Posts by /\/\j17

We're about to hit peak device count, says HTC veep, as AR takes over

I'll be first in the queue to sign up for this, to use while I'm in my flying car...

Weeks after Red Bee Media's broadcast centre fell over, Channel 4 is still struggling with subtitles

Re: Testing failover.

Testing failover, or testing failover scenarios?

I worked for C4 back in the 00's when failover from the main broadcasting control in Horseferry Road to the DR at I think Old Ford Lock was tested regularly and always worked. The failover process was for someone at HFR to switch control to OFL (I picture a huge blade switch but probably just a little, red button). As soon as that was done you had 30min or so to get someone to the desk in OFL and queue up the next set of programmes.

What wasn't tested though were different failover scenarios, which resulted in the channel going off air for a good few hours despite a perfectly good, fully functional failover solution. From memory builders on the site next door cracked a gas main so HFR and the other surrounding buildings were told to evacuate, which HFR did by pulling the fire alarm. Assuming it was either another drill or false alarm everyone trooped out and stood on the street. And stood. And stood. And started looking nervously at watches and sent someone scurrying to OFL. And started asking the fire brigade if they could go back in and press the failover button (and being politely told to feck off). So stood while the programme queue ran out and someone sat at the desk in OFL watched the channel go off air unable to do anything about it because OFL couldn't TAKE control, it could only be GIVEN control.

Doh!

Let's... drawer a veil over why this laser printer would decide to stop working randomly

Ah, supporting printers takes me back...

User: "The printer's stopped working".

Me: "OK, let me just pop down." - thankfully only 1 floor below in the same building.

...

User: "The printer's stopped working. It was out of ink so I changed the cartridge but it's just printing blank pages with smudges on them.".

Anyone else guess the issue/solution?

1. Open printer.

2. Remove new, black as my heart toner cartridge.

3. Pull the (as bright as the sun) orange tab marked "Pull" and at the end of the big white arrow and text saying "Pull tab before fitting.".

4. Refit toner cartridge.

5. Manage to politely say "Try it now...".

6. Return to desk.

Pass that Brit guy with the right-hand drive: UK looking into legalising automated lane-keeping systems by 2021

Re: re: Is this the final triumph of the middle lane hogger ?

"Range rover Evoques... (by the way, that's the absolute ugliest car on the road, looks like the hulk sat on the rear end of it!)"

Naa, the ugliest car on the road is still the Porsche Panamera, with the individual crown going to one in shit brown with gold metalic flakes.

The Evoque is up there, but the standard Evoque is actually quite pretty...next to the convertable version!

Segway to Heaven: Mega-hyped wonder-scooter that was going to remake city transport to cease production

Ahh, those were the days...

I can remember the days of the pre-announcement Segway hype, with co-workers running around telling me how amazing it was going to be and how it was going to change the world over night. OK, so when pressed none of them could tell me what it was, with guessing covering everything from a book, through a new type of computer, to self driving and even flying cars. I kept saying "Sounds like a load of BS to me and it's going to be shit.".

Mark one up for the glass half empty crowd as I'm not sure anyone even mentioned the name Segway in the office after the day it was actually revealed.

Health Sec Hancock says UK will use Apple-Google API for virus contact-tracing app after all (even though Apple were right rotters)

Re: NHSX devs apparently superior to Google devs

"we’ll share our algorithm and the work that we’ve done on distance calculation and combine that with their work to deliver a new solution."

By which he mans "...and end up using the Google/Apple one but changing a few parameters from "X" to "X*0.00000000001".

GitHub to replace master with main across its services

Re: Jedi

I am NOT going to refer to "teacher" and "padawan" processes!

Some people need to understand that not EVERYTHING is racist

Blacklist, for example is fine and has NOTHING to do with race.

Blacklist is a term first recorded in reference to the list of people who were going to be sent to meet their maker in short order for the killing of Charles I, following the restoration of the monarchy and Charles II taking up the throne. That being going to the ultimate darkness. Being touched by the bony finger of the Death, the man in black robes. Seeing the judge don the black cap worn when scentencing people to death. The colour their families would wear following their deaths during the period of formal mourning.

None of these origins have anything to do with the levels of melanin pigments in different people's skin.

OOP there it is: You'd think JavaScript's used more by devs than Java... but it's not – JetBrains survey

Honestly, do you really think this counts as journalism?

Yes exactly BECAUSE of the point you raised - rather than just blindly copy/paste the JetBrains press release as a fluff piece, or scan read the first couple of lines of it and write 'shock and awe' piece Mr Anderson has read it, analysed it and clearly raised the concern that the numbers may contain a degree of bias to us, the reader.

Read articles on this report on half of online 'news' sites and it will just be an intro paragraph of "New survey says JavaScript is dead.", followed by the press release more or less verbatim.

Read this article on the IT news equivalent of the Daily Mail and it would be "New survey says JavaScript is dead. Won't someone think of the children! Unnamed sources in the IT industry (probably the journo. writing the piece) say this will lead to billions of job losses in the next 48 minutes and is a result in the huge infulx of foreign Java developers.".

Repair store faces hefty legal bill after losing David and Goliath fight with Apple over replacement iPhone screens

I think the devil here will be in the detail - which is probably only readable by legal Norwegen speakers reading the actual court documents.

Case 1 - Aftermarket screens without Apple logos. The should be fine as no logo=no copyright and "must fit/must match" rules would apply to the design.

Case 2 - Second hand Apple screens with Apple logos. These should also be fine as they are orignal Apple parts.

Case 3 - Aftermarket screens with Apple logos. These are correctly a trade mark infringement.

Case 4 - Refurbished second hand Apple screens. A lot depends what 'refurbished' means. At the one end "cleaned" should be OK but at the other you have "Triggers broom", where the only thing that's retained IS the logo...not so much.

If you're appy and you know it: The Huawei P40 Pro conclusively proves that top-notch specs aren't everything

Re: In a world, where smartphones aren't shitty PCs

Think I lasted 1 day on Android before installing the Square Home launcher to get some of the WinPho UI usability back!

Mirror mirror on the wall, why will my mouse not work at all?

One of my early sins involved moving a local newspaper group's archive from a room filled with boxes and boxes of physical newspaper clippings to a web based digitzed library - and the journalists having to switch from shouting at the library staff to find them something to jumping on a shared PC and searching for things themselves.

Now most of these people were reasonably intelligent and had been using 'computers' for years...but those were dedicated publishing terminals with crazy keyboards covered in buttons to do anything and everything, not IBM PCs with their simple keyboards and new-fangled mice. Things started well, with most of the staff picking it up quickly and not reporting any issues, and then I get the call...

Them: "The mouse isn't working properly"

Me: "What's happening?"

Them: "I do my search but when I click on the link with the mouse thing sometimes it works, but usually it doesn't, and sometimes it opens a different link"

Now you don't have to support users for very long before you know that 90% of "That just doesn't make sense" issues aren't in either the hardware of software but in the pinkware. One quick trip downstairs and a "Can you show me the issue?" and I see them at work...

1. Gingerly move mouse, holding it between the tips of thumb and first finger, like you think it's a ive hand grenade till it's over the link.

2. Withdraw hand from mouse.

3. Index finger out.

4. Hammer down on the left mouse button from a height of 2ft, possibly with eyes closed.

Yes it did click the mouse button. It also tended to move it a random distance in a random direction on the desk and so the pointer on the screen.

Re: Even easier to get wrong with Sun optical mice

Back in the day my Uni had a CAD/CAM room decked out Sun boxes with those optical mice. The room had something like 20 optical mouse workstations...and 19 mousemats.

Worried about the magnetic North Pole sprinting towards Russia? Don't be, boffins say, it'll be back sooner or later

"The data shows that the magnetic north pole will continue moving south for a while."

Am I missing something, but doesn't the ESA video show the magnetic north pole has moved CLOSER to the geographic north pole between 1840 and 2019, something I would struggle to describe as "moving south"?

We're also long over-due a complete polar inversion I believe. Always wondered if that was a slow (in human terms but still a blink of the eye in geological ones), progressive rotation or it would get to a point and suddenly flip overnight...

Commit to Android codebase suggests Google may strong-arm phone makers into using 'seamless' partitioned updates

Re: Not only Pixel

Yep, with an Android One phone you too can have the joy of waking up to your phone telling you to reboot for an update, only to discover you're now running Android 10 and your phone's a bag of crap. Don't worry, 75% of the issues will be resolved if you wait about 3 months for the 'security' updates to fix non-security related issues.

Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS

"In an email to The Register, Lloyd said he wouldn't necessarily call Apple's behavior anticompetitive...Apple simply wants a monopoly on repairs and parts..."

Umm...isn't trying to gain a monopoly sort of the deffinition of anticompetitive practice?

WTF is Boeing on? Not just customer databases lying around on the web. 787 jetliner code, too, security bugs and all

"Once Boeing was aware of the nature of the programming blunders in the Honeywell software found by Santamarta, the manufacturer verified in the lab and then on an actual 787 that it was not possible to seize control of a $150-million-ish jetliner via the holes Santamarta discovered."

Was that verification that the exploits couldn't be used on an actual 787 carried out by the same Boeing engineers who failed to identify the same exploits when certifying the code to be installed on their aircraft...?

If servers go down but no one hears them, did they really fail? Think about it over lunch

Lunch isn't always a bad thing

I still smile when I think back to one short-lived job I had at an outsourcing hire/fire shop. Having recruited us to ramp up resources based on an expected project win the client then delayed, so said company had us working on a crazy internal project. After a few weeks we'd worked out the best way to do it and decided to clear down the failures and false starts by wiping everything prior to starting over.

Clean-down complete we decided to go to lunch, so we would have the solid afternoon to do the rebuild...except most of us got pulled aside going back to the office to be told we had "failed our probation period" and should not let the door hit us on the way out.

Karma #1: About 2 weeks later the client came back and said "OK, let's start tomorrow", resulting in one of my fellow probation failures going back as a contractor on about 3x the salary.

Karma #2: I moved on to a much better role and had the pleasure a year or so later of walking in to a meeting with a potential outsourcing provider to see the face drop of one of the bosses who had fired me sat over the desk. Still knowing some of the people who worked for said outsourcer I also got to seem him wince every time the sales guy said something like "Oh yes, we have a whole team of XXX people" or "Oh no, we aren't a hire/fire shop, so you'd usually be able to have the same resources who knew your systems come back for later projects", my boss looked at me, and I'd respond with a little shake of the head or raised eyebrow.

My HPE-funded lawyer wrote my witness statement, reseller boss tells High Court

Re: Handshake protocol

"So the two signed a document which did not reflect the real deal. The handshake did."

Except the two in question are NOT the two in the dock. The two in the dock would probably be the ones wih their names on the written contract that says "no changes to this unless in writing". All this witness seems to prove is corruption in the US arm of the company, so a fraud committed by the witness (come on, he must have been at least a LITTLE suspicious that everything wasn't 100% above board when the company he was reselling for offered to just give him money) and a third party who isn't on trial here.

Unless someone can find evidence that Lynch/Hussain knew about and approved/did nothing to stop it this is irrelevant to the actual case on trial and should be a separate case in the US courts between the state or HP and Baiocco/Egan.

HP crashed Autonomy because US tech titan's top brass 'lost their nerve', says lawyer for ex-CEO Mike Lynch

Re: Creepy 'Maths qualified' Salespeople

The guys on the IDOL side of Autonomy were always easy to play with though, you just had to say "So, IDOL...it's just a search engine then?" and they would go nuts with the official "Our search engine isn't a search engine" mantra. Remember doing an IDOL training course years ago alongside some BBC guys and we basically took it in turns to keep asking the question, watching the trainer slowly go mad :)

2-bit punks' weak 40-bit crypto didn't help Tesla keyless fobs one bit

"As yet, however, the vulnerability as described in the paper has not been proven to affect our vehicles and we know of no McLaren that has been compromised in such a way."

Translation: We KNOW the stable door is open but as the horse hasn't walked through it yet you're not going to both closing it. If the horse DOES leave the stable we'll look at closing the stable door to stop it.

Bug bounty alert: Musk lets pro hackers torpedo Tesla firmware risk free

Musk lets pro hackers torpedo Tesla firmware risk free*

* Well, other than the risk of him randomly branding you a peadophile on Twitter and having a child bride (who's in her 40s).

Close, but no Tigar! Appeals court slaps judge, drags Apple back into touchscreen spat

Re: Those patents are so broad

"These patents basically cover "swiping from point A to point B", so if they were upheld only every iPhone but also every Android phone up until now and in the future until the patents expire would be in violation..."

Umm, exactly what do you think the Apple's "slide to unlock" pattent basically covers...?

Blighty stuffs itself in Galileo airlock and dares Europe to pull the lever

Re: It won't cost that much

"Since it only has to provide location information within Great Britain + Gibraltar*"

Which would be correct if any of these systems were actually built so us plebs could drive around without having a sense of direction. Of course they aren't built for that, they are built so our armed forces can drop bombs on the 'right' things without the need for someone to sit in sight of it pointing a laser at the target.

Building a system that only covers the UK would only be of use if we have a civil war, which hopefully won't be the way Scotland becomes independent.

Mozilla whips out Rusty new Firefox Quantum (and that's a good thing)

Terrible For Web-Devs

I'm a web dev. and been using Firefox for years as there are a number of add-on tools for Firefox that just made life easier than using Chrome, like the Web Developer toolbar. With this now killed by Mozilla removing one add-on framework and replacing it with one that has about 25% of the features I'm seriously considering either dropping back to 56 - or switching to Chrome, something I never thought I'd find myself considering.

Oh, anyone wanting to get their tabs back in the correct place in 57:

1. Find profile folder (%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows).

2. Open/create a "chrome" sub-folder.

3. Add a "userChrome.css" file containing

#TabsToolbar { -moz-box-ordinal-group: 2; } #nav-bar{ border-top-width: 0px !important; }

4. Save and restart Firefox.

Please do not scare the pigeons – they'll crash the network

Reminds me of my days as a desk troll...

“in the days of 10BASE2 cheapernet cabling that was hung around the office like a string of Christmas lights. For those not old enough to remember, the major disadvantage of this type of cabling is that a single break anywhere would bring down the entire network.”

Reminds me of my early days as a desk troll, where I seems to spend most of my day hiding under desks with a real of sellotape. Ahh, AppleTalk network connectors...

Come celebrate World Hypocrisy Day

"...and Apple is a manufacturer creating value from the ground up."

Umm, don't Pear Technologies, sorry Apple (got confused by the logos - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/27/apple_lawyers/) actually make a lot of their money by forcing music creators to accept lower royalty payments for their IP than they would have received through traditional channels that actually had manufacturing and distribution overheads?

Up close with the 'New Psion' Gemini: Specs, pics, and genesis of this QWERTY pocketbook

"So the entire point of the new device - the keyboard - wasn't there, doesn't exist in even the only demo unit? But you saw a HINGE? Wow!"

You've clearly never played with an old Psion device. You could spend hours* just opening and closing a Revo, constantly being amazed that someone could think up and make something so complicated yet elegant.

* Sat bored in meetings while everyone else was impressed at all the notes you kept taking.

Next-gen Tor to use distributed RNG, 55-character addresses

Re: RNG as an Internet service?

"It would be pretty trivial to use a bank of hardware RNGs to feed a server that will supply a different random number each time one is requested."

...which instantly makes hardware RNGs pointless in this context. The whole point of a network like TOR is that there's no 'home', no central hub that can be used as a point of attack.

Either you have to have a central set of hardware RNGs feeding the TOR network (that the authorities could take control of) or each TOR user has to buy a hardware RNG generator to use the network (that authorities could attack at the manufacturer level - and considering they would probably end up being manufacturer in China...).

Getty Images flings competition sueball at Google Image Search

Try Reading ALL The Words People

Folks, try reading all the words in the article, not just scanning it and jumping on what you THINK it's saying rather than what it IS. In this case "high res large-format content" is the important part.

Getty's issue isn't with Google's image search per se, they are quite happy for their images to be indexed and listed by Google. What they are taking issue with is the change from displaying just thumbnails on the search results page to showing high res images.

Before this change Google gave you an easy way to find the images but you had to go to Getty to access (buy) the high res version. This was good for everyone. Google had more images, so better search results, so more users, so more tracking/ad-serving data collection. Getty were happy too as more people found their images, followed links to their site and bought the high res versions enabling them to support the photographers who take them.

After the change Google still get everything they had before, plus a bit more on top as having the high res versions made their results richer. Getty on the other had get shafted as people can just steal their images rather than having to pay for them. And if no-one pays for them, who's going to pay the photographers to take them?

Google binning its search appliance hardware business

Good news for HPE/Autonomy

2002 - So you want to make all that sensitive corporate information searchable on your Intranet? Get a GSA, it's cheaper and for 'web' searching better than IDOL.

2016 - So you want to make all that sensitive corporate information searchable on your Intranet? Going to have to be IDOL, it's more expensive and not as good for 'web' searching as Google's cloud service but you control it and there's no "all of your data now belongs to us" hidden away in the T&Cs.

Microsoft rolls out Windows 10 Mobile preview update

Re: Installed

As a 1020 owner how to the new imaging apps stack up against the Nokia ones in 8.1?

Disney's light-bulb moment: build TCP into LEDs for IoT comms

Screw all this pointless IoT junk. It's 2015 so why can't I wire my house with CAT6 and power my LED light bulbs using Power Over Eithernet???

It's the hottest day of the year. So check out John Lewis' Xmas tech range!

"On show was the development of a touch sensitive advent calendar...A bit cheesy maybe, but young kids would love it"

Bollox they will! They'll just be asking where the chocolate comes out!

Facebook unveils SECRET logo furtle – in a TWEET

What no Logowatch?

Why's that tagged Media, not Logowatch?

Also, where's the joss smoke?

Internet Explorer 12 to shed legacy cruft in bid to BEAT Chrome

Re: Corporate ActiveX anyone

Never mind IE8, I've recently been working on a large UK finance company's Intranet - that had to support IE6 because some offices were still running Windows XP/IE6!

It hadn't gotten any better since I last had to ('pixel perfect' rather than 'functional and usable') code for it...about 5 years ago.

In a mall at the weekend? WORSE STILL, are you LOST?

You are Here

Or they could just download (proper) Nokia's Here maps that has internal maps for things like shopping centres and railway stations.

The latter is down to a suprising low level, so even my local rail station is covered - that's 2 platforms and 1 booking office on the level 1 and the walkway of the bridge between platforms on level 2!

MOULDY DICK: France aims to snatch EXPLODING WHALE crown from U.S.

Re: facemask?

"Why wasn't he wearing a facemask, as he clearly expected it to squirt everywhere?"

That's what she said...

HP's pet lizard is feral peril says wildlife group

Missed one

But not in Australia, which has a long history of introduced species overrunning locals. Europeans humans, Rabbits, camels, foxes and the cane toad are all imported pests in Australia.

Nokia: Read these Maps, Samsung – we're HERE for the Gear

Re: You can take the Nokia out of Finland

Umm, you DO realise that the Nokia that owns HERE maps is the one that's still in Finland and NOT the one that was sold to Microsoft (the devices and services business) don't you...?

Mozilla's 'Tiles' ads debut in new Firefox nightlies

"But I'm still locked on FireFox 27. The last user-friendly version that lets me put my tabs underneath my shortcut bar, and to allow an add-on bar."

Or you could update to Firefox 31 and just install the "Classic Theme Restorer" add-on like everyone else... Fixes both your gripes in one.

Cheer up, Nokia fans. It can start making mobes again in 18 months

Re: Microsoft bought Nokia because ...

"I though Microsoft bought Nokia because they wanted the patents....and now they have them....."

Fail - real Nokia still owns the IP pool and HERE maps. Microsoft only bought the Lumia brand and devices business (along with 10yr licence on the IP / HERE bundled on Mokia phones for 4 yrs).

Don't put that duffel bag full of cash in the hotel room safe

YouTube my friends

Plenty of videos on YouTube about how to 'break' in to hotel room safes. The lock's just controlled by a sprung solinoid. Enter the correct code and the solinoid energises/pulls the in down allowing the handle to turn. After a timeout/when you close the door the solinoid de-energises and a spring pushes the pin back up to stop the handle turning.

Hold the handle in the open direction and give the top of the door a good thump and the precusive actions usually enough to drop the pin down against the spring enough to release the handle. See from 60sec in - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYB9ceiAiY

Nokia emits Windows Phone 8.1 'Cyan' upgrade for Lumia gear

HERE Maps != Microsoft

Please remember that Microsoft DON'T own HERE Maps - that's part of Nokia.

Microsoft only bought the Lumia brand and divices and services business, and a licence to the Nokia brand for devices.

There is still an independent Nokia business that owns HERE Maps (with a 4-year licencing deal with Microsoft to bundle on their phones for 4 years), the IP portfolio (10-year MS licence).

'Ribbed' for your pleasure: Jony Ive unveils NAKED IPHONE

"a technique of fusing glass pieces together in a way that makes the whole structure strong enough to withstand an impact."

A bold claim - from a company who's current phones seem to last about a week in most people's hands before becoming a work of shattered glass!

F1? No, it's Formula E as electric racing cars hit the track

Yep, really confused by the reference to LMP1-H (Le Mans Prototype class 1, Hybrid sub-class) which is currently being contested by Audi, Porsche and Toyota in the FIA/ACO World Endurance Championship.

Nissan, who are due to join the LMP1-H class next year were running a hybrid at this years Le Mans 24hr race that managed to do a whole lap on battery power (this is grown-up racing where a laps' 13.6km and at night-time it gets dark but the drivers just keep driving at 205mph - though was 250mph in the 80's, rather than requiring more lights than a million Christmas trees).

None of the above have any direct links to either Buemi or Red Bull that spring to mind though. Closest I can think of is that Mark Webber is now driving the Porsche LMP1-H and used to drive for the Infinity Red Bull F1 team.

Surprise! Google chairman blasts EU's privacy ruling

An unnamed source, presumably from within Google, told Reuters that the company will need to assemble an "army of removal experts" in the 28 nations across the EU to deal with the requests.

Or to spin it the other way - this judgement will lead to the creation of hundreads of new jobs, helping boost the economic recovery across the EU!

Why two-player games > online gaming: See your pal's shock as you bag a last-second victory

Online = Loser / Split-screen = Friends

Never really got in to online play myself - just too solitary (I don't class chatting on a headset as being social).

Give me a couple of friends, some bottles of alcohol and a some (except where it's funny to shoot your mate in the back) co-op Modern Warfare violence, or an evening at the pub followed by some drunken split-screen sport action* any day.

* Running in with a sliding tackel on a stationary keeper NEVER gets old if you've drunk enough.

Blighty goes retro with 12-sided pound coin

Why's there a man in drag on the front of the coin?

That's what I want to know.

Your 'funny' cat pics are weighing down the web, so here's a better JPEG encoder from Mozilla

Depends WHO'S Bandwidth You're Talking About...

"Except of course that for most of us bandwidth is no longer a problem. Bit late coming this one, like a decade."

For me at home, no bandwidth isn't really a problem.

For me at work bandwidth's a bloody expensive problem!