Posts by Charlie Clark 12166 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2007
You seem unreasonably optimistic if these domains are being used for scamming then anything under a couple of thousand makes them cheap.
ICANN should simply evaluate this vanity project and refuse to renew the majority of these stupid TLDs when they come up for it. Apart from tourism: .berlin, .bayern, .quebec, etc. the only one that looked useful was .club, though even that makes more sense wrapped by a country's TLD.
Apple works very hard to maintain the impression of a technological leader and never fails to make such points at product launches. But it works even harder to create the impression of hiding all that wonderful but complicated technology from us frightened users. But to stay successful it must continue to invest in technology.
In my experience of MacOS, Apple deliberately sabotages the Bluetooth stack because it prefers proprietary formats for which it can charge a licence. ITunes will always crap out on Bluetooth after a couple of hours whereas my S5 will happily stream all day and all night.
FWIW I've been using Bluetooth devices since my Ericsson r520
Dear Disgusted,
you may have noticed a few changes to our website. While we will indeed soon be getting rid of Flash, we will also be introducing some creepy web-DRM and forcing you to log on. We will also be sharing your data with the TV licensing authority and selected partners…
IOW: be careful what you wish for.
Not really. All employment contracts have confidentiality clauses and if your business is mainly around IP then you need your employees to understand that careless talk costs jobs as the recent Waymo vs. Uber case highlights. And then there are possible effects of the share price of a publicly traded company to worry about: leak stuff about success or failure of a product division and the company can be open to lawsuits from shareholders. Conversely, the board has a duty, cf. VW, to inform shareholders of potential risks.
Of course, there's a significant difference between putting the company's repository online and passing on water cooler gossip.
If Fadell wasn't technically an employee then it can be assumed he had extra clauses in his contract to go along with the fat paycheck or stock options he was given. Guess the courts will get to decide.
Eager to catch up to Amazon and its Echo interactive speaker
Not really, Amazon has sold a couple of million of these, Google Assistant is already on far more phones and growing faster. Also Echo is very much a one-trick Pony, Google has already mapped out added value (to users) services to Assistant whereas Amazon is still working on speech recognition. But the main difference is that Amazon is in the game of selling stuff, Google is much more focused on improving its AI services: if speech/image/demand recognition works well for consumers then companies will be desperate to signup for the AI engine that provides the services.
The Android shipped on any phone is necessarily customised by the device maker to include the necessary hardware drivers. MS got lucky in the way PC market opened up through ISA so that the OS was as likely to be installed by the user as by a vendor.
However, recent noises from MS about not providing updates of Windows 7 for newer chips and some of the device signing foreshadow future changes. And as for Windows 10 updates: how well are they working for you? Reversing your default settings re. preferred applications and telemetry?
I think Samsung's peak phone (for the time) was the S3…
I think sales numbers would disagree with you on that. In my view Samsung has continued to improve its phones with every generation even if they also make mistakes and introduce crap. The S6 Edge was clearly an outstanding piece of screen design that was very popular despite the non-removable battery (meh for most people, I suspect) and no SD support (annoying for a lot more). The Note 7 was even more popular but burned (sic) by the battery problems.
But Samsung also understands that buying the latest and greatest isn't for everyone and so sensibly offers various versions of its hardware. And, for people like me, the devices are easy to root and install a different version of Android on.
I thought the Galaxy S7 got almost everything right
Weren't you even more enamoured of the Note 7 until the battery problems proved unresolvable? In any case I was referring to your scepticism about companies like Samsung making money from Android devices. While there is always the risk that Google will try and each their lunch, Google's own hardware offerings always seem to stop short. But this looks very much like what the Chromebook should have been: "kids stick your phones in the docking stations and go to chapter 1".
The difference between Continuum and DeX is that Continuum is a crippled attempt to make Windows Phone relevant, all the while with MS doing its best to bury the platform. DeX on the other hand is a very useful addition to a phone people might already have or be thinking of buying. This is called marginal utility and a very good way of selling something. Samsung is soon going to own a new "convertible" category in much the same way Apple made the smartphone and tablet market its own.
Mr Clark, An S5 you say? You early adopting fashion-victim hipster!
I had to get a replacement when my S4 Mini got nicked. MHL was the reason for going with a second-hand, reconditioned S5. I have since splashed out on an SD card, the MHL connector, wireless charging kit, a second battery an OtterBox and Quadlock combi for mounting on the bike.
TBH I think whines about fixed batteries are over done. For heavy use you can just take one of 6000 mAH packs with you.
Anyway, got to go and wax my moustaches! ;-)
After putting it through its paces, I'm hugely impressed.
Given that Andrew's default reviews of Samsung's stuff is scathing this is praise indeed. A good review but the only thing I don't understand is the "flip the lid" open because there doesn't seem to be a picture of it.
The price for the dock seems comparable to notebook docks and the implementation especially with keyboard shortcuts seems so much better than the normal v1s we tend to see. It's obvious that Samsung has taken the criticism of TouchWiz and some of its other offerings seriously and has got most of the details right here.
Assuming they can continue to improve on the details they should profit handsomely from being first-movers in this space. Apple will probably have to have something similar for the next I-Phone to remain credible in the enterprise space, but it's MS and Intel who should be most worried!
The medical professionals are still on the hook for professional misconduct
IANAL but I thought that the NHS still had crown immunity, and doctors are accountable to the BMA and not the courts. Trust managers might possibly be liable but I can see them doing a deal with their golfing buddy Hunt. Of course a few BOFHs and PFYs might get pink-slipped to be replaced by ATOS or similar monkeys. But that's par for the course, innit?
The blame is a lot of fun because, as the law stands at the moment, virtually no one can be held accountable for this train wreck.
Because software companies have traditionally been exempt from product liability as long as they can produce a patch, Microsoft is in the clear. But this is also why the NSA is in the clear: had it developed a worm for something that wasn't exempt from product liability then Microsoft would have a case for seeking damages from the NSA for discovering but not disclosing the flaw and subsequently developing an exploit. The development of such exploits is, by the way, already a criminal activity in many jurisdictions, so you'd need some kind of crown immunity.
And then there are the companies that were using an unpatched version of XP, either because they couldn't update to a newer version or afford the ransom for the supported version. If they were running an XP because they have software that won't run on newer versions of Windows then they can blame their suppliers. But these are, of course, exempt from product liability. And the government will just blame the nasty criminals and terrorists and promise that a more repressive state is the only way to solve the problem.
Removing the exemption from product liability for software is the only credible long term solution.
Whatever: Hunt is still a cunt.
Er, Android is Linux-for-mobile-devices
That's debatable: the Linux kernel is only a part of Android. Google could at any time decide to swap it for something else, though thus far there is no real indication that they are planning to do so: Fuchsia doesn't really look like a replacement.
A large part of the organization's [NHS] systems are still using Windows XP, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt cancelled a pricey support package in 2015 as a cost-saving measure.
And they still expect people to trust them over the NHS and security? They're having a fucking laugh!
Maybe if Hunt had devoted more resources to IT security and less to taking on junior doctors then this would never had happened.
All the shaky small EU countries would be running around in a panic, and the Euro itself would tank.
Nope, the smaller Eurozone economies are now effectively backstopped by the Germans thanks to an almighty bailout fund. As for the exchange rate, much like the dollar, the external value of the Euro doesn't matter that much any more as so much trade is done with it: this was one of the major aims of the currency union.
But these kind of hypothetical questions don't really mean much. Suffice it to say that Greece's exit has, for various reasons, been avoided and the debts to the other member states are being slowly inflated away.
Why do you think the Germans have not kicked out Greece from EUR yet? Because it would destabilise the single currency
Not sure about that. Greece's economy is too small to move the needle and the threat of contagion has largely receded, especially after the French election. Politics, and the prospect of having a failed state next to a newly belligerent Turkey play a bigger role into the deliberations.
But the point about currency stability is valid which is why the Bundesbank always targeted "monetary stability" and Germany's major trading partners historically aligned their currencies with the Mark. And it's also why China manages the Renminbi's dollar rate so closely. Currency fluctuations mean that trades have to be hedged (on both sides) which adds to the cost.
That's speaking as a member of European and US standard making bodies. The EU ones are a fix-up, as this and dieselgate should have demonstrated.
You mean there are no US standards, such as those set by the FTC, SEC or FCC, that aren't fix ups? Nowhere is perfect on this.
Any industry with a large investment is going to see a huge amount of lobbying, whether of the standards bodies or legislators or regulators. VW's blatant and egregious flouting of the rules should also be seen in the context that US rules favour petrol engines over diesel engines, because that's what US manufacturers favour. And it should also be noted that it was the California agency that rang the alarm. Now that the EPA is effectively being wound down there will no doubt be pressure in the US to defang the Californian agency, which often acts to set de facto standards for the whole country.
WTF was all that about? I'm sure there is something in there that was meant to make sense but all I read was I love Europe it can do no wrong and I don't like that Dyson bloke.
Let's just take the EU out of the equation because this is how all non-tariff barriers work through standards setting. Regulatory body (here the EU Commission) gets the job of setting power standards for vacuum cleaners (I've heard German politicians moan about meddling here) as part of the general plan to reduce power consumption in households. The call goes out to interested parties including the manufacturers, but also consumer groups, to help define standards and associated tests. Ideal, clean room situations are standard for this sort of thing, partly because they're much simpler and cheaper to do. And they're always gamed: Philip Morris famously invented cigarette filters which drew in more air in testing equipment than when used by people. Assuming everyone is agreement, and those that don't take part in the process are considered as to be in agreement, then the standard goes into force. The UK seems to delight in grandstanding about the process and then moaning about the result. Guess what, this works just as badly around the world.
It should also be noted that reproducible "real world" tests are notoriously difficult to define and run. And it's not as if they aren't subject to gaming either. If you're not squeamish you might want to look up how negative medical trials are silently ignored on a routine basis.
The important thing is that the standard and its tests are open to challenge, as is here the case. Yes, it's taken years, but the court has reached its decision and Dyson has been vindicated. Let's hope that the next time they get on board earlier in the process.
… well I can't actually think of any but I'm open to suggestions.
In the meantime let's watch Mother Theresa, who as Home Minister a year ago is surely largely responsible for a large shovel of this shit, and her incompetent colleagues try and bluster their way out of this one. And these people are supposed to be responsible for major international political, security and trade negotiations?
So, your Majesty, how exactly does reducing the number of EU farm workers help protect the NHS from attack? Does Brexit contain a secret plan to protect the UK from nefarious computer hacking by following the lead of the Taleban and deindustrialising as fast as possible? After all, once the peasants have to worry about things like starvation or dying from Polio or the measles they're not really going to be protesting about freedom.
This piece has the whiff of Apple PR on it. In the scheme of things 3.8 million I-Watches probably isn't a lot and can be related to the fanbois trading in their old bracelet with too small a battery in for the new shiny, shiny. Apart from the "measure me" fanatics I know of only one person who has an I-Watch, though to be honest she's very happy with it.
Fitbit is paying for its own stupid to decision to buy and then smother Pebble. Because Pebble was independent of any "eco-system" but designed to work with other devices it definitely had all the makings of a useful device. Oh well.
Well, if they deliver a "native" mail client using HTML/CSS/JS, it will be just a clumsy product with a lot of UI limitations.
Not really. This was an approach first mooted by Opera over 10 years ago but put on hold because of performance problems. Since then web components and JS runtime have improved beyond all recognition, which is why they're so prevalent on our phones. And if you're programming for a known runtime then you can avoid a lot of the compromises. This is the approach that the Vivaldi team (lots of ex-Opera people) have adopted and I'm looking forward to the promised mail client if it ever arrives.
As for e-mail itself: if only people would stick with text/plain then the world would be a simpler and safer place.
Obviously not. Any costs that cannot be billed to the customer can almost always be offset against tax so moves like this are usually driven by short term crap, presumably sales are well below target, rather than anything a good accountant would recommend.
Good way to piss of your customers though. I was recently chatting to a friend who works at an aluminium rolling plant which is IBM through and through. Support is expensive but it is also guaranteed to be same day and given the costs associated with even just an hour's standstill, cheap. It takes years to build up relationships like that but you can end them with a single, stupid memo.
although the tiny new Magenta kernel also allows it go there too [lightbulbs and toasters]
Not really, the microkernel should simplify recompiling for different architectures: x86 is already dead for handheld devices and IA64 won't get started. That said, if those archs are listed, then this is simply another project OS.
Google's anti-Oracle ploy has already been released: dumping Dalvik for ART and favouring native code over byte code. Fuchsia's licensing seems as much to do with avoiding the GPL as anything else. Works for me.
Google's relationship with hardware, apart from Chromebooks and Chromecasts, has not gone very well.
Complete nonsense: Google designs its own data centres and has even ventured into chip design.
If you mean consumer hardware then you have a point but many of Google's products have always looked liked limited issue trials to test the market. It consistently shies away from the consumer market why all the while testing AI-backed CRM solutions.
The "maker" projects like Cardboard and this show that Google has a reasonable understanding of the tinkerers. What to get into VR but can't afford one of the expensive and soon to be obsolete kits? Then stick a phone in one of the Cardboard kits. Want to try your hand at speech recognition? Then try this. I personally think it's a great idea.
Customer has had it for years and even if you spend very little time on customisation, it does an excellent job. It's being replaced by an SaaS which more or less makes sense once you realise they were black boxes always under Google's control. SaaS should give Google more pricing power so that the service can be offered to SMEs as well as corporates.
Not anecdote. Fact
Anecdotes and facts are not mutually exclusive. The additional, even more interesting, information you provide certainly underlines your case but, along with my own suggestion, someone else has posted above duty, make it difficult to be certain as to what caused what.
The wine market has become globalised — I remember reading that it costs around 10p to send a bottle of wine around the world — which leads to standardisation of product and packaging.
Of course, there is now a trend against this standardisation and the rise of the "naked wines". Plus ça change, plus ça même chose, as they say.
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