Posts by alphaxion

More reports that Apple plans iPhone 5 September surprise

Re: Branding

I was wondering whether a 7" fondle device would be less a shrunk ipad and more an engorged ipod touch.

The ipod touch certainly has fallen between the cracks of the ipad and the iphone.

Diablo III

Re: I tried the beta

I'd suggest logging into your account on battle.net and try downloading the client installer - there was an issue with earlier installers where it didn't download a few files and generates that error for you.

Benchmarks are $%#&@!!

@AC 09:52

And that's what used to constitute a real "hardcore PC gamer" back in the heady days of LAN parties. Buy the components that existed at the sweet spots for price/performance and clock the nuts off of it. Then find all the tweaks for the drivers and the game settings to get the best without spending a fortune.

Then along came the alienbreed generation of "hardcore gamer" who thought gaming PC's needed to cost in their thousands every year.

What should a sci-fi spaceship REALLY look like?

The only things I didn't like about SGU was the constant "we're not supposed to be here", almost as if it was a constant Clerks reference. Then there was bringing the damn Alucian Alliance into it - the series was meant to be a complete break from the rest of the SGU story lines.

Such a shame it wasn't given the time it needed. :(

Reg reader seeks living room Myth advice - can you help?

Ive only ever had nightmares of broken mythbuntu installs and never detecting my tv tuners.. so I switched to using TVheadend with the xbmc-pvr build as a front end. all my front ends are old laptops with the screen removed and stashed away out of sight.

my remote control is either my galaxy s2 or an ipad (the android app is awesome).

the only things I can grumble about is the poor quality epg in xbmc and the lack of timeshifting in tvheadend, smoothed over by the tvcatchup add-on that lets me stream a live tv channel over the net should all my tuners be in use :D

Stallman: Jobs exerted 'malign influence' on computing

well, if you're running windows as your OS then its as simple as installing itunes agent and configuring the sync. Works fine for my galaxy s2 and itunes and basically lets you sync a playlist (smart or dumb one) to the drive letter you configured earlier. Just need your device to support mass storage mode.

The only reason I havent cut ties with itunes yet is because of the large numbers of podcast feeds I have. Will eventually migrate them off tho, then I'll have to find a non-itunes based manager and sync app.

Boffins invent miracle pill that counteracts effects of booze

A bit late arent they? revenge of the nerds had this tech in the 80's! ;)

Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server

"Wayward Porcelin Comms Unit Gives Office The Bums Rush"?

Or just... "NFN"? ;)

Apple plans to prune iPhone 3GS price

title

As someone who owns a 2009 macbook and an original 3G and so isn't just someone rabidly being anti-Apple, I thought it would be legitimate to at least make sure people were thinking about its support since the 3G stopped getting updates while it was still being sold due to Apple deciding it no longer had the grunt to run the latest version of iOS, what would stop them from doing it to the 3GS some point in the future? They stopped even providing security updates.

And of course, one of the reasons I stayed away from Android until recently was the lack of updates directly from the network operator. After experiencing the Galaxy S2 and the little maddening things about it, I'll likely be returning to the iphone fold at some point :P

title

Does this mean it'll get updates and be supported again?

Boffins build JELL-O memory for your brain

title

Paging Dr Cyborg.. time to prove your resolve beyond those pithy rfid chips in your arm. Get some of these in yer noggin!

Doom guy: tablets, phones to be gaming platforms of the future

They already are

They already are, just look at the impressive sales figures of the DS line of consoles - also look at who is doing the buying of DS's, I've seen 70 year olds buying games for themselves on that format.

I wonder if we'll see a renaissance of old genres on the handhelds - the likes of Monkey Island and 4X games.

My one complaint is that the selection of decent games on the likes of the iphone is very limited (though getting better all the time, Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is a great port from the console to the iphone) and the resultant overwealming number of games are shitty clones of the same tired games - how many breakouts, centipede and bejeweled can a market support?!

Ubuntu seeks Android-packin' Windows deserters

title

Fully agree.

Traditionally a Windows sysadmin but with plenty of experience with OSX, RISCOS, AmigaOS etc, while being unemployed I decided to do more than my previous superficial flirtations with Linux and try to replace my home server 2003 based active directory/exchange setup with ubuntu server powering openldap/zimbra.

During this scenario it was brought home to me just how much effort MS have put into their server OS when it comes to easily administrating things and setting services up - that's not to say it doesn't have its issues.

In comparison to the relative ease of getting Windows services up and running, it was sheer frustration with linux while trying to figure out why things refused to work, searching google and the ubuntu support documentation for the arcane commands I needed, the incredibly poor interfaces and --help text, discovering webmin was a godsend!

If I were a normal user, it would have been ditched as a bad idea! However, the masochistic side of me (you need it to work in IT) persisted and eventually won out and can say it was worth the effort and challenging my knowledge, but that's something you'll *never* get a user to do.

There's a reason why "it just works" is one of the most powerful selling points around.

April Fools Day's Finest

title

The best I've seen has to be Urlesque.com.. by a long way :D

No one needs Blu-ray, says Microsoft exec

optical disc? heh

Of course, in the next 5 years we might not even need to download any data what-so-ever if the likes of OnLive and GaiKai really take off and we simply stream the video and controller data, rendering large storage formats entirely pointless for the purpose of gaming.

I'm one of those who really didn't see the point on shelling out for yet another storage format when all I'm interested in is the digital file. Besides, how long before USB flash drives become bigger and more economical than blu-ray?

Go into your store of choice, plug in a pen drive to a machine and transfer the movies and game ISO's, pay your money then plug that into the USB port on your console/PC... Would more than sort out the issue of a need for physical storage without the hideous limitation of a dedicated optical drive. Hell, it's also greener because you're no longer punting out loads of one-time writable discs and their packaging!

Back in the middle of the HD DVD and Blu-Ray format war, I said *both* formats were dead ends and went for HDD's, pen drives and TCP/IP.

Windows Phone 7 up for grabs from 'excited' 3

no room for...

"Gosh, darned pleased"?

OFT waves through Sky's Virgin TV slurp

ti-tle! ti-tle! I want to ride my ti-i-tle!

Or, alternatively, the slow progression of independent internet content producers (such as myself) will eventually catch up and leech people away from traditional TV.

Hell, the viewing figures already show the "people don't want amateur hour" quip by Steve Jobs to be total bullock excrement.

The more big TV pumps out trite content, the more viewers slip through the empero^CCCCc Murdoch's fingers ;)

ARM flexes muscles with fivefold performance boost

title

You know, I'd love to do some kinda docu about ARM, Arcorn and Psion to show how close the UK came to being a massive force in the tech industry.

It's such a shame that poor management has always brought down all potential UK tech giants save for ARM. Imagine where we'd be if Psion had capitalised on their position in the PDA market and Acorn had kept the RISCPC afloat.

If you fancy getting in touch, drop me an email by using my username twice, sandwiching an @ inbetween and sticking a .com on the end ;)

Think tank rages at NHS' £700 bill for fertility clinic porn

titles(s)?

I also notice they don't consider the possibility that the donor may be gay, in which case, is it still degrading women? Is this a "tree falling in the woods" thing?

The best description of porn I've ever heard was "It's the stripping away of the porn stars own sexuality for the enjoyment of the viewer".

Also, the material is damaging to men? Citation please!! If anything, there's more evidence pointing to porn having therapeutic benefits for its users such as reduced incidence of violent sex crimes.

Puritans in modern day clothing, you'd have thought we'd have gotten over this hate of other people enjoying themselves. I bet they're anti-alcohol too!

Holiday snaps? Er, no - criminal porn

something I don't get

We see "ignorance of the law is no excuse" often trotted out to slam the book of law at some idiot, yet politico's get to use this very excuse to get off scott free and only have to apologise for very serious cases of fraud, corruption and abuse of position!

How can that be? Surely they should be getting a spanking by the law just like this dimwitted fellow.

ARM chips put on their server boots

Not quite

ARM doesn't manufacture anything, they're more like Apple in their business style - only it's "Designed in Cambridge, Made in China" instead ;)

Ballmer and Softies sacrifice sleep to catch iPad

They had an answer to the iPad

They had a fantastic answer to the iPad - the Courier concept machine we all saw in those renders.

Then they shitcanned it. Why? Couldn't deliver the OS to power it? Hardware proved too expensive to go into production, similar to how Kinect functionality had to be scaled back?

If they really want to beat Apple at their own game, resurrect the Courier, get it out the door and watch the sales come in.

That bit of vaporware was crying out to be brought to market and would have been a real step towards bringing some innovation into the company.

Apple posts Magic Trackpad drivers for Windows

it's all about the money

The benefit? I'm guessing we're (somehow) looking for an alternative reason than "to make more money"?

I think the best reason would be "bluetooth on windows is a fucking nightmare" due to some manufacturers making incredibly shitty products (blue soleil, I'm looking at you!). However, that can be mitigated by selling a bluetooth dongle of their own!

If Apple has very little interest in shifting the product, why create it in the first place?

To be honest, they should have enabled the use of ipads as multitouch trackpads and additional touchscreens, connected through wifi. While we're at it, wifi sync for iOS?

Jobs tells iPhone users to get a grip

heh

I popped into the Apple store after work to see if this happens with the on display models.

It didn't happen for me, though I felt an uncomfortable tingle in my hand while I was covering both aerials.

A guy next to me commented "just buy the bumper, then"... I responded with "But you shouldn't have to do that just to get basic functionality out of it!". To this outburst, he offered this nugget of wisdom "you have to have a license in order to drive a car".

Analogy Fail Alert!!

It's closer to "you can't start your car until you've had this entirely optional tinting applied to your windows".

Also, remember when Nintendo had a problem with their Wiimotes? They issued free rubber grips to their customers, then packaged them in with all new Wii's... can we expect Apple to bundle a free bumper case with every phone to address their design flaw?

Thought not.

Megan Fox exits Transformers 3

wait, what?

Uh, I'm sorry but I don't recall her being in the only Transformers movie since she wasn't even born when it was being made. ;)

Those Michael Bay efforts? That's not Transformers, hell even the Go-Bots are embarassed about those things!

UKIP suspends Scouse candidate over sado smut movies

title clamps

"silent sexual revolution" what where we no longer give a crap what people get off to as long as it doesn't involve a real crime?

Personally, I don't care. He could be a star in those films and I'd only shrug. Are they any good at the job they're going for? Oh, he's a member of UKIP. No threat to the oligarchy then :P

Elgato Netstream DTT networkable TV tuner

is that a title you have there?

is that legal in Europe? I thought it was law that all manufacturers provide a 12 month period.

I could be wrong tho.

Radio lobby 'hides' 2m analogue receiver sales

title this

I don't listen to radio outside of internet based community shows.

My radio alarm clock is always tuned into static and volume jacked up as music would only keep me asleep. Full blast wall of noise on a morning wakes me up, having it on the other side of the room gets me out of bed. Will there be a DAB static channel to replace that functionality?

Darling confirms telephone line tax

titles and spectrecles

Aye, I don't think this tax will go away either when its initial goal has been achieved.

How about we stop adding and upping taxes all over the place and look at some good old fashioned ROI examinations on various governmental activities and departments.

Pretty sure we could pay for this without increasing the amount we have to pay if we stopped going to other countries and killing their inhabitants at the behest of the US and our own businesses desires.

The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if the UK descends into a mass of rioting and civil unrest - once we've exhausted every avenue of written bitching ;)

Oops: Chief Climategate investigator failed to declare eco directorship

titular connotations

Actually, it wasn't my choice to move. My GF got a job after leaving Uni and I'm still unemployed after being made redundent last year. I wanted to stay put, she didn't want to commute on the train every day. So we moved to reduce costs and make daily life better for her.

And what about those of us who can't afford to buy a single house never mind live elsewhere and keep a residency in another place. Tho, how is that any different to a person who moves out of an area after being voted in anyway?

As it stands, many of the people who run as a local MP spend more of their time outside their constituancy than in it anyway.

I can understand the thinking behind the limit - it stops people targetting weak seats, it just means circumstance can lock many people out from trying to depose their current, worthless options. Maybe a requirement to live in the area for the next 12 to 18 months after being elected with no option for the residency loophole as an alternative to having to spend 3 or 4 years before you can run?

how could you title this?

There are other obsticles to the average person getting into politics. In an age where the workforce is expected to be mobile and willing to move around the country, you're still required to live in a certain area for about 3 or 4 years before you can try to become an MP.

This leaves a chunk of the population seething with anger at how corrupt and abusive our current set of legislators are and no way of affecting any direct change beyond voting for yet another party yes man/woman.

I don't think any of the 3 major parties are worthy/capable of running the country and I don't like the majority of the nutjobs who make up the rest of the choices. I'd like to run myself and try to make a direct change as an independent... yet I'm locked out because I recently moved cities.

Our system of government needs an overhaul and bringing back to the general population, if we were involved more than just the occasional worthless vote then more people might take an interest instead of the current climate of "don't talk politics here.." due to how angry/depressed/helpless it makes people feel.

Our current lot of politico's have forgotten the reason why they exist - *To serve us, not their pockets!*

Steve Jobs and governator tout transplant reform

alternatively...

all the more reason to pour money into that organ growing technology we occasionally hear being trotted out as the future. They're upto making kidneys last I heard. More complex organs are proving to be a bit tricky for now.

Why wait for a matching transplant when they could take some of your cells and grow a new one that is 100% matched to you?

Brits to get 3G iPad early - and at a reduced price?

m

problem being, he said his phone sometimes demands to use the 3G connection and refuses wifi.

In that case I'd suggest ditching the phone for a better one and grabbing a mifi anyway - The fusion of a portable wifi access point with a 3G modem is pure genius. :D

BT to throttle P2P for faster broadband

what about

Um, what about an aspect of gaming that will chew thru a bit of bandwidth - voice comms... xbox games have it built in, a number of PC games have it built in or they'll use the likes of teamspeak.

Critics aim to sink Titanic ice cubes

heh

I'm christmas temping for Red5... we have these in and thought they were brilliant!

Pathetic misers who think because they're sullen, then everyone should share their misery.

I note they have no problems with the bullet ice cubes and the space invaders ice cubes you can buy (think of how many space invaders have been slaughtered over the years, won't someone think of the pixellated space invader children?!).

Dongles pricey and pointless, says Bluetooth SIG

tarded carriers

aye, never understood why they bitch about using the data via a PC even tho you're making pretty much the same usage patterns with the iphone anyway.

Never had this problem with GPRS and nokia's 5 or 6 years ago. They didn't bother with distinction on usage, it was just that... usage.

The return of the Psion-sized PC

still hanging onto those british claims to fail

Why is it we brits feel the need to try and sabotage our every attempt at success?

Surely they could have come up with a better name for both the device (hardly rolls off the tongue, it's like we're back in the 80's/90's for naming conventions!) and their company name hardly inspires confidence.. POS Ltd... Piece Of Shit Limited?

Pay a bit of good money on a marketing dept... please, I'd so love to see a resurgence in the UK hardware space for British genius to shake up electronics markets once again!

*puts on his jacket with "Psion could have been a UK Sony" emblazoned on the back*

Windows 7 soars while Mac OS X trips online

sigh

No wonder I often feel like the only techy reading articles on the reg that mention Apple.

Why would the numbers of patch requests for windows count? Surely they're not covering microsoft.com due to the amount of bias that would create, likewise they wouldn't be covering apple.com either - since my macbook grabs updates with a similar degree of frequency to my windows boxes.

Also, the number of people grubbing for drivers would be pretty minimal since vista drivers work in win7 and the rest of users would either have bought the OS with a new system or be using a system deployed by an IT department.

Come on, use your brain and stop being an obvious troll.

And yes, the trend for Apple is upwards and good news for those of us who are interested in computing in geneeral, rather than braindead fanbois of either persuasion.

More successful OS makers means a greater amount of things to play with :)

Oh, and the black screen of death, isn't that just the old netlogon problem from waaay back in NT days where it was waiting on a response from a server before loading the profile? Anyone checked the DRM module to see if it's having trouble finding its server?

Is data overload killing off human initiative?

@scott9

The problem with never putting up controversial data yourself, is that someone else can do it too and tag you in them all.

It might be done maliciously or it might be innocently shared. Either way, the protection needs to be made where, unless it was a serious crime, companies should not be allowed to discriminate against a person for their perfectly legal out of work lives. We're getting too close to companies having far too much say on what you can or cannot do simply because you work there.

By all means, exercise a little decorum and common sense (such as not going out dressed as a nazi while out on the town for example), but a company should not control their employees to such a degree as we are seeing.

And this is where government is supposed to exist, to ensure there is a counter power fighting on our side (I know, nieve concept now adays, unless you happen to be a business with plenty of money to slosh around and lucrative board places to offer).

IT workers top UK inertia league

erm

Dunno about you, but I get plenty of exercise lugging PC's, printers and servers around everyday (tho not as much exercise as when CRT's ruled the desk), running up and down stairs to sort out problems etc.

Also, I must be the only sysadmin in history to not drink a drop of coffee - only ever water, mainly cause they wouldn't let me partake in the odd can or few of beer while working, something about health and safety. Don't see it myself ;)

GlideTV Navigator

alternatives do exist

I'm quite happy with my Logitech MX Air gyro mouse for the purposes of controlling my HTPC. Also acts as a spare normal mouse when needed and sports a very "Flight of the Navigator" ship look to it. http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/3443&cl=gb,en

Of course, ignore their price.. it's much cheaper elsewhere :)

Apple Store down - new cultware coming?

it's obvious

why they do it.

partly as an homage yo the "under construction" signs that used to adorn the net and, most importantly, it garners hype/attention.

Would there be any anticipation for a simple price change or extra product roll out if they simply performed a batch update to some records?

no, far better to drop the whole site and get a similar boost to sales as a bank holiday sale when it does come back,

BT abandons Phorm

ummm

When did Behavioural Tracking Advertising get rebranded to "Interest Based Advertising"? anyone?

This needs following up and ensuring that use of DPI does not go beyond purposes of security and network integrity.

As soon as private data is being captured and analysed for the purpose of building a profile of activity to be used against them for purposes either oppression in their right to freedoms/privacy or commercial profit with no tangiable benefit to those who are being snooped upon and with no consent from them, it needs to be illegal.

Also, the state is to be banned from the use or coersion of use in non-state corporate entities of such technology (DPI or any future technology that accomplishes the same end result) for anything other than ensuring the security of its own networks from outside intrusion/interference. The term "own networks" is restricted to government IT infrastructure and does not extend to the networks run by other people/corporate entities within its bountry of sovereignty.

I should go into law writing, I seem to be better at it than our current set of law imagining wankers.

Twitter breaks Jam Festival record

hmm

I think they have raised more than that considering the Leeds one raised £800 that I know of.

Still, referring to it as "Live Aid of the tech world" is pushing it a bit...

Yahoo! freezes! pay!!

I! might! know!

There are still plenty of people that use yahoo mail, IM, flickr (I have a pro account, so they have $'s from me), upcoming, zimbra... plenty of products they can slather with ads or charges for.

Brit porn filter censors 13 years of net history

@soruk

I'd avoid opendns.. they are ad supported, so your browsing is being used to pump crap your way.

Just avoid them all and use the root dns servers!

Personally, I'm getting more and more tempted to advance my plans for running a public wireless network with the expressed purpose of cutting ISP's out of the loop all together.

Pay your local node operator for access, if you don't like what they're doing set up your own node and advertise to those around you.

Get that network repeated across the country and place a massive up yours to the governmental attempts at controlling what we see and do.

Glastonbury new-agers protest WiFi

@rachel

hey, I don't discount everything (my family has a history of ghostly encounters, I myself spent about an hour talking to one when I was about 6 or 7... but that's not to say I believe in duallism) but I also won't believe in something when it is as spurious as "wifi is making me ill and scaring away my great tits" either.

I certainly have my own wild ideas about things (such as everything in this universe having a quantum signiture/vibration that keeps it here, crack that and dimensional travel will work), it's just I won't proclaim them as truth until evidence turns up that actually suggests it, until then it remains a sci-fi fantasy of mine. :P

Just because we pour scorn on the notion that wifi is making them ill doesn't mean our minds are closed, hell the mind has a massive control over the body and if they think it's causing them to be ill they can end up being ill.. it's called the placebo effect!

Doesn't mean it's the wifi doing it, rather their own fears and irrationality. Or do you think that heights have an energy field that causes certain people to become violently ill?

@alan fisher

Except everything you mentioned isn't just them coming up with technicolour unicorns that give birth to existence after a heavy curry. They're based on observations and testing.

How do you think they might exist? because evidence points to them and they have to craft them within the current understanding of how physics would allow it to exist.

But the really crucial factor of science is that when their understanding is challenged, science changes and updates itself regardless the outcome - as it would either correllate with current knowledge or surpasses it to enhance our understanding with a clearer picture.

This isn't faith, this is comprehension and a fundamental component of humanity - the questions why and how.

@robert

And here I was thinking that our lack of sparrows was because of the increased popularity of paved back gardens and the rapid encroachment of larger birds such as crows and magpies muscling them out of the food chain.

All this time it was due to the uptake of wifi, who'd have thunk it!

Strange that TV, broadcast at a far higher rate of energy, has never had an effect on this.

Apple media server rumored for Macworld Expo

I wonder

I wonder if this means apple is working on a means of syncing your ipod/iphone with media that is centrally stored instead of having to make copies of them on every system on the network.

Prolly not, which means a copy of the media on your PC and a copy on your Mac home server.