Posts by Tony Jarvie

I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go: Yes, Sony's Xperia 1 II has a 3.5mm headphone port

Long-term Sony phone user

Well, just to put my experiences in the mix here, I have been a Sony user since the days of the T68 (around 2002). Currently have an Xperia 1 with its wide-aspect ratio screen so to answer some of the comments above...

Single-handed use. Sony have recognised this, and have a specific "one-hand" sensor on each side of the screen to address this. My hands are big, so I don't use it really but it's there to help those with smaller hands.

The aspect ratio. 21:9 content, such as films, initially don't fill the screen sometimes but again to get around this you just zoom in (and again it's specifically addressed in the phone's software!) and it fills the screen perfectly. Netflix and Amazon Prime stuff look great in this aspect ratio, on an OLED HDR acreen.

Size of screen. Obviously everyone has their own preference, but I find that held in the natural position, the phone is the same size as (in fact slightly bigger than) my 49" TV across my living room. When I was flying for work a few years ago, I happily watched each of the Lord of the Rings films (extended editions) on my phone and enjoyed them.

Headphones. You do realise that the phone comes with a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone adaptor in the box, don't you? Admittedly, you can't charge the phone at the same time, but you have the option to use wireless headphones if you want...

Longevity. For MANY years now, whenever I and my wife (who also has a Sony phone) upgrade, the old ones get used by my in-laws for the next two years until the next upgrade and they get regular updates, and the battery life seems to be fine for them.

As I say, each person has their own experience, but that's mine as an 18-year long Sony (and before that Sony Ericsson) user. Yours might not be as rosy.

5G signals won't make men infertile, sighs UK ad watchdog as it bans bonkers scary poster

Re: effects on lab test animals and not on humans,

Actually, that guy is what made me think of this...

Re: effects on lab test animals and not on humans,

Does this mean that since they harm animals, they're not vegan? Maybe there'll be a whole bunch of people in future years refusing to use their mobile phones during "veganuary"... (Actually, I've used the joke icon but there will be people out there who take it seriously).

Careful with that Axe, Eugene: Excessive use of body spray causes school bus evacuation

Not the only way to be a hazard on a school bus.

Back when I was getting a school bus on a daily basis the school had to ban aerosol deodorants due not to over-spray like this story, but the fact that some of the kids thought it would be "cool" to take the aerosol can and mate it with their smoker-pal's lighter and make a flamethrower. I really do wonder how we managed to travel day-in, day-out without some-one dying on those busses over the years...

Truckers, prepare to lose your jobs as UPS buys into self-driving tech

Re: Delivery drivers do more than just drive

Exactly. If only they could invent something even more suitable...like a great big line of linked trailers...that all get pulled along by one main engine....and if it was on tracks then it would be easier to control and people wouldn't need to be as much of a factor when planning routes...

We don't mean to poo-poo this, but... The Internet of S**t has literally arrived thanks to Pampers smart diapers

A useful thing?

Well, not wanting to detract from all the witty comments above but is it the case of right technology, wrong application?

Rather than trying to get a report of the effectiveness of the baby's sleep - which I'm sure is self-evident to any parent - isn't it better to use the technology in conjunction with push alerts to combat real problems like cot death? If these sensors can be used to monitor the baby and alert the parent to events such as stopping breathing, a slowing of the breathing (since the earlier something wrong is noticed, the better), etc. then that's how it should be getting used.

It seems to me that this would be a far better way of using sensors attached to a baby than to be alerted to it pooing.

Surprising absolutely no one at all, Samsung's folding-screen phones knackered within days

Re: Why would a layer you aren't supposed to remove

Cube World? I've got some of these at home, my wife got them for my birthday one year. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cube-World-Slim-Scoop-I5039/dp/B000BFORIK

The HeirPod? Samsung Galaxy Buds teardown finds tiny wireless cans 'surprisingly repairable'

Re: Wireless?

For day-to-day use, on the train or plane or whatever I agree. However, a small and cheap set of Anker wireless BT buds are pretty good for when you're out for a run and don't want a cable dangling down to your phone. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Headphones-Anker-Lightweight-Sweatproof-Refurbished-Black/dp/B0753D3372

Hold horror stories: Chief, we've got a f*cking idiot on line 1. Oh, you heard all that

Sounds very similar to a few years back when it suddenly became known that the company (of 24,000 employees worldwide) had a previously unknown group that included EVERY employee. I can't remember the original email, but it started off the inevitable "why am I getting this email" Reply-to-all scenario followed by some-one kicking off a whole chain of "never mind, it's nearly Christmas so Merry Christmas everyone" followed by 15,000-odd people all deciding to wish each other seasonal greetings... It was a complete mess!

Facebook didn't care if your kids ran up gigantic credit card bills – lawsuit

Re: They spent how much?

Actually, doesn't it say that the transcript was from the 9th of Sept, and in the transcript it says the card was added on the 2nd of Sept? So never mind a few months, this looks like it was perhaps less than a week!

London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found

Re: War time innovation

Maybe that's what happened? There was only ever one "disruption" drone in the beginning, and every other sighting since has been people trying to be smart going "I'll send my drone over there and I'll be able to knock it out the sky".... (Just think along the lines of those people who reply to "All contacts" emails with things like "why did you send this to me, please take me off this list"..."please stop replying to all"... It's that mentality I'm thinking of here!)

Re: Anti-Bird Strike Radar?

A good idea, but two potential problems; 1. You're assuming that the birds aren't actively trying to fly into the flight paths of the aircraft unlike the operators of the drones. (Although they probably don't want to ACTUALLY hit a plane, they probably want to make it look as if they do, to cause the disruption). 2. Presumably even with birds, you wouldn't get much of a warning if they suddenly rise up into the flight paths from the ground.

Introducing 'Happy Quit', where Chinese smokers are text-spammed into nicotine abstinence

Re: Not chewy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sbizs-qAwY Although by the looks of the video, there's a fair bit of smoking going on there too!

Microsoft, you shouldn't have: Festive Windows 10 Insiders build about as exciting as new socks

Re: Any change to notepad is big news of course.

I used to agree with that....until I was shown Notepad++ and now it's my default app for anything text-y on my PC!

It's a patch bonanza as Microsoft showers its OS platforms with update love

Is this the one where you get a box with a "Hard Error"?

I fixed it by grabbing the Update Assistant from the Windows site on another machine, copying to a USB stick, transfer the program to the C:\ drive and running from there in a command prompt (might have been an elevated prompt) called from Task Manager. It was a week or so ago, so there might have been a couple of extra steps, but that solved the issue on a machine here. Hope it helps.

Voyager 1 left the planet 41 years ago – and SpaceX hopes to land on Earth this Saturday

Re: 3.6AU per year

How much is it decelerating by? Since it's in (mostly) vacuum, there wouldn't be much in the way of friction against other particles. And I wouldn't think collisions with micro-meteorites, etc. would make much of a dent in its speed. Other parts of it, yes, but not its speed! The sun's rays would presumably push it along by a tiny amount, collisions from behind by other space particles might do the same slightly, but unless it's been slowed down a lot by hitting the heliosheath / edge of the healioshpere, then what's been slowing it down? Oh, and the slingshots around planets (which the ISS obviously hasn't benefited from unless you count its orbit as a permanent slingshot around Earth) is another reason why I'd have thought it would be a lot faster than twice ISS's speed.

3.6AU per year

That sounds impressively fast, but when I worked it out (please check my maths here!) it's approximately: 334640906 miles (according to Google's conversion). Divide by around 365.25 days per year = 916,197 miles per day. Divide by 24 hours per day, and that's around 38,174 miles per hour. The ISS goes around about 17,500 mph so it's only twice as fast as the ISS, roughly speaking. (I'm assuming that the 3.4AU is approximate and that 365.25 is close enough for a year's duration). I honestly thought it would be going faster than that.

Actual control of Windows 10 updates (with a catch)... and more from Microsoft

Re: Visual Studio 2017 is an atrocious mess!

To be honest, I'd like to think that "Fix[ing] the damned issues with the current version" is what they're at least attempting to do, but rather than do that as an update, they're bringing it out under the new name. Perhaps the attempts at fixing the current version are so much under the hood that it would be a new version anyway, or perhaps it's a marketing/sales issue, but still... Of course, whether they SUCCEED in fixing those issues is another matter to be seen once 2019 launches.

Donald, YOU'RE FIRED: Rogue Twitter worker quits, deletes President Trump's account

"He deleted my account?!?"

"Bring back the death penalty - hanging isn't good enough for that scumbag!"

Vinyl, filofaxes – why not us too, pleads Nokia

Already exists...sort of.

On my Sony Xperia, there's an "Ultra Stamina" mode in the battery settings which, upon restarting, will restrict the phone to the most basic features. It says "Internet connection via wifi and mobile data will be disabled". And the only apps available are; phone, contacts, messaging, camera, album (I guess so you can view the photos from the camera), Calendar, Calendar (yes, it's listed twice, must be an error by the devs!) Clock, calculator, FM Radio, Settings, music. So, pretty much a 3310 but with a decent camera and music player.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Thank goodness I hid behind this log - they've taken Aleksander instead!!

Lexus CT200h hybrid

Missing El Reg staff

Er, hasn't Sarah Bee just left?

WTF is... DLNA?

Nice....6 months ago!

You say that "only this month, LG announced that its debut Windows Phone 7 handset, the Optimus 7, will support DLNA-streamed playback." Well, that's nice, but you make it sound like something new.

I'm sitting here with my Sony Ericsson Vivaz (yes, I wish I'd got an X10, but it was too expensive then - my Vivaz was free) and if you go into apps, Media serv. then you see the DLNA server already installed on my phone out of the box.

Since the Vivaz is a Symbian device, I assume that it's on, or at least available to, many Nokia handsets too.

Sony seeks 'universal console controller' patent

Prior art?

So... are you telling us that Sony have applied for a patent for the Optimus Maximus keyboard, only in a keypad format?

http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/

Note to Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you

I object!!

How can you call ANYONE a "boffin" when they clearly haven't watched/read enough Star Trek to know how this isn't a problem?!?

Warp bubble - protects the ship while it travels at sub-light speeds therefore mitigating the collision speeds.

Navigational deflector dish - what part of the word "deflector" befuddles you?

BTW, for all those talking about the Bussard Ramscoops - may I point out that they are at the end of the warp nacelles, therefore BEHIND the leading edge of the dish? Not relevant.

Note about relativity;

When in a warp bubble, the ship travels at significantly BELOW light speed. There was a novel written (I think a TNG story) where some-one had lost everyone they knew apart from those on the ship because their warp drive failed and they spent a couple of years travelling at high impulse speed. Because they had then been travelling closer to light speed, time dilation was more noticeable and they had aged at a reduced rate relativr to everyone else in the universe.

Humax ships Freeview HD box

Phones?

Reading through the specs on the website, I think this is supposed to say "photos".

"Play media contents in external HDD or memory through USB (MP3, JPG, XViD) "

http://www.humaxdigital.com/uk/products/product_stb_terrestrial_hdfoxt2.aspx

Microsoft kills Santa Claus

GPS for the guy in the red suit?

You: Where are you?

Santa: I am in the North Pole. Where are you?

You: Scotland

Santa: I have no idea where that is. Tell me a little about your life in Scotland.

Erm, isn't this the guy that's supposed to know where everyone lives, and visit them on Christmas Eve?

santabot.com

You: Do you like Microsoft?

Santa: I want to replace Windows with Artificial Intelligence.

Don't we all?!?!?!

That has to be the best response to that question!

Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K850i camera phone

K810 Torch

If you're looking for a torch for the K810 (might work with K800 too - I don't have one, so I can't say) then visit esato.com. It's a website that reviews mobiles, etc, but specialises in SE.

Do a search for k810 and torch, and you should find that there's a small java program that uses the auto-focus red light as a flash.

I've been using this since upgrading from my old K750 and discovered that I used the torch a lot more than I realised, and have been happy with the results.