Posts by D@v3

Microsoft to unveil new Xbox console on May 21

Re: Progress is good

The xbox 360 dashboard has had (more than) a passing resemblance to TIFKAM for some time now. Tiles (some live), pages etc..

I'd be more concerned if they tried to port the windows desktop

Galaxy S4 radiant, but has black holes

Re: iPhone 5 still leading the market.

I have a 4s, and have had no problems with Apple Maps.

Microsoft brings back Windows watch after Apple seeks 'flexible' bod

Pebble

Had mine for a couple of weeks. Charged it twice. I have found switching it off at night (when i cant use it) does squeeze out more life (20 seconds to switch off, 2 to switch back on as does having a watch face with no second hand on it.

Get about 20+ email notifications through it a day, plus phone calls and text messages. Screen is great. It's not so big that it screams "look at my huge watch" but not so small you cant read it.

Oh, and i can play snake on it

Microsoft's telly-over-the-net tech gobbled by Ericsson for mobes

Desktop PC vs HTPC...?

In the comment "..more internet video on TV screens than on laptop or desktop computers.." where do desktop PC's connected to TV screens fit into it?

I (along with, i would imagine, many readers) have my main PC hooked up to my TV, mainly for the purpose of watching videos, both downloaded, and streamed.

Currently have no interest in 'connected' or 'smart' TV's due to the limitations compared to a full HTPC.

Card skimmers targeting more than ATMs, says EU

because everyone loves anecdotal evidence.

I was travelling round Europe, by car, a few years ago, and had to cut my trip short because my bank had noticed that my account (by card) had been accessed several times over the course of a week, in three different countries. They decided it was probably fraudulent activity, and put a hold on my account. Nice to know they care, bit of a pain getting back from Italy, with only the change in my pocket.

I'm sure there are dozens (hundreds?) of people out there with vastly conflicting experiences.

Doesn't help if your card is cloned and used locally, but from what I hear, that seems to rarely be the case.

Review: Renault Zoe electric car

Re: Contactless Charging?

I have read a couple of times about work on this type of thing. With a view of getting it built into roads, so you can charge as you drive / are stuck in traffic.

Would require some kind of a 'standard' though.

Running costs.

The mileage / charge issue doesn't really bother me, my 'average' driving pattern probably suits an EV, and with a decent extension lead, I could probably charge it up.

What I amm interested in is how much it costs to charge one of these things. The article mentions £70pm for the battery lease. What kind of increase to your electric bill on top of that are you looking at to charge one of things things up, from flat once a week or so?

My current petrol costs are (roughly) £40 every couple of weeks, (unless I'm doing any long driving, like going on holiday, which (currently) an EV would be no good for anyway). So if the charging+lease costs come in at more that say £85 a month, then there really would be no point in this.

Curiosity succeeds – Mars was wet enough for life!

Re: "inorganic life"?

Replicators?

Bacon sarnies can kill: Official

New study shows...

100% of people who eat (red/white/processed/no) meat die....*

*eventually.

Better go and panic buy me some bacon for the weekend.

Wi-Fi hotspots, phone masts: Prepare to be assimilated by O2's Borg

the only benefit to the user that I can see here, is that they (the operators) could install these hotspots in areas where phone reception was bad, kinda like femtocells, instead of large unsightly (expensive) (possibly impractical) masts / towers

The idea of having my wifi at home, morph into my mobile data allowance, does not appeal, at all. Lets me pay for my unlimited wifi, and instead of using that for my home based, phone based internet activities, at no extra cost, I'd just be getting through my (quite limited) monthly mobile data quicker.

Boffin shows pics of germs grown on SPOTTY STUDENTS' MOBES

Re: Cellphone bio mutant bugs!

Next Zombypocalypse? did i miss something?

Forget wireless power for phones - Korea's doing it for buses

Motorways

"How would it work on motorways? At 70mph, I would be "in range" of a 30m inductive coil for less than a second"

Unless it's the M25 at peak times, where it can take 10-15 minutes to go over that 30m section of road, so all the time you are effectively stationary, but still using power (radio, air con etc..) you wouldn't be using the (or at least, much of the) charge from your batteries.

Facebook is off the IPOcalypse hook... for NOW

stock markets

always struck me as a bit of mugs game.

You could make a bit (or a lot) of money, but equally you could lose it all.

Surely you know that going in, and you pay your money and take your chances.

Red supergiant Betelgeuse heads for SMACKDOWN with 'dust bar'

night sky, day sky....

From what I hear, if it did blow long enough ago that we see in in the next 10-20 years, it will be so bright that we will be able to see it during the day.

Courtesy of 'I Fucking Love Science' on Facebook.

"It's located about 640 light years away and it could go supernova at ANY MINUTE. Any minute in the next million years, that is. Hell, maybe it already has. When it does, it will light up our skies and be visible during the day"

iPhone hangs on in US, Japan, but EVERYONE ELSE bought an Android

"showing that the iPhone still trails Android"

This isn't really surprising when you consider that "the iPhone" is one of at most 4 handsets, (3gs, 4, 4s, 5) with only one of them being current, most at the same or very similar price points.

Against "Android" which will currently have (probably) hundreds of handsets available, across dozens of manufacturers many of which will have (at least) one 'current' (hight end) handset, all selling at vastly different prices from <£100 to >£500.

Trying to compare sales figures from one OS, made by one hardware manufacture, to another OS made by dozens, just isn't going to match up.

The closest analogy I can come up with (and I'm only doing this because everyone loves car analogies) is trying to compare Mazerati sales (2 models, high price) with Ford sales (dozens of cars, different styles {small cars, big cars, vans...} each car often having different spec/price points) Of course Ford / Android are going to come out on top.

O2 refuses to deny plans to offload home broadband product

Re: noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

similar story here. i have geographically close friends (exchange is roughly mid-way between us) on sky and their connection is rubbish, on o2 on the other hand my connection is superb (for my wants/needs), and the service has been second to none (in my experience).

I'd rather they don't sell up, and hope that if they do the change will mostly be in name only (naive I know) but if it looks like the service is going to suffer, I might have to look elsewhere, problem with being in rented accommodation is your choices can sometimes be a bit limited (switching from BT - cable for example)

iPhone 'Do Not Disturb' bug to self-destruct on Monday

Unwarented dig at the mapps app

Which (in my experience) was never all that bad in the first place, and even from day one, had alternatives.

A better comparison in this case would have been maybe that time Google misplaced December....

Cameron defends U-turn on web filth ban, leaves filtering to parents

Re: How do the ISP know there are children in the house?

Mr Adams said (wrote) something very similar "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job"

Londoners can bonk their way to work without Oyster cards TODAY

it's not, it's better than cash

Google maps app is BACK on iPhones, fanbois spared death

a couple of things

So many people are and have been complaining about the iOS maps app. There is little wrong (apart from maybe the missing street view) with the app itself, it's the map data that is screwy, and i have already noticed an improvement with that since it was released, probably due to the large amount of people using it, and reporting errors.

It's nice to have Google maps back, however, having had a bit of a look around, i can see that (much like any other mapping service) it is far from perfect. The most notable is that the area in which one of my friends lives is a new build. On the iOS map, the map still shows the old information, but the satellite photos are up to date. in google maps, the map, and the photos are out of date, but the street view data is much more current.

There are also features missing from the Google app, that may never appear, such as being able to search for a location based on stored contact information. From my point of view, it's going to be a lot easier for Apple to improve their offering, by improving the quality of their maps, than it is for Google to improve theirs by improving the core function of their app.

Facebook T&Cs vote falls 299.5 million short of quorum

Re: 3a

would that be the email I received dated 5/12/12?

The best e-readers for Christmas

Re: Sooo.......

I reckon my Sony e-reader must have a duff battery. If I leave it switched off for 2-3 weeks, I can almost guarantee that next time I want to use it, I'll need to charge it overnight first. The odd thing is, not only has it always been like that, but it seems to last longer if I use it regularly.

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

you lot are all as crazy as each other.

I looked up in the sky the other night, and the second (it being at night) brightest thing I could see (after the moon, being the first) was a planet.

So there!

(it was Jupiter, panic over)

Nokia HERE today with decent mapping on Apple devices

i'll stick with Maps thanks

After all the good things I have heard on this site over the years, about Nokia's maps offering, i was looking forward to see what they could do for iOS. to say I'm not impressed is an understatement.

It's slow, has out of date maps and satellite images, (even more so than Apples offering) has no access to the address book, so can't be used to navigate from "here to Bob's house". I tried to run the turn by turn and it asked me to download the audio, which failed. While i was scanning around it kept snapping me back to my current position, i could go on (but i wont)

Yes it's new, maybe it will get better, but for now it's not as useful as either the native Apple version, or the short-cut I have to Googles online version.

OMG! Aaaah! Apple TV! Yes! No ... Probably! Sometime!

XBMC

I tried XBMC on my HTPC, and was fairly impressed, apart from the fact that it wasn't able to decipher the basic file information for the 80+gb of TV shows and movies that I have downloaded. It decided that I had 200+ copies of about three episodes of three different shows I had never heard of. Makes finding things I want to watch a little tricky.

US condom rules 'will cause nasty RED RINGS on porn stars' todgers'

Re: Not that readily

i might be missing something here, but if your 'younger friends are trying to start a family' then they wouldnt be using contraception (its main function being to prevent conception (yes and also STD's)) , shurley.....

Xbox SmartGlass comes to iOS

not a new app

just had a quick look for it on my iPhone, and instead of giving me the option to install, as one would expect, it was offering me an 'update', I'm assuming to the existing 'My Xbox Live' app.

Naughty-step Apple buries court-ordered apology with JavaScript

Re: you mean like this

Nice, it even tried to get me to install a plug in (Quicktime, for the record, which seemed apt)

Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!

Re: 25/50

23/50 Admittedly, mostly guesswork

iPad Mini's quite a handful

Re: Galaxy Note 2

oh, completely, except the note is smaller and uses a stylus (amongst other things)

Light ties itself in knots - spontaneously

I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE

[that is all]

Chinese e-tailer to build 1,000 empty stores

Grocery shopping

The thing with this, and on line shopping in general, is, it's fine for non-grocery items; tins of soup, packets of crisps, kitchen roll, shower gel etc etc. It's not so good for fresh fruit and veg (or many other items), where it pays to be able to inspect the quality of the food your buying.

Windows 8 ads hit US screens: Death Metal, exploding laptops

"so easy a child can use it"

or so simple an adult wont want to?

Samsung shoots Galaxy S III with shrink ray, unveils 4in Mini

I assume your not familiar with the re-badged Toyota iQ that is the Aston Martin Cygnet...

http://www.imaginelifestyles.com/luxuryliving/2012/01/video-action-honey-i-shrunk-aston-martin

Vote now for the ultimate bacon sandwich

Bacon Sandwich

I'm sorry that I have to say this, but the clue is in the name. There is no egg. There is certainly no other meat. I can stretch to condiments, and possibly some cheese. but that's it.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with a sausage, bacon and egg sandwich, only that it can not be classed also as a Bacon Sandwich.

'Google strangled Acer phone using Alibaba Android rival at birth'

Re: Acer lol

They seem to be doing ok out of the Nexus 7

Everything Everywhere's 4G: Why I'm sitting this one out

Re: don't forget data caps..

I have a bit of an issue with this argument of "will simply chew up your allowance 10x quicker.." surely, it's not going to start downloading data quicker than you can use it.

Unless the argument is that with higher speeds, people will become reckless and go, "ooh, I now get 100mb downloads, so im going to stream myself some HD film of netflix, crap, i've hit my cap"

If i found that my speeds suddenly doubled, it wouldn't mean I'm going to start using twice as much data, only that what i do use, will be served up in a timely manner, such as less waiting for emails to download, or web pages to open. I'll still be doing the same amount of consuming as I do now, just less slowly.

Foxconn: We're not FORCING interns to make iPhone 5

Apple are Evil !!!! (but so is everyone else)

It's always nice to see people focusing on an almost non existent Apple angle in an article. This is about Foxconn, not Apple, replace the mentions of 'iPhone' with 'highly expected smartphone' and you have the same story.

As the Article it's self said..

"said the Samsung, Nokia and Apple kit maker."

... The story isn't, "people in Apple factory made to do things they don't want to" it's "further possible human rights breaches in Chinese sweatshops"

Hold the chips: Apple axes Samsung RAM order for iPhone 5

Re: Tumbleweed Moment

"Androids generally were selling 4 units to every single Apple one"

And that has nothing to do with the fact that there are more (many more) than 4 times as many Android phones on the market than there are Apple phones, many of which cost <£200, and lots even <£100.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with it at all.

Emotional baggage

Crumpler

Do quite a good range of bags, for many uses. Mainly seem to be camera bags, but as a result have lots of padding. I've been using my "Fourninety daily (L)" every day for about 4 years, only ever had one problem with it, which was a broken zip pull, but due to the lifetime warranty was able to take it to one of their shops for repair.

Apple confirms 'surprise' September 12 event

Re: There is no iPad Mini being mass produced right now.

my issue with the

"He decided that the sub 10" form factor was too small to properly navigate and display normal web pages while still maintaining an acceptable user experience"

idea, is that, if that is the case, what's the deal with the iPhone? That's much less than 10" and seems to be able to navigate fairly well, and gives a good user experience.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 hands-on review

Re: weather

you can get gloves with capacitive thread in the fingers so you can use touch screens in the cold, available from many places, got mine from Staples last year (when it was cold) for under £10

Global strategic maple syrup reserves hit in Canadian mega-heist

Re: Burn the heretics!!

yeah, but, have you actually tried it on bacon?

I was of the same persuasion as yourself, until recently. I went to a pub for breakfast, got myself some pancakes with bacon, admittedly, the stuff in the jug they gave me was only maple 'flavour' syrup, but I figured, what's the harm in trying just a little bit of bacon in the syrup, and you know what, it was really rather good.

(beer to wash it all down with, who says there's something wrong with beer with breakfast)

LG making thin screens possibly FOR THE NEW iPHONE

12th September eh? Not long to wait till the rumours of the iPhone6 start doing the rounds then.

Sony PlayStation Vita sales crawl

my 2 cents.

I have just borrowed a Game Boy advance off a friend, and brought and old GamBoy colour version on Zelda, and the GBA remake of the (original) SNES version of Zelda off Amazon. If they hadn't removed the ability to play old full size carts from the DS series, i might have actually brought a 3DS,, just to play those 2 games on, and then maybe others, as it is, neither Nintendo, or Sony will be getting any money off me any time soon.

Apple pounces on Samsung doc as proof of 'slavish copy' claims

Confused about what they are buying.

I don't get this.

It's one thing to see a pile of items on a desk, reach for one, and pick up the 'wrong' thing because they look similar, but surely it's a whole different thing to suggest that people are walking into phone shops, wanting to buy an iphone and saying.

'Yeah, i want that phone, you know, the black one that's all screen, apart from the button at the bottom. yeah, the one with square-ish icons, and lots of rounded corners' .... and then being given the samsung, and not knowing the difference.

What i find to be much more likely is that someone (who falls in to the category of those who 'may be confused about what they are buying') walks into a phone shop, looking for an iphone, sees the iphone stand, and says 'i want one of those'.

If there were phone shops that had one section that was all just alternating samsung phones and iphones, then yes, people might buy the 'wrong' thing, but has anyone been in a phone shop recently? they are generally quite segregated, especially the iphones in their "hey, were too cool to mix with the other phones" sections.

I wish they would all just grow up. Yes, iOS is loosing ground to Android, but the iPhone is still outselling any individual Android phone, buy some distance (aren't they?) Can't apple just be happy with the fact that the have the best selling individual phone in the world right now? Apparently not.

Ofcom saves piece of 4G spectrum pie for '4th operator'

Re: stuff 4g

just to quote myself.

"I can understand it's applications for home based wireless broadband"

stuff 4g

I reckon if someone decided to forgo 4G and focused instead on getting 100% (or as close as is plausible) reliable 2 and 3g cover, i reckon they could clean up.

For what most people use 'mobile' broadband for, a reliable 3G connection, should be fine. Do we really need to be able to stream 1080 video, to 4.5 inch screens? I can understand it's applications for home based wireless broadband, but for phones / tablets, is it really necessary?

JELLYFISH bio-bot built with rat cells to mend broken hearts

bio-engineered rat jellyfish?

what could possibly go wrong?

Sony: Walkman, meet Android

Re: Damnit....(Miek)

yeah, not bad. But i'd rather have one with no fancy colour screen, or all the extra gumph that jacks the price up. A 120gb+ Hdd with a 10 line b/w display and a headphone socket would suit me fine.