Posts by Charlie Clark

Softbank confirms talks to offload Arm as it posts rebound profit

Re: A bidding war...

There's no indication of this being the case, in fact quite the opposite. If ARM were sold to a rival you can expect a very long list of anti-trust suits. SoftBank wanting to sell makes this a buyer's market.

You should snap up a controlling stake in ARM (if not buy them completely from SoftBank) and then LEAVE THEM TO GET ON WITH IT WITHOUT INTERFERENCE.

That's an oxymoron: if you have control, you will. But it doesn't matter as this option is no longer available.

Bouncing back

SoftBank has bounced back from a historic loss …

Seeing as the profits came through divestitures then the results are not a bounce but a cut. Market conditions, particularly in China improved significantly in the 2nd quarter.

What are you gonna do? Give me detention? Illinois schools ban pyjamas in online classes

Re: Hmmm, how the hell?

I'm basically in agreement with you but a couple of points:

• sitting in bed is poor ergonomics and probably not the best position for distance learning. Then again, many households might not have the resources for a choice.
• The clothes shouldn't become an object of discussion during the lesson, so neutral clothes are less of a distraction. But better still to have the kids cameras disabled unless absolutely necessary. Not least the privacy aspect: young kids on an online video conference potentially in their underwear? Think of the potential lawsuits in the land of unlimited liability if someone were to record and publish the lessons!

Huawei Matebook X Pro 2020: Nothing too crazy but at least it's more fixable and cheaper than comparable Apple wares

Re: Like comparing an apple with a watermelon

I'ld like to see you go jogging with a water melon…

These machines are very similar to MacBooks, hence the comparable prices. One thing you should note re. the screen is the resolution. I don't know what your 17" has, but these are all very high-res which pushes up the cost. But you are also paying for power/weight: who wants to lump a 17" machine around? These devices weigh around 1.2 kg and will give you a day's use from the battery.

Police face-recog tech use in Welsh capital of Cardiff was unlawful – Court of Appeal

It's less accurate which means both false positives and false negatives: some innocents will be fingered for things they didn't do and some baddies will get away. Note, it's not just training data that's at fault, though that's the main issue, cameras may have to be optimised to make sure images have sufficient contrast.

China now blocking ESNI-enabled TLS 1.3 connections, say Great-Firewall-watchers

Re: Satellite broadband?

Take out the satellites? Or at least their transmitters…

Anyway, anyone offering the services will presumably want to bill for the service and blocking payments will be pretty easy.

With this Uber get-to-work-safe app, you are really spoiling us, ServiceNow

Re: Do I understand this correctly?

Like I said, I think this probably is yet another solution in search of a problem but I think that part of the article is wrong. This is about scheduling stuff within a business workflow. Though obviously we don't need to take it seriously until coffee from Starbucks and donuts from Dunkin or Krispy Kreme are included…

Re: Do I understand this correctly?

While I think the service is pretty meh, I think there's a bit more to it than that: the idea is to provide a tool that unites various APIs so that services can be coordinated and ordering simplified. Ordering for one or two people might be considered straightforward but once you might want something with even less manual engagement and better integration with billing systems, etc.

That said, given that their current partners are Uber and Coca Cola, this isn't really very sophisticated office automation. And WeWork has demonstrated quite ably how little money there is in this sort of thing!

Pen Test Partners: Boeing 747s receive critical software updates over 3.5" floppy disks

Re: Honestly..

Far longer than you can expect any USB-stick to… though I don't think that's necessarily the main factor here: it's the consistency of the interface rather than the durability of the media that matter.

Of course, they could always follow the lead of the automobile industry and allow the control systems to be hacked from the entertainment system. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Huawei running out of smartphone CPUs as US sanctions begin to bite

Re: Kirin will become Karen

Probably will in most places it will: current research suggests the threshold is 40 - 60% of the population and even in the wackiest parts of the US (of which there are a lot, and boy are some of them wacky) don't have enough of the anti-vaxers to make a difference and the low mortality rate will do the rest.

Re: Kirin will become Karen

Trump's cack-handed handling of Covid-19 might well cost him the election (retirees in Florida spring to mind) but it's not relevant here and your disaster scenario is way overblown. Yes, there will be many more deaths but still in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. Deaths / 100,000 the US is still below a number of European countries, though it is getting "there".

Re: Cnutism - not a good thing indeed

What's worse, is if China are able to become completely technologically and economically independent from the rest of the world

This is highly unlikely, which is why it is so heavily involved in ensuring its energy and commodities supplies around the world. China has different priorities to the West but closing itself off again is currently one of them.

Re: "encouraging China to become less dependent upon US-controlled technology,"

Maybe, but the delay is now manageable: Trump has been trailing this for years and it's not as if China hasn't significantly improved its engineering capacity over the last twenty years or so. The scores of patents associated with mobile communications and other tech stuff testifies to the fact that Chinese universities no longer produce excellent copyists.

Cnutism

SMIC, the Chinese fab of choice, can't produce the Kirin chips, yet. But it's surely only a matter of time before it can, though this may take a couple of years. But Huawei isn't making the handsets with the kind of margins that Apple has, so it can afford to sit this out for a couple of years, or maybe only months. In the meantime it will continue to make money with mobile network deployments around the world.

But the trade spat is simply encouraging China to become less dependent upon US-controlled technology, surely not a good thing for the US in the future.

Google offers first part of its in-house M:N thread code as open source to Linux kernel

Re: Applicabilitiy for Android

Do you really think so? Away from the phone functions, which handled separately anyway, I don't see this being relevant for an OS focussed on user input.

Re: hit the kernel sooner or later?

Why not wait until the code becomes available before you judge it? Google is actively involved in several open source projects and has a pretty good record for the quality of the code it contributes. If anything, critcism is levelled at it for keeping code to itself.

Applicabilitiy for Android

While I bet the code will be eagerly inspected by teams running server systems, I'm not sure if it has anything to with scheduling for Android, which doesn't have to be that fine-grained.

First alligators, then dogs, now Basil Fawlty is trying to standardise social distancing measures

Re: That episode of Fawlty Towers

Really? That is odd. When I watch it, I find that the most jarring parts are the ones involving Manuel – not least in having an Austrian refugee play a clichéd Spaniard. I think most of the violence could be removed without affecting the show and perhaps fewer jokes solely based on the word "que". The best comedy is derived from Fawlty's misplaced arrogance and his resulting insecurity; holding a mirror up to our own most embarassing frailties.

But the Major was a stereotype of the time, being somewhat cruelly mocked. And let's face it people like Rees-Mogg seem to be doing a good job at making sure it doesn't disappear!

Well, yes, a good rule of thumb would have been: if you're close enough to shake hands, you're too close. But seeing as other considerations such as time and air throughput are just as important, it was only ever going to be a rule of thumb.

What happens when holes perfect for spyware are found in the engine room of millions of Qualcomm-based phones? Let's find out

Re: When looking for a new SmartPhone ...

Why do you assume that Apple can program DSPs better than Qualcomm? Just because it keeps the silcion pretty well locked down by the OS, doesn't mean the microcode isn't buggy. Or have IOS exploits all dried up?

Have I Been Pwned to go open source – 10bn credentials, not so much, says creator Hunt

There's no real need to conceal the e-mail addresses as these are already publicy available.

But the database is not the code and there is no need to make it available with it – there is no benefit and it's probably significantly larger.

When it comes to hacking societies, Russia remains the master at sowing discord and disinformation online

Because they're aren't any. US media is divided enough that it doesn't need any help. Not that the spooks are any good at that sort of thing, but they're normally too busy trying to manufacture terrorist threats: see the background to the film The Day Shall Come for more information.

Re: Priorities

That was just a continuation of the outsourcing of manufacturing to Asia: Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc.

For some products manual labour in China has become too expensive so it's now either replacing people with robots or moving production to cheaper places like Laos and Cambodia. Or labour camps in Xinjiang or North Korea, difficult to get cheaper than those, largely because the real costs is borne by the state.Good

Economics since Adam Smith has a reasonable history that trade, specialiation and investment tend to offset each other over time. The bigger problem tends to be failing to continue to invest in skills leaving you with less to trade in the future. Hence, Germany and Japan have a much better trading relationship with China than the US does because they still produce capital goods that it wants. But America does well by exporting education and importing investment. This is largely down to the dominance of the US dollar, so you need US assets in order to trade interntionally, but the capital markets are also more liquid and reliable than China's own. Though that my change if exchange in Shanghai becomes less of a casino and they don't fuck up Hong Kong any more.

Priorities

Russia needs the rest of the world for investment and trade (including food), China doesn't China's priorities have always been with the Middle Kingdom, which is why it has such sophisticated social and electronic controls within the country. By and large it doesn't care about international public opinion except when it reflects back to China: invite the Dalai Lama officially and you can expect a response designed to stoke Han nationalism in China. When it wants favourable legislation, it just gets the cheque book out, which Russia can't do to same scale: compare energy deals in Eastern Europe with the "belt and road" initiative.

Call of duty, modem warfare: Taiwanese Qualcomm rival MediaTek teams up with Intel for first stab at 5G laptop chipset

Re: Cue intervention from Uncle Sam…

I don't want anyone targeted, but if the US does, it doesn't need to worry about Qualcomm, which is essentially part of the DoD.

Re: Cue intervention from Uncle Sam…

He who pays the piper…

All the stuff I've got with MediaTek chips in it is made in China and "no drivers here".

Cue intervention from Uncle Sam…

Qualcomm will presumably be on this because MediaTek is probably even more ingrained in the Chinese system than Huawei is!

Geneticists throw hands in the air, change gene naming rules to finally stop Microsoft Excel eating their data

Re: I must be missing something...

The problem is that it is a manual step that it is easy to avoid so people forget to do it.

I don't know why you think scientists who are experts in their field, should be any better at office software than they are say at plumbing or arc-welding.

Re: I must be missing something...

It's one of the reasons why so many scientists are switching to Python's Jupyter and Pandas, with Excel relegated to the format for reports.

Excel's import of text files has always been miserable, though this isn't helped by the deficiencies of the CSV format. But it really would be useful to be able to disable type inference as a preference and not fiddle with it, file by file.

Mozilla warns more Firefox website breakage to come because devs just aren't checking for SameSite snafus

Re: Standards?

Hang on, you’re saying that one big corporation throwing its weight around is bad, but another doing so is OK

No, that's not what i'm saying at all. You can put that strawman down.

Re: Standards?

If you look at the history of the development of web standards, this is the way it's always worked because otherwise you get no movement. This is why WHATWG was founded in the first place – largely because Microsoft was blocking any changes – and how most things like http/2 have been introduced.

TikTok to splurge €420m on Ireland data centre to get Euro-data into Europe by 2022

The company has not said why it plans to build a data centre rather than just rent racks galore in a co-lo facility or sign a deal like its existing $800m multi-year arrangement with Google Cloud.

Well, seeing as Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield have been found insufficient by EU courts, why would you risk user's personal data on a system which Uncle Sam thinks it can rifle through at any time? And, if the need is big enough, then it is far cheaper to run your own data centre than rent from Google, Microsoft or AWS.

Apple re-arms the iMac with 10th-gen Intel Core silicon

Re: I believe....

What would be the upside for Apple for sticking with x86_64?

Re: Their older hardware is good enough (and that's the problem)

Even worse, IMO, was the failure to fix bugs in older OS, simply shrugging shoulders and pointing to the new "free" which fixed it by adding new bugs. I seem to remember a crippling Bluetooth bug in Lion that only Mountain Lion "fixed". Hardware interrupts (like Time Machine waking up) have been a plague since the switch to x86_64.

Plus ça change…

Chips

But also disappointing because Apple has promised that it will soon offer its own Arm-based silicon across the Mac range

The announcement was "on Apple silicon before the end of the year". I've always interpreted this to mean an announcement of some devices in November or so for delivery in December. Given what's been released this year, something low end might be expected. Many people will be holding off investing in new hardware until it's clear what the strategy will be.

Re: Their older hardware is good enough (and that's the problem)

They definitely do like to pull the rug after about 5 years and often for no good reason. We can expect the list of devices supported by Big Sur to include nothing before 2015, proably even 2016.

Google to pull plug on Play Music, its streaming service that couldn't beat Spotify, in favour of YouTube Music

Re: Play Music App

Loads of good music apps out there – Apollo is possibly the pick of the free ones.

Re: I've just uploaded my music collection to...

I just sync (via Dropbox) what I need. I have around 30-40 GB of stuff but it doesnt need synching constantly and then I don't need an internet connection to listen. It's mostly paid for which means the musicians get paid more (not that I really care). 150 GB should be easy enough with an SD card, though I'd cut out the middle man and plug the phone into the computer.

Cabinet Office takes over control of UK government data: Mundane machinery or Machiavellian manoeuvrings?

Re: You know you're in trouble..

Never suspect a conspiracy when incompetence will do. That said, there was skullduggery involved in the referendum, just not really by the Tory Party which increasingly lost control of proceedings to non-parliamentary groups.

Keep it out of parliamentary scrutiny

That's what you do when you give things to the Cabinet Office. It shouldn't be with the Deparment of Media, Culture and also Sport, but it should still fall under the normal rules of procurement, scrutiny, etc.

Less than six months after original release, Samsung reboots its Galaxy Z Flip pholdable for the 5G age

Obviously some demand

5G isn't really raising eyebrows outside Asia where it's been available for longer. Presumably these are selling in Korea and elsewhere. It would also suggest that many of the problems with the first implementation have indeed been resolved.

Do I want one? No, because I couldn't use it as a navigation device on my bike. But scale it up a bit and I'd be more interested. Of course, due to higher costs and lower yields that's not going to be happening soon but some day all "convertibles" might be made this way.

Intel's 7nm is busted, chips delayed, may have to use rival foundries to get GPUs out for US govt exascale super

Re: Interesting

It would have to be either a company with fabbing capacity or the money to pay for it – Samsung maybe. Because the bottleneck isn't chip design but the ability to make the chips. Might have been possible for Softbank to bankroll a couple of fabs before the "Vision Fund" bubble burst.

Otherwise most eyes will be on SMIC, Samsung and the other couple of companies that might want to get involved. And feedback on Apple's own notebbook chips, because if these and the emulation work well there could well be a stampede from x86 to ARM.

New Google rules mandate Android 'Poundland' Edition, Go, for sub-2GB RAM phones once Android 11 is out

You're describing exactly why it's generally a good thing.

Absolutely fabless: MediaTek lifts the lid on latest 5G 7nm Dimensity chipset family

Re: Cheaper?

No, this is just the chipset for the next gen of Chinese phones. Mediatek chips are normally pretty good but the software – essential for SoCs – is another matter.

If China really wants to make it in the chip world, the software quality, reliability and availability is going to have to improve.

Predictably grim Q2 for mobe sales, but iPhone SE proves pretty moreish as gateway drug for Android defectors

Re: There are alternatives

We get it: you don't like Google. And there are plenty of reasons not to.

This doesn't mean it isn't an excellent company and can't develop good software. Android really is an excellent smartphone OS and has been leading feature innovation over IOS for about the last five years.

Re: There are alternatives

Interesting. Probably explains the relative popularity in the US. In Europe, phone and contract have been incomingly increasingly separated and the kind of exclusive bundles that are common in the US are not legal here. Helps explain why ARPU in Europe is about 1/3 that of the US.

Re: Gateway drug

What kind of phone did she have before?

From Accompli to Microsoft to Google: G Suite chief Javier Soltero chases the 'complete collaborative experience'

"People told Microsoft the same thing and therefore you have Teams."

I'm sure no one actually asked for Microsoft's unholy marriage of OneNote and Lync…