Posts by RichyS

Microsoft plans to open 75 retail stores in US

@fandom

"Whenever the launch the next Xbox they could very well get a huge line"

Indeed. Of people returning their broken RRoD consoles.

Re. Win95

Yup. Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry from Friends (remember that?) seemed pretty keen too:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3530509/matthew_perry_jennifer_aniston_windows_95_guide/

Behind Microsoft's $15 Samsung Android royalty claim

Exactly

Where the fuck is Google in all this?

NOTW hack-hackage: Inside the personal data press mess

Don't forget

And the police.

<--- Thumbs down to balance things out!

Apple MacBook Airs to get new, superfast 19nm Flash

Look at the photo

Right hand image, second port in. It's a USB.

Can't help you on the Ethernet though. And while ARM might be a nice idea, it'll be some time before ARM can get close to the current crop of mobile Intel chips in terms of power. It's not like the Air has a poor battery life either.

I'd love one of these, but can't think of any decent reason/excuse for having one. Oh well.

Who'll keep taking Windows Tablets in the iPad era?

What was stopping MS then?

So what was stopping MS doing exactly the same thing with all the various Win Mob/Win CE versions they've released over the years. At least 6 of them before the iPad was even released.

Now, that strikes me as a lack of imagination.

Remember, innovation isn't the act of inventing anything (I think we're all agreed that Apple didn't invent the tablet); it's the art of refining an invention in accordance with the technology, price, and usability constraints placed upon it. In that respect, Apple certainly innovated with the iPad.

Point

Isn't that the point, though?

While all these tier one suppliers will sell you a Windows tablet, hardly anyone is buying.

One per cent of world's web browsing happens on iPad

@Mart

How dare you bring facts into a flamewar.

HP TouchPad 9.7in WebOS tablet

Trust

Maybe because Google pass your data through their many many algorithms with a view to selling more adverts.

Apple and HP do not.

Teenager tries to trade virginity for iPhone

Android

Well, it wouldn't be an Android phone, would it? Android users have no interest (or likelihood) in losing their virginity...

MobileMe web app features shapeshift into Apple's iCloud

No need to subscribe

The 'Find my iWhatever' is now free for all users of iDevices. No need to be a subscriber to MobileMe. And it's not going anywhere after the introduction of iCloud either.

RIM cuts PlayBook sales forecast, report says

You and?

The problem is, it's you and almost no-one else who likes the Bridge.

RIM are in free-fall now...

Formula 1

First on Android

Was this app really first available on Android? It seems bloody odd then that it's an exact facsimile of an iPhone app.

Brits told how much they'll pay for HP TouchPad

File in the open top filing cabinet along with the PlayBook

No smaller, faster, sexier or with as many apps.

And now no cheaper. Why would anyone get this instead of an iPad.

U really like the look of WebOS, but HP needs to do more than this to hope to compete.

Duke Nukem flack eats words over threat to reviewers

Charts

Top if the charts? Is that what 12 years of pre-orders gets you?

Nissan car secretly shares driver data with websites

Range

Only if the car had sufficient range to get you 'abroad'.

Acer to dump 3 million laptops onto European market

Answer:

None of them*

* I bought an Acer Aspire One a few years back. It's shit.

iCloud: Big step for content management, but not for the cloud

More idiot analysis from 'Rethink'

So, who decided that cloud had to mean you do everything via the browser? Seems an unusually restricted definition. Browser based is just one design pattern among many.

I suggest you go away and do some proper research before publishing (yet more) drivel.

Pollster: Performance has little to do with pay, bureaucracy

Really?

Only 30%?

Apple pilfers rips off student's rejected iPhone app

Tenuous

Isn't Apple's wifi sync icon just a mash up of their existing wifi logo (found on all iDevices and Macs) with the iSync logo (from your Mac). One is transposed onto the other, before being placed onto the metallic rounded corner background that Apple seems to have chosen for all things iCloudy.

Really, what other icon did you expect Apple to come up with. I doubt they needed this Dev's app as inspiration.

Apple iOS 5 and iCloud examined

@jonathanb

I'm guessing the same as FaceTime -- it uses your registered email address as the 'key' via Apple's all knowing servers.

I see this as being a pretty big thing, partly because of the integration, and partly because I'm finding it increasingly hard to know people without iPhones these days.

FT sticks it to Apple

Really?

"Not much use for tailoring your publication to readers."

You mean: "not much use for selling on subscribers' details to marketing companies."

I think I'd prefer to have this optional.

Apple opens iCloud to world+dog

Blimey...

You're a glass half empty sort of a guy aren't you.

Apple ignores dozens of iCloud domains

.com is the important one

Realistically, people only try the .org, .net, .whatever if the .com domain doesn't work. Apple would be wasting their money frankly.

Nokia: When pigeons fly home to roast

Alternatively

What would Nokia's situation be today if everything was the same, except for Elop not announcing the move to WinPho?

Maybe it's harder to keep a secret in Nokia than it is in Apple, but he wouldn't have Osbourned Symbian quite so much...

Difference with 90s Apple

I think there are some key differences with Apple in the 90s and Nokia now:

1) Apple made both hardware and OS, so were in charge of their own destiny.

2) Apple had a hardcore of followers who would buy their new kit irrespective of current reputation.

3) Apple were pretty lean still from an organisation perspective

4) Apple's competitors at the time were less formidable (no Google, PC makers were beginning to be squeezed on margin, so not massively profitable themselves, etc.)

And probably some others that I can't think of.

Acer writes off $150m as audit finds 'abnormalities'

So that's...

...where all those crappy underpowered netbooks have gone since the iPad came out.

Maybe they can be recycled as door-stops, or something.

Stealth-cam software snaps laptop looter

Windows version

If it's a Windows lappy, no-one will want to steal it anyway...

Rumbled benefits cheats offer sensational excuses

@Intractable Pothead

There are plenty of people out there with disabilities who don't use their disability as an excuse. They have the tenacity and self-worth to think what they can achieve, and not to wallow in self-pity.

For them it must be even more galling to see people using their disability as an excuse. And this is what I object to as well. Unless you are severely disabled, there is always something that can be achieved. Maybe with additional support form the Government too. But to just sit at home on benefits because you have a bad back some days is pretty pathetic.

@AC 30th May 2011 19:49 GMT

So, I'm paying for you to go out and about enjoying your photography hobby. Brilliant.

If you are good at photography, there are plenty of things you could be doing that don't put you too far from a seat: wedding photography (pays very well); studio-based photography; Photoshopping other post work; product/catalogue photography; sitting in a car photographing other dubious benefits claimants (okay, that one was a joke, sort of).

Seems like you're just looking for excuses...

RIM PlayBook strikes back at Jobsian internet dream

Agreed

I almost spat my sandwich onto my laptop when I read that. To be honest, I sort of skipped the rest of the article on the basis of that comment alone.

Tim Berners-Lee's current big thing is the semantic web. How on earth does a closed source proprietary plug-in help with the semantic web? AC's suggestion that this would be like a web made up of Word documents is absolutely bang on.

HP exec: WebOS tablet will trounce iPad

Basic maths

Isn't 'one plus' at least two (conveniently ignoring that zero is a number).

Blighty's first touch-to-pay phone goes on sale today

It'll happen. Eventually.

These sort of on device electronic wallets will become standard eventually. It just needs to be easier and simpler to pay for things than cash. And right now (and for a good few years yet), that simply isn't the case.

Cards have overtaken cheques for some time now -- but you can bet that similar conversations where had when the first debit & credit cards were coming out (lack of infrastructure -- not that much was really needed back then; lack of places you can pay; competing 'standards' in Visa, MC, AMEX, etc.) Can anyone see us going back to cheques now?

Personally, aside from paying the cleaner and for my shirts to be ironed, I'm hard pressed to think of anything I pay cash for. I sometimes feel a bit silly spending 3 quid or so on my card in the Sainsbury's Local, but I find dealing with change a hassle. Beer icon, 'cos I rarely use cash to pay for those either...

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

AppleCare, not Genius Bar

I suspect the Genius Bar people can say what they like (pro-tip: they're not actually genii).

This is an AppleCare related memo. AppleCare is a support product, and the email states that AppleCare will not fix for free the results of some idiot typing in their admin password to allow a trojan to install. My car warranty doesn't cover repair to my car if I drive like an arse and crash it into someone, either. I don't suppose any other PC makers warranty/support product covers you for malware infection either.

Survey shows slab-fondlers are loving their iPads

Same situation here.

As of right now, you need a PC (well Winbox or Mac) to activate an iPad and update the firmware. That's it. Everything else can be done via the device or OTA using tools like DropBox. Music, videos and apps can be downloaded (and updated in the case of Apps) via the iTunes and App Store, er, apps on the device.

I've set up an iPad for my mother-in-law this way. She's never used a computer before, but reckoned she could get round an iPad having seen my 2 year old son turn it on, browse to his cartoons/games whatever quite happily.

Rumour has it that iOS 5 will remove the dependency for iTunes for firmware updates (and possibly therefore the original activation).

Finally, remember that Post-PC does not mean no-PC. The iPad is not going to replace the PC, in the same way that PCs have not totally replaced big arse servers (minis) or mainframes.

RTFM ^H Article

Which is exactly what the article (and Horace) says.

FFS.

Agree with AC on the slippery slope

I hardly use my laptop anymore -- only for heavy lifting really (RAW photo editing and video editing).

Can't imagine not having an iPad now.

Google won't open source fondleslab Android before 'year end'

But why?

I can't imagine why people would want to make their iPads worse. On purpose.

Toshiba delays Android 3.0 tablet

Beta

Maybe they're just waiting for Google to finish Honeycomb.

Microsoft poised to make biggest ever buy – Skype

Why

I can't really see what benefit this will bring to MS. Tighter integration into WinPho? So what? That'll just annoy the networks who still need to sell those lovely profitable voice minutes. However much you may hate the carriers, they're still the biggest channel for mobile.

And better integrated Skype is hardly going to be a key differentiator for WinPho. For Skype to maintain it's dominance of VoIP, you need the network effect of millions of users -- so it'll have to stay cross-platform.

At least Skype have saved MS the bother of ruining the Skype for Mac UI. One less thing on the 'to do' list for Fat Steve.

MobileMe drove Steve Jobs to foul-mouthed fury

Re. still crap

Not giving all your data to Google has to be worth $99 a year, surely.

Apple ousts Google in brand value

Confusing? Why?

Why is it confusing that Apple's (or Google's, coming to that) brand value is less than their Market cap?

Market cap is simply a measure derived from multiplying all the publicly tradable shares (not necessarily 100% of a company) by the share price. A good estimation of the value of a company. The brand value is just measuring 'good will' -- i.e. the intangible worth of the company once all tangible assets (buildings, data centres, licenses, etc.) have been discounted. It would be weird if this was the other way around.

Good will is really just a measure of a companies reputation and a measure of the likelihood of past and new customers doing business with the company based upon this. Market cap essentially includes good will.

Spotify's new desktop client cuts off iTunes

Hardly replaces iTunes for an iOS device

While the Spotify tool may replace iTunes for older 'dumb' iPods, it can hardly do so for iOS devices. You still need iTunes to manage software updates, apps, photos, video, books and files (the ones you don't have via DropBox!). Music is just one small part of the relationship between iTunes and iOS kit.

So, rather than simplifying things, you have yet another application to use.

Five amazing computers for under £100

Z88

Completely agree. I had a second hand Cambridge Computer Z88 at school -- the geek joy of being able to take a laptop to all my lessons, and not have to worry about finding a power socket.

The only snag was the lack of Flash RAM. I had a 128K module that needed constant power, and a 32K EPROM that I could backup my important stuff to (not much important stuff, obviously). You could buy a special EPROM eraser from Sirclive, but was too rich for my (pocket money) blood. So, I instead left it under a UV lamp in our design centre for about 45 mins. Seemed to do the trick every time.

There really were some great innovations on it too. The Pipedream application combined word processing, spreadsheets and a simple database into one app (and synced well with the full fat Pipedream app on the Archimedes). The handy 'screen map' (where one pixel represented one character) in the margin of Pipedream somehow meant that the 8 or so line display wasn't as much of a pain in the arse as it sounds. It also came with terminal emulation software and a pretty fully featured version of BBC BASIC.

I still have mine somewhere. I wonder if it still works...

Apple sued over iPhone location tracking

Networks

People need to get a fecking grip. Have these people wondered how much data your network provider has one you, and the amount of location tracking they do.

More importantly, under RIPA, how much acess the Police, local authorities, and others have to this? I'd take a local log file over this any day. One the pigs need a warrant to get access to.

Google and friends wrap open video codec in patent shield

But

But Google told us WebM didn't infringe anyone else's patents, so why do they need what is in effect a patent pool?

Why can't Google just indemnify devs the same way Microsoft does. If they're so confident about WebM's patent position, this shouldn't be a problem.

Apple component lock-ups jump 40%

Dear god

Oh for feck's sake. Apple aren't buying and stockpiling the components, they've just paid cash (a lot of cash) up front to a) get a better price, b) hedge against price increases, and c) to guarantee first dips.

There isn't a fecking big warehouse with $11bn of kit in it. We had these sort of idiotic comments the last time Apple announced this sort of thing.

Behind Apple's record sales are signs of desperation

Pointless

Saw the vaguely controversial 'click bait' headline. Clicked through. Saw the byline. Won't be reading it as it'll be your typical Wireless Watch article that'll be wring on basically every point. Please, El Reg, stop publishing the drivel from this 'consultancy'.

Cops refuse to say if they secretly snarf cellphone data

UK Cops

The UK cops wouldn't bother with these. Not because they're less sinister, but because this sounds like far too much effort for them.

All they need to do is ask your network provider under the powers given to them by RIPA. They know exactly where you've been for the last few months (and roughly where you've been for much longer).

Luddites

@AC

I see the difference. However, I don't think the answer is to carry an ancient Nokia or wear a tin foil hat.

See the difference?