web filth ban, leaves filtering to parents

Re: Is the Fail confused or am I?

Don't believe me? Try a search on their site.

... Just not from a work computer!

Outlook 2013 spurns your old Word and Excel documents

Re: The news will be a blow to users with hard drives full of Word docs...

"The news will be a blow to users with hard drives and servers full of Word docs and Excel spreadsheets written using these file formats"

If they're on your hard drive or server anyway, wouldn't it be better to view them in Word or Excel (or OpenOffice/LibreOffice if you insist!) instead of trying to preview them on an email program?

Does anyone else miss the days when a piece of software got on and simply did the task it was designed best for rather than trying to pretend to be every other bit of software too?

Windows Vista woes killed MS Pinball

Re: How does Win7 fit in?

Must admit, in the 20 months that I've had a Windows 7 machine, I'd never noticed it was missing!

Ethernet sales fizzle, but self-aware networks set to explode

Self aware networks?

I'd be careful of those if I were you.

Vatican shrugs off apocalypse, fiddles with accounts dept

Re: So why isn't the Mayan civilisation still around?

My advent calendar runs out on the 24th.

... or until all the chocolates are gone, whichever comes first...

So, that'll be December 1st then!

Instagram back-pedals in face of user outrage

How many?

promising to alter the language it uses and guaranteeing that it won't sell user's photos.

Oh, storm in a tea-cup then, if they only have the one user!

Judge: There'll be no US Samsung ban, BUT no new trial with Apple either

Re: Rational decision

There are people who enjoy using particular products/platforms/etc, and in some cases they get quite fanatical about it. But people don't get fanatical about a _company_ - people don't treat this like football teams where you want one side to win, they don't care about the company success unless you're an employee or a shareholder.

But Apple fans seem to be the exception. I love a good old which-product-is-best debate....

The only way the battle could have been more fierce is if the iPad had a 6502 and Samsung had chosen the Z80!

Re: abdication of making a decision

It's a pattern, Koh doesn't seem to like taking any action and seems to have put more effort into coercing Apple&Samsung into discussion than anything else. Predictable on the basis this was always going to appeal but still lazy and dishonest.

But ... Isn't trying to get people to talk to each other rather than fight it out a good thing?

Re: "void dire"

void dire ?

Someone's fingers have been programmed too strongly to write C code!

Fish grow ‘hands’ in genetic experiment

Re: So...

Not sure about experiments to create prawn balls though!

So...

Now we can have real fish fingers!

Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

Hacking...

I wouldn't mind if they took a more literal meaning to the word...

and they went straight to the WBC web-servers with a very large axe and gave them a reprogramming they wouldn't forget.

Micro-computer bakers open Raspberry Pi shop

Re: "The Pi Shop"

If they were selling toolkits to aggregate data from multiple web-sources, it could be a Pi and Mash-up shop.

Police use 24/7 power grid recordings to spot doctored audio

Re: Well there goes another one....

Don't forget for authenticity to supply the sounds of passing cars, trains, aircraft, etc.

Oh, that's 'BBC Sound Effects no. 57: Ransom demands and death threats'

Re: Well there goes another one....

So the baddies start mixing in a cocktail of phased 50Hz (UK) synthesised in audacity or pure data at a level +10db on the real signal?

err, If the point is to use the mains hum to authenticate a recording, wouldn't finding a wobbly 50Hz superimposed on it immediately lead to suspicion of it not being authentic? If you're a serious baddy who wants to fake recordings, wouldn't it be better to make your recordings in a heavily shielded room, do your own continuous mains frequency monitoring and add your own hum from the time you want to fake?

The best tablets for Christmas

@AceRimmer Re: @Simon Harris

Now I need to get rid of the badge!

Looks like I owe you a pint!

Re: @AceRimmer

Badges just make it easier to identify people with too much time on their hands

Check your posting history... you're only a couple of posts away from a badge yourself!

<--- Yours when you get the badge!

Polish man mistakes hot iron for mobe

Just don't....

...let him into the bathroom to do any DIY requiring superglue...

'I just picked up the tube to brush my teeth and... mfnfmffnfnfnfnfnf'

Apple loses iPhone patent lawsuit

Re: Hey books are complicated things

Upvoted for being one of my favorite sketches :)

This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

Re: On the other hand

But if the R in a circle is short for REGISTERed trade mark, shouldn't that symbol have a little R in a circle next to it too...

and then shouldn't that little symbol have an R.....

Will the Register crash the internet with a stack-overflow with all those recursive ®s ?

... mine's the one with the rather large core-dump in the pocket.

That square QR barcode on the poster? Check it's not a sticker

(there's an android and ipad app to give you the arrival times for the next few buses at a bus stop)

But do these apps come up with times that are less fictional than the 'countdown' displays on London bus stops?

Three words...

'Told you so!'

Damn, now they'll all think it was me!

Take it or break it: the return of the drop test

Now that's something you do want to unpack carefully...

... Or there's always that one last pin you missed - ouch!

Re: Let's have a little equality at least...

What we need is a Reg survey.

Can we have a selection of images of people (both sexes of course) in various states of cladness so we can vote on NSFWness/general level of objection?

Purely in the name of science, of course!

Assange needs to get some sunlight and fresh air, say Ecuadoreans

I wonder if it's really embassy code for...

'He eats all our food,

he drinks all our wine,

he's always having friends round for tea...

... isn't there some way we can get him out of here?'

'living "in a confined space" has given Assange a chronic lung infection, apparently.'

So, presumably, he's a different sort of hacker now.

... mine's the one with the Strepsils in the pocket.

Apple manufacturers: ARRGH, pesky iThings are impossible to make

Re: The impossible we can do ...

and in reply to the boss's latest requests...

Miracles we can do...

but that will take a little longer.

America planned to NUKE THE MOON

Re: Nuke the moon... from orbit?

Damn you, jonathan keith, I was about to do that joke!

(... but +1 upvote for getting there first!)

Beware the malware-tipped SPEAR TRAP in your inbox

Old School...

Back in the old days my dad used to tweak the last 2 letters on his postcode so he could find out who was selling his address to junk-mail companies.

Re: I wonder...

... how many people need attachments including the html/jpeg/gif/png/css used in "marked up" mails?

If the mail server could be configured to throw away those... then surely my mailbox wouldn't be groaning at the sides?

There... fixed it for you!

Ten technology FAILS

Re: MiniDiscs

I used to love my minidisc player for theatre work.

Specially being able to record, edit and rearrange tracks on-site at a tech rehearsal without needing to lug around any other equipment.

Apple granted patent for microphone silhouette

Re: Terminology

Yes

Well, my Pavilion dv6 has the symbol you describe next to the microphone socket.

But there are two differences, one is that the HP microphone graphic doesn't have the circle around it, so would be substantially different from the Apple icon, the second is that the Apple icon design is registered for use on-screen rather than being printed on a physical object.

I think your HP paintwork is safe!

Re: do these people not even try look for prior art?

I think the difference may be that the Apple's design patent is for an icon, and is therefore applicable to on-screen graphics rather than being physically printed on something.

Re: Oooh

And this: http://cjoint.com/?BKBvRqB927B

skype being now owned by... surprise surprise...

I would think the essential elements of the Apple design patent are the microphone symbol and the surrounding circle. The Skype microphone doesn't have a circle around it.

Re: Oooh

That looks an awful lot like this:

Icon...

Unfortunately, it might not work out as you planned. Apple applied for the design patent in 2011, while the icon linked to was published on that site by someone who only joined in August 2012.

Nintendo shrinks Wii for Crimbo

Does that make it a Wee Wii ?

<-- are you sure those are coffee stains on the keyboard?

Cambridge boffins fear 'Pandora's Unboxing' and RISE of the MACHINES

Re: wot no Hitchhikers reference yet?

Methinks you didn't look too hard...

Obligatory Hitchhikers reference

Re: The solution is ...

But it's much much much faster than you, and you just gave it a very good reason to stop you pressing a red button somewhere...

In that case what we need is a second variety of robots that are even faster than the first, whose job is to seek out all the first type of robots and press all their emergency stop buttons.

Re: You're worried about the 'Rise Of The Machines'?

A machine to do the investigating for us?

The Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons might have something to say about that.

Apple cultists slaver as Mothership landing now foretold in 2016

Re: Great!

"Now Apple will be suing anyone who uses a circular design."

No, you've got it the wrong way round - it's Apple that get sued for copying circular designs...

A little reminder

Football...

There's an ad that appeared on the right for Statoil showing an aerial view of a roundish football stadium surrounded by trees - the Apple complex looks a bit similar.

I wonder if that's another circular idea that Apple have copied!

El Reg mulls Forums icon portfolio shake-up

Re: couple of ideas

... and the Steve Ballmer 'Developers Developers Developers' dance please!

Re: Flying Car...

For those 'why haven't I got my flying car/robot monkey butler/unlimited free electricity... yet?' posts.

Brain Surgery

For when Rocket Science just isn't enough...

Apple 'less innovative' at laptops than Lenovo

Considering my last 3 laptops, in order, had screen resolutions of 1600x1200, 1280x800 and 1366x768...

... eventually I think we'll end up back in the days of the AIM65, Acorn System 1, etc. with a single line display!