Posts by Ian Ferguson

WarMouse pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse

Welcome to the 90s, OOo

Will they discover wireless next? Ooh and then invent an ergonomic mouse that curves with your hand...

Watchdog clears NotW over renewed phone hack allegations

This is the PCC that is...

...owned and operated by the newspaper industry

...staffed by newspaper representatives

...not independent in ANY way

Elgato DTT Deluxe

Great.....

...if you can get hold of one. I've been trying since it went on sale, but it's constantly out of stock.

I don't suppose you want to get rid of your review unit?

Mossad hacked Syrian laptop to steal nuke plant secrets

And this from

a country that still denies that it has nuclear capability, when it blatantly does.

Brown declines to resign

What a wishy-washy reply

I signed it and got that blathering drivel by email. I would have preferred it if he's just replied "No." It would have been much more honest and informative.

Peugeot's bulbous BB1 e-car bound for Blighty

BLEEEEUUUUUUURGGGGHHH

Oh, I'm so sorry, I've... UUUUUURRRRRKKKGKGKGGHH... and again... so sorry... I've BLUUUK UK UK I keep being sick KUUURKKK sorry, sick on your comment board...

Please don't show that again.

Volcanic African 'unzipping' could see continent divided

Playmobil reconstruction please

Specifically of the "mega-dyke intrusion".

Schoolboy sniggers all round :)

Orange saves callers pennies with iPhone tariffs

Competition Commission, nah

Personally I don't think there's any point in whining to the Competition Commission - there's plenty of alternative handsets and contracts out there.

Nobody could reasonably complain that the iPhone is their only choice for a specific task. Unlike, say, Windows price fixing and embedded browser; Windows is still the only choice for business use, so people can quite reasonably complain that they are being held over a barrel.

I'm not saying that the iPhone isn't overpriced, though.

Electronic ink: The whole story in black and white

"Reflected light in black"

I do love the 'reflected black light' in that diagram - excellent SCIENCE as always from Wikipedia :)

I will be happy to buy an ebook as soon as I can get one a) DRM free (or at least with the option of TXT/PDF), b) stylish (ie. NOT Kindle) and c) cheap.

My guess is Apple will bring one out soon, and dominate the marketplace by selling ebooks through iTunes. They have the infrastructure, which is 99% of the problem, and why they won the MP3 wars; they'd be foolish not to at least try.

NASA to irradiate monkeys for science

Regular irradiation?

Why not just study some of our British tanning booth regulars? A cursory scientific scan will reveal worrying lack of intelligence, reduced number of brain cells, inability to partake in logic tests, etc...

World Wii sales slump by 43%

Lack of decent games

I haven't turned on my Wii for six months. All the games on the market are seriously shit movie tie ins, or require the purchase of another expensive add-on. (Wii Fit? Wii Motion Plus? What the f**k?)

Come on Nintendo, release another Zelda. Twilight Princess has been one of the only truly decent Wii games.

TwitterPeek - the handset that spews Web2.0rhea...

Missing a key feature!

This is useless without an embedded speaker and text-to-speech, so it shouts out every tweet as it receives it.

Top drug boffin renews criticism of cannabis policy

No more dangerous than...

I ride a motorbike recreationally. My friends take cannabis recreationally.

Guess who has cost the NHS more through their hobby :)

Brit space agency to probe 'crackpot' antigravity device

Gyroscopes

Sounds a bit like the gyroscope-based reactionless drives popular in the Eighties; basically, a misunderstanding of physics.

Firefox 3.5.4 fixes critical memory flaws

How do they let us know?

"At least Mozilla let you know when updates are available"

Firefox never seems to let me know when an update is available, the Reg is normally where I hear, and have to manually tell Firefox to check for updates :(

I wish it would integrate with Windows Update and Apple Update, but both scenarios are probably pipedreams.

Transparent OLEDs demoed

Useful

These will be perfect for shop windows - where transparency is key, but valuable advertising space also retained. Cost is not important, but visibility in mixed light is; so OLED technology will be perfect.

The best equivalent I've seen so far is laser projection onto a specially coated portion of the window; which has to remain in relative shadow during the day. Displays built into the window will be much more promising, although costly when the window is broken...

PC Refresh Equals PC Disposal

Enviro-PC

We probably could regain money by selling old equipment, but frankly it would take up more in our IT admin's waged time than we would regain.

We send ours to enviro-PC (at cost to us, but not much) who securely dispose of data and reuse machines where possible - in schools and third world countries, as far as I know. Duff equipment is disposed of responsibly. I don't really care what happens to it all, or if they make a profit on it, as long as it doesn't a) end up all in the ground or b) end up contaminating poor scrapheap workers in China or India.

I think it's a shame so many people think hard drives should have their platters destroyed - any disposal company worth it's salt will know how to securely destroy data without physically destroying the disk. The only reason people need to see the physical effect is for evidence.

(recycling icon plz :)

Palm Pixi out next month

Rebate

Please can somebody explain the point of rebates? I'm not surprised they don't appear in the UK much, as they appear to just be a pricing con.

ICANN goes to Korea so web addresses can go global

Woohoo!

I'm going to register microsöft.com asap.

Globo-renewables all electric future touted again

@Lewis Page

Dude, you're starting to sound seriously bitter. Is it really necessary to endlessly pick apart every suggestion anybody in the world makes towards a more efficient future?

I know climate change is questionable, but even you must realise there are benefits to using less power and polluting less. And the only way we'll get there is through debate, not argument.

Reg readers take mobile makers to task

I would like

A pony with my phone contract

Agincourt actually an even scrap, historians claim

Whatever

Either way, an awful lot of people died in horrific circumstances. But it's OK, because it's clean entertaining History, just like those meaningless 'so-and-so-many Iraqi civilians' figures.

Digital River makes total hash of Windows 7 upgrade offer

Torrent?

Surely these people could get legitimately download a copy of Windows 7 by bittorrent? After all, they've got a license to the software.

Windows 7 - the Reg reader verdict

OK

Installed it on a couple of work machines yesterday, but just for testing.

Yes, it's a light year ahead of Vista and even XP. But it smells of catch-up, not innovation. There's not a single element that's made me go 'Wow' or 'OOH' - unlike all the OSX and Ubuntu upgrades that I can remember.

So good. But not good enough.

One major problem I have - what the fuck is with Virtual XP? It's a bolted-on crock of shit. Surely, SURELY Win7 is not so different to XP that it needs to slowly boot up a whole virtual machine to run one little legacy application, and on top of that poke in the eye, expect us to configure and support that virtual machine?

Compare it to Rosetta for MacOS X, which opens in the blink of an eye and seamlessly runs software designed for a whole different bloody physical architecture! I use Rosetta every day but had forgotten that it even EXISTED.

Since Virtual XP was announced, I was thinking of upgrading our office machines within the next couple of years to Windows 7, as there's several legacy applications which almost certainly won't be upgraded. But sorry, the actual experience of Virtual XP is total FAIL.

Kanye West death prank used to sling scareware

'James Dean-style'?

The difference is, people missed James Dean.

Leaf battery rental scheme unveiled

That actually makes a lot of sense.

One of my concerns with buying an electric car would be that I'd be buying a very expensive battery that will date very quickly - within a couple of years, it would be replaced by lighter, cheaper, more capable batteries. If I was renting batteries, I would expect to keep up with the technology.

Dell refunds PC user for rejecting Windows

As a matter of interest...

...was the computer advertised as coming with Windows? If so, I don't see why he's entitled to a refund, as he got what he ordered.

/devilsadvocate

UK cops to be kitted out with smartphones

Excellent!

If I'm ever arrested, I'll be sure to try and lift one of these from the officer. Police records and access galore!

"@plodstation plz relese @peregr1n he didn't do nuffin actually arest woz a mistake"

Apple unbans banned 3G TV app

AT&T only?

I'm on the verge of buying this app, along with an EyeTV device for my Mac. It would be great if it would allow TV over 3G. Is it just AT&T which ban this, or do O2 as well?

Seems silly Apple enforcing a rule meant for one country, while harming business in other countries. (Silly, but not surprising)

Robert Crumb begets Book of Genesis

Reminds me of when Life of Brian came out

"I haven't seen the book but..."

rather like

"I haven't seen the film but..."

or even

"I'm acting on a completely uninformed knee-jerk reaction but..."

Wolfram Alpha API lands with price tag attached

Has anyone found a use for it yet?

I'm not aware of any successful application for the thing yet, but I may be wrong.

BOFH: Baitin' switch

Best one in a long time

If it gives me evil ideas for work, it's a good BOFH :)

Googleplex menaced by giant cream cake

Calling all local students!

This is now your target trophy!

LaCie Starck

Looks like a fig roll

Looks like a fig roll.

Damn, now I'm hungry.

Vodafone proffers parental pointers

I like the quiz

"How will most people connect to the internet in 2020?"

What are you, fortune tellers? Considering the pace of technology, it won't surprise me if the answer is not mobile phones or computers, but something we haven't considered, like wrist devices, retinal implants or personal dolphin slave.

Playmobil figures feared lost in Great Fire of Guildford

Do not worry

If the children (and their teacher) are as historically knowledgable as they suggest, they will know that the death toll from the fire was very small.

(although rumours spread faster than the fire, that foreigners were deliberately starting fires; leading to street violence and lynchings of anyone a bit forrin looking, particularly the Dutch immigrants. Did the children go on to re-enact any of this?)

Still hoping we can have a playmobil character icon instead of one of the lesser-used icons (Bill Gates angel?)

Bloggy thing signals iPhone FM radio

Re. Michael C

"Apple needs to integrate an API..."

Apple won't do anything unless it provides them with a revenue stream. Internet streaming radio provides nothing to them. The only way we'll end up with streaming music is if they build it into iTunes (which, actually, won't surprise me).

Likewise, the FM capability will only be released once they have this revenue stream going - the ability to purchase songs you've listened to.

It's a shame, as the iPhone / iPod are capable of a hell of a lot more than Apple allow them to; but to be fair, they're catering to the mass market, not hackers and gadget freaks, so they'll never let them be truly innovative.

The Twitter storm that saved freedom of speech

Hmm

Yes, the injunction would have been quashed without Twitter/blogs/Stephen Fry/whatever. But nobody would have heard about it, other than Private Eye readers.

And the point is the bad publicity storm that has been stirred up, to the cost of Trafigura and Carter-Ruck; this will have two effects;

1. Carter-Ruck and other solicitors will think twice before applying for injunctions, about the potential publicity 'Streisand Effect'

2. Trafigura and other business and private clients will think twice before employing Carter-Fuck. And that can ONLY be a good thing. :)

Subaru set to show stylish hybrid

'Concept'

Why is it that all concept hybrid and concept electric vehicles look like a delightful cross between Jessica Alba and Sheer Awesomeness, and yet actual hybrids and real electric cars that you can actually buy look like the mutated offspring of a Japanese dwarf and a tupperware box?

Microsoft ropes in Family Guy to pimp Windows 7

Ad free?

Please explain how it can be "commercial-free" and with "no ads or promos" when the whole thing is one big advert. It's like saying there's no advertising on QVC.

Michael Dell: Netbooks go sour after 36 hours

Netbooks are fine!

I'm wtriting on onwe now and I csan tell you tjhat the keyuboard is wopderful!

Booooo

This attitude is a real shame, as Dell (until recently) made the best netbook of them all - the Dell Mini 9. They're like gold dust on the second hand market now.

I was fortunate enough to get a 3G-enabled one and absolutely love it - 6 months more than Michael Dell thinks I should - and my colleagues are equally attached to theirs.

Moon orbiter detects pole-plunge hotspots in dark bottom

The truth is obvious

There was no plume, because LCROSS crashed into an underground lunar complex built by the Nazis who escaped there in 1945. The 'hot spot' is merely the hole in the roof; or possibly the launch of interplanetary V2 rockets aimed at London.

Google maximizes minimalist homepage madness

Not minimalist enough for my liking

Why does it need that hefty great logo and (tm) sign? It says 'google.com' in the URL, no more branding necessary.

And why bother with the search box, without anything else to distract the user, they'll know where they are typing.

All it needs is the text you are writing. And a blinking cursor.

Wait... or... no text is necessary if you have a microphone plugged in. Just a blinking cursor. And by cursor, I mean a round, red, glowing light, which pulsates in recognition when you talk to it.

In fact, who needs a monitor? The red glowing light will do.

Gay man offered lesbian neighbours slug pellet curry

Hmm

Not quite sure what the purpose of stating their sexual preferences is in this story, especially as it has nothing to do with the crimes committed. Is it newsworthy because they are gay?

Blogger claims Twitter-served court order a success

Meheheh

Seeing what an easily-ridiculed tosser Blaney is, I do hope the impersonater is just toying with him and will continue to take the piss. If not, I'm sure there'll be plenty of other willing mickey-takers.

Did I mention that Blaney is a right-wing nutcase tosser?

Your phone is winding me up

Er

I doubt the idea is to crank while it's to your ear - you do realise you can crank it up THEN make a call, right?

Good idea though.

Wales adopts mobile average speed cameras

This is exactly why

I, my motorbike and my tourist wallet stay out of North Wales, despite the fantastic roads, stunning scenery and friendly locals.

Google strips Pirate Bay homepage from search results

DMCA takedown?

So a DMCA takedown can be enforced to remove a link from a site that links to a site that links to a file which does not contain any copyrighted information itself?

I think the recording industry should just order the whole internet be shut down, it's the only way.

Game censorship crusader sues Facebook for $120m

Fax?

Is he stuck in the 80s? I'm surprised Facebook even have a fax number.