Posts by Stu

Atom comes to android

Hmm yes saw this on another gadgety site...

Interesting idea, but the jap company seems to have included little to ZERO intelligence from it, there's a vid of it in action and its nowt more than a glorified robot wars RC toy with an odd amount of computing power in it, seemingly dedicated solely to transmitting the webcam signal to another PC and allowing basic remote forward, backwards, side to side motion.

.

And 2.5 grand! Sod you Japanese company. Lets do some maths - complete Atom systems (including mobo, keyboard, trackpad, LCD screen even) can be had for, maybe £200, lets be cautious and call it £300. couple that with a webcam (£20) , wifi adapter (£20 maybe) quite a few servos (lets say £200 all in considering they're high torque and small), some kind of basic USB based PC to Servo interface (£10 really!) and custom cut metal frame and plasticky bits.

grand total maybe £500, £700 tops, so they're basically charging us about 2 grand on R&D and very basic control software development and all other costs! Meanwhile expecting the 'community' to produce some real intelligence out of the computing power.

Oh how companies rape us simply because they've taken a couple of concepts (I-Sobot and Netbook brains) and bolted them together.

Chinese media finger Swedish lesbian enclave

Okay chaps.

Important mission coming up -

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=67.525373,20.55542&spn=3.513684,10.83252&z=7

Switch to satellite view and get searching. I'll start in sector G.

After some candidate sites have been pinpointed will come the flight and bus travel bookings for about 5.000 horny gentlemen. And don't forget your woman disguises for those sentries.

Chop chop.

Jolly good.

Crucial CT256M225 256GB SSD

Price?

Price has gone up to 435ukp. Or a nice round 500ukp to the common man with his value added rip-off.

Not sure whether this very article contributed towards that boost or not.

This clearly puts it right up there in the 'Ridiculous expensive luxuries' dept and as a result I, and many of my colleagues and friends simply will not be buying.

To me, and many others, 256Gb is the starting point of useful NV storage capacities, and to say that SSD hasn't yet started doing that nice downward price spiral that sparks the industry into full consumer adoption is, shall we say, a bit of an understatement.

C'mon industry, sell em cheap to begin with and we'll keep coming back, drug dealers do it all the time!

Ten sizzling gizmos survive economic nightmare

Yeah those headcams r pretty kewl...

... I saw your downhill biking vid Haku, very cool stuff, but I cant help but be disappointed by the resolution of all those cams. Sure YT kills the quality a lot, but dont those suckers only pull in video at 640x480 or thereabouts?

Christ considering all those megapizzle cameras out there, you can't help but think its just easy and very very cheap for companies to put together these things and knock-em-out at high prices just cos they fit into the 'ruggedised' category.

All it takes is to get hold of some off the shelf 720p or even 1080p capable CMOS sensors, combine it with some HD capable capture chippery, make it read/write SDHC media, and sell it at about the same cost as these things. I'd wager they'll still pull in a profit.

.

As for those 3D glasses, I seem to remember Asus or similar taiwanese company trying out this whole 3D shit about ten years ago now. Then it kind of just petered out. Wont make a jot of difference to people if true 3D content is not readily available, i.e. games developers allowing the Nvidia 3D capabilities to work 100% with their software, they invariably had problems back ten years ago, haven't seen it change.

.

iPhone radiation shielding - Stoopid.

AT&T to service Apple's fabled tablet?

Rumour milling

Lets look back, shall we, at all this rumourmilling, lets see how accurate its been -

The iPhone 3GS, before it was known as that, was meant to come with a whole swathe of cool new features, my hope was it might have an OLED screen, or at least a premium version of it have an OLED screen.

Its not like OLED hasn't matured enough yet, look at the Sony X Series, or the Cowon S9.

But no such result, they upped the speed and added a digital compass. Thats it. Mkay. All the features in iPhone OS v3 don't count towards a 'new feature set' cos you can do so with all iPod Touch/iPhones.

Lets look at the more recent iPod releases - No purported camera for the iPod Touch. Instead they idiotically tried to follow suit with this stupid Flip Camera fad. Shit quality video, idiot proof youtubing technology, for idiots. No still photos! And only in the Nano range. I mean, come on! The iPod Touch seems born for this, and that idiot Jobs' excuse - the iPod Touch is first & foremost a gaming machine! Of course Mr Jobs, no games have EVER used cameras before! idiot.

32Gb upgrade, just inevitable.

It seems Apple are also following the rumour-mill, and doing what seems to be the exact opposite in the end.

.

Heres my rumour mill contribution - no iTablet ever, and if one does materialise, it'll perch itself uncomfortably between the full on MacOS, not quite managing to achieve the full power of the OS, and between the iPhoneOS, not quite managing the full portability aspects and lacking support for all the iTunes AppStore apps.

These rumours could even just be some kind of full Mac system with multitouch that you can detatch its screen or something - probably cost about £3,000.

Everything that Apple have released this year and last leads to the indication that the iPhone original was a design fluke. No more magic from Apple for at least a decade and a half.

.

Oh and iPhone and Mac annoucements typically only take place during the summertime WWDC conferences, if this fabled iTablet were to ever materialise, that'll be the conference for it. Result: Another 9 months at least. Possibly 21 months!

.

Apple - Please, I'm begging you, prove me wrong!

Sky's the limit

Am I to understand that...

...a pissy 30 second or less vid of an out-the-window shot of some police vehicles entitles you to bag some cash when shown on the Sky news website? Wow I'm going everywhere now with my camera ready!

The vid could have been recorded months or years earlier about a totally different incident - and don't go saying its verifiable by looking at the file date stamp, u can only go by the features in the streets such as adverts and the like, so just make sure you steer your cam clear of such things.

Ready . . . BREAK.

Windows 7: Microsoft's three missed opportunities

MultiTouch

M$ half-arsed support for MultiTouch or even single Touch doesn't surprise me in the slightest. They just dont get it.

Its like the designers took one look at that video by Jeff Han at Ted.com, and hundreds of others, and didn't grasp the paradigm changing aspects of it all.

They didn't even bother looking back at Windows Mobile and wondered that perhaps people wouldn't want to have to be in possibly time critical real world situations with their handhelds, and have to pop the stylus out just to tap the titchy up/down number control.

If it were true multitouch, then the Windows interface would have to (mostly) disappear too, and I doubt M$ would even want that to happen. Microsoft wants their 'stamp' on everything, even if it means coming up with a UI that is clunky and awkward, but apparently its okay cos it looks funky.

And oh look, Win 7s UI is clunky and awkward! But looks pretty. Thanks.

.

BTW I can name about a hundred Windows 7 Missed Opportunities. If you just remind yourself of all those concessions you had to make for all previous Microsoft Operating Systems, then you'll see them all again too.

Three-way fight for Real's iPhone-Rhapsody application

Hmmmmm

I think before Real can criticise Apple for their tactics, they should take a long hard look at their own!

.

I'm surprised even that Real are still operating, given their scamware laden 'software' is somewhat bettered by that RealAlternative thing. And RealAlternative is nowt but a stop gap until .RAM, .RM, .REALSHIT formats die the death they so deservedly dealt themselves. DDDDD.

Thanks RealNetworks, just die already please!

.

Actually I suppose Apple should release this crap on their store, then they can watch as RealNetworks die out, squirming around in pain before their very eyes. The c**ts.

.

Can I ask who in this comments forum doesnt hate RealNetworks? The vast minority I'd wager.

Zombie plague analysed by Canadian maths prof

I'm liking this study a lot.

Theres nothing quite like a bit of hypothetical study here or there, especially when it comes to the excellent subject of Zombification. However I've just got one question.

How much funding did your department pull in this year 'Smith?'?

Oh well, at least it wasn't British tax payers who foot the bill, I'm sure all he must have done was read the zombie survival guide by Max Brooks and put it into report form.

Autistic trucking scam hacker jailed for 55 months

If ever there was...

...proof that the press pick out stories about the absolute minority cases as if they were relevant to society as a whole, along with totally irrelevant nonsense, this is it.

I quote Wikipedia Asergers Syndrome article -

"A 2003 review of epidemiological studies of children found prevalence rates ranging from 0.03 to 4.84 per 1,000, with the ratio of autism to Asperger syndrome ranging from 1.5:1 to 16:1"

Extremely rare! I would never have expected to hear another story about Aspergers since Gary McKinnon, but lo and behold...

It happens all the time, same goes for those pissant burning laptop battery stories too!

Ooohhh run and hide, Lithium Ion batteries will kill us all!!!

I demand my right to rant. Shouty shouty.

How to hack a Sony Reader

Sweet!

Thanks El-Reg, this might actually coax me to take my PRS-505 out of my cupboard since January this year!

Only trouble is, can somebody clarify - my Mum brought me back my PRS-505 from the States? I'm in the UK. I'm presuming all these hacks still work, I'd just need the US firmware file(s)? No changes to 'procedure' or anyfink?

Thanks.

Rogue iPhone app stores raking mazuma

I'm all for...

...a non-official more liberal sidetrack of the AppStore such as Cydia/Installer, but there are some very good reasons for not going down that path - just try justifying with upper management in your org to buy iPhones and then have them all 'jailbroken' cos it makes them more useable.

There are so many unknowns, possibly so many developers with alterior motives - its a great way of getting malware onto potentially thousands of iPhones. That coupled with the fact that lots of unofficial products are made by so many people outside the western world - Yankee/Brit haters have to be amongst them all.

Not only that but there is also no code review, and you could rapidly end up with some very hairy software.

But luckily its mitigated by the fact that there are only a handful of different device hardware variations - write an app on iPhone, debug it, its likely to behave very similarly on an iPod Touch, even going back hardware versions. You can't say the same thing about the PC platform, or even Windows Mobile.

The real issue though is with piracy - check out Appulous' Installous. Same situation with the Sony PSP - a spanish chap ripped that OS completely out of the lockdowns Sony inflicted on everybody, and singlehandedly ended up creating a huge piracy problem for the platform that Sony can never control. Of course it was done in the name of liberal-ness and being able to write 'homebrew' apps, but I dont believe it for a second - especially what with his custom-firmware's inherent ability to copy and play ISO files of the UMD game disks, copying them to your memory stick.

I think the same is happening with Installous, however piracy isn't going to be as big on the iPhone - the iPhone/Touch is aimed not at unscrupulous gamers alone - and titles are available so easily and cheaply from the AppStore - its considered a lot more hard work to go to the effort of 'full on' piracy.

Gamers gun down Half-Life

Oh yes!

Bring it!

A freebie side effect - with a pistol, you even get real(istic) reloads where you could end up getting hit by a bad guy whilst you're physically reloading!

Cooolll.

Next step- a 360 degree panoramic game environment using multiple 'stitched' projectors and accelerometers - make u feel like you're totally in the game.

Can even throw in motion, you'd physically stay stood in the middle of the circle, then use the iPhone 3Gs digital compass readings (mounted on a hat) the system would know which way you're facing, you'd press a button to go forward/backward that direction.

And to go ridiculously further - in-game pickups can be simulated by having some machine drop real ammo clips at your feet from some kind of makeshift dispenser above the players head.

How kewl would that be!?

.

More discussion over beer...

Powered robot suits make debut on Tokyo streets

Boring vid!

Typical.

Aint it fine how the title for El-Reg articles instill wonderful images in your minds eye?

Theres me thinking they'd be at least running around, jumping high into the air and over long distances, punching holes thru brick fifty feet off the ground, knocking small office blocks to the ground, battling each other, launching surprisingly slow moving missiles and fricking laser beams at each other, all whilst devastating the ward of Chiyoda into rubble.

Smashy smashy.

.

...now imagine the disappointment watching that vid.

Scareware package mimics Windows Blue Screen of Death

In the browser?

<<<--- EPIC

I take it that screenshot is an accurate depiction of the effects of that malware?

Surely the team behind this vaginal belch of a piece of software could have at least made it full-screen the browser!?

I do so really wish I could have said its easy for anybody to tell the difference, but it just isn't in the real world.

However if you have been around 'puters so long as to recognise the BSOD and what it does to your system, surely it renders this poor effort futile to anybody above "Basic PC usage skill level 2" with "Experience > 1 year or so." classification.

Add "class 4 armour" to that too if you're a D&D person. "Special armour".

Thats okay tho, us in the know are safe! Although I dread to think how it might sucker me in after a bit of 'old-age' syndrome kicks in. Give it a few decades.

The MS sysinternals screensaver mentioned earlier - just move the mouse or press a key, easily corrected piece of comedy-ware! Mind you this piece of grub worm sputum should surely be rectified by clicking X on your browser window?

Nikon unveils world's first projection camera

LED projector?

Let me guess (what with the distinct lack of provided info) its a ponsey Hi-brightness LED projector isn't it!?

No mention of it, so I hold my breath for the announcement that its actually a laser based projector - would be much cooler, not to mention more practical.

Google for 'laser pico projector'.

Fake ATM scam rumbled by Defcon hackers

Anyone stop to think...

...that perhaps some DefCon guys were the ones that put the machine in place!? And that some OTHER DefCon guys not in on it discovered the machine and called the feds?

Like a stunt that went out of control.

They'd have planned to go on stage talking about ATM theft and controversially demonstrate in exuberant style that they actually recorded real CC numbers and PINs from the security savvy attendants of the conference, whilst of course greying out or pixellating the CC numbers - because they are legit of course, yes, legit.

Its not like its unprecedented - Wasn't there a quite controversial demo one of the previous conference years where attendees systems were compromised, or personal information stolen, or something? Cant remember - too many El-Reg articles to go back thru!

.

Jeez I cant be the only person to think this surely!?

Toshiba TG01 smartphone

iPhone vs WinMo

I recently did a presentation at my workplace which included a comparison between WinMo and the iPhone OS and hardware.

Once more, M$ have proven that no matter how much processor power you throw into the device, it still feels/behaves sluggish, and so my 'argument' was proven correct once more!

Its a real shame, I had high hopes, because some WinMo devices come in really nice form factors, eg HTC touch diamond & diamond 2, its just a real shame about the OS.

Throwing a 1Ghz processor at a dead dog of an OS (same goes for Windows Vista & most Intel CPUs for instance) just doesn't fix the original problems with the OS. And M$ cant blame it on Tosh/HTC/Sony Ericsson etc for plonking a groovy looking UI on top of it all either.

The ONLY way MS can fix this is to ditch everything above the OS kernel, improve the driver model to allow MUCH better hardware accelerated graphics support from the get go, allow other handset makers to replace the shell (WinMo Explorer?) in its entirity with their own developments.

I've no idea how ingrained the Windows mobile Shell is into the OS, but it needs to be ripped out, stamped on and burned alive!

At the moment, HTC have dug pretty deep, but nowhere near as deep as need be to make it worthwhile - remember the arguments HTC had a few years back with the development community, when they totally failed to leverage the already in-built 2D / 3D acceleration hardware back in the TyTn?

D-Link Xtreme N DIR-685

I vowed never to...

...buy another D-Link product in my life after experiencing living hell dealing with their idiotic and pushy indian tech support people - they kept ringing me up about a support call I'd put in, fair enough its customer 'care' - but every time I dealt with them, there was simply no fix to my problem.

Can't remember what the issue was any more but we're talking basic functionality. Eventually I had to tell them to stop calling me, and close the call, despite it being totally unresolved. They had no way of escalating the issue to anybody higher, let alone the engineers.

And put it this way, this jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none product doesn't exactly make me want to rush down to the shops after it. Especially with its £200 price tag.

I tell you what D-Link - you double up on the screen size, make it capacitive touch screen, media streamer (yeah 'Jerome 0') and generally make it a bit more compatible and faster (making the Gigabit Ethernet a little less pointless) oh and just make it suck a little less, sell it for 200 notes or less cos as it is its sinfully overpriced, oh you'd also have to promise direct support contact with the original developers, and allocate their time solely to me, THEN I might just take a second look, no promises to buying it though!

All in all, you've got your work cut out for you D-Link!

Digital Vision GiGo DV-DTR1 USB PVR

Nice!

Whilst I'm usually massively dis-interested in El-RegHW reviewing piss poor Freeview boxes, this one seems to stand out quite nicely, especially wot with its IT angle!

This sounds like a genuinely useful piece of kit. Selecting to use USB pendrives was utter genious, they clearly recognised (or stumbled upon?) the fact that pendrives are coming down in cost all the time, today you can pick up a few perfectly acceptable 16Gb drives for one standard-pittance-unit (SPU), thereby adding great value!

Definitely need to work on USB HDD support though, prior to release. Also there's no way my old gran would ever be able to make out that confusing mess of an EPG page! Size of the font is not everything you know!

Only thing is - prior to when I bought my slingbox (with built in freeview) I used to use a PC with a hauppauge PVR card, only to find the support for MPEG2 video the card produced to be somewhat lacking (thanks Hauppauge for making me take up countless hours of my life on this problem!). I never did find a video editing program at the time that could edit the Hauppauge MPEG2 files except the shit they provided, and I never did manage to transcode any of my vids.

I sincerely hope this has changed, and I hope the file standard is properly obeyed this time so it'll be loaded in with any vid editing software.

.

...so does anybody have any suggestions for specific software titles to edit GiGo DV-DTR1 files with? I might consider shelling out.

Fujifilm confirms 'world's first' 3D stills and films compact

Brilliant sales tactics...

..."Right I've got me 3D camera now. Paid a premium. Taken some snaps. Family is round, lets all gather round and view em all on our lounge TV."

"Ah right, can't...actually...do it."

"So HOW MUCH did u say for that 3D TV set!? Shyeah right. And what do you mean I have to be sat right square in front of the TV to see the effect? What about everybody else in the family? Oh. And its not even that convincing an effect? Right."

"Okay then, how about just a computer monitor that does 3D?"

"Forget it."

.

EPIC Uber-gimmick FAIL

PC repair shop caught trying bank fraud

Thats life...

...you see, us computer know-it-alls get ripped off and screwed over by your average car repairmen, your builders or plumbers and your personal financial adviser maybe.

Everybody else gets ripped off / screwed over by all those above AND your average PC World, sorry "Tech Gays" lackeys.

Definitely something to be said for doing all PC / house / car repairs yourself! Sure it means getting down and dirty with some horiffic repair manuals, but think of the savings, to your dignity that is!

.

Everybody raise your pint to those who think hitting the delete key is sufficient to erase all evidence of your BDSM porn addiction!

Cocaine-smuggling golfer fails 'what's your handicap' test

I'm kind of alarmed by...

...the knowledge of crack cocaine valuing and such on here. I had no idea so many tech-heads are also crack-heads. Whatever gets you guys through the day I suppose!

.

Still, I think its not all that hard to imagine some dumb crack-whore charlie trafficker breaking down on even basic sporting knowledge to the customs guys. I dread to think how many kilos of rock would make it into the country if they weren't all dumb as fuck.

Garmin Nüvi 1340T

Tough stand.

Garmin should be shot for not designing it with sufficient power to even update the maps fast enough to follow when navigating. I mean that renders it pretty useless in my book. Clearly not in el-reg's book tho!

I'm all for standing firm against idiotic design choices made by some companies, or just downright bone-idleness to even take one look at what TomTom are managing to roll out!

As far as I'm concerned, companies should be ordered to stop producing, and hence stop wasting the worlds resources on selling devices that dont meet general standards you can expect from devices around that time. Call it communism if you will, I call it justice.

Okay that might wipe out pretty much the entirity of Chinas output, and maybe Taiwan, Vietnam, India etc etc etc etc. But just imagine, we'd have supercomputers on our wrists by now!

.

I bought one of Garmin's eTrek handheld GPS devices waybackyonder, it was good, especially seeing as TomTom and the like hadn't hit the scene, and there were no onboard maps or anything, it was just a waypoint based empty map system. For the time, it was good.

Nowadays though, so many different hi-powered devices, so many different ways for companies to cock things up.

.

Terminator icon - bring on SkyNet to sort out the big corpos.

Cutting the cord: future mobile broadband tech

Good article...

...thanks!

So does that mean WiMax is a no-go? I'm presuming we'll all be using iPhone 4G-LTEs in a few years time then?

I dont care either way - whatever benefits the consumer the most really.

Anyway, BEER.

Pssst... Apple tablet on way, whisper Chinese moles

I think you're all missing Giles Jones' point...

Giles didn't say MacOS runs on Intel/Power PC only, he merely said ARM CPUs aren't suitable for full fat MacOS, and he's right.

...ARMs are traditionally put into ultramobile devices below that of ultraportable laptops, eg. mobile phones, MP3 players, iPhone etc. As a result, they don't run straightforward MacOS, but, say, iPhoneOS - a massively slimmed down version of MacOS.

Intel Core or PowerPCs are geared towards full desktop and laptop spec systems and are geared for full-fat MacOS and whilst MacOS might run on an ARM CPU, it wouldn't be the fastest experience in the world. Similar to how Vista/W7 might run on an underclocked Intel Atom.

Mind you the distinction is definitely blurring now the 3Gs has that blinding ARM Cortex CPU!

.

I for one would love to see an ARM based Apple tablet running, perhaps some derivative mini MacOS similar to iPhoneOS! If they maintain a certain compatibility level with iPhone applications (maybe running in a window on the tablet), all the better.

Vulture Central unleashes RegPad™

Look this is ridiculous...

...I'm having terrible trouble believing all this, Its some kind of a joke, right? I mean how can you expect anybody to believe this!? Utterly up-in-the-air. Total Whacko Jacko (RIP).

You see I'd expect the biscuits to come included for that flippin price!

.

.

.

Aaaahh you see what I did there!? ;-)

Time for Beer.

The 3G map Ofcom didn't want you to see

When you open that bottle of Ofcom water...

...do you find its just full of vapour?

.

I'm questioning the IT angle of my own posting!

Google reinvents network computing

Will I...

...be able to install ChromeOS onto a VM in Hyper-V?

Not quite what the big G had in mind, but I'd do all my browsing in it!

.

Yeah, beers icon. Get em in.

Schneier says he was 'probably wrong' on masked passwords

iPhone style password fields?

Nope, still wrong.

Point of note - what if you're making a presentation using an iphone on a big screen, showing lesser types how to access their email accounts? By doing so, you will have inadvertantly revealed your own password to all and sundry, possibly without realising it.

Sure shoulder-surfing for pwds on iphones isn't likely to be prevalent, but putting that same method on a full desktop is likely to be just as bad as totally unmasked pwds.

You can't win, plain and simple, I would argue that the situ as it stands right now isn't good enough - even revealing your pwd by typing it on a keyboard is sufficient for some people to snatch your pwd. Especially if its done professionally as part of a police/private investigation, using cameras.

You're not even close to a perfect solution even if you have computers with a direct-to-brain interface!

.

Now get the beers in and forgedaboudid.

Scientists print out super-slim battery

Scale?

Mmmmm I see. My determination of that picture is that the battery is somewhere between 6.5 and 7 MILES long!

Why did they even bother putting a ruler in shot if its got no scale! Thats the point of putting rulers next to things in photos!

In reality it could be 6.5 or 7 inches, or centimetres, or one of those obscure units of scale, who knows!?

Satanic blob beast menaces North Carolina

Yuck

No, send in the flamethrower special ops teams anyway.

Thats horrific!

Japanese airport trials 'personal mobility vehicles'

Argghh!

Run for teh hillsz, its Davros!

Toyota in 'real time brainwave driver control' success

I can see it now ...

http://likeawhisper.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/pike1new.jpg

booooooop.

Koenigsegg e-sportster moves closer to reality

Lets not kid ourselves...

...sure it'll make it into the households of your average man by hanging on your wall as a picture poster, maybe even the odd die-cast model or RC toy, but its obvious its only for your average David Beckham type, or whichever lads are doing the pretty boy sportsman / fashion model / TV personality rounds right now.

Lets see now - two-hundred-grand minimum I reckon, despite costing, maybe ten to twenty grand in parts and labour to build.

They've got to recoup those development costs, and the private jets from somewhere.

Ryanair requires web check-in, shuts down website

I flew with them...

...back in May. It was either go with them, or travel an extra 50 miles to another airport as we were going to Prague for a conference.

Yes we were required to print out our boarding passes or pay £40. Its quite bizarre actually, no check in desk queues, just pass thru security and turn up at your gate with your priority queue ticket - you're on the plane in no time! It actually streamlines the whole process! But Ryanair trying this downed-website thing on people is indeed quite idiotic!

I have to say, apart from a malfunctioning website which crashed out whilst buying the tickets, and then wouldn't accept some input options when going to print out our boarding passes (ups the anxiety levels a bit!), the experience at the airports, Prague and Birmingham, was reasonably smooth what with the accidental streamlining they've achieved!

And yes it beat KLMs processes, British Airways processes, and of course that time when our EasyJet flight to Amsterdam was turned back to Luton airport because of a dead battery (so they tell us). Quickest descent I've ever felt in an aeroplane and I'm still alive!

The fire trucks surrounding our aeroplane, as it rolled into a secure fireproof area, was quite disconcerting too!

US lawmakers call for AppleT&T probe

So...

...two years late, and 21 million units sold (according to the great Wiki) Washington finally catch on to this whole iPhone monopoly thing!

It should be as clear as crystal to everybody - if AT&T and O2 plus every other countries providers were in direct competition with other operators, the iPhone would be less than half the overall contract price it is today, and we wouldn't see stupid restrictions and extra costs levied on tethering and roaming!

Governments working for the common man? Possibly eventually.

So give it another couple of years and the EU might do the same...

US brain-computer interface gets live human trials

Criminal control

Yeah and over time as the technology is perfected and lowered in cost, how about purposefuly severing all limb motor control nerves of a convicted criminal, then REwiring him up using this device.

The police can then switch the buggers arms and legs off if he 'misbehaves'!!

Maybe.

Would be great fun, ON, OFF, ON, OFF, ON, OFF, whoops its broken, sorry.

Venezuela spits out Coke Zero

Still, they have a point...

...even if it is down to political squabbling, Coke Zero does taste like hospital sewage...

iPhone 3G S in the UK: what you need to know

Rip off Britain?

So this is what O2 are saying to Britain now -

"Rip off Britain? No such thing. Here, a premium desirable mobile phone designed by a fashionable US IT firm, have it for a grand plus what with being stuck with it for 18months minimum, and be glad about it. What do you mean you want to use your already paid for 3G connection tethered with your PC? Screw you, 15quid more please. Oh and screw you if you want to buy it on PAYG as you'll miss out on the key new features, you cheapskates!"

Thanks, rip off merchants.

I looked in on the CNET live blog coverage yesterday, they didn't half leave the new iPhone hardware to the last minute, and now we know why. Wheres the OLED screen? For that price I'd expect it. Cowon S9 or Sony Walkman X series anyone? What about all the other bits and pieces it should have had? What about that range of different hardware designs?

Highly HIGHLY disappointed.

Oh but its okay, it can tell me which way I'm facing. Brilliant.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Now where is it I read...

...that theres little point really going above around 12 megapixels without also upgrading your optics, ie paying Canon ridiculous sums of money for their L class optics at about F/2.8 or even f/2.

I think it might have been that DPReview website.

Moral of the story - dont shell out for this and expect great results without also shelling out thousands for really decent lenses - but then you knew that when you shelled out the two grand for this didn't you!?

Puts this right up into the a rich kids toy category, or a professional portrait/journo photographer company shellout.

Man creates third-gen iPhone rumours picture

OLED

OLED support would indeed be faaantastic! Except I have to agree with the likelihood assessment on the pic - unlikely.

Of course its not technically impossible mind you, what with these Cowon S9 and Sony X series MP3 players, but it'll bump the price up no end.

.

So now why dont they just do OLED and LCD versions - charge a premium for the OLED model, and you get improved battery life for your 3G browsing too.

At the WWDC all will be revealed soon.

Buddy unveils Metro e-car

Whoever the hell...

...it is that invented the fugly smart-car shape design need locking up.

And those who copy said design need shooting.

Just reminds me of a fatal shunt accident I saw involving two lorries and a saloon car on the M1, they must've thought it'd be a great idea to reproduce the look of carnage.

Quite sick.

Sony Bravia KDL-37S5500

Worth letting people know that...

...Sony are generally overpriced and under-specced, and theres no exception here.

But I suppose the word 'Sony' has kind of entered the Oxford English Thesaurus under 'Expensive'.

Its kind of taking the piss now Sony are facing some monetary woes.

Over six months ago I replaced my TV with a 40" 1080p Samsung for about £100 less than this, and it came with a 100Hz mode and all the extra gubbins mentioned in this article on the Sony model costing £200 more, so overall they're commanding around £300 more for a smaller set.

Plus you can't sniff at the pic quality in relation to the Sony either, the much renowned HDTVTest website rated my set very highly indeed -

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/Samsung-LE40A656/Conclusion.htm

And I have to say it's been every bit as impressive as they say.

Beat that Sony.

Spielberg: Games consoles doomed

Reg-HW wants our thoughts.

...Okay then. I think Spielberg has essentially re-coined a dead old phrase in a poor attempt to make out that those in the dying movie industry actually know anything about the much newer technology home entertainment industry, and thereby making out that said dying industry isn't actually dying but is evolving, which it really isn't. At the moment it just seems to be recycling old movies.

At least others that have done the soothsaying thing talk more about their predictions than just saying - "were going to be doing more of that VR thing in future, yes."

Howzat?

Intel shows glimpse of 32-core Larrabee beast

Lets hope then that...

...intel have, this time, actually LOOKED at Nvidia and AMD (ATI?) boards and noted the performance, then we only need to hope they give a damn and make it just as fast, if not faster.

A quote from the Intel GMA950 website -

Responsive Graphics Performance With a powerful 400MHz core and DirectX* 9 3D hardware acceleration, Intel® GMA 950 graphics provides performance on par with mainstream graphics card solutions that would typically cost significantly more.

LOL

E-car supplier demos battery swap-shop

Ohhhhh so many...

...different ways this could go wrong, leaving you high and dry without a car battery correctly re-installed!

Just look at the automotive robotic systems we have in place today - your typical car wash. Those things go on the blink all the time, are out of service for weeks. Plus it destroys your wing mirrors / car aerial / leaves scratch marks etc. Not to mention it failing to clean your car properly.

.

Just one little slip up, misalignment anywhere, part failure, too much torque applied somewhere, and you're left trying to lift a 60+ Kg battery pack back into your car on your own.

.

victim : "Help me, your bloody machine has de-threaded my battery mounting bolts!"

petrol station cashier : "Sorry mate, can't help - queue is too long."

victim : "I'll see you in court."

.

Plus I'm not sure I'd want my shiny new leccy car battery replaced with some 2 year old battery with a range of 10 miles cos its been used so much.

Yorkshire boozer establishes 'smoking research centre'

@Cameron Colley

> I love living in a "free country".

You mean a country free enough for you to take up valuable NHS bed space in a lung cancer ward in 20 years time!? No thanks.

I think its right for SOME liberties to be taken away from those, esp those with obsessive disorders such as a smoking habit.

.

-And I didn't even mention about how your habit might affect other peoples health around you.

.

I support the smoking ban 100%, the only trouble is now a lot of pubs just stink of piss, instead of fag smoke!

Street View forced to reshoot Japan

Yeah I always did wonder...

...about the height they set the cameras at. Surely if its a "street-view" thing, then it should be set to average eye level, makes more sense for easier recognition of street items etc. It works out only about a foot above your typical Vauxhall Astra, which they use (I think it was) and those panoramic cams surely dont need huge towers to work from.

.

Redo the UK too with lower cameras!

.

So, what have those crafty japs got to hide exactly above all the other nations included in SV? Too much back-garden seppuku going on I reckon. Or are they afraid of how their nations sexual attitudes differ from the west? Need I say more?

Doro PhoneEasy 338gsm

Its quite clear that...

...an even bigger screen would be needed for most olde folk, making the buttons all jumbo sized wont help if they cant read the addressbook.

Plus I can think of one or two olde people that might make use of it right up to the point they really need it, that is when it's been left off the mains supply for a good 6 months and the battery is totally flat, and as a result damaged due to excessive discharge. Tell me this device is non-self-discharging-when-switched-off too.

Even if it has a charging docking cradle, its pretty normal fare for an old person to forget to put it back on charge. Or they'll remember for a while, THEN forget.

Until the manufacturers can release a phone with ZERO maintenance, including mitigating the need to recharge every 4 days, and not ever having to input numbers into the addressbook, then all this is useless - And YES, this is impossible.

As for the lack of SMS sending, well thats just ignorant to those olde folks who DO know how to do it, or are not too infirm to do it. A pointless limitation.

Its not like there aren't normal phones around now with big buttons, and vibrant large screens which would suit them down to the ground, as for complexity, well just dont tell them how to get to those features!

Picture the scene - an old lady has fallen in town, and asks a kind stranger who came along to assist, to contact her relations for help. That younger person CAN use the features needed to get a quick SMS out.

.

I wonder how feature-ful old persons mobile phones will be when us techy types grow old? I dread to think what with this expensive featureless piece-o-crap coming out of industry.