Posts by Tom Kelsall

Fire burns away the Kindle dream of interactivity

New UK Kindle

The UK one doesn' have a touch screen OR a keyboard. How does one join it to a password protected WiFi network? :-/

Facebook deletes hacked Pages, destroying years of work

Title

It's bizarre. All this hoo-harr about them deleting hacked pages; and yet having followed Facebook's instructions TO THE LETTER I cannot regain admin access to my (former) business' page (which has NO admins). They simply ignore the request (submitted as per their process). They won't delete the page, they won't give anyone admin access, and so the (former) business sits there for everyone to see despite having ceased trading two years ago.

The fact that they're deleting pages somewhere shows that the relevant department is active and doing stuff that people DON'T want... so why won't they do the stuff people DO want them to? Crazy, crazy system.

BBC crowdsourced mobile map: A bit quirky, but useful

Title

How expensive can it be to send out a bunch of blokes with known reliable 3G phones from each operator and a tablet to record signal bars and connection type? Google did it with camera cars for StreetView... some private organisation could do it with phones. Their resultant data could be

(a) presented for free in the form of a map (NOT a postcode search but an overall map) and

(b) sold to network operators to help them plan network improvements and/or sales initiatives (where for instance provider A was better than provider B, Provider A could concentrate their sales effort).

I reckon some organisation or other could make a right killing here - the aggregated data would be useful to individuals on the map, and invaluable to operators in data form.

HP murders webOS tablets, phones

@JW

See my post - I think HP will be looking for a partner who currently make handsets and tablets...

Title

Does anyone see any mileage/likelihood of HTC manufacturing devices which will run WebOS? HP haven't ditched WebOS, just the devices. They clearly realise it's not really what they're good at. HTC are (demonstrably) OS agnostic (HD7, Desire HD) to an extent and make excellent devices... and HP will be looking for a partner to sell WebOS.

Whaddaya think?

Nokia ditches letters for all-number names

Title

The two best things Nokia ever did were first the 5110, and then the 6310i. They were the Gold Standard of their time and I would unhesitatingly use either phone today.

Sci/tech MPs want peer review, not pal review

Title? What title?

...and I always thought science went "hypothesis, observation, interpretation, <repeat with controls as required>, publish". Why on earth would a set of scientific research based on this paradigm need peer reviewing before publication?

Once published, it will either get repeated by others (and therefore corroborated) or raped and vilified into obscurity. Yes, you'll get a lot of shit coming out this way, but the shit will soon been seen as such when it's not repeatable or when the interpretation doesn't stand up to additional tests. The "good science" will rise to the top. This approach would also see a more cautious media; reporting only those papers which have been independantly verified.

No - the reason for the current system is commercial funding - commercial organisations won't allow publication of research they have funded until it's independantly verified... and that's a shit way to operate with so many conflicts of interest as to make it almost unworkable as well as OPEN TO ABUSE.

Post Office banking collapses in computer fail

Royal Mail Lies, Conspiracy etc

"All 11,820 branches remained open throughout the crisis"

Call that 11,819. Ours was shut all day because of this.

HP sues Oracle over Itanic withdrawal

Title

Surely all it takes is for Intel to publicly state their position on the Itanium Processor?

Apple purges drunk-driving apps

Drink drive

I can't understand why apps which warn you of these checkpoints were EVER allowed. I am dead against anyone who chooses to drive having had a drink. To the extent that next time I see them sober I will have words with them and am willing to lose a friendship over it. The shit kills people and wrecks lives; and because of the relaxed muscles of the inebriated it's far less often the drunk who's the worst injured in the accident.

Shame on El Reg for putting a negative tone on this article...

Unique imagery of Shuttle docked to ISS released

@AC 9/6/11 12:38gmt

Idiot. You can't see the stars in the daytime because your eyes/the camera lens have to adjust to a very small aperture to avoid suffering from the high light levels from Earth and Sun.

Hackers jailbreak iOS 5 in under 24 hours

@Tom 38

One of the advantages of jailbreaking is that there are tools out there which can unlock your device without carrier intervention. As in all jailbreaking it's against your carrier's policy - but all the same it's possible.

It's BETA, people...

iOS has traditionally been easy to jailbreak in beta. This is not news until the release version is issued.

US state bans Netflix, Napster password sharing

Content

If they are successful in stopping unlawfully obtained content altogether, I don't think they realise that a large proportion of the "pirates" will STILL not pay - they will simply cease consuming that content.

The music industry needs to re-examine their approach of flooding the world with low quality but easily marketed shit, and start promoting original acts with great talent indiscriminately. Take your eye off the end-of-day dollar, and instead focus on delivering quality content to the world. The end-of-week TEN dollars will come naturally and without spending billions on unnecessary litigation.

HTC Sensation dual core Android smartphone

Arrrrp

I can't believe you've reviewed the Sensation without a single substantive mention of the Samsung Galaxy SII. I have a Sensation and I'm very pleased with it; but there're quite a few things which the Sensation does less well than the Samsung and I was disappointed that your review seems to think that HTC's main competition is LG(!!!)

Apple sues teenager for white iPhone conversion kits

In the US...

...you HAVE to sue. Apple were merely fulfilling their obligation to protect their IP (or lose the rights to it). Because they vacated immediately, I believe that the Law will see this as sufficient action to protect their rights to their IP and marks, and also to satisfy the people who don't understand US law.

They filed, the case was accepted, they vacated. Rights protected, 17YO boy safe, everybody's happy.

Apple defends iOS devs from patent holder

Apples

The Apple App Store is the only place that Apple iOS Apps can officially be sold. Developers developing Apps for sale in this App Store are effectively therefore sub-contractors to Apple; their "rate" being 70% of the sale price of the app. As subcontractors to Apple, they would be covered by any licenses which cover Apple.

That's my take on it, anyway. I agree with the comment comparing these chancers with ACS:Law. If they were sure of their ground, they would begin an Action in the courts.

NASA's asteroid hunter creeps up on Vesta

Composed of, surely?

If Ceres has more fresh water than we currently have on Earth, then we need to send a big engine up there to slow down its orbit, bring her alongside Earth as a moon and start extracting that water for use in Africa, India etc. Just sayin.

Whitehats break out of Google Chrome sandbox

You idiot.

Windows runs on most of the machines on the planet. Why would you not be concerned if most of the machines on the planet were vulnerable to this exploit?

Sony’s sorry saga snowballs

There but for the Grace of...

I just think that Sony were the unlucky victim here. Unlucky because I don't think that ANYONE invests heavily in the protection of consumer data or in security as a whole. Sony were singled out for some reason or another but I doubt it's because they were the easiest. Yes, as far as security and consumer protection goes, they're clearly incompetent; I just don't think they're that different to anyone else.

Look at (was it Flickr?) who deleted a paying customer's account in its entirety and had no defined process to recover his content? This is NOT an unusual scenario - and I think companies are now going to have to start sacrificing some of their 30/40% profit margin to pay for ways to protect their infrastructure.

End of the tether: Google plays nice with carriers

@AC 5/5/11 "WTF"

Yes you can - I've done it with a jailbroken iPhone. The rest of your post is therefore garbage because it's talking about normal tethering which I wasn't.

It gets even more ridiculous...

...because the iPhone and certainly O2 seem to equate sharing a 'phone's WiFi connection with "tethering". So if I wanted to share my phone's WiFi connection (goodness knows why you'd want to but still) I would need to purchase a tethering plan from O2. Can you spell "fuck that"?

I'm so glad I've just ordered my HTC Sensation and will therefore be free of Jobsworld.

Behind Apple's record sales are signs of desperation

What a...

...complete waste of fucking money this whole patent battle is. How much cheaper would a HTC Desire or an iPhone or a Nokia Nxx be, if all this wasn't going on in the background?

I have to say though that I agree with the bulk of the writers above - this agency writing does nothing for The Register's reputation and should be dropped.

Kindle beats Apple's closed book on choice

Choice...

...something which Apple will never understand that consumers want. Choice and flexibility.

At least Amazon have ensured that their proprietary, DRM "encumbered" (PAH) platform is as widely available as possible. I have no issue whatever with copyright holders protecting their IP and ensuring that payment is received prior to consumption... but Apple's approach is STILL one of forcing you to buy their product as well if you wish to use a particular Apple service. Amazon have taken a much more consumer friendly approach to their "lock down".

Regarding eBooks I'm in agreement with the masses above; the picture is far more complex than your article would suggest. The Kindle's display is why I read books on my Kindle as opposed to my phone (regardless of delivery platform)... I almost NEVER use the Kindle app on my iPad/iPhone/Android/PC - I just pick up my Kindle.

Twitter eyes up its biggest client

Title

It's worth what Twitter'll pay for it. They didn't go for $30m so it's clearly worth more than that...

Serial hacker admits breaching Federal Reserve computers

What? Title?

What's the difference between "encrypted" and "heavily encrypted"? Just trying to understand Merkin Goon-Speak.

US lawyer's email not creative enough for copyright protection

Eedjit

At least SOME Judges in the US recognise when a case has absolutely zero merit. In the UK you could be charged with the offence of being a Vexatious Litigant... in extreme cases, and barred from bringing any action in Court again.

Judge mulls 'wasted costs' as ACS:Law cases close

Aye

Personally were I one of the ones who decided to pay I would now be entering the Small Claims track (£35) to get my £495 back; based on the fact that rather than having any legal basis it was indeed extortion. I would also be making a complaint to the Police about the perceived extortion. Let's see how long the "law firm" stays in business when there's a criminal conviction against them.

I also want to see details of ACS:Law's client(s) who they claim to represent; it was my understanding that solicitors "act" on "instructions" from a client. Without instructions from a paying client I don't believe they can possibly have a legal basis for their actions...

Samsung teases with trim tablet snap

Thickness

Well, the aperture of the hole is clearly 3.5mm. So the outer diameter will be, what, 5? And there looks to be a 3mm gap between the front edge of the hole and the front surface of the tablet. Which would put the thickness of the device at about 8mm. Possibly 9. Not sure why the writer thinks that this exercise is so impossible or ludicrous.

Mozilla: 'Internet Explorer 9 is not a modern browser'

For me as a browser user...

... and not a content developer, I couldn't give a flying monkeydick about what standards are supported to what extent by which browser.

I want a browser with a pleasing interface which doesn't take a long time to load up and which displays web pages as they were designed, quickly. And I don't want to see "There was an error on this page". I also like free extensions which can modify the interface and/or capabilities of my browser.

That last requirement effectively nukes IE from my list... up until now. I don't know about Safari or Opera because I never liked the interfaces... my current favourite is Chrome.

Virgin Media kills 20Mb broadband service

Umph

I'm on the 10Mbit package because I upgraded to the 20Mbit package and saw precisely ZERO difference in speeds, measured at various times over a several day exercise. At no point have VM comitted me to a new package deal for upgrading - that's one of the advantages of a VM contract; once you've done your initial period you're free to chop and change at will. And 2 weeks to get a modem replaced? You're 'avin a giraffe!! My faulty modem was replaced in two business days, in the run up to Christmas. Maintenance and reliability is NOT a criticism you can levy at VM Cable services in general - OK so maybe you had a bad experience but in general they are good on that front.

Where they fail is customer service - call centres in Bangalore who have zero technical knowledge and operate via scripted question and answer sessions. I'm technically competent and if my problem falls outside the script you damn well better be able to help. VM Call Centres can't. (p.s. I've told them this too before the self righteous brigade start.)

Developer accuses TfL of 'fudging FOI requests'

I doubt it...

I doubt they're exempt... I just think that nobody so far has had the money or the inclination to take them to court for the legally required response, or to report them to the Information Comissioner and pursue it.

OR...

Access the data, state your purpose on the registration form as "personal use only", and then publish it as far and as widely as possible, making sure to ensure that the data could easily be interpreted to TfL's detriment.

They will not be able to successfully sue under contract Law simply because any unlawful clause in a Contract is either struck unilaterally from the contract if possible, or voids the contract entirely if it's not. This clause forcing "not for detriment" is not lawfully enforceable... the very point of the Act is that the data is PUBLIC DOMAIN and it is TfL's OBLIGATION to provide public access to it. By providing the data they imply that they accept that the data is covered by the FOI Act and is therefore public domain. They know all this and are just chancing their arm.

They cannot sue for defamation AT ALL because they themselves supplied the data.

Facebook boobs over breastfeeding page... again

@Anonymous Coward @ 13:11GMT

Why the hell does a kid need more privacy to eat their dinner than an adult does? Really - people need to get over the idea that if it's a breast it's about sex, or that breasts are a "Private part" to be kept hidden. Every single human being on the planet has breasts (females more fully proportioned than males) so why on earth would anyone feel it necessary to hide them?

Babies eat their dinner from Mom. Unnecessarily BOTTLE feeding a newborn baby is a LESS natural way of feeding a baby - I'm aware it's sometimes necessary of course. It saddens me to see some families choose bottle feeding when they are perfectly capable of breastfeeding and there are no factors preventing it.

If I can eat my dinner in perfect harmony with the people sitting around me then so can my babies... and I am absolutely certain that they will when adults regard those pictures with joy and admiration rather than embarrassment... because that's how *I* am choosing to bring them up.

Bummed-out users give anti-virus bloatware the boot

It's

It's becoming almost impossible to find AV/AM software which isn't bloated. I'm using AVAST at the moment which is nice and invisible (once you turn off the "I've updated" voices). I used to swear by AVG but that went real nasty, performance wise. Before that (a long time before) it was Norton - and we all know that that was the first performance killer.

Default judgement FAIL: ACS:Law muffs up in court

I can only surmise...

...that ACS:Law is not run by lawyers; or is run by seriously inexperienced ones. County Court procedure is Junior Lawyer 101 - it's the sort of shit which is thrown to the office bitch boy to deal with. Amateurs. Rank Amateurs.

PARIS joins the 17-mile-high club

Really love this! Do it again!

It would be awesome to have a stabilising parachute between the main payload and the balloon, to stabilise it after the balloon goes...

But WOW what a.... THING!!! Great project, totally well done all.

Facebook comes down hard on Faceporn

the article

...misses part of the point in that the Good Ol' US of A operates a "Protect it or Lose it" policy when it comes to trademark infringement. If Facebook had not initiated legal action they might have diluted or even removed the rights they currently have to their brand image. I think these alone are sufficient grounds to justify the piles and piles of litigation over trademarks in the USA.

ACPO defuses impending photo row with police forces

@Nigel C

The trouble is, the police need to maintain a trail of the evidence from the moment it comes into existence to the moment it is used in Court. If they give the photographer 48 hours with the evidence before it is presented to them its value is considerably diminished - to the point of uselessness - by the lack of an evidence-standard audit trail. If they seize the camera at the scene, they can document it correctly and then make appropriately audited copies of the evidence in the device.

HOWEVER

They should in my view endeavour to return the device intact and with nothing deleted within 24 hours of seizure; they have their evidence trail, photographer has his photos and camera back.

Flash finally finagled onto iPhone

@Badwolf

Nope, not me. I have an iPhone and have NEVER noticed the lack of Flash on it. I hate to say it but Jobs might actually be onto something with his "Flash is old tech" rant. It makes sure I never see most of the ads, that's for sure.

Apple iPhone exec falls on sword

It's very sad, but...

Mister Papermaster was today found to be suffering from a nine millimeter brain hemorrhage (sp?) in a back alley somewhere in Cupertino, central Russia.

Mozilla tames Firefox tab monster with Candy

I don't eve.

I don't get it; I've only ever got like 3 or 4 tabs open at a time...?

Apple greenlights browserless Firefox app for iPhone

Browserless? Not so...

It's clearly not browserless; it views the sites in your links inside FFH - and you have all the normal functionality of the site. I rather like it, actually...

'The internet's completely over', declares petulant Prince

Well....

"Everything's been invented - science may as well give up"

"Who the hell is EVER going to need more than 640k of RAM?!"

I rest my case...

The 3G coverage picture that can't be published

"Population Coverage"...

...is meaningless. I don't want to know how many people I can talk to where I am standing - nor do I care what network someone is on, when I call them. I want to know where I can stand in this country and get a signal - be that a 3G signal or a GSM one - I want to know about LAND-MASS coverage of MY operator, NOT population coverage.

Russian spy ring bust uncovers tech toolkit

Chapman....

I would.

Skype to start charging for iPhone VoIP

Title, Shmitle.

I wonder if a jailbroken iPhone which has the old 3G Unrestrictor app (makes the phone think it's on WiFi when it's actually on 3G) will get around the charges? It currently manages to get around App Store download limitations without too much bother... so maybe it will be YET ANOTHER reason to jailbreak your phone?

SCO: jurors too busy Facebooking to rule on Unix claim

This is the title, right here...

SCO need to REALLY take a reality check. They lost twice and then asked for a Jury ruling and lost again. Really, how much more simple could it be made for them? Did they think that the first two Judges were too busy facebooking too??!

A request for this kind of thing in the UK could easily be perceived as stepping the wrong side of Contempt Law.

San Francisco's rogue BOFH is guilty

See notes...

A juror in any court case in the UK would be sent to jail for less than this; it is simply forbidden to discuss what you have heard of the case and what occurs during Jury deliberations from the moment it occurs until your death. The Jury's decision is necessarily secret simply because of the prejudice to the fairness of the outcome any release of information causes and the dangers to yourself of identifying yourself as a Juror.

In many trials in the UK, once Jury deliberations begin, the jury are isolated from contact with the outside world to prevent any influences over their decision.