Posts by deive

UK.gov loses crucial battle in home-taping war with musicians

Re: Comng up next...

Or the fact that playing an encoded file like mp3 involves decoding... Which is another "format shift" that they are gonna want paying for!

British banks consider emoji as password replacement

Re: Great Idea!

Exactly, I can't imagine banks encode in ASCII - so they probably use UTF-8 and can already accept emoji as passwords, how is this new??

Factory reset memory wipe FAILS in 500 MEELLION Android mobes

Re: Anyone with experience of these?

An app can't wipe any data except it's own (unless you root your phone - which is not an option for most).

Facebook serves up shaved, pierced, tattooed 'butterfly' as CAPTCHA

Re: Next FB can start using b3ta's "female or shemale" quizzes

Haven't checked out b3ta for aaaages! Donno what would be worse that or "moomilk or manmilk"!

REVEALED: The 19 firms whose complaints form EU's antitrust case against Google

Re: pissing away my taxes

lots of down-votes, but it does look like a load of US companies are complaining about another US company... and how much is this investigation going to cost the EU?

OK, if Google are convicted then the EU may get that cost back, but if they lose are they going to fine those that started it?

Half of Android devices open to silent hijack

The correct way of doing this is to use sharing intents - you write the file to export to your internal app directory (only accessible by that app).

Then you given the receiver of the share intent the rights to read that file (see http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION)

Shock development: Darkweb drug n' gun dealers are untrustworthy

I would imagine that most of those bitcoins belong to the dealers, not the users.

HTC One M9 hands on: Like a smart M8 in a sharp suit

Love the ability to stream to many different protocols. Wish all phone had this!

Satellite cannon starts shooting Doves, this time under control

Re: What is their life-span?

People are doing these things! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lantern-one-device-free-data-from-space-forever is interesting although I would prefer something a little less "curated". Good times.

Google tackles enterprise BYOD with Android for Work

Re: That's fine and dandy but

Are you talking about your phone bill? This is not handled by Google, you would need to buy a dual SIM phone for that...

Visa: One million bonks a month for Europeans from next year

Yeah, THIS is why no-one is using phones for pay-by-bonk.

All involved have been to busy arguing how they deserve to be the ones skimming off of every transaction.

0.15 is better than the 0.8 or more for credit card payments - but it is still too high! (Also the article only says that is Apples fee - is more paid on top of that?)

Samsung's spying smart TVs don't encrypt voice recordings sent over the internet – new claim

Did their programmers think that by using port 443 they would be magically encrypted or something?

If you are using your own random port then it should be above 1024!

'Our AI systems must do what we want them to do'

"I think we cannot allow modern forms of communication to be exempt from the ability, in extremism, with a warrant signed by the Home Secretary, to be exempt from being listened to."

If only that is what they wanted - I could get behind that as a law, only being able to monitor a specific person after having a warrant assigned by a court with enough reason to do so.

Unfortunately what they want is blanket surveillance of EVERY SINGLE PERSON 24/7/365! It makes me want to swear!

'I don't NEED to pay' to watch football, thunders EU digi-czar

"showing that he is at least familiar with VPN tunnelling" - this show that he know NOTHING about VPNs - as a VPN would allow him to watch his Estonian TV from anywhere, whereas I think he is talking about sky cards that can decrypt all the paid channels...

Google hits back at 'Dear Rupert' over search dominance claims

Re: Dear Rupert

+1 For the removal of political bias from the rags!

The only problem is that when most people search on [engine] they are only searching for their points of view and the results they get will only reinforce that - esp with the personalisation of search results that we get now...

Govt waves stick at pirate-friendly Google search

Exactly!

See http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/theft

New Apple iOS to help fanbois thwart Wi-Fi network spies

Re: Nice, but ...

As an Android owner, I have to say I like this feature!

It should be used for connected WIFI points also - no reason it cant remember which MAC was used for each, and reuse that one whenever it reconnects (probably - I can't say I know the WIFI protocol at that level...)

Honey, the satnav app says you're to leave at 6am... Yup. I'll have that coffee off you

Re: Have been using this feature in Google Now

Now also works with all journeys too - quite useful when you have a meeting somewhere at a given time, Now will notify you that you should be leaving now to get there on time :-)

Sony bosses will return bonuses as firm preps for BILLIONS in losses

Re: Seriously?

+1!

Little bit odd they had to give back their Brucies, you would have thought a bonus is paid for performance, so they shouldn't have got any in the first place - rather than as an expected part of pay?

Facebook-backed spec lets apps link to other apps on mobes

Isn't that just an Android Intent?

Putin to battle Snowden for Nobel Peace Prize

Re: Malala!

+9000 (or I would if I could!)

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

Re: I wan't Oricle to win

"Google could have implemented Dalvik under the GPL but they chose not to."

I think Dalvik is open source (Apache License, Version 2.0)... https://github.com/android/platform_dalvik

Lead ONTO your pencil: Bill Gates pours cash into graphene condoms

Re: "Is there anything the wonder material can't do?"

Hopefully not for too much longer...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/19/applied_graphene_goes_public/

Sonos and I: How home media playback just gets SO FRUSTRATING

"receive the sounds they are going to play by a proprietary Sonos Wi-Fi network"

This may be a start, but the first thing that needs to happen is a standard so that all the gear can interoperate!

http://xkcd.com/927/ - standard XKCD reference for my own post!

Will you strap on a Google KitKat 4.4 smartwatch this month?

I think MS was being singled out for being behind the curve for the fact that they are only now just modding their mobile OS for tablet (or phablet) use?

RIP charging bricks: $279 HP Chromebook 11 charges via USB

Almost...

If 4g was ubiquitous and this had at least 1080p resolution, then this would work!

Down with Unicode! Why 16 bits per character is a right pain in the ASCII

utf-8 ftw

that is all.

The life of Pi: Intel to give away Arduino-friendly 'Galileo' tiny-puter

Sounds kindda like http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/435742530/udoo-android-linux-arduino-in-a-tiny-single-board

I think this ARM version will be much more powerful!

Japanese police bust poker-playing IT boss for Android malware

Re: Now I'm running scared

No mention of Google here - I doubt the apps came from the Play store: "Kagawa and his associates are accused of using a wide variety of applications to spread the Android malware, Enesoluty, across third-party Android apps forums via 150 hosted domains."

Why I'm hiring the BRAINS and BALLS of CONSERVATIVE 2.0

Re: Typical government wonkery expecting ideas to drop in their laps for a fistful of dodgy notes.

err... did amanfrommars actually just make sense? And also get sarcasm!

Scary days!

'It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this'

Re: It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this

You can't mix the two up, they are the same - laws are there to protect our moral standards!

As a society we think it is immoral to steal/hurt other people - that is why we have laws to protect us (from the immoral people).

If someone is following the law, but we think they are still being immoral that means that the law need to change to reflect our standards.

Microsoft has no plans for a second Windows 7 Service Pack

Re: Hurry up Valve..!!!!

Seconded.

Register SPB hacks mull chopping off feet

I'm with the removal of all imperial!

Plus you can then report "Baumgartner jumped from an altitude of 29,455m (3195.032 ddb)" to start the transition from SI to Reg standards.

JK Rowling's adult novel arrives on ebook full of FAIL

Re: 3% VAT

VAT is what consumers pay - not businesses. As a consumer in the UK we have to pay 20%. The businesses job is to pass this 20% on to the government where bought, so in this case Amazon will be giving that 20% direct to our government. This has nothing to do with Luxembourg.

The VAT on ebooks and not on books issue is annoying though.

RIM shares bounce on BlackBerry 10 optimism

Re: Will it have?

It does sound good, but as well as the points above it will also need to have a decent dev toolchain, all of their current and previous efforts have been awful!

Google in new Maps patent row - but not with Apple

Re: Hmm. Coincidence?

Awesome. I suppose then Google could buy Skyhook and have the pre-validated patent too!

Governments block YouTube over that video

Re: atheist 'sense'

You are tying to get us to understand from your point of view, which is a good thing - if more people tried to understand others viewpoints we would probably all be better off.

However the first thing you do is attack a group in exactly the same manner as others - "They do not appear to realise that atheism gives one no way to determine either". How is that any different from someone outside of Islam from insulting Muhammad?

Just because an atheist doesn't have a religion to tell them what is right or wrong, doesn't mean they do not know. Not everyone has to be told these things!

RIP Howard Strowman: The stock doctor

R.I.P.

from a fellow biker...

Motorola outs Jelly Bean friendly phones

Re: Soon...

Also the upgrade from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich is much bigger than the upgrade from ICS to Jelly Bean...

Greens wage war on clean low-carbon renewable energy

I think someone may be getting a little confused...

Fracking isn't about geothermal energy, at least not in the minds of the greenies - it is about shale gas (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing)

Sick of juggling apps on biz PCs? This install tool will save your sanity

Re: Why can't you use your package manager?

"Ninite may become redundant in future" - that will also depend on how locked down Microsoft's store will be...

Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu

Yay!

my only reason for running windows will soon be gone!

AMD and Intel extreme desktop CPU workout

Could you re-do those graphs with an Intel chip that costs a similar amount and another that has a similar TDP?

comp ended

Re: Penta-core?

The processor is a tegra 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Tegra_3_.28Kal-El.29_series it has a quad core A9 processor plus another 500MHz low power core...

Cloudy QR code bike theft stopper gets Police thumbs up

Can a thief not now steal a Bike, scan the code, then find out where the owner lives and as they are not at home go and rob the place?

Most anticipated videogames of 2012 revealed

HL

HL2 EP3 / HL3.

Unfortunately this has been my most anticipated game for the past 5-odd years!

SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD

Re: Capacities

and the extra 8GB will be used by the drive for wear leveling...

From server to end user: What's coming up for NFS?

Re: Server-Side Copy

or SCP...

Samsung warms up smartphone operated oven

Like the iPhone on the image...

Chinese smut site boss gets 10 years in the slammer

"The Orwellian-sounding National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications " - surely if this was 1984 that would be the National Office for Sexual Liberation?

Coat is already on...