Posts by shyted

Charmin'. Garmin admits customers' full credit card data nicked from South African web store

PCI compliance?

How an earth could they be PCI compliant? if they if they were storing the card number unencrypted, and as for the CVV it shouldn't be stored at all?

AVG defends plans to flog user data as privacy row continues

Snowden

Having had various conversations with various folk about privacy, I've come to the conclusion that the total apathy most of them display is down to ignorance and misplaced trust in companies, and the government.

Whether its AVG and browsing history, NHS health records or GCHQ, one of these days the data will be stolen or leaked. Whenever I hear the protestations that data will be protected and is safe, I just think of Edward Snowden. Good job for the intelligence community he wasn't a BOFH.

'To read this page, please turn off your ad blocker...'

Theft?

Advertising Age editor Ken Wheaton, recently wrote. “But theft is still theft,"

Err sorry Ken to burst your bubble, but since when has not viewing an ad, been theft?

If you want to play that game, then you not reading this post, has deprived me of the million pounds, you should be paying me to teach you some common sense.

After all "theft is theft".

Google pulls plug on YouTube for older iPads, iPhones, smart TVs

Re: Its pass the book time.

Nigel, your points are very valid, however the manufacturers are selling these as "Smart Tvs". You-tube, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon video were and are part of the marketing in stores POS, in media ads and also even on the boxes.

The slow loss of such services after just a couple of years, just because the manufacture won't update the firmware, is worse than crappy behaviour, especially as the services still exist. If they're only going to support a models firmware for 1- or 2-3 years they should have to declare it, just like a food manufacturer has to put a best before or use by date on its products. Either that, or open source it once its obsolete, and make it possible to easily update.

Its pass the book time.

The media service providers, like Google and Amazon are blaming the TV manufacturers for not updating the firmware, and the TV manufacturers blame the media service providers for discontinuing the service. (I'm looking at you Samsung!)

Been rather annoyed at this in general, and I'm really surprised Trading Standards haven't reminded the TV manufacturers about the sales of goods act, I believe "fit for purpose" is the phrase, and applies for 6 years? I'm also pretty sure anyone who bought one of these on credit, can apply for a refund too via the credit provider.

If folk now ask me about a "smartTV", I now suggest buy a dumb TV, and with the money saved get an HDMI dongle (Roku ect), or connect a laptop/media PC up.

What's broken in this week's Windows 10 build? Try the Start Menu, for one

Ah the RTM version then.

Copyright thieves' cyberlockers slurp MILLIONS from honest creators, study finds

70% income from subs

Err, call me silly but if 70% of income comes from subs, then these users are paying for something they want...

Build it and they will come? How hard can it be.

LOHAN Kickstarter bid IS GO: Back our Vulture 2 spaceplane launch

Err, I want a tshirt and a tankard, but apparently can only back a project once?

Brit ISPs ordered to add more movie-streaming websites to block list

They'll never learn

You forget the proxies that are also blocked, its become a game of wack a mole.

It would be interesting to know how much Uk torrent traffic is down, it should be a massive drop if this has been effective. I'd hazard a guess that its only detered the less technically minded, who only discovered torrents due to all the publicity of trying to shut sites like the TPB down.

Its interesting that I've heard people who I wouldn't expect to, talk about trading whole hard drives with each other.

Can anybody honestly say, aside from greed, why the media companies haven't built a reasonably priced, legal, pirate bay in all these years?

LOHAN slowly strips lens caps off hi-def imaging arsenal

silica gel sachets

Going in a different direction (down as opposed to up), but when scuba diving with cameras in housings, silica gel sachets or moisture muncher capsules, are essential for keeping things fog free.

Its also really helpful too, if you put the camera in its case in a dry environment (sounds obvious I know).

Speaking from bitter experience here for the number of 'amazing once in a lifetime shots', that turn out misty. (';')

RIP Harry Harrison: Stainless Steel Rat scurries no more

Sad news, I also loved the Deathworld Trilogy and the SSR as a teen having been introduced to them by 2000AD.

HH created some wonderful characters and worlds, quite why this material has been ignored by Hollywood is perplexing, still I suppose its better to remake (sorry reboot) sucessful movies which haven't dated like Spiderman, Carrie and god knows whatever else they can. The only one of these remakes of slight interest is the Dredd movie which lets face it cannot possibly be as bad as the Stallone one.

So Hollywood take a chance and make some blockbuster HH movies to inspire a whole new generation, just please make it one movie per novel though.

Google may face grilling by MPs over 'immoral' tax avoidance

Let me guess Google hasn't been wining and dining the right people, who else would like to see the tax avoidance figures for the music and movie industries?

Ten... IPTV set-top boxes

They still haven't learned after all these years.

Ok so its great that iPlayer and Netflix are widely supported, but before other services are added, how about enabling access to the existing ones like 4od and ITVplayer and 5player.

Virgin has them as does the PS3, so it can't be rocket science to add them.

I just can't understand how the media industry can complain about piracy, when they have a golden opportunity to not only market directly to customer, but to also get free concrete meaningful data about these customers viewing habits.

With the rise of the internet, movies TV and music like it or not have been available on demand free via Napster, Kazza, Bitorrent and filelockers for more than 10 years now. Only the BBC has had the vision to actually innovate in broadcasting, and has built something as competitive to filesharing even if its funded by the whole of the Uk. Kindle and iTunes prove, that if there is a simple legitimate way to obtain media, its a viable business model.

The media industry can try to legislate all they want, but if they're not careful someone like Apple will come along, roll everything into a slick interface, and clean up, taking a nice large cut of the profit. The RIAA should have built iTunes, and we should have MMPA iPlayer, but instead the lawyers just get richer! Rather than try to protect your traditional business models innovate, reduce your costs and profit from new technology.

Build it and we will come!

Nissan unveils 'self-healing' iPhone case

Thats ok you can just scratch it off... Doh

New hacker peril for older IE versions

ie 6

IE 6 would be those on windows 2000. Still used on half the machines where I am and perfectly capable, course those machines are also running firefox as default.

PC tune-up software: does it really work?

Microsoft updates?

One thing I'd be really interested to know is what effect MS updates and service packs have on both older and newer hardware from a clean install.

Wales adopts mobile average speed cameras

Stolen plates

Anybody know what the crime figures are these days for stolen number plates?

Its probably the easiest way to avoid being pulled these days, as all the cameras and databases tend to make traffic plod lazy.

They need a catchy slogan for this "ANPR - Technology to catch honest drivers mistakes".

BT starts threatening music downloaders with internet cut-off

A policy well thought out as usual

Are ISPs really going to have the balls to go through with this if its true that 60% of people download music thats a lot of revenue to lose, and will it mean that once disconnected you can never have internet again, or will it just be a case of switching ISPs.

This will work about as well as the law suits in the states, which lets face it have not proved to be any deterrent for downloading and in most cases have just helped publicize p2p. BT are making far to many assumptions about the adsl account holders knowledge of p2p and IT in general. Fair enough some will be fully aware of what is happening on there broadband connection, but there are a awful lot of people who are genuinely clueless. As for secure wireless networks good luck with that if its not a legal requirement (yet), and will perhaps make a defense in court. When they've made it idiot and hack proof I'll look forward to a bright future that has no spam, viruses, trojans, ddos or botnets to worry about

What the media industries and ISPs need to do is launch legal unlimited p2p, or price online distribution of music and video media more attractively.

I'd have no problem with a legal Oink or Napster type service with no DRM, but what are the chances of that.