Posts by Rob Kendrick

Eurocops take down 'secure' criminal chat system known as Matrix

The clarification about this not being the Matrix protocol really deserves to be at the top of the article, not a footnote.

Banks don’t give a 2FA

The Lloyds system is better

I have the 2FA device I have to use with HSBC/FirstDirect: it's a huge keyring thing that I never have near me when I use it.

The Lloyds system is far superior: doing anything that might cost you money makes a robot ring you on your mobile, which you're much more likely to have on you. You then type the number on-screen into your mobile, and you're done.

A much better balance of convenience vs. security.

SHA3-256 is quantum-proof, should last billions of years

s/cipher/hash/

While you can build a stream cipher out of a hash pretty easily, SHA is most certainly not a cipher, it is a cryptographic hash function. "Hash" is what the H stands for.

Google's Page, LG boss's SECRET confab sparks Nexus 5 rumour

"Unlike the Nexus 4 there are no buttons on the front of the device, and the screen appears to be bigger at 5.5in or so wide."

*takes out Nexus 4 from pocket, and notes no buttons on front of device*

Revealed: The Brit-built GRAVITY-powered light that costs $5

Clocks that are powered by weights are centuries old. And this light is not powered by gravity. It's powered by the human who lifts the weight onto its hook.

Google puts Nexus 4 back on sale, sells out pronto

Shipping

My order confirmation says "Delivered in 3-5 business days". Either Google's shipping estimates are a fine source of entropy, or they had multiple tranches with different shipping windows.

RISC OS comes to Raspberry Pi

MODE 7 is teletext mode, and I believe it works as it is a software emulation (and always has been in RISC OS; the BBC Micro had a hardware teletext chip.)

As for all your old games, they probably won't work: the ARM11 in the Raspberry Pi lacks the old 26 bit code addressing mode used by original Acorn systems and so only software patched or recompiled etc will function.

(Stuff in pure BBC Basic with no assembler will probably still work.)

Codethink jumps into the ARM server fray with Baserock Slab

Re: Cross-compiling?

Yes. That doesn't stop it being wide-spread, though. Look at GTK for a good example. Plus, native compilation means you can run the package's test suite too.

If you're building software for ARM and you want to do it natively (lots of software can't be cross-built without significant misery), one of these things is going to be a hell of a lot quicker than using QEMU on an x86 box, not to mention smaller, less cabling, etc, and most likely cheaper, too.

It's ARM, so PXE doesn't make sense. But from the docs on on the Baserock website suggests you can "netboot" them from the management node: "The system management node manages the compute nodes, e.g. power up/down, reset, overall system monitoring and provisioning of images to the compute nodes"

El Reg in email address blunder

BitTorrent?

I wonder how long this data will take to appear on BitTorrent. You only need one person out of the 3,512 people to be a shit. And to be honest, that's quite likely :)

Which actor should play Steve in upcoming biopic?

Tim Robbins, as he's already played a Steve Jobs/Bill Gates chimea: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/

Arcam Solo rDac wireless digital-to-analogue converter

Just like all USB audio, then

The point is that *all* USB audio is done asynchronously, so saying this is a feature is just balls.

USB

"the rDac uses audio specialist Data Conversion Systems' (dCS) asynchronous USB system"

Err, all USB audio is asynchronous. It has to be, otherwise it doesn't work. I suspect it's actually just a Texas Instruments USB<->I2S chip, and an upsampler chip by dCS.

Nvidia forges ARM chip for PCs and servers

x64?

x86? What's that? Other than something Microsoft came up with to not upset Intel when talking about AMD64?

Cambridge chap's todger topiary gets the chop

Forever on Google Maps?

http://bit.ly/cockbush

Waterfall Niagara speakers

25 grand, and no amplifcation? Pah.

You want a pair of Meridian DSP8000 loud speakers. Commonly considered to be the best on earth, they're around 30k per pair, but that includes DACs and amplification (they take digital in). All the magic's done in the digital domain for no loss. And they're made from cabinets that don't look like they'll vibrate, like glass.

Spotify embraces Symbian

Expensive...

I'd subscribe to Spotify if it didn't cost as much as a TV licence. Tenner a month? Bugger off.

World's fastest production car to gain electric twin

Perfectly possible

It's perfectly possible to recharge of a 13A 110V socket in 10 minutes. It just means the car can only have the equivalent of ten laptop batteries. So, this car may be able to go at 300mph, but only for three feet.