Posts by Charlie Clark

Google's not-Linux OS documentation cracks box open at last

Geiselbrecht was involved on the OpenBeOS / Haiku project and has history with the mircokernel. Anything along those lines gets my vote.

Re: Call me a cynic....

If you look at how successful the Chinese versions of Android are without Google Play Services are, you can see that it can be done.

Gemini: Vulture gives PDA some Linux lovin'

What Planet is doing is shipping their devices before they are ready. I can understand why someone would do that, but it's a strategy that will lead to some unsatisfied customers. After all it can be more frustrating to have a device you cannot use and eventually will have to update, than not having a device at all.

You can't please everyone. Personally I think having a usable device with gremlins now is better than something that might be perfect but never arrive. Going with MediaTel was definitely a gamble but overall I think Planet managed to process pretty well. Don't know anything about the Pyra but I hope it does well as more of these devices will be good for the post-PC market.

Re: released with a usable OS

The problem was never the OS

Depends what you mean by the OS. Getting it to run all the services on a particular SoC requires support from the manufacturer. But you then have to think a lot about the GUI toolkit you're going to use and frankly, most of the Linux GUIs are not suitable for a mobile device. Sailfish is the notable exception and they've been doing this for years.

Android on the Gemini isn't perfect – a lot of apps just assume it's a tablet so you find elements being rendered on a part of the screen that isn't there! But at least the hardware is supported.

Given their target audience, I find it very strange to expect your users to set up a Windows desktop

Then you seem to be ignorant of a lot about making this kind of device. Planet is a tiny company with a shoestring budget. It went with Android because of being able to have a working OS on the MediaTek SoC requiring as little software development by Plant as possible. This means using the tools, drivers and documentation that MediaTek provides. You can probably use ADB if you like but it's far easier to document using the GUI tool. Support for TWRP should, however, make the who process a lot easier.

Having bought a device myself I'm happy with it as it is for what I want it to do. I know quite a few project managers who would also love something like this and don't give a dingo's kidney what the OS is as long as it can run tools they are reasonably familiar with. And this is a market worth going after in contrast to the notoriously skinflint Linux crowd.

That said the source for what they have is available and with the help of suffficiently skilled and dedicated developers then there should be nothing stopping the development of a reasonable Linux port, though some of this will be down to how cooperative MediaTek is. Possibly even more interesting is the Sailfish port, though that is likely to cost money so freetards beware.

As an investor in the project I was far more interested in the hardware released with a usable OS than the largely predictable debates about which particular Linux would be best.

It's a great device, but…

Had my Gemini a little over a month and while I don't use it much I am happy with it as a companion device, and as the notebook you can always take with you. The keyboard is surprisingly usable given its size. Here is a list of things that I think can be improved upon:

• ambient light detector moved away from the right of the screen because you occlude it every time you use the soft keys.
• control of the HDMI output so that 16:9 is possible. Currently things like iPlayer mirror exactly the screen which means black bars on the external screen.
• second modifier key to right of the space bar. You really need one of these if you're using a different keyboard layout.
• Sound. This has to be my biggest gripe. It could be just my device but I find the speakers incredibly tinny and hissy (even in comparison to the S5's tiny speaker) so much so that I have the sound dialled down to zero. I would not want to use the device without a headset for a video conference, something for which it is otherwise perfect.

I think all these issues are fixable and are acceptable for something that is essentially still a protoype.

The Gemini will fit into any jacket pocket and is perfect for taking notes. I'm planning to take mine with me on a long cycling holiday because I will need to be able to do e-mail and use a keyboard, and this this simply wouldn't be possible with a notebook. And a friend of mine has just ordered one just for note-taking.

Here's hoping that Planet will have the funding to continue to work on improvements.

Re: Think it could be simpler

I think you have to try and build a similar device to see which approach works best. You really have to use the Gemini to appreciate how well it works as a PDA.

Re: It's still rather disappointing

It took me a while to figure it out but the German keyboard setup does work. You have to make sure that you don't enable any of the AOSP keyboards. Things then work as expected though you have to learn which symbols mean what. The lack of second modifier key to the right of the space bar can be annoying but typing generally works well.

JPEG XS pre-standard implementations emerging

Indeed. Pity the article makes no mention of whether the format will be patented or not.

As it stands it may be too little too late with other bitmap formats based on more recent codecs (WebP and HIFF) having the advantage of being around already with hardware support (via Google and Apple respectively). I guess we can expect a slew of benchmarks over the next year.

Uber JUMPs, slurps San Francisco bike biz

Re: moving bikes to popular start points

For regular bike hire schemes, popular start points are at the top of a hill and popular end points are at the bottom.

What, always?

As JUMP's bikes employ batteries, they'll be more expensive to acquire and operate than other bike share vehicles.

CapEx will be higher, yes but OpEx will be about the same: insurance premiums, security mechanisms but particularly paying to move the bikes back from popular end points to popular starting points.

Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte creating app to register 3m EU nationals living in Brexit Britain

Re: Reduce the overcrowding

You are Terry Fuckwit and I won £5!

If they want to stay then they can apply for UK work visas or UK citizenship but they should not have an automatic right to either.

Existing treaties give them the right. Unfortunately, successive UK governments have turned this into a bureaucratic nightmare that is slow and hideously expensive. Estimates were that at the current rate of processing applications the Home Office would take years, probably decades to handle for all those that are legititmate. And that's before the already understaffed ministry gets to take on the responsibilities of customs at the ports and the magical and revolutionary solution for the frictionless but watertight border between Northern Ireland and the European Union.

Hard to imagine the same group of clowns that came up with this clusterfuck getting an IT system wrong, isn't it? But BoJo probably has a cunning plan on how to do it. I think it involves Boris Bikes. And buses. Or maybe he was talking out of his arse. Hard to tell sometimes. Or ever, actually.

To the facts: the vast majority of EU residents in the UK are net contributors (NI and tax). There are also doing work that UK citizens either can't or won't. In economic terms the UK is importing their skills because itself has a shortage. Apart from the legal implications of not respecting existing treaty obligations, asking them to leave will expose the UK to a skill shortage. This is already happening in the NHS which cannot fill existing vacancies and is now seeing EU citizens leave their posts because of the uncertainty (May did agree to exending the existing agreement and has since attempted to renege). People are seeing appointments and operations postponed and cancelled because of Brexit. Take what you want, says the Lord, then pay for it.

Ariane 5 primed for second launch of year after trajectory cockup

Re: @Killing Time

The fact is, reusability reduces cost, all the current programs are persueing it, including the Arianne program

Your logic is as bad as your spelling… The economics have to be considered and these can vary significantly. For example, replacing plastic carrier bags with reusable cotton ones is generally considered to be uneconomical, but they does have other advantages.

Reusability is a worthwhile aim but not always what's required — when it comes to high spec machinery you need to be 100% sure that nothing has got warped or weakened — and the shuttle is the textbook example of a good idea gone wrong. Moden manufacturing techniques, particularly 3D printing make some of the arguments particularly moot. Harvesting and recycling whatever falls to earth could prove optimal.

I think there's plenty to admire in SpaceX's approach but that doesn't mean it should be appraised critically. Kudos to Musk for creating at atmosphere that has journalists writing sniping articles like this about Ariane, despite its enviable success and safety record.

Reusable?

costs less to launch but sadly without SpaceX-style reusability

While it makes for great PR, I think the jury's still out on how worthwhile the reusability really is.

Re: Better get it right

The fact that the satellites are still able to reach their desired orbits is a tribute to Ariane's enviable launch record.

Don't want to alarm you, but defence bods think North Korea could nuke UK 'within a few years'

And beating England in the recent Test series mustn't go unpunished!

Britain's 4G is slower than Armenia's

The other day German TV was highlighting the apparently high prices for mobile data here versus other EU countries with the UK coming out cheaper for "unlimited" deals. Coverage here is pretty good, though like any industrialised country, can drop off rapidly in the countryside.

The French government threw money at improving coverage in rural areas a few years ago.

Being pretty flat is also a big advantage

Not always: it was also one of the main reasons for the Netherlands adopting cable instead of UHF for television.

Not one, but 20,000 black holes hiding in Milky Way's heart

Re: Thie "dark matter" business is strange. I keep thinking of Occam's razor

"dark matter" == "missing mass" and "dark energy" == "missing energy"

We can observe effects that suggest the existence of both but we have thus far not come up with any theories to explain that can be verified.

The names are not very good but I'm with Knuth on this that names are hard. Using "dark" instead of "missing" or "undetectable" does unfortunately bring associations with black holes but the theory for those is completely different and has been verified by observation.

The missing matter is needed to explain why galaxies are observed to rotate differently than they should given their known mass. There have been several theories to explain the missing matter including WIMPs and, more recently, "sterile neutrinos".

The missing energy is needed to explain why the universe seems to be expanding faster than current theories suggest. AFAIK and, I'm not a theoretical physicist, there's currently nothing close to a theory for dark energy. Maybe relativity is just wrong at that scale?

US spanks EU businesses in race to detect p0wned servers

Fire Eye touting for business?

Certainly how I interpret the article. Various EU countries have been upping the "cybersecurity" ante for years and independently of GDPR but focussing on key sectors. I would have thought that up until very recently most companies wouldn't be able to know whether they were being attacked or not. GDPR is at least doing a great job in increasing awareness of the problem.

Spring is all about new beginnings, but it could already be lights out for Windows' Fluent Design

Re: trouble is, they've copied the wrong RDF....

Apple's customer fanbois as you put it, choose a UI that's invariably consistent

Apple's had its own share of fucking about with the UI. Remember all the skewomorphic shit? As a result it dropped the ball and has since been playing catch up with Google: notifications, flat, etc. Worth noting that Google was clever enough to adopt some of the Metro ideas with value such as tiles but to subordinate design to use case, which is why tiles became cards.

Re: Still Not Getting It

For you it works fine. For me it is exhausting, and that is why I hate transparency in any form.

Agreed. Ask anyone who wears glasses what they think of the kind of synthetic blur that Vista uses.

Re: Still Not Getting It

I think Google's Material Design has some excellent stuff that works across a range of devices but it's main benefit is a consistent metaphor for information design and feedback. The user is also very much the focus of the guidelines. It feels more like a solid UX framework then anything "magical and revoutionary". And, while it is mobile first, they've also worked hard to provide a good toolkit for both native and web work.

But basically, people won't buy the stuff just because the design language is particularly but they will moan and stop using it if you get it wrong: there are other problems that need solving first.

What's silent but violent and costs $250m? Yes, it's Lockheed Martin's super-quiet, supersonic X-plane for NASA

Hmmm lots of US government money seems to going into that, don't think Boeing will be bleating if they get the benefits.

Seeing as Lockheed has got the contract, how will Boeing benefit? Anyway, this is from NASA's tiny budget. The real money flows from DARPA's conveniently non-discretionary teat.

Here's the list of Chinese kit facing extra US import tariffs: Hard disk drives, optic fiber, PCB making equipment, etc

Re: I'm with Mr. T on this one

You're absolutely right, but Trump's trade war isn't going to help this.

He just wants Republicans who support him to do well in the mid-terms. If there is a real trade war, it would lead to significant job losses in the US. But Trump only needs a phoney one so the chumps in Trumpistan think that next week, next month, next year things will improve for them. So expect lots of announcements about hard tariffs while the details leak out. Trade will largely displace and America will become a less attractive place to do business, but it might mean keeping majorities in a far more pliant Congress.

Re: I'm with Mr. T on this one

It's basically impossible to export even small quantities of many products into China due to ridiculous laws and red tape at customs.

Doesn't seem to have stopped the Germans selling into China. Making in China is more of a problem but the US market is pretty damn well protected as well.

Re: Oh no !

There is a difference, though, in that Taiwan is extremely open about trade, more so even than Europe.

Wouldn't have anything to do America's promise to defend Taiwan from China and the massive arms deals as a result would it? Taiwan, like South Korea, is almost a US client state.

China does play fast and loose with trade rules, but largely because multinational corporations are desperate to get at the huge market and boost their own profit margins by making there. However, the end of the low wage employment boom is in sight with peak employment probably already past. At the moment it's not clear whether it will be automation or the declining labour force that drives the biggest change in China since Deng Xiaoping. Sort of like Japan since the 1990s but so much more so.

Re: Back when Europe had import duty on DRAM ...

Displacement is the likely result of these tariffs as well and that's for those on stuff the US actually imports from China. But Trump doesn't care, he just wants to look good in front of the base.

Re: Even American military arms suppliers can't compete in the US market

The depressing part is, this will actually create jobs.

I think this is unlikely. If the US retreats from international trade, it will attract less investment and it is investment that's needed to create the jobs. Instead US isolationism could weaken the dollar hegemony, potentially driving up US funding costs significantly, unsettling financial markets and driving investment and jobs elsewhere. As has happened with every protectionist regime of the last 50 years. Sure, American won't be another Zimbabwe or Venezuela but it will be diminished.

Trade deficit 375 BILLION dollars.

Trade surpluses are a problem, usually of the country with them. What does China do with all that cash? Buy American assets, particularly US treasury bills. If you want to know where this leads look at the Japanese boom and bust of the 1980s and 1990s. Germany isn't doing that well with its own trade surplus either: it means savings being invested abroad in dodgy assets.

International monetary policy has for years trade more or less successfully, usually the latter, tried to deal with the problem of surpluses. Trade wars, howeve, have never worked because all the incentives are against them.

However, news just in: American manufacturing jobs were lost to automation and rationalisation. Difficult to see how giving US robots preferential treatment will bring well paid jobs back to the rustbelt.

Re: @ Tom 38 You don't get it...

Trump is an interesting character.

And a poor diplomat: driving rapprochement in Korea is not in American interests. But as long as it plays well at home he'll do pretty much anything regardless of the consequences.

Law's changed, now cough up: Uncle Sam serves Microsoft fresh warrant for Irish emails

it's a new action related to an old case.

Which makes it different to restrospective in what way exactly? It would set a very dangerous precedent if it succeeds. I would not be in the least surprised if the most conservative judges come down the hardest on this aspect. Will be fun to see Trump moan about judges he picks but can't sack.

Re: Next step?

I suspect trying to apply it retroactively is enough to get it thrown out of most courts.

OTOH Trump has just made himself wide open to the next "Benghazi" because the new law will also allow non-US spooks access to data held on servers in the US. What could possibly go wrong? Okay, those provisions will probably be thrown out on constitutional grounds because of the protection that the US constitution offers to US citizens (the rest are just "aliens" and fair game for spooks, scammers, etc.).

Why a merged Apple OS is one mash-up too far

Re: OS !== UX && OS !== CPU

Linux runs Android and can run desktops. So a common kernel is already a reality…

That's a bit sweeping and, as a result, misleading. The monolithic Linux kernel does support lots of different archs but tends to get customised for each one as a result. Then there is the boon and curse of the different layers, especially when it comes to GUIs which is why both Android and MacOS (some fanboi has just edited one of my questions on AskDifferent to use the "official" writing) mandate their own tightly coupled app frameworks and why lots of people moan about Android not being a full Linux.

With the Mach kernel Apple should have it easier porting the majority of the OS services to different archs and it has been doing for years on simplifying the GUI toolset. Though it probably wants to refactor some of the IOS settings that have grown all kinds of warts in the last few years.

But a toolkit that works for both a touch and mouse interface is notoriously difficult to get right. As always the devil is in the detail of the kind of widgets you want in which environment. I'm seeing this with the Gemini, which is a lovely device (sound on mine could be unusually poor), that is at the limits of a keyboard and touchscreen interface (you can reach the lower part of the screen with your fingers while typing) where a lot of widgets are being caught out on the half-height screen. But you can do a lot and for the rest you can let developers provide different settings information for different widgets for different resolutions. Developers will appreciate this if it is done correctly and one of the reasons for the popularity of QT's QML, I believe.

As for converged devices, I'll believe them when I see them. Apple might well let others test the water and make a splash when it thinks there is a market to be had (it stopped pioneering years ago).

2001: A Space Odyssey has haunted pop culture with anxiety about rogue AIs for half a century

Re: Headline?

indeed, but pandering to the audience goes way too far

It does, but when you're investing hundreds of millions it makes sense. Hollywood is happy to let independent or foreign films take the risks and then remake what sells well.

Re: Headline?

Indeed, it was from The War with the Robots by Karel Capek that we got the word. Dystopias and Utopias are symbiotic which is why where we have Verne, we also have Wells; where one inspires the other cautions.

The greatness of 2001 lies in the fact that Hollywood producers didn't get the chance to sanitise and glamourise it. But they did learn from it which is why since then spaceships are noisy, because audiences apparently didn't appreciate the silence in space.

Intel outside: Apple 'prepping' non-Chipzilla Macs by 2020 (stop us if you're having deja vu)

Re: "cheaper than Intel"

For "cheaper" read bigger margins for Apple: margins on the phones are higher than those on the notebooks not least because the CPUs are cheaper to make.

But it's not the main reason: ARM allows more customisation and control and Apple has been increasing the parts that it designs itself, which allows it to differentiate its products more from the competition. Apple can then choose which manufacturer makes its design, though once Qualcomm gobbles NXP there won't be many.

Let's go to Mars, dude: Euro space parachute passes maiden test

Re: not a fluid dynamics expert but...

If you go high enough up conditions are similar enough to test the systems. Well, as good as you can get without having a spare planet in the shed!

From the linked article.

The Schiaparelli probe was an experiment to test the landing process on Mars.

So smirking about a test that exposed flaws in the landing process seems a little hubristic. Yes, it was an expensive test but it was still a test.

Happy as Larry: Why Oracle won the Google Java Android case

Would be more like someone asserting copyright on the SQL specification and going after anyone who implemented it without obtaining the right to do so — I'm not even sure if you can obtain a licence for a copyright in the same way you can get one for a patent.

There is a bit more to this because of the stuff that Google did copy, but it could turn a few specifications into minefields.

Re: And here I was thinking...

Java != OpenJDK

But if the judgement stands then it will be enough to consider all Java as "tainted" which would be a nice irony!

Don't open the champagne yet…

I thought the judgement referred the case back to Alsup's court for damages so the amount of any damages might be revised.

If the $ 8bn is upheld then this will have serious consequences for software development in the US as it effectively opens the courts to similar cases on almost all software. A real bonanza for patent trolls given how long copyright exists for. MPEG and other consortia are probably calling lawyers already.

I think Google may still have additional legal avenues to appeal. I still don't follow the copyright argument. I understand what you say but consider it egregious to try and assert copyright protection over an implementation of a published interface. I think this touches different legal areas, not just copyright. But I'm neither an American nor a lawyer so I'll leave that to their courts.

Brit cloud slinger iomart goes TITSUP, knackers Virgin Trains, Parentpay

Telegram was also down in EMEA for about an hour about 09:45 GMT.

I wish these companies would run monitoring and status services on other systems.

Uber self-driving car death riddle: Was LIDAR blind spot to blame?

Re: Really? Uber decided just to do whatever it damn-well felt like?

diverting some of the investment into bank accounts as a share of the company is acquired is within the ability of most of these people.

Investors, yes but not employees who receive shares in lieu: their shares are untouchable and untradeable. Yet another way the VCs manage to shaft people. Didn't Kieren cover this a while back?

Re: Really? Uber decided just to do whatever it damn-well felt like?

that Kalanick and his bros have probably already cashed out

Difficult to do if the company hasn't been sold or done an IPO: all the valuation shit means nothing until then. Any trading is done between investors.

Re: "...a [Lidar] blind spot low to the ground all around the car."

I have wondered what happens when a lidar system, spitting out a presumably rather bright light (as far as its sensors are concerned) meets another lidar system

I think this is done by using specific frequencies for each car.

Huawei consumer biz pres: Are we in talks with Trump? Nope

Re: "The USA has slightly more than 4% of the world's population"

Economy of scale doesn't work well always - or Apple won't be the company with the highest market cap. You can go bankrupt instead selling a lot of cheap stuff.

Amazon, which does have famously thin margins, recently surpassed Apple in market capitalisation, I think. So you're wrong both on assumption and conclusion.

Re: The only loser is the US consumer..

And, is it any different for cars?

Java-aaaargh! Google faces $9bn copyright bill after Oracle scores 'fair use' court appeal win

Re: Still reeling

It seems reasonable to protect a good API

Which is why the majority of software specifications are open and royalty free? If you want interoperabiity then you don't build barriers.

I suspect one consequence of this ruling, no matter how much damages are awarded, will be to encourage Google to get rid of Dalvik. It's been working its way toward this for the last couple of years.

Apple turns hat around, sits backwards on chair, pitches iPad to schools

Re: I wonder if students using Chromebook in school is bad for Apple?

Apple understands service lock-in more than most. The US school and college market have traditionally been seen as gateways for future business decisions hence the plethora of cheap licences from MS, Oracle, et al. It's also structured nicely for advantageous tax write-offs: where do you think the rebates come from.

That said it's not that big a market but Google's apparent success has obviously shaken Cupertino a bit and competition is good.