Posts by Repo

Smoke-belching flash drive self-destructs on command

The name's Bauer, Jack Bauer.

Someones been watching too much 24. Jack Bauer did this somewhere around Season 5

Mystery railway buys 80 terabytes of Flash

@jcrb

"interesting conference papers" - when was that??????????

Foxconn staffer jailed for iPad IP theft

China doing something about IP theft?

/falls over

Carphone Warehouse considers retailing future

Maybe they ought to concentrate on good customer service.

Nearly punched one of their Customer Unassistants out last time I was in there. Long story concerning a phone I took in for repair under warranty.

Sony BMG Greece hacked

@AC 12:29GMT

If you can bring down several Sony sites for long periods of time then you are somewhat above the level of scriptkiddy. Sony flexed their muscles too many times and p****d off too many people too many times. Sony got what they deserved.

San Francisco BOFH must cough up $1.5m

@AC 19/5/11 8:35GMT

That might apply to a few brown nosers in central government in London but certainly not to the rest of the public sector.

Dixons to flog off old 'brands' Miranda and Saisho

I remember Chinon

They made some decent stuff at one point.

As for Amstrad, I've no idea why people think Alan Sugar is so great. His stuff was/is cheap cack that was ridiculed almost as soon as it came out. Famous for ripping us off. Well, this is the UK after all I suppose...

US Navy produces smart, cheap 6kg fire+forget missile

It's a good job it wasn't called the

Costs Less Imaging Terminal Seeker (CLITS)

White van men swipe British black bees

Surely the researchers have a Plan B ?

/gets coat

Middle England chokes on Nice Baps

No different from...

The Cock Inn (not a new trendy name for pubs either but a traditional one)

Fat Willy's Surf Shack

or indeed, Big Dicks Halfway Inn.

Paris because... well you know why!

Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?

Dell desktops...

There's definately something about the design of the Dimension 4xxx, 8xxx and to a lesser extent the Dimension 9xxx series cases that causes them to block up with dust/animal fur pretty quickly. I don't think there is enough inlet as the 9xxx series also choke up with dust/fur around the optical drives too!

Firefox update squashes 9 security bugs, 4 critical

Windows 7 Hang Bug

Could they not also fix the above too?

It's really annoying to have to reset your laptop 2-3 times per day and this is a pretty well reported problem!

Judge orders Echostar to disable set-top DVR

Utter BS as usual with US Patents.

I think I'll patent "A method of writing and/or drawing using an expendable graphite core enclosed in an inert sacrificial casing".

Pencil pushers of the world YOU ARE BELONG TO ME!!!

Amazon shames eBay with 24 per cent profit bulge

eBay are digging their own grave.

eBays woes are down to it's constant shafting of the sellers who have left in droves to Amazon Marketplace, PlayTrade etc, etc.

In a time when people want perceived bargains, eBays revenue should be up as more people sell more tat. However, p off the sellers time and time again and the result is that you have less income. Constant rule changes and exhorbitant fee increases while maintaining appalling customer service is not a sustainable business model.

eBay revenue shrinks for first time in history

Corporate Blindness

The drop in revenues has of course nothing to do with the fact that there have been so many changes in rules, site layout, search engine performance and of course eBays usual increases in fees payable to bleed the sellers even more. Sellers protested vigorously but were ignored and eventually many just left eBay.

If anything, eBays performance on both volume and profit should have increased as more people turn to the tat bazaar for a perceived bargain.

Microsoft smooths Windows 7 snafu

M$ vs FF3

What a joke that you can't use FF to download it. When will these corps realise that BS like that has the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve.

2008's top three touchscreen phones

Way too brief but still true.

I was expecting a four page article so I'm quite disappointed with this (very) mini review. However, I don't intrinsically disagree with what it says.

The iPhone *is* the acknowledged benchmark in this arena so naturally everything will be compared against it.

As for Reg's criticism of the iPhone; well I think that's valid too. Like it or not WM6 is the best supported platform out there; it's at least 2 years out of date but anyone can write an app for it and sell it just how they like. You can install anything on a WM6 device you choose without bricking it or the threat of a future update killing YOUR £x00 mobile/PDA. And finally (after a simple unlocking procedure) you can put any operators SIM in YOUR £x00 mobile/PDA.

Autopilot blamed for Qantas plunge

A few white faces

After finally making a safe landing, one wonders what the reaction of the injured passengers were when they were told they'd have to get in another plane to go to hospital...

Nintendo introduces redesigned DS

Nice

There are more "homebrew" carts for slot 1 than slot 2 now & this has been the case for sometime. There are very few carts that use slot 2 now - Nintendo browser and the rumble pack are the most popular I guess. Very few games support the rumble pack so removing slot 2 won't be much of a loss for most people.

Confirmed: HTC's big-screen Touch HD smartphone

Cool!

At last - a decent PDA to replace my dead VGA Dell Axim X50v. My Orange SPV M700 is a good piece of kit but QVGA sucks. It looks like it has integrated GPS as well :-)

Sony PRS-505 Reader e-book

Sony taking the *&$% again

£200, no backlight and you don't even get a power adaptor... I'll stick to a PDA and Mobireader thanks!

Google goes after 3 billion with super satellite

@John Savard:

"Arming oneself with information can always improve your situation."

Unless of course you have an Arab militia with 40mm guns welded onto the back of pickup trucks running around after you, in which case an RPG-7 is a much better idea!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(fighting_vehicle)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4007191.stm

@Richard Kay, Joe K

I'm not suggesting that we deny anyone anything, I'm talking about priorities. And, after several years project managing in 0-16 Education I know all about the power of information.

$600m spent* on infrastructure (pump priming investments, healthcare, education, credible justice systems, peacekeeping forces and so on) will do more to benefit the regions in the long term than the opportunity to read spam. I'm not denying of course that information, however delivered, is a vital part of this.

Do you think Google is spending this money out of the goodness of it's own heart? Nope, it's an advertising company investing in a marketing infrastructure. The people in the areas concerned don't need targeted adverts or people who can paraphrase charity TV adverts; they need a stable and sustainable future.

* and I mean genuine expediture, not the padding of someones Swiss bank account

Eh? What priorities?

So it's going to cost $60m to $600m to provide internet access to people in Central Africa and the Middle East???

A large percentage of those do not have clean water, working hospitals, freedom of speech, respite from civil war and/or oppression (if not outright genocide), access to anti AIDS medication, food or job opportunities.

But hey, at least they'll be able to read about how many of their family got slaughtered last week by the Islamic militants / the US Airforces' latest cock up ...

... or at least they would if the could afford to buy a PC ...

... which they wouldn't be able to use anyway not having any electricity ...

Dr. Strangevote saves mankind with Luddite voting recipe

A politician having a reasonable thought....

...there had to be a first I suppose...

Komplett closes retail ops across Europe

Ditto

A shame indeed; I'm guessing they couldn't kompete on price well enough :p

Dell guilty of defrauding New York customers

HP are doing a similar thing in the UK.

I've placed two orders for HP kit and for no good reason the mail in rebates have not been honoured. This is sharp practice akin to that employed by the dodgy cash back mobile company contracts. I know from various posts on other forums that I'm not alone in this experience.

I spend six figure sums on ICT every year; for the sake of scamming me out of £300 HP will get none of that either this year or any year in the future.

WD pitches Firewire pocket HDD

DOH!

Another product developed by the marketingtards and not by people who have a clue (and are probably paid less!)

Undercover teachers to track gang members online

erm...

Having once worked in Education for several years (not as a teacher thank <insert name of not offensive to anyone diety>) I can't see any school doing this even if they are legally obliged to. Schools do as much as possible to avoid enforcing (for example) the anti-bullying policy they are supposed to have so I really can't see this one coming off.

Paris because she doesn't mind a full body cavity search...

SF's green mayor dreams of electric car heaven

but... #2

Given the weight of most Americans; expect the 120 mile range to be closer to 20 miles...

Hitachi to go it alone on discs after all

Deathstar

Far too many people remember the DeathStar fiasco of 2000/1. It didn't help when Hitachi kept the DeskStar name when it took over in 2002.

Official: O2 and Carphone Warehouse to slash 8GB iPhone price

@Ash

You can send L for lying and I'll send B for bastards?

People say Google will buy Skype and Expedia and, and, and, and

We need Google...

... to shaft eBay ASAP :p

Botanist sues to stop CERN hurling Earth into parallel universe

Maybe...

...we could start a pertition to get the LHC rebuilt in Paris? After all, no one would give a f*** if France disappeared in a black hole...

eBay scripting trick used to boost seller ratings

I'm surprised

That eBay did anything at all given their recent round of "improvements" which made life for the con-artist even easier.

Japan turns its back on 2G

Freudian slip James?

" Nokia’s already embracing telly on the go. Its upcoming flagship 16GB N69 handset includes a DVB-H tuner. "

Police raid CeBIT stands

meanwhile...

...many rapists, murderers and human traffickers carried on "business as normal"...

Rebit: This is your grandmother's data backup

You missed the point...

Alex: it's for people who think that a partition is something you put across a room and that OS stands for Ordinance Survey.

Big Brother firm tech exec locked up in UAE

Here's an idea...

Why don't we send the rest of the Big Brother production team to UAE (after carefully rubbing cannabis resin on their luggage)? Then we can be rid of this abomination of a TV programme and nevermore endure media reports regarding some boring retard trying to make it as high as becoming a Z list "celebrity".

Cable cutter nutters chase underwater conspiracies

They are all wrong...

It was Elvis... I saw him a few weeks ago practicing diving in our local pool with a snorkle and a hacksaw...