* Posts by RobE

82 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Feb 2009

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Barnes & Noble's Nook sales take a long walk off a very short pier

RobE

Ebook Price Fixing

Not sure what happened to the lawsuit regarding ebook price fixing but when supply is effectively infinite, why are the books still so expensive. The production costs are no where near as high for a digital format - its not as if they subsidise the cost of the real deal.

British spooks chum up with IT-related biz to battle cyber threats

RobE

UK never be a world leader in ecommerce

...because that relies employees turning up to do the work, which, any time it snows, doesn't happen. <Dreaming the impossible dream>

Corporates! Bring in all-purpose filler for IT skills gap, thunders Steelie Neelie

RobE

Here's an extract from the Evening Standard: http://www.standard.co.uk/business/markets/growth-capital-comparative-secret-thats-a-broadband-----bright-idea-7770764.html

“...The turning point came in 2006 when we signed Confused.com,” Phillips explains. Revenues hit £230,000 in the first year, and almost tripled to £680,000 a year later.

Broadbandchoices now has more than 50 partners, and the business, based on High Holborn, employs 50 staff. “London is a great place to be involved in tech, but recruitment is a challenge,” says Phillips.

“There’s a shortage of developers, and a lot of vacancies are being filled by people from overseas. It would be much better if these people were graduating from UK universities.” ..."

There are definitely jobs out there - as for talent... well I don't see that as a problem either I know plenty of tech graduates who are willing to learn. Perhaps the problem is more that companies don't factor in the added cost of training into their business so they are struggling (quite rightly) because they haven't made adequate provisions for such needs.

Google avoids tax with ‘Double Irish Dutch Sandwich’

RobE
Devil

"it [Google] observes all Australian taxation laws"

And then does everything it can to avoid them... Along with crApple

How spreadsheets (nearly) conquered and killed the financial industry

RobE
Thumb Up

If you think good design is expensive...

you should see the cost of bad design

Long-suffering Virgin Media victims see no end to vid PURGATORY

RobE
Flame

Orange are the same

Avoid Orange as well - awful network

RobE
Flame

Was going to look at virgin but wont bother

Was thinking Virgin were one of the better providers however after having heard they were awful from a relative and now having read this I won't even consider them - sky it is :)

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review

RobE
Happy

Back to the topic

The paper white is good if you like books - if you like browsing the internet for short periods of time get yourself a mini-iCrap or some other alternative which'll cost you twice as much. I think the paperwhite is great. Dont care much about the comments on epub, etc I have transferred PDFs, word docs and .txt files to my device - the rendering can be a little below average to be fair but it works and is more portable than my laptop

Firm-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's tax dodge profit shift? Totally legit

RobE
WTF?

So...

the rich can choose how rich they want to be whilst the poor get absolutely, well and truly *screwed* (by the rich).

If the poor were children and the rich were roman catholic vicars, the poor would all be crying 'rape' right about now! WTF is wrong with the world to allow this to continue.

Fans' loyalty questioned as iPhone popularity plummets

RobE
FAIL

Not a fan

Is it just me or does the iPhone5 already feel like old technology? The problem is they have (for a breif period) proven they can be innovative, however now, they are proving the opposite with their iPhone 5 - its the same as the 4S as far as most owners are concerned and they're locked in for another year or two with the same tech they had previous ( minus the maps of course ) ... no wonder ppl are beginning to lose interest.

MYSTERIOUS GREEN GLOW seen on iPhone 5s

RobE
Go

When will the fanbois realise...

Apple make crap products at hugely inflated prices - then trick you into thinking theyre good when theyre actually sh*t

Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review

RobE
FAIL

its rubbish

Too much hype - not enough

Samsung is far better - better screen, better memory expansion options, better wifi tethering and apple are still flogging the same UI, same phone - wheres the 3D screen? This should have been called iPhone4.2 not iPhone5. Apple sucks again

Amazon pitches cheap new Kindles for Blighty

RobE
FAIL

Returning my kindle now

Having recently lost my kindle, I have ordered a new one - Amazon don't give any indication of thier product line-up/road map in the UK and its shit. Needless to say I will be instantly returning my kindle and rebuying one of the newer ones at £20 less, unless they send the new one in the first place. morons.

Apple patents shopping lists

RobE
Stop

The problem with all these patents..........

The problem with a lot of these Apple "patents" is that they *are* for obvious uses but the technology is so new the general population isn't given a moment's breath to think about innovative ways to use the technology to the benefit of others. I'm not saying barcode scanning on a mobile is new, just that it is new enough no one has really had much of a chance to play with it to date.

No doubt the data collection that goes on behind the scenes will be submerged in swathes of legal bullshit you have to agree to before being allowed to use the app - which will probably come installed by default - remember what happened to IE?

Atos IT workers threaten strike during Olympics over 'living wage'

RobE
Flame

Sense of entitlement

These people want a medal for being born. Let's wait till the games is over without problems *before* they get any bonuses.

Kodak's using bankruptcy to rob us of our rights – Apple

RobE
Coat

Isnt this what contract law is for?

If there was no contract laid out prior to this patent being approved, neither Kodak nor Apple has any obligation to the other as far as I can tell... this is at best a form of "a gentleman's agreement" and Apple were on the losing end of it (for once). Go figure.

UK mobile broadband carriers compared

RobE
WTF?

Orange is crap

Having complained about Orange many times over the years I will do the same again. Yes you get signal almost anywhere you go but its like having 56k dialup 75% of the time. Not my idea of mobile "broadband". I rang to complain is wasn't even getting 1% of the service I was paying for after attempting to download information. I was basically told to go screw myself. Hate orange and will leave the moment the contract is up as their customer service is also appalling.

One in two punters don't mind cookie-spewing stalking ads

RobE
Meh

Didnt even realise I was being tracked

I never realised how much I was being tracked until I installed AVG free 2012 which has a built in "do not track" add on for my web browser. I reckon about 33% of websites issue these tracking cookies and I wasn't even aware... Given the choice, I'd choose not to let them track me as its non of their business what I get up to online.

HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook

RobE
Thumb Up

Re: I don't get it

Samsung Series 5 ( and possibly the 7 and 9) are Hybrids .. give them a look. You get about 500GB hdisk space for a lower price + a 16GB OS drive to get the boosted performance :)

RobE
FAIL

The Dawn French of ultrabooks

The only reason the benchmark results are so good are because the laptop uses a solid state drive (SSD). If it weren't for that fact, it'd be on the shelves at around £400 vs £1100!

I do wonder if HP Sent in the article with a free laptop to the author given how glorified it seems to make this laptop out to be (which I did not get from having seen it in the shops). This isn't even an ultrabook at its size/weight and tiny hard disk.

Ten... Ultrabooks

RobE
Happy

bad article and I have the Samsung S5...

I agree, an all round poor article that doesn't explain much of the technical specs.

I bought the Samsung Series 5 after browsing every laptop in the shops. A lot of netbooks have only got the atom processors so are worthless. The S5 is about the only one with a full blown i5 and also has a 16GB SSD + 500GB of diskspace... so its great all round. I did question the £800 price tag but currently the S5 is on offer with £130 cashback bringing it in at cheaper & better than the ACER, which el-reg rated as #1. That aside, Acer tends to use low quality components, as have Dell in my past experience. I would have gone for a sony if they had anything competitively priced and at the same size but the closest thing was £1200.

So why did I buy the S5 which is close to £1k? because if you've ever carried round a 3KG laptop for a living you soon get tired of it and thin/light laptops very quickly become attractive. The weight of the S5 is impressive and I did look at a lot of the ones above mentioned. Their specs were no where near worth investing in for anything like £300+ since come the end of this year they won't be worth even half of that.

The speed of the S5 is phenominal compared to my old Sony laptop. Only time will tell if it is durable but the metal casing seems strong enough and well built. I decided to give it a go because I have been incredibly impressed with the Samsung Galaxy S2. Happy I chose it even for the price!

Colour Kindle incoming says mole

RobE
Go

The news we've been waiting for!

Can.Not.Wait!

RobE

The news we've been waiting for!

Can.Not.Wait!

At last! A use for Blighty's phone-boxes: Free Wi-Fi hotspots

RobE
Go

Why stop at phone boxes?

Could also roll this idea out to streetlamps/post boxes as well with the right kind of ingenuity.

Nokia on 'brink of failure', warns analyst

RobE

Nokia never wanted to break into that market?

I remember reading some months back now an article stating "nokia/windows wanted to be 3rd choice, as 1st and 2nd were [more or less] already taken". Could this be 'hype' to drive down share price?

Tech! Tech! Teeeeech! Women want gadgets for Valentine's

RobE
Paris Hilton

Not Pink

I remember reading not too long ago that if something is pink it is instantly more attractive to females. I'd still stick to tried and tested colours or as the previous commentor rightly states... anything expensive and shiny!

Price-slashing fails to ignite PlayBook sales

RobE

Barriers to Entry

The RIM Name has been tarnished. The RIM product line is aimed at corporations (not consumers that play). the strategy on this one is all wrong. I am 99% certain this product will be a complete flop after this.

Credit card companies plan to sell your purchase data to advertisers

RobE
Flame

Something in return!?

This is a huge "data slurp" that credit card companies expect to get for free?! they should really think this through carefully.

Cabinet Office on £2m digital talent hunt

RobE
Thumb Up

Nice

This is a very fresh approach to employment in the public services sector - especially within IT. I look forward to supreme results as a result of "world class talent". Afterall the only other place hiring these people is the finance institution, which in terms of IT is heavily underfunded from what I gather, since banks usually have a small team of IT professionals expected to do the work of a much larger team.

Nokia punts cheapo NFC dev kit

RobE
Happy

How about using these as office doors openers so you can track actual time in and out of the office. Im sure some big co's would love this as their time reporting wouldnt be as screwed up

Don't bother with that degree, say IT pros

RobE
FAIL

not a chance

Having been in a position to say "been there, tried that and failed miserably", I can inform that without a degree you stand a snowballs chance in hell of getting an IT job without a degree. No employer will take one look at IT coders/admins without a degree because the vast majority of people in industry do have degrees and the cost saving is negligible

Videogames caused riots says plod

RobE
Devil

Utter b****cks

Riots are not the result of GTA. People have rioted ever since they were capable of it. To blame a computer game is utterly moronic. From what was shown on the news this morning - half the rioters don't have games consoles... and perhaps thats the problem?

HP Envy 17 3D Core i7 laptop

RobE
WTF?

so who is, also, not jealous

Looks like a brick - no style or penache. 3D is no excuse not to bother making it look slick. Idea is good, execution is atrocious.. those specs look like something a high school geek would have been bullied for... and who wants to get bullied?

Sony insurer says it's not liable for costs of data breach

RobE
Flame

Agree with "its not worth the paper its written on"

I dont think companies should be allowed access to so much data if they can't realistically be held accountable for its security, otherwise we may as well all just go onto the national database so it isnt a big deal...

"your data was stolen?!"

"Yes, but its ok, they didn't get anything that isn't already publicly available on the national database"

DARPA project seeks immortality, suspended animation

RobE
Big Brother

How about an even better device

A person/soldier is drowning or in some other traumatic state and unconcious. Invent a device that is embedded in the Central Nervous System that can put the persons limbs into auto pilot and swim to safety.... or at least above water so they don't drown/freeze to death. It could even be remote controlled by some one else, or use brain interfaces to tell the mind what activities to perform.<Evil Genius>

CERN 'gags' physicists in cosmic ray climate experiment

RobE
Boffin

Could be good not to draw conclusions

Can we really afford to be wrong on this? the risks of assuming one factor is outweighs other factors at this stage are too high in my opinion. better safe than sorry

Orange puts budget smartphones on the map

RobE

Good move

Good for Orange. Someone has to help bring up the back end! Who knows... there could be a load of cash hidden in that end of the market too.

Microsoft gets five bucks for every HTC Android phone

RobE
Meh

Didn't MS steal Java code?

I remember some time ago (1 year perhaps?) MS were accused of copying large chunks of Java source code for their C# system... or did I just dream that?

McKinnon's mum applauds Obama extradition stance

RobE
Flame

Many years on

From what I recall, Ferrari sold an F1 car at auction and wouldnt let the buyer officially take the car from them until 1 year later because their "technology" is effectively secure for 1 year, after which it is considered old? Wouldnt this be the case with NASA technology as well? If so... the amount of time for which he has been detained now and in court is ridiculous

Dell intros world's thinnest 15in laptop PC

RobE
FAIL

What?!

Its not "thin" in any way. If Dell considers this thin, its customers should consider it FLIMSY, no doubt a number of corners have been cut to produce something as mediocre as this.

MS announces Windows Phone 7.1

RobE
Stop

How about Windows....

Why dont they market this as something truely new and call it Windows 9 or 10, rather than windows 7 which will seem old by the time november swings by. Stop and think about this M$.

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

RobE

CrApple

You're a CrApple, I'm a PC. I have anti virus protection, firewalls, a browser that's compatible with Adobe Flash... What do you have fanboi? A stupid hair cut, a virus (probably more likely to be an STD) and an internet browser called Safari.... HELLO?!

Microsoft, Nokia, HTC fight Apple's 'App store' trademark

RobE
Coat

Java *App*let anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_applet

Apps Applets/Applications have been around since the 90s at the very least. Apple just did what no one else was bright enough to do and now they're winning, without anyone else getting a real look-in, everyone is bitching. If I were in Apples position I'd tell MS, Amazon, etc to stop being such a bunch of Whiney babies and get with the times. Amazon is less on my list of DINOSAURS when compared to the likes of Microsoft. But each of these companies lately has displayed a real lack of agility in the market. Something Apple has done with admirable success. Good on them... IF MS and the like can't be bothered to think of their own ideas they shouldn't be in the market... Can't wait to see what the Cloud situation brings, as apple already bought the webside iCloud.com

Sheep as smart as humans: Official

RobE
Go

Intelligent Beings

It is my opinion that the more research we carry out the more we will begin to realise that any animal capable of higher thought can be educated to be "intelligent". Reprogramming the brain to respond a certain way is purely a matter of using the correct training method.

Personally I suspect where we are leading in a few more decades/centuries is for humans to be communicating with some animals directly.

Orange Cash goes live, O2 Money goes to Ireland

RobE
Joke

ROFLMAO

.... this will not succeed in the UK - not during a recession - credit/debit cards already solve this problem without the need to pay to top up.

America spared Top Gear Mexican quips

RobE
Thumb Up

While they are watching...

Everyone else has seen it and is laughing behind their backs.... Makes me think the same must be going on with other nationalities TV shows when we receive them.

Glasses-free 3D TV sales stumble

RobE
Stop

Forget it

The improvement vs. price ratio is just no-where near acceptable to the consumer market. 3D TV manufacturers really need a rethink on this one.

I believe the market needs more innovation than it has seen previously: CRT->flatscreen, flatscreen ->digital, digital->HD, HD->3D ... one small step too many, the market wants significantly more now. HD (blu-ray) still hasn't taken off in my eyes, much as minidiscs didn't until about the time just before the iPod came about. After that Minidisc was doomed.

Perhaps timing for this product is just wrong.... 3D TV would do better if, for instance, it were released when the new internet TV on demand was released and 3D content online would be significantly more abundant - perhaps then 3D TV would stand a chance. At present its a total no hoper though for the mass market - there's just no demand because there is not enough appealing content.

Orange blames switch for data problems

RobE
Thumb Up

Orange are crap

just goes to show what an utter waste of time orange customer services are. I for one am switching my contract as soon as the possibility arises.

Texter who fell in fountain threatens to sue

RobE
Thumb Up

This would be a Good Advert

This would be an excellent advert for motorists not to use their mobile phone whilst driving.

Microsoft loses Windows consumer boss to Juniper Networks

RobE
Megaphone

Innovation

I thought the Kinect was quite innovative? Some of the latest apps of it are even inspiring. For instance there is a roomba robot that you can command with gestures now (for instance if it missed cleaning a spot or did it badly).

MS has not primarily been an innovative company though and where it has tried to innovate it hasn't always been successful. e.g. XAML, the computer embedded in a table top, shadow touch sensoring, etc. They always have things going on but they are perhaps not always the most useful at first sight.

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