Posts by Richard Joseph

Techies: Hands-on lab to find out what AWS Cloud can do for you

Re: Urm..? Nah!

OK, so I don't personally have any figures on corporate take-up of AWS-based solutions, however,I have read anecdotal evidence suggesting entities such as Banks and Universities find the cloud useful for off-loading massive 'batch' analysis jobs without investing in up-front infrastructure roll-out time/costs. But wait, a little company called 'Netflix' managers to put out 1/3 of US peak traffic most nights, running quite nicely on top of Amazon's AWS cloud scaling capabilities.

The Netflix thing is kind of funny to me, as, via LoveFilm, Amazon are one of Netflix's major competitors! So, it like Netflix rents a delivery van from Amazon to run a rival delivery service and is beating Amazon at that business! Now that's a cool example of 'recursion' in Netflix's programming model!

Reddit are also said to be using AWS, so too are Spotify and many other, see:

http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/all

Mystery object falls from sky, area sealed off by military: 'Weather balloon', say officials

At some Space exploration unit on the homeworld of Alpha Centauri...

.....Auric, you misplaced the decimal point when you photo-formed that hydro-plastic casing! You sent the intelligence gathering device to Earth with a case an order-of-magnitude too thin, and now it lies broken, having collided with what the Earthlings call a 'power-line'!!!

Auric, you're only slightly less incompetent than those guy who buried Earth's 'Beagle' in the Mars desert....

Man sues Apple for allowing him to become addicted to porn

Matthew 18:9 "And if thine eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee"...

Now, I know that Apple corps may seem to be omni-present of late, but if we're really going to lay blame and go back to the "original sin", don't you think the guy who first came up with the Apple idea (no, not Steve) should have the blame for this guy's downfall placed firmly at his feet? I mean, who else gave him the hands, eyes and appendages which made him capable of committing these self-debasing acts?

Hey, you can get rid of you're iPad, but hey, you'll still have your hands etc. You KNOW what to do, homeboy, SNIP....

Cheeky Boston fires up x86-to-ARM porting cloud for server apps

This might be the first and last time the expression...

'This is Aaas'

is considered a good thing....

I'll get my coat....

Apple 'insider' explains why vid adapter hides ARM computer

Re: Are you kidding?

No, you forget that the Android device can, currently, push out HIGHER QUALITY video from a device that costs $5 on Amazon....

Brits admit to using mobile phones during sex - and not in a good way

If your wife or girlfriend was checking her tweets during the act, ask yourself...

...did you have a small part to play in it???

Valve: Games run FASTER on Linux than Windows

Maybe Valve should take a closer look at Cooperative Linux (http://colinux.org), for Windows?

Ok, so it's not yet running on 64bit Windows (porting now), and may or may not work with Windows 8 (Metro?), but Valve should have the coding talent to move coLinux forward considerably.

So what does coLinux do? Well, it runs the Linux kernel as a Windows process, meaning that no Virtual machine software is necessary. The upshot of this is that, using something like the [experimental] X.Cygwin XServer (client), it should be possible to get native OpenGL-based rendering of *Linux* ports of Valve/Steam games to run on Windows (bearing in mind coLinux's current 64-bit and Windows 8 compatibility issues).

Valve could incorporate this into a Steam client, and code solely against the Linux/OpenGL API, and possibly bypass the Metro/Microsoft AppStore restriction(???).

I know most of this is theoretical, but, as I've said, Valve will probably have the techies necessary to get this working ;-)

http://colinux.org

http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Dashboard_for_developing_a_64_bit_coLinux

http://www.andlinux.org <- Ubuntu version of coLinux

http://x.cygwin.com/features.html

https://www.google.com/webhp?q=site:x.cygwin.com+opengl

http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/XCoLinux#Hybrid:_Running_a_hybrid_Windows_.2F_X11_.28KDE.2FGnome.29_desktop.2C_with_display_manager_and_XDMCP

http://www.unixmen.com/run-linux-on-windows-without-virtualization-using-andlinux/

HTC bags UK win in patent war with Apple

I'm much more cleverer than Apple..

....I'm submitting a patent for the use of your fingers in any interaction with a communication device!!!

Hey, and don't even think about using your nose or your elbow, I patented those, last week.....

Winklevoss twins' new Facebook lawsuit rejected by judge

With a $65 Million war-chest and an Ivy League upbringing,...

..plus the obvious talent they have-to-have-had to think up Facebook in the first place, why didn't the Win-Twins not just crush Zuckerberg into submission with their own, parallel, social network???

Is it because they had an idea that they themselves couldn't bring the idea to fruition, and, possibly placed it into the public domain while also being unpatentable (it is a word, look it up)?

Win-Twins, you've done well out of this me thinks, you need to get those 2 brains working again, and come up with the NEXT BIG THING (tm)....yeh, right....

BlueStacks lets Android apps frolic on PCs

On first thoughts, it sounds very much like they've built another Android platform emulator...

..like the one that's included with the Android SDK, although it should be possible to make it run faster, surely?

However, given further thought, and given the (perceived?) cannibalization of the PC market by devices such as the iPad, this start-up might be making a good move by attempting to get this software onto OEM PC's etc.

This platform could end up turning the Android market into something akin to a PC-version of Apple's iTunes/Mac App Stores. This may help flagging PC's sales, in the long run, and *should* be backed by Google and Android developers, who should be able to further their application sales (will Microsoft go for this, directly, given their WP7 aspirations?).

Positioning a wealth of Apps beneath the PC user's nose can only be a good thing for all concerned, IMHO.

Hollywood to 'retell' Carrie

For an 'inadequate 1976 interpretation' , 'Carrie' was quite adequate enough to...

...scare the living daylights out of me, as a kid!!! For some reason, probably being Christmas, I was allowed to stay up and watch this back in the 80's. The scene in the Gym with the split screen could go toe-to-toe with anything from Alien 1, and, to top it off, when I went to bed, a toy box 'threw itself' off of my wardrobe, prompting me to start screaming that "Carrie has come to get me!!!".

I'm now 39 , 6'9" tall, but I still haven't bought myself to watch it again, since.

Cheers

Big Rich

P.S. I'll probably watch the new one, when it comes out, probably....

Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0

When you mentioned 'Clangers'...

....I thought you were talking about the 'PhotoSOP' link on the home page. I've taken the liberty of taking a screenshot, for posterity:

http://tinypic.com/r/11lmyz4/7

:-O

;-)

FOSS maven says $29 'Freedom Box' will kill Facebook

I like the general guard/store-your-own content idea...

...but I don't see a one-use standalone purchase making much headway compared to the free, managed, on-line services like Facebook etc.

However, if the general concept can be rolled into other devices seamlessly, say into a media server box (a-la-Apple-TV), integrated into a TV, or, for instance, installed within a connected personal media device, say like your smart phone, then there is probably a rosy future for this concept, once someone has battled with the security aspect (can you say "war-walking").

Apple's casual Xbox: Apple TV seeded for online gaming

I really like the all-in-one Apple TV-TV idea...

....and they could call it, wait for it, wait for it:

'iTV'

well perhaps *not* in the UK ;-)

That could be the start of another lawsuit (pssst, Cisco Systems own/ed the original 'iPhone' trademark, which they now 'share' with Apple).

Strangely, I think Apple could/should win this potential trademark battle, ITV hasn't produced anything worth watching in a long, long, time.....

Open source Java 7 for Mac code appears

OpenJDK will have a native Mac Gui

@AC

Apple are donating their current Java code base and tools, including the graphical bindings, so you can expect OpenJDK 7 to not look too out of place on the Mac, see:

http://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/2010/11/oracle_and_apple_announce_openjdk_project_for_osx.html

@Niall - As much as I like Apple products, you're right on the anti-competitive point. Basically, Google Android is taking Apple market share, and Apple doesn't want to help you learn Android's programming language, which is [mainly] Java.

This strategy has been good for them financially until now. Having to learn Objective-c/XCode/Interface Builder weeds out the weak, so there's a bigger share of dev dollars. However long term, I'm not sure this will cut the mustard. Devs will want to target as big a market as possible, so cross-platform is probably where App dev is heading (see Monotouch, Mosync, Airplay, Unity etc. etc.).

That's my 2p.

Custom superchippery pulls 3D from 2D images like humans

Was thinking this would be the way to go...

...about 2-3 years back, maybe using a combination a visuals and sonar/ultrasound, like bats.

For a while I was fascinated by Carnegie Mellon University's research into 2D image to 3D (model?) research and Microsoft's PhotoSynth picture recognition platform (http://www.http://photosynth.net).

If I remember rightly, the CMU 'pop-up' project (www.cs.cmu.edu/~dhoiem/projects/popup/index.html), and related topics, rely on Fast Fourier Transform-like (FFT) maths and texture gradient analysis (think 'detail density is higher further away'). I'm no Mathematician or Scientist, so do you're own digging if you like.

Always been a 'Dick Tracy and flying cars' kind of guy myself, just waiting to see if I'll see self-driving cars at any point in my life time :-]

Samsung to offer open Android alternative

Is that..

...Bada meaning bad or Bada meaning good (cue rhythm and scratching) .

I'll get my coat and my Kangol hat....

Amazon prices up Zune HD

All the fuss will be about its chipset,...

....the ZuneHD will be using nVidia's new 'Tegra' low-power-high-performance chipset. Its a low power GPU good for 1080p etc. Sorry M$, but I think the real stomping ground for this chipset will be on Android-based phones.

When Android gets its polish (as in shine) correct, I think this chipset and that OS could really give iSell a run for its money.

Hollywood to totally recall Total Recall

@Kevin - No, the crap movie is a new form of Anti-piracy...

....they're calling it HUMDRM. Basically, they save money during the production phase (low budget script, actors, effects etc) and when you've seen the movie once, you don't want to see it again. As the movie is so bad in the first place, there's no need to pirate it, distribute it amonst friends, and once the word is it out that the movie is so poor, your local car booter can't sell it, either. Remember, HUMDRM, it has already been used on the remake of "The Day the Earth stood still".

A380 too quiet, moan Emirates pilots

I think they need one of these....

..it's called a Vroom Box, they'll probably need the 'Wide body' edition (at all good duty-free stores, soon).

http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/28/vroombox-pimp-your-rides-engine-sound/

If they don't like the Jumbo sound, they'll could always try a nice V8, or maybe even Concorde.....I'll get my....

Tri-corders, alpine oxy-pills: Acropocalypse at DARPA

@Anonymous Coward

EPO, yeh, I knew that. Lived in Spain before, Cycling is big there, so news of EPO/doping is easy to come by.

Sorry, the drug thing was my sad attempt at humour....

alpine oxy-pills...

.....a new performance-enhancing drug to test for at your next athletic/cycling/marathon (delete as applicable) meet :-D

Net-talking toaster to burn news onto bread

While waiting for my cup of Java to download....

....I received the 'toastvertisement' "Are you having problems with the size of your slice?"

Spam on toast, anyone?

OK, I tried, right???

New Symbian launches mobile free-for-all

Trying to 'trip up' an Android

Nokia will probably be looking to be the known as the defintive source of Symbian devices within an expanded/strengthened Symbian market place, as third party take [hopefully] up grows.

I'd suggest that although Nokia would like to fight off established players such as MS, I'm guessing that the more worrying competitor might be Google's Android, due to Google becoming one of the worlds most recognisable (and rising) Brands.

Surgeons to turn to Wii to sharpen their scalpel skills?

I hope these Surgeons realise that....

....when you make a real-life mistake, you can't just go back to the main menu and start again...

...I'll get my coat...