Posts by Christian Berger

Intel to put internet in your pants

Main problem

Will it be a gadget running Windows, or will it be a full fledged Linux computer? How well will one be able to use a console on such a device?

Italian crooks use Skype to frustrate wiretaps

Cool strategy

Implanting news that Skype is hard to wiretap is a nice strategy to wiretap people. I mean Skype surely can be easily wiretaped if you call it's mother company.

Dear Obama: Please consider open-source a waste of your time

Well but open source gets money out into the public

I mean if you hand 1 Million to microsoft it will end up in the pockets of a few managers. From where it probably will go into some hedge funds buying some companies in order to destroy them.

With open source solutions the local admins will suddenly be possible to actually do something. Fixing a machine will be more than just re-installing the OS several times until some non-user accessible configuration is right.

Closed source software barely is good bang for the buck if you want employment, unless you want it in India.

NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution

A piece of FUD

I mean seriously, Skype is a blob of encrypted binary code. There surely is not only code inside to monitor in- and outgoing calls, but also to activate the microphone and camera or take screenshots. I mean even if Skype would be a honest company, if I was a programmer there, I don't know if I could resist putting such code inside. The risk of detection is near zero.

Besides, the NSA could probably just order such "features" to be implemented.

Apple White MacBook Early 2009

How long will it work?

The main critique about Apple I have that their products tend to breakt frequently. So please next time you get one to review, drop it a few times to simulate the abuse of a few years of usage.

HD TV beats depression, claims HD TV company

Yes, but only colour

I mean who buys colour TV sets? They are typically overpriced, large, have a low resolution and consume a lot more power than monochrome ones.

Sony demos ultra-expensive, ultra-thin OLED telly

Efficiency?

Nobody ever claimed OLED was particularly energy efficient. A good LCD television set takes a single watt or less. Unless of course they have an electronic backlight.

Why is it?

Why is it that when Sony talks about OLED it's expensive, but when the rest of the world talks about OLED it's cheap? I mean I have seen end-customer prices for OLED modules of 30 Euros and less.

Russian rides Phantom to OS immortality

Ohh doesn't Smalltalk also do this per default?

I mean with Smalltalk it's easy to freeze your system at any given time. And it's event based so no programm runs continuously.

Question of availiability

The big question is, is this availiable or just some vapor ware like windows, which you can only get if you pay huge sums of money?

Appart from what, what's so different about his approach to, let's say the LISP-Machine machine one? There you don't have any user visible RAM, but insteadt everything is done on disk. RAM is only a cache for disk.

iPhone trifecta rumored for 2009

I'm waiting for the

I'm still waiting for the iPhone Shuffle. Only one button, if you press it it dials a random number.

Google shoves ebook monopoly onto iPhone

Handwriting recognition?

They should read the article "Peripherer Datenverkehr in Datenverarbietungsanlagen" from "K. Ganzhorn" and "W.Walter" of IBM Germany. It explains, among other things, in detail how a "Handschriftleser" recognices letters and digits written by hand. Only with analog electronics. No CPU is involved in the process. I can scan you that article if you want.

HP UK pulls Linux from all new netbooks

If they'd only install _real_ Windows on those boxes

Unfortunately they only install the dumbed down versions of Windows which do not have propper network support (especially terminal server). If they'd go with a propper version I could understand going for Windows, but what use is that OS, if you can't log into your laptop or desktop from another machine to use your data on a larger screen?

World's power grids infested with (more) SCADA bugs

@mark

It's not like VMS didn't have its own problems, which DEC tried to hide from it's customers.

Aerielle i2i Stream 2.4GHz music streamer set

Multi-path reception

What about multi-path reception? Does it have diversity? What about selective fading? What about audio delay?

Microsoft SKUs Windows 7 clarity

Expectations

From a Netbook OS I expect it to run GUI applications like Browsers

I expect a real OS to have networking capability. So I can, for example, log into it remotely without disturbing the person currently working on the machine directly.

So... what will Windows 7 will be? A boot-loader for Browsers, or a real OS?

Asus unwraps 10in Eee with 9.5-hour battery life

No Linux no use

I mean seriously, if they put on some Ubuntu or something it would be a fully usable computer. With Windows you can barely do anything.

Windows Vista stuck on single digit enterprise adoption

The problem of compatibility

Microsoft forgot it's most important feature, backward compatibility. The main point about buying an OS from Microsoft always has been that _all_ your old applications since DOS 3.something would continue running as if nothing happened. Now they kill that feature and of course nobody buys Vista.

Netbooks: A bit popular

Question of Software

The problem why you cannot do propper work with Netbooks is because they run some sort of Windows which is not really suitable for every day work. What's the use of a computer when starting gnuplot takes you lots of clicks? What's the use of a computer where even sox is hard to get and you have problems installing even a latex distribution?

Windows is just for games. If you want to do some real work done, get Linux.

Memo to Microsoft: Enough with the SKUed Windows

Distinction Client Server?

Why the distinction between client and server? What I want is a 'workstation'. A computer I can install software one which can not only run that software locally, but also act as an occasional application server so friends can also use them, by logging into my computer. Every cheap Linux distribution does that. Even Windows did that in version 2000. All Windows Vista has is a lobotomised RDP implementation which cannot do anything more than VNC already does for free.

Feds: IT admin plotted to erase Fannie Mae

Would anybody have noticed?

I mean seriously, we are talking about _banks_ not hosting providers. If a banks computer goes down probably nobody will ever notice. If banks actually used computers, money transfers via banks would be as quick, cheap and reliable as sending cash via mail.

Asus N50 15in laptop

Glossy screen => no buy

I wanna see what's on the screen, not a reflection of myself.

World's smallest working fuel cell developed

Wow 0.7 mW

That's enough to power a whole digital electronic computer.

Hands on with Sony's Vaio P netbook

Making it a notebook

Hmm, if you'd get off that Windows Vista and install Linux instead, you have a fairly powerful notebook on which you can do serious work on. But with Vista you even need to hack open the box to get a browser by installing additional software packages like Firefox.

Desktop integrated graphics shoot-out

Resolutions

I don't really care for speed, but I need to know which maximum resolution is supported? Can I, for example connect 2 30" LCDs onto an Intel board with 2 DVI connectors? Do know that I have to know which resolutions the chipset supports.

Disabling Windows Autorun - there's a right way and a wrong way

Fixed that bug?

Why don't they simply fix that bug in the next service pack. I mean nobody needs or wants Autorun.

Microsoft releases Vista virtualization

How does Vista tie into that?

I mean seriously. One of the points about virtualisation is that the host doesn't matter. So why not install some 64bit Ubuntu and run legacy applications under a virtual XP or W2000?

High Zune: MS loads up for the CES shootout

What a wiered podcast

I always thought Microsoft died in the 1990s when they missed the Internet.

LG shows off quad-band GSM watchphone

What's with the voice function?

Well first of all congratulations. The lighting of this video is by far not as bad as it's with the others. You know those wheels on the lens and the dials on the side of the camcorder actually have a meaning.

Second, sure it's great to have a wristwatch computer, but what's with that "phone-like" functionality. If I want do use a phone, I either do it at home or in the office, or go to the nearest phone booth.

Microsoft smooths Windows 7 snafu

Obviously it will exceed expectations

Nobody expects Windows 7 to be usable. It's probably one of the last versions of an aincient legacy system.

Boffins offer plastic printing service

Can I punch the camera person in the face?

Can I punch the camera person in the face? Or could someone _please_ tell him how to use the iris setting on the camera. _please_ I mean I can understand not using a tripod, but you could at least set up your camera so it'll work.

In action: the Powermat wireless gadget charger

Learn how to use a camera please

Could please someone teach that camera man how to use a camera? I mean it looked just like he left iris on auto.

SDXC memory card spec launched for 2TB capacity

Why only 2 TB?

Seriously, couldn't they just go to 64 bit adressing or something?

Freesat signs up LG

Why Freesat?

Why do you need a company for free to air television? If your stations would have normal DVB-EPG you could get rid of all that freesat nonsense and just get free to air satellite recievers like everyone else does.

Microsoft moves Macs closer to PC parity

Document locking?

Uhm, why lock documents, just make is so n people can edit it at once. How hard can it be to have a text-editor with n cursors on different positions?

NEC breakthrough paves way for powerless standy-by modes

Will the OSes support it?

Hmm, will the OSes support it. I mean it would still have to power down all devices and set them up again.

On laptops it won't do much good for the battery as there the display already takes a big part of the power requirement.

AMD unleashes open-source 3D code

Seriously a win-win situation for AMD

Well I'm currently thinking about getting a new graphics sub system. Currently the only decent choice for Linux is Intel. They have good on-board chipsets with good drivers. But that also means I will buy the whole board including the CPU from Intel.

Now if AMD provides usable (=open source) drivers I can not only buy a graphics card from them, but also buy the CPU from them. And I can even get multi-socket motherboards for several CPUs.

SMS bug: Nokia's Conversation goes mute

Not just a Nokia problem

That problem could not only be restricted to Nokia, but Nokia is notorious for writing bad software.

Microsoft eyes metered-PC boondoggle

Impact on productivity

I mean office software, in general, never has been a pinnacle of productivity, but now Microsoft actually has a motive to make it even slower to use. Now every additional click the user has to preform to do a given task translates to thousands of Euros of additional income. Re-introduce Clippy and you are rich. The more time your users will have to waste using your product, the more money you will get.

I can already see interface design toolkits which automatically calculate the revenue, based on typical user behaviour.

DECT wireless eavesdropping made easy

We should move on

OK, DECT is still the best dedicated wireless phone standard availiable. Unlike GSM there is no way to intercept calls remotely, as from the base-station on you can use decent encryption.

The next step might be to do an ultra-simple IPv6 based voice standard. Essentially you would dial the IP-number of the other station. The whole communication goes over a protocoll which adds redundancy to UDP, so you can reconstruct the information of missing packets. Signalling should also be done in such packets. And everything would be strongly encrypted end to end.

Mac Tablet/Mega iPod Touch due fall 2009 who knows when

Build a new Newton

Just build a new Newton, add some audio, video and networking capability, and off you go.

Clickfree Backup external hard drive

So...

So this is a still manual backup which only works if you activate a bug in Windows. (Autorun) I don't quite manage to see where the advantage is.

Maybe future computers will just use virtualisation to mage such backups.

MSI mobo ditches Bios for EFI

What I expect from Firmware

I expect form Firmware that it loads my bootloader into RAM and executes it. It would also be nice if it would provide a little hardware abstraction for it.

Other than that, a little setup and update utility would be nice to have in ROM.

I guess the only possible advantage could be that it can still provide hardware abstraction services to the kernel. That would make kernels way simpler. But unfortunately that feature is completely useless unless the whole EFI stack is open source. Otherwise it's unlikely it will be usable.

Chinese walls come down for video calling

Uhm, mobile (video) phones?

What an ackward idea. Who would want to lug a phone around with oneself and be constantly disturbed by it.

iPlayer chief pushes tiered charging for ISPs

Direct lines to the BBC?

I mean it's the peering contracts that cause money, but couldn't they just peer directly with the BBC? Or couldn't they just ask the BBC to put their servers right into the data-centers of the ISPs?

I mean there is no technical shortage of bandwidth. It's just horribly bad management.

Apple MacBook Air Late 2008

Can't you ever test important things?

I mean what's the point of running benchmarks. You won't really notice any change below 1:2.

What's more important is how durable it is. And Apple has had _lots_ of problems back then. Apple is, unfortunately, absolutely uncreative when it comes to securing the reliability of their devices. Drop it from a meter a few times and see if it still works.

Chinese automaker launches plug-in hybrid

@ A bit of Old Tech

Maybe they meant 400 volt. China uses a 3 phase system like much of the rest of the world. In such a system you can get way more power out of the line.

Anyhow such hybrid cars would be great for stabilicing the power grid. Just enable people to sell their electricity they generate with their cars.

Tosh touts world's first half-terabyte laptop SSD

Niece market?

I mean, OK, it's potentionally great for laptops, but couldn't you just use RAM? I mean RAM is cheaper and it doesn't have the many problems that flash memory has.

TVonics DTR-Z500 500GB Freeview+ DVR

Dreambox

You can also get the Dreambox from Dream Multimedia which can do DVB-T and DVB-S depending on what tuners you have. It has open source software, ethernet and can use harddisks as large as you can get them. You can even get a keyboard to have a (fairly limited) web browser.

I think there's another company selling the same software with different (cheaper) hardware. ABcom or something.

LG DVS450H 'floating' DVD player

What's the use?

It cannot play files from NFS or SMB network shares. OK you might say it's a DVD-Player it's just made to play DVDs. But then you have the problem of the machine beeing non-stackable. With hardware based media, it is crucial that you can stack the individual devices, as you will need lots of them, one for every format, unless try to buy everything for one standard.

I guess all those companies will be dead-meat once the chineese find out that they can just sweep the market by making high quality cheap devices which, for example, just playing stuff from NFS, SMB or HTTP streams.