Posts by Martin Eriksson 21 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007
I'm just waiting for a flurry of lawsuits to roll in... 40 min of no google referrers would be a significant chunk of change for alot of large e-commerce sites... Not to mention the click-arb sites stuck in between, and the people that rely on PPC for their business...
/bfg
Come on - whats wrong with ID cards in airports? We're not talking about the same thing as national ID cards!
Can someone shed some light on what authentication and access procedures they have in airports today? Because it sounds from both these articles like there aren't any today - in which case an ID system seems perfectly acceptable - indeed absolutely bloody necessary - I have to show my passport and boarding card to get to a gate, shouldn't a mechanic show some sort of ID before he can get access to wielding a spanner on the 747 I'm boarding?
If (as I presume, nay, hope) there is already a system for access control then and additional system does seem overkill...
Lets have some facts either way please!!
Well my iPhone 3G finally did get activated on Monday, a snappy 77 hours after I paid for it. and thats with a new contract and being one of the first people through the stores Friday morning...
@Nameless Faceless Computer User - might as well wait for the telephone implants coming in 2020 right? Or hang on... who needs phones, lets wait till we evolve the ability to communicate telepathically.
I joined a merry queue at O2 Cheapside (thats London to the rest of you) at 6:20 as number 10 in line. By 8:02 there were a good 60-70 people in line.
Around 7:30 the lovely manager came out with coffees and teas - I think they did this for everyone in line eventually (their coffee machine must have been wheezing after a while though - it sure took a while).
They promptly opened the doors and let in 6 people at a time. Within minutes the manager came out and said the systems were crashed and that they would be doing it on paper so to expect it to take longer.
Well I walked out 45 min later with my new phone (16GB) - unactivated. Its now synced with iTunes but waiting for an activation of the SIM card. Flying spaghetti monster only knows when they'll get around to doing all that data entry...
Some muppets showed up without proof of adress and were turned away but otherwise they served both new contracts and upgrades.
Well I'm happy I got mine... but when can I use it????
@ Vincent
You should check up on your definitions of monopoly... Sure the iPhones app store is somewhat monopolistic in that they control the market, but the smartphone market isn't. If you don't like the jesusphone - get something else.
Mine's the one with the padded seat built in for the morning queue at O2...
Why does every single commentator (not to mention journalist - shape up El Reg) miss out the one key point about the M$ - Facebook deal - that it was an advertising deal?
Since the value of the advertising component is never disclosed - they actually paid somewhere between $0 and $239,999,999 for 1.6% of Facebook, meaning there is no certainty whatsoever in the $15b valuation based on that number alone.
Most likely Microsoft a) values Facebook somewhere around $1b and b) sees any price as a shrewd way to keep Google's nasty mitts off it.
Stop banging the $15b valuation drum - it just isn't true!
/bfg
To the Anonymous Cowards above,
The point is, no matter how much or little you like the idea of a Microhoo, the Yahoo! board and its CEO are there to serve the shareholders and no one else - that is the reality of being a public company.
The shareholders have every right to be pissed off if their appointed CEO screws them out of a 70% premium on their shareholding.
Jerry Yang has already lost this game - he should have kept Yahoo! ahead of the curve instead of letting it languish to the point where it has more value as an acquisition than a stand alone company.
Just my $.02 worth... I'll get my coat - mine's the one in cashmere with the silk lining...
I know I jumped on a PS3 when Warner and Wal-Mart dumped HD-DVD because I'm a gadgetfreak and I was waiting for the decision to go one way or the other. I'm normally an early-adopter but I wasn't going to get caught out with the wrong format (laserdisc anyone?) this time.
But I'm not convinced the mass audience has gotten the message yet - there are still HD-DVD discs and players in most stores - even if they are alot cheaper and the Bluray camp don't seem to be doing much marketing at the moment.
Add to that that the Bluray format is still evolving and alot of people will be holding off buying the stand alone players - again I would normally buy a stand-alone but went with the PS3 to ensure future upgrades and compatibility with an evolving standard...
So Sony and the rest of the BD camp need to a) nail down the format and b) trumpet their victory before we'll see any mass uptake...
Considering the previous GTA titles have been among the highest grossing gaming titles maybe the correlation shouldn't be to the violence in the game but to the stupidity of the publishers for not being prepared for the high demand.
Most outlets now are quoting 14 days to deliver - seems to me someone screwed up their supply planning, and now I'll just wait for a second hand copy after one of the fanboys has finished it before the weekend...
/bfg
Who in their right mind outsources something as crucial as their mobile email servers? I still can't understand why every smackberry in the world has to run off RIM's NOC?
Surely the Exchange route of simply connecting with your own email server (under your company's control and responsibility) is the best model?
I hate my crackberry, especially when shit like this happens.
/bfg
I for one have never used international dialing cards and similar services despite having family in Spain and Sweden, living in the UK and having friends all over the place. Why you ask? Because I don't want to have to dial a number and then input a code and then input the persons number to make the call... Id rather just select them in my adress book on my cell phone and call...
(And if someone has a service better than that they haven't marketed it very well)
I have Skype on my PDA but dont use it because of its sluggishness, and the need to sign on/off before being able to make a call.
So this feature lets me create a local number (that will be included in my stupidly large monthly minutes package anyway so as good as free for me) that is linked to an individual user (hence allows me to store it with that contact on my phone) at SkypeOut rates... Perfect!!!
Face it, the majority of Skype calls are to a fixed number of recipients, and preregistering them is not a big chore...
The pin issue... well if you want to call my mom you're more than welcome to, she'll talk your ear off... ;-) Basically since it goes to a specific recipient I'm not worried about the lack of pin protection on the number...
This has indeed been seen before, but if they make it out with a $5-10k product by the end of the year they'll have beaten everyone to market with an actual product.
The guy presenting at TED does already productise this for military and corporate functions but I dont even want to know what the price tag is for his products, it may well be into the millions. So maybe he does use "better" technology, but it costs more too...
The only downside to Microsofts solution I can see is the "barcode" - if this doesnt become some sort of industry standard the interaction with other products kind of goes out the window... And thats one of the USPs...
But lets give Microsoft some credit for innovating a little (for once) and creating a useful product!
(and off the back of Silverlight's sexiness I have to wonder what they've put in the water over there in Redmond?)
Although I'm definitely not a fan of Google's monopolistic ways (I use them for search only), I have to side with them to an extent on this one in the context of Google News.
Google does not hoover up all content or make money from it. It shows snippets of content (for full content you still have to go to the originating site) and has no advertising anywhere on google news.
It is simply an improved search results display specifically focused on news.
A different issue may well be caching, but even then the information is cached with originator's design, advertising etc...
So whats the problem?
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