Posts by Mage

Ancient SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION contains enough dust for 7,000 EARTHS, say boffins

Wonderful

We are actually in a bubble of low density space, probably caused by a supernova long ago.

I love this sort of boffinry

Google and Obama: You’re too close for comfort

Absolutely

Google is a bigger threat than Halliburton, NSA, Microsoft, IBM, USSR, Red China etc ever were.

What's more rather than just big business, they threaten small business more and massively exploit the consumer.

Perhaps all their evil people tracking sites need to divested if they want to remain an advertiser. Including but not limited to:

Search

Earth

Maps

Google+

Gmail

YouTube

Google Groups.

Google APIs and other resources used by 3rd party sites

Their Cloud services.

Android

Google Play Store

One sign on for all is plain evil too.

Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Harry Harrison, Philip K Dick, John Brunner , Robert Sheckley and others could not have dreamed of such a privacy stealing exploitive monster.

They are having their cake and eating it.

They are not a kind Tech Company. Tech is only a means to the end of making more money via adverts.

Dear departed Internet Explorer, how I will miss you ... NOT

Oh ... Oh ...

Active X in a Browser was the single most stupid thing ever that MS did.

Wonderful Dabsy.

Lighty and flighty: Six sizzling portable projectors

The LCD panel ... literally fit in the palm of your hand.

It's cheaper to do a miniature reflective LCD, actual pocket TV LCDs are only used in home brew projectors.

Most of the cost of LCD is area of glass. secondarily the driving electronics. Having 1200 x any number of columns is driven as 2 off 600 x any number columns on on panel. Or even as four panels on one substrate/glass.

DLP for 1080p is tiny, but these won't use DLP, too expensive and needs either 3 + prism or a colour wheel.

Typical full HD LCD on Silicon (LCoS) cells are about 1-3 centimeters square and about 2 mm thick. They are reflective. Larger projectors use three chips/cells and optical combiner.

Whilst initially developed for large-screen projectors, LCoS displays have found a consumer niche in the area of pico-projectors, where their small size and low power consumption are well-matched to the constraints of such devices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_on_silicon

NO-ONE commercially produces projectors based on transmissive pocket TV style LCD panels any more, most of those were only 640 x 240 or less though! Even at 6" Look at the resolution of most cheap "photo-frame" displays, they don't even do 480 lines!

480p = VGA

A 1987 standard.

The projector chip isn't large, so 720, 800, 1080 or 1200 lines would make little difference to size of package. Obviously since that's the expensive bit, they have cost reduced to level where these are pointless, except for the 800 line model.

1080p may be HDTV, but it's NOT HD for computers, 1200p is over 14 years old.

Re: resolution

480 vertical is rubbish outside north America (Their SD is only 480). In UK/Europe, Mid East, Russia, Africa, Australia the SD is 576 lines.

only the 800 line model is worth considering

The old analogue bias of NTSC / 480 favouring North America and Japan and ignoring the higher quality in the rest of the world is alive in the digital age.

576 rescaled to 480 looks dreadful

Fanbois: We paid $2000 for full satisfaction but now we have SPREADING STAINS

Rubbish

No excuse given Apple profit margin.

My laptop anti-reflective screen is MUCH older and perfect. So old I won't divulge the model.

Our 4King benders are so ace we're going full OLED, says LG

Life?

They use phosphors. They are not LEDs in the sense that regular LEDs are, but are more like the Electroluminescent technology. The phosphors suffer more than CRT types with ageing and burn in and the blues age worse.

OLED is fine in a phone as those don't have a huge life. But a 4K display ought to last 10+ years. Will these be much good after 4?

Intel's cheap and Android's free: Not any more, says TAG Heuer

Intel?

So they will use an 80C51 or dust off the ARM licence?

UK.gov crackpots: Let's build vapourware-based sharing economy CITIES

Re: Subversive

Rats. need to log in with alternate identities via my RBS enabled iPhone to multiply upvote this.

Banks defend integrity of passcode-less TouchID login

I'd change

if the hassle was less and the others much better.

The devil you know ...

What's to stop someone figuring out how to use these probably badly written apps on a phone the real user has never even seen?

Noobs can pwn world's most popular BIOSes in two minutes

require only access to a PC

If you have physical access, then no security will save the owner / user.

Web geeks grant immortality to Sir Terry Pratchett – using smuggled web code

Clacks

They actually existed and used by Napoleon.

Wikipedia article on Semaphore

"A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position.

The system was invented in 1792 in France by Claude Chappe, and was popular in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century.[1][2][3]

They were much faster than post riders for bringing a message over long distances, and also cheaper in their long-term operating costs, once constructed. Semaphore lines were a precursor of the electrical telegraph which would replace them half a century later. The electrical telegraph would in turn be cheaper, faster, and more private. The distance that an optical telegraph can bridge is limited by geography and weather; thus, in practical use, most optical telegraphs used lines of relay stations to bridge longer distances. This also prevented the optical telegraph from crossing long expanses of water, unless a convenient island could be used for a relay station."

The privacy thing is NUTS. People tapped Telegraph wires.

People wanting privacy (on Semaphore or Telegraph) used code systems, cyphers, encryption. Just like some people today. Semaphore in reality wasn't really any less private than email or telegraph.

UK started having copies of all International telegrams (via UK, which was a major hub) before WWI.

Galileo! Galileo! Galileo good to go after six-week recovery effort

Re: "reached its desired orbit."

So the world and Europe in particular should be relying on the whim of Putin, Obama and successors for GPS and timing (Mobile Phone masts, DAB and DTT multiplexes use the USA GPS for timing data)?

We need Galileo.

Boffinry listicle MADNESS: ONE THING you need to know about CHAMELEONS

Re: What would be nice: mirasol

I looked at it for a project years ago.

Mirasol seems to have a problem (though it might be Qualcom Royalties is the issue). Where are the products apart from a proof of concept watch and an early prototype tablet display?

If only it was Samsung, Sony, LG, Sharp etc and not Qualcomm

What would be nice

Is how can we copy this to at least have some bright colour on an eInk type low power display without a backlight.

BBC websites GO TITSUP – Auntie blames 'internal system failure'

Re: Finally

I'm curious ... what sort of organism?

Like algae or wood lice?

also

http://www.bbc.com/news/ was down too.

Yay! Wearables! It's the future! Uh-oh! I'm going to be sick

Classic

So you in good form this weekend Dabsey.

Pay rise?

Weekend holiday?

Thanks a lot, Google, for snatching .dev for yourself. It's not like the rest of us wanted it

If you run a DNS box, boycott the new TLDs. They are an evil money grab.

Well.That.Sucks: New rude dot-word sparks outrage

Stupid

The new money grabbing TLDs should be boycotted by all ISPs and other DNS operators.

Unlike IPs, there is NO Reason to add extra TLDs. Even ,biz and .info etc were dubious ideas.

We've read all 400 pages of the FCC's baffling net neutrality rules – here's what YOU need to know

mobile broadband

It's Mobile Internet.

mobile broadband is a marketing fiction

Forget viruses: Evil USB drive 'fries laptops with a power surge'

You can fit a 600V flash gun electronics in a WD passport box. With its own pair of alkaline AA cells.

1000uF charged to 600V is a bit more severe than 8uF @ 110V

just sayin'

Not sure if devil icon, flames, troll, coat or nuke icon.

Pathetic PC sales just cost us a BILLION dollars, cries Intel

Mobile and Communications segment saw its revenues plummet by 85.3 per cent.

Intel HAS an ARM licence.

They can fab, Fabulously.

They should swallow ego and do ARM SoC for Mobile instead of trying the square peg in round hole

Last year their Mobile was down about 80+ % too.

BBC: We'll give FREE subpar-Raspberry-Pis to a million Brit schoolkids

Re: bbc pi is 8bit amtelmega 32u4

Jupiter Ace ran Pacman in only 1K RAM.

Also it was a High Level Language, not assembler, as long as you had used an HP calculator (RPN is easy really, look at Forth vs Lisp)

Mattel urged to scrap Wi-Fi mic Barbie after Register investigation

Re: So....

I wouldn't let any child use Siri, Cortana or similar.

$17,000 Apple Watch: Pointless bling, right? HA! You're WRONG

looking at old watch formats

Sorry, this is the only good bit.

The rest reads too much like Apple apologist. and is waffle Not to your usual standard.

Mines the one with a phone in the pocket.

Does my star look big in this? Milky Way 50 per cent fatter than expected

50% more members in the Galactic Council

Except no-one has invited us.

Can't pay $349 for an Apple Watch? Get a Chinese knockoff for less than $50

Re: Quick on the draw?

These existed YEARS ago!

Re: "In the end, you sometimes need to be an expert to ... "

Perhaps they are not fakes.

Perhaps many predate Apple Watch

Perhaps many are better.

They'd be idiots not to take advantage of the Media Apple Hypegasm.

Apple Watch: Wait a minute! This puny wrist-puter costs 17 GRAND?!

Windows 10, Azure, Office 2016, open sourcing .Net,

No, they lost the plot around 2003 or 2004, about two years after Nokia went mad internally.

Windows 10, : Will disappoint, At best no worst than win7

Azure: Pointless to most people

Office 2016, :rent a cloud Office. Stick to Office 2003 or use Libre Office

open sourcing .Net, : Born of desperation!

MS and Apple are now mature companies thrashing around wondering how to to maintain momentum.

Re: Wonders what planet has 18 hour days....

I have an LCD watch with same battery, running nearly 10 years. It works without ANY phone.

Re: Bye bye upgradable laptops

On my laptop I've upgraded:

WiFi

Optical Drive

Graphics Card

RAM

HDD (used partition Magic on desktop to copy existing content /OS)

Replaced keyboard, battery pack case fans due to age.

Original

1600 x 1200 ultra sharp totally matt finish zero reflection 15" screen (other screens were possible)

1.8 GHz P4 CPU (other CPUs can be fitted).

OK, perhaps it's a little large and heavy. The Mac Air is indeed an x86-64 tablet with built in keyboard. It's expensive though unless you want OS X.

I wonder how long before Apple drop OS X and only have iOS though.

Give biometrics the FINGER: Horror tales from the ENCRYPT

N'eer a truer word in jest.

Now we know that that Dabs is the day job public identity of super hero^h^h^h^h security expert Schneier

FREAKing hell: ALL Windows versions vulnerable to SSL snoop

Re: A different Freak?

"An error occurred during a connection to cve.freakattack.com. SSL received an unexpected Server Key Exchange handshake message. (Error code: ssl_error_rx_unexpected_server_key_exch) "

Firefox on er er er ...

13 years old Windows ... last re-installed June 2002.

Netflix: Look folks, it's net neutrality... HA, fooled you

"VOD pay ISP to exclude traffic from bandwidth cap".

On most systems there is a cap to limit traffic, so that busy time the connection isn't too slow. An exception like this slows the ISP for even the users that don't use netflix.

You don't understand how an ISP works. They do not have the capacity to deliver anything like your package speed if everyone used it all the time.

Microsoft comes right out and says backup software is dead

Not dead

Just getting more difficult to do properly.

The Cloud is at best another tool and at worst a disaster waiting to happen.

How does the Cloud provider backup?

How good is their security?

How do you access them and have you a backup internet access?

This is just typical nonsensical "cloud" hype. It's just someone else's servers, It's just outsourcing with more than usual level of opacity about what you are really getting for the money.

Broadband routers: SOHOpeless and vendors don't care

Re: OpenWRT?

The point is it's pretty lame how rubbish most domestic gear on sale in Tesco, Argos etc is compared with a generic controller card and 7 year old open source software.

This isn't hard at all.

They have lavished more attention on the box that no-one is going to look at.

Icon, cos I have no halo.

Sorry I didn't explain my point.

My ISP's "cable modem" is nearly 10 years old. It's purely a DOCSIS 2.0 modem. The cable Modems or ADSL modems with router built in and no bridge mode are evil. At least xDSL you can put your own. Very rare a DOCSIS (Cable) based provider will provision anything other than their own.

OpenWRT?

I was fed up with router reliability. I "made" my own 7 years ago using an industrial computer board with two ethernet ports. (no 5 port switch made to look like Wan port and 4 x Lan)

OpenWRT + serious passwords.

It uses a laptop WiFi card to act as an airpoint too.

OS on a CF card.

spare card holder (2nd WiFi?)

2 x USB hosts unused

1 x Serial port unused.

I experimented with other features but decided router + firewall + Airpoint (bridged to LAN ethernet) was enough due to security concerns.

I stuck it in an old 300 Baud Sagem modem case.

Why Wi-Fi won't solve mobile telcos' data dilemma

Nothing new.

Loads of stuff 3.5GHz to 20GHz been doing this cheaply last 10 years (various speeds).

Problem is in some EU countries the licence is 10K per year per link!

Fibre can actually work out cheaper. FTTH for 90% of people costs less than the infrastructure for real 5Mbps peak time LTE. (the 100Mbps is meaningless if you need to be only user and in sight of mast, which is pretty much the case. Every double of distance from 100m is 1/4 speed. Then divide by total number of users).

UK spaceport, phase two: Now where do we PUT the bleeding thing?

long haul passenger and a little bit of cargo.

To where?

Arcturus?

Australia?

Europe's first spaceport,

Actually it will be the second.

Europe's first spaceport (construction started 1960) launches over half of payloads already. It's also on an East coast (in case launch aborts) and near Equator (saves fuel).

You don't want to be under the immediate launch path.

It's not even the UK's first, the Australians are re-furbishing Woomera,

It's not even the first site IN Europe (though none are used any more as the European Space Port is better).

It might be the first spaceport in the UK. But that actually makes little sense. Kenya would be cheaper. There even is some sort of disused base there already. Kenya or South America would be cheaper for launches than in Great Britain,

Storm in a K-Cup: My SHAME over the eco-monster I created, says coffee pod inventor

Options

Breakfast time: Filter coffee. Needs no thought.

Other times I use the the Italian stove 2 part thing, jug/press (cafetire?) and a cheap £20 espresso maker. Some times I make "mud" coffee (tall cup, pour boiling water WITHOUT stiring, sprinkle cold drips of water on top to sink grounds)

Five flavours just from one purchase of tinned grounds.

Yumm.

Is light a wave or a particle? Beaming boffins prove it's BOTH

surface plasmon polaritons

Heavy Boffinry!

I've never heard of "polaritons" before. The plasmon, barely.

(laser safety goggles on)

Ericsson, Telstra and Qualcomm up the ante with 600Mbps demo

Willy Waving

It's meaningless.

Mine's the one with Shannon Nyquist papers in the pocket and graphs of closeness to Shannon Limit for Edge, 3G, HSPA, HSPA+, WiMax, LTE, Flash-OFDMA

HP gulps down Aruba Networks for $3bn

Oh dear

This will end badly... Except for whoever got the $3 Billion.

Windows XP's market share grows AGAIN!

Also

MS should bring out a Windows Classic Edition.

Basically an XP SP4 with bugs that are STILL in Win7 and Win 8, (or stupidity) fixed. File copy in Explorer is crazy limited compared with xcopy and ordinary users don't realise that it copies or moves depending on if explorer thinks directories are on same drive letter. They don't know about holding cntrl or shift.

Also the explorer views are buggy.

The Classic Edition should have only safe network clients on by default. It should have 32 bit (faster for some things and needed for old cpus) with NT4 Enterprise PAE on as well as 64 bit. No need to resurrect the long dead XP 64 for Itanium.

Settings

With Noscript, external firewall, Firefox, no non- web except up to date Flash in Browser (no PDF, Media player, VLC, no added toolbars, no Java) all non-essential services off (upnp, telnet, server, no sharing, remote desktop, remote registry, HTTPS & HTTP server, FTP, SSDP etc, no autorun on any media inc net drives) etc XP used by a knowledgeable user is safer than Win 7, Win 8.x or Win 10 used by average user with a false sense of security in AV products and the default configuration.

Thunderbird or other client with no remote content enabled for email.

Using Libre office (or Office 2003 with no macros or activeX).

The default Windows settings for services are madness and always have been.

An alternate view

http://www.wattystuff.net/2014/03/dont-panic/

I use silentrunners,org and gmer, often booting in safe mode to check out people's PCs / laptops

Make room, Wi-Fi, Qualcomm wants to run LTE on your 5GHz band

Patents

Increased patent revenue for Qualcomm. That's the motivation.

This is a bad idea for every existing user of WiFi, esp in Apartment blocks etc.

Revival of fortune: Mad Catz Mojo Android gaming micro console

Google’s thirty-quid dongles can put Android on your telly just as well as a Mojo.

Er .. no.

Because it needs a tablet, phone or Laptop. If you have those, then an HDMI cable may replace the Chromecast.

Chromecast is not in same league of thing as this at all.