Posts by Andrew Orlowski

Apple's Tablet won't save Big Dumb Media

Ad spend

@Charlie - "as advertising spend goes online, there's less left over for trad media"

Getting half a million people to pay a pound a day, every day, gives you quite a nice income. Putting everything online gives us no reason to spend a pound a day. So they're accelerating the decline. And as we've said many times, the general audience on the web isn't worth much to an advertiser.

See Lettice on Jarvis here -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/22/google_worship/

The reason you find the analysis faulty is because you have a simplified view of the world. The internet is not going away, and it is not "killing newspapers". The newspapers are committing suicide.

@anon: I think it's because we've seen so many slates and tablets fail. Even if it's great, it's still only a great gadget. It isn't going to save entire business sectors.

@ratfox - I always aim to please.

Fifty Strikes and… we'll tell your Mum

@Alan Gregory

"Why not levy a charge on every unlimited broadband user, say £20 a year"

Excellent! A new compulsory Poll Tax that goes to subsidize the music biz. I'd like to see you sell that idea to the Daily Mail, Grauniad, Reg commenters, etc.

Dealt with here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/20/how_to_destroy_the_music_business/

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

Re: Re: Google

A good sign that someone is losing the argument is when they try and change the subject - or question someone's right to put forward a particular point of view. You've done both here.

Here's a good example of what I mean by creepy:

"So would you categorically deny that you've never benefitted from any of Google's services whatsoever?"

The logic is that our corporate overlards, whoever they may be, cannot be questioned if anyone uses their products or services. Try applying this a journalist writing about a drugs company. How's it sound then, Richard?

(By the way, you need to learn what 'categorically' means and when to use it, and that benefiting has one tee.)

Re: an new challenger has entered the game

"but now it seems there's a new catelgory of googletards/oompaloompafidlers that the Nexus One seems to have brought into the limelight"

Oh, I've heard from them nonstop since 2003. They like their politics nice and simple (and fought through corporate proxies):

Google is Good. Google will Do Good. And Good will Prevail. The world doesn't get any more sophisticated or nuanced than that. Criticism of Google is attacking Goodness itself and the Goo fanbois take it all very personally (like Apple fanbois).

Re: Lesser of two "evils"

"Interesting angle, Andrew, but are you actually saying that the carriers have been fair & upstanding corporate citizens these last 15 years, making a fair profit?"

If your argument needs a straw man, it's almost certainly made of straw - or something weaker.

"been raping & pillaging billions of dollars from us via their oligopolies"

Why don't we hear these spotty adolescent rants from mobile phone customers from India, Brazil or Europe (for example). It's not as if the networks corporate governance or market share is so different. You must tell me.

Re: AT&T lobbied for allowing non-net neutrality in EU law

"powertogeeks"

Wonderful.

Was "dontkicksandinmyfaceyoujocks" taken? Or is this witty self parody?

OK...

"Wasn't AT&T lobbying for non-net neutrality rules in Europe so they would have better cards in the US when it became clear that democrats take over?"

No, you're badly informed. The first of the articles you cite from your paranoid blogger was written in 2009. Google had intervened more than a year earlier, without the dinosaurs noticing for quite some time.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/15/neutrality_in_europe_analysis/

Re: Google

"The Google paranoia is getting a bit out of hand on El Reg....Your business is partly supported by their ads and it's a rare Internet user who doesn't benefit from something they have done!"

Quite amazing. And creepy.

Collecting Quotes of the Year for 2010 has started early.

Re: Did anyone at Google call this the Google superphone

“I suggest you do a quick news search on the number of stories containing the phrase ‘Google superphone”

Google News at 16:00 GMT:

“View all 4,240 news articles “

That’ll be a pint of Foaming Fanbois, please.

“Hell, did you even try to look for any actual facts before you started on this rhetoric?”

Not my rhetoric, but a fair reflection of various parts of the industry. Interesting to see which nerves this touched – in your case, a few million.

Re: A bit over-emotional perhaps?

"My big problem with this article was that is showed a level of emotion that I found unusual from you, and not enjoyable. I enjoy el Reg's willingness to state its strongly help opionions in its articles, they are always clearly signposted as opinions and not dressed up as fact. This article has a sulphurous odour of bias about it."

Don't you love the sulphorous odour of bias in the morning?

Just one problem with your considered response - the emotions are not mine, but those of people who thought Google was their friend two weeks ago.

That's significant enough to report.

Re: a title is required

anonymous:

a) it's a quote that isn't intended as an insult, if you take offence that's up to you.

b) to manipulate people successfully, you don't need to be highly sensitive to their emotions. Or even slightly sensitive. Being backed by a large army or lots of money is sufficient.

But thanks for sharing anyway.

Nokia to cull Symbian in 2012

Re: Misleading title, but largely accurate

Mark - "I don't believe Nokia has an inept record in UIs at all - the Series 40 UI was the best in the world for years"

Navikey(tm) was the best, while S40 was OK, and good enough. But that was ten years ago, and the rest of Nokia's UI/UXP development has been a disaster. I don't doubt Nokia would still be putting Symbian first if S60 wasn't a such a fail.

Interesting perspective:

http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian’s-open-source-challenge/

The S60 software team and its management have chucked away a lead of years, they may actually have fatally and irreversibly damaged the company's long term prospects.

Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement

The food is terrible, I had to order it twice

If a favourite writer of mine is consistently entertaining and tells me new stuff, then I don't care whether they have comments or not. Or whether they live on the blue mould scraped from Stiltons. Or stout. They have no other obligation to me other than to be interesting. But they need to keep coming up with the goods.

The comments here are fun and I've turned some of the consistently brilliant commenters into paid frontline contributors at the Reg, on the basis that if you've got something interesting to say, we want everyone to read it - and will pay you. But it's fact that for many subject areas, I'd never have got the stories at all if I had comments turned on. Eg, SpinVox.

"Either he wins, in which case he comments on his win, or he loses in which case nobody knows because nobody sees it."

Gosh, you sound quite ground down by life. Bullying, perhaps? However, you're forgetting the times where a reader changes the writer's point of view forever - it happens quite a lot if you are a) armed with a good argument and b) can express it well. You lot consistently delight me. But maybe in your particular case, sir - you aren't, and can't.

Xperia Pureness: The oddest mobile phone ever?

Xelebri

Nokia had a decent crack at a mad, useless style item with the 7280 and 7380.

No keypad - genius.

SpinVox: The Inside Story

Re: Patent

Several have been refused, this is not uncommon.

The first to be granted was earlier this month in the USA. If you follow the link to the datatbase, all are currently listed as pending (A class).

Spotify: iPhone sideloads for £120 a year, unlimited

Re: Umm?

"don't quite understand what the deal actually is? You get to download whatever you want, in mp3 format, but it's locked away so you can't get to the files?"

We don't know the details yet - but it's an end-to-end encrypted system and it almost certainly won't allow "leakage" - conversion to mp3 format so you can play the songs outside Spotify.

And as Ian says, you may well lose it when the subscription lapses.

For these two reasons, I've talked about DRM.

If these suppositions are wrong, and you can keep the music after the subscription ends (like CWM) and sideload MP3s to another player, then it may be more attractive. Otherwise it's another Rhapsody walled garden.

Google's vanity OS is Microsoft's dream

@ Martin

>> "Think of the old Psion 3 or 5 pocket computer on steroids, offering a lovely QWERTY keyboard for messaging, a screen that's good enough for browsing and a photo album, and small enough to fit in a jacket pocket"

This has already been done again and again and again, just because the likes of you bang on and on and on about the jesus phone and the pre or whatever marketing hype takes your fancy this week doesn't mean that such phones don't exist.

Just look at the stuff HTC are pumping out, about 1/3 of their entire product line would fit that description..."<<<

No touch-typing, no cigar.

"And above us, only sky"

Very eloquent Corpsewood, but 15 years of this kind of collaboration hasn't produced an OS your Mum can use.

You're trying to redefine Failure as Success by sprinkling some virtue over it.

Nokia N97

Re: Funny that...

@anonymous:

"I generally find that all the moaning is because people don't bother reading the manual "

And I generally find that all the moaning about reviews is because people don't bother reading the review ;-)

It's the Function key modifier (not Shift) that's required for comma, dash and exclamation mark. A few extra keys - for example, one extra row - would have made all the difference.

Ratings and keyboard

@ JeeBee

"so most people will be fine with the keys."

If I thought they would, the N97 would have got a much higher rating - 8 or 9 out of 10. Most of what it does, it does well. It'll be a decent phone once the bugs are fixed. Not in the iPhone class, but it gets the job done - see the Mondeo comparison.

But with a 33-key keyboard it is not a mass market contender - comma and fullstop need to be on separate keys. Spacing and travel are atrocious. It's a shame.

@JeeBee

"How can a terrible phone get above 50%?"

Because it's not a terrible phone. It's a decent phone with a terrible keyboard.

@ Law

"You should have given this phone a 65% rating - and with each update release a new mini-review-update to work up to the 85% it will end up deserving (minus 15% because of that god-awful keyboard layout?!).... it may show Nokia it should really finish it's software testing rather than using the first wave of buyers as beta-testers."

I did think of doing that.

I'm forgiving to phones that will receive a firmware update quite soon, that typically fixes the showstoppers. 7.5 out of 10 per cent reflects a trade off.

@Vince:

"The keyboard layout is a little odd, but I got my head around it after an hour or two, maybe that's because I deal with lots of different devices each day so just get used to it."

Lucky you. But most people want to text, many will struggle to do so adequately with this keyboard.

I've yet to see a firmware update that fixes a bad hardware design decision, like the keyboard.

@ Paul_B

Thanks for joining The Register just to make that comment.

Fifty Quid Bloke, meet Spotify's 14p man

Re: Finance 101

Read the last paragraph, we're working on Pt.3.

Re: @The original Ash

They've said they don't want to increase the advertising so much that it becomes intrustive and annoying.

At that point, people could fork out for the Premium... or more likely they'll simply go somewhere else.

@Bug

Do try and keep up.

Jammie Thomas received a $1.92m fine because she refused to settle, then lied to the court and destroyed evidence. You'd probably get the same treatment over a parking ticket. Jonathan Aitken got a 2x18 months custodial sentence for perjury, remember. For this she is undoubtedly the World's Dumbest File Sharer.

Jammie doesn't have $1.92m to pay them, the legal fees will far outstrip anything she can pay them, so the artists will receive nothing.

So from the litigation we can conclude:

a) the lawyers get rich

b) the artists get nothing

c) P2P file sharing has not decreased

Answers

"Does anyone know where the original data for the chart, http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/06/25/wallet_share_large.jpg , comes from?"

The BPI report from 2008.

@Andus: "how much of a RIAA fine actually goes to the artist? I suspect square root of FA"

The record companies sue individuals (not the RIAA, you must be reading blogs) and until the Jammie Thomas case the settlement was out of court. It goes to the bottom line. They don't make money on them, since the case is settled for less than the cost of legal fees. So no net revenue, and nothing for the performers.

YouTube a 'half billion dollar failbucket'

Re: Basic business sense?

"The PRS (a monopoly on mainstream music rights) complaining about Google abusing their market position is hilarious."

Two things you've forgotten: 1) creators seek the best value they can and 2) the PRS is a members' society. Right now, 1) means 2): the PRS is considered to be a union worth joining: it collectively negotiates a better rate than they would otherwise get, collects performance from pubs, etc, and litigates for a better rate the record companies.

But if artists decide the PRS doesn't represent the best value they can obtain from performance rights, they will move elsewhere, and there will be no PRS.

"Yes, it will be out with the old evil empire and in with the new evil empire if Google win this one, but at least we have the satisfaction of watching the old one crumble."

I can see why you don't want put your name next to your opinion when you don't really understand what's going on.

Re: No title

"Someone who stumps up half a billion dollars so that you can host videos is hardly mean."

Indeed - maybe they're just hopeless at business. Welcome to Web 2.0...

Google's long term strategy is to lower its supply costs by destroying the economic value of creative rights.

Apple proves: It pays to be late

Re: Gasp

Ross - right from launch, I hoped the iPhone would shake up both sides of the mobile business, and that Apple's innovation and aesthetics would be rewarded.

see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/10/iphone_where_is_the_market/ ;-)

And I'd still be using mine if it wasn't so slow. (Compare checking your accounts in Profimail on an E71 with an iPhone 3G)

'Like pedos in a playground' - the media and Web 2.0

Re: Another advert

I was referring to his generosity with the boxes of Cuban Cigars.

Pro-Heathrow demo challenges Carbon Cult killjoys

Re: Andrew

Mr B166er:

"You try living under LHR, you won't find any Modern Movement members there, or toffs"

Or anyone else. You might find badgers living under LHR, or worms.

I live under the flight path myself.

Twitter breaks Jam Festival record

Re: @Kirstin Campbell

That was Twestival.fm, part of the bigger "Twestival" which I have no doubt has raised a lot more money.

It's funny how few Twitter users read the article - I guess the superior intellect of the Hive Mind does the thinking.

Re: Really 68%?

It's Web 2.0 economics. That's how they meet their revenue targets.

'I HOPE YOUR HOUSE IS NEAR THE SEA HAHAHAHA!!!!'

Me bad...

Oops. I'll put in the URL to the one I *think* prompted this email.

Virgin puts 'legal P2P' plans on ice

Re: A Paytard Revolution

"Go on then Mr Orlowski, any comments?"

Well ... You don't like leaving the house. You don't like putting your name beside things you say. Your post takes more than a year to get delivered.

... And you need to upgrade from Windows 2000 ;-)

Life has indeed dealt you a cruel hand.

Re: Good to read comments for Andrew's artciles

Spotify is nice, but it doesn't look like a successful business to me (ad-supported is not viable and there isn't enough to justify a tenner a month subscription) and it doesn't fulfill the desire to cache music locally in an open format.

"Have you been forced into enabling comments for your articles Andrew? They're always thought provoking and it is good, in a curate's egg way, to read the comments which follow."

No, my backchannel (phnarr) is valuable to me, so enjoy it while you can. Or you can comment by mail for the mailbag - which is what the smart kids do.

Re: Paid P2P - HTTP please

I see legal P2P is pretty mindbending. This is unlike anything ever attempted before. So to clarify what we're talking about:

@Justin: "It's not *that* revolutionary. I had subscribed to Rhapsody in the past..."

OK. It's nothing like Rhapsody.

@Mike: "I would rather a direct HTTP download if I am going to pay for it, much like the approach iTunes and Steam use to deliver their goodies."

And you would. iTunes uses Akamai, if you're lucky that's a server at your ISP. This is even faster, as all downloads are on the same high speed network. No BGP.

@Mike: "What if the file that you paid for simply isn't being shared at the time you purchase. Will you have to wait indefinitely for a file you paid for?"

Er, you don't "pay" for a file at a time. You pay a subscription and then access whatever is available. The "purchase" mentality isn't applicable here.

If your remember the original Napster, users did a pretty good job of making catalog material available that the labels had forgotten was in their vaults.

@Carl Thomas: "P2Ping on a service with a 30:1 download:upload ratio on the shiny new product, that'd have worked."

The bunker mentality isn't applicable here. Everything on the network is available to every other subscriber to such a service. No DRM, always available, all the time.

So it's not as if you have 30 seconds a day in which to down your food. You don't have to rush.

How to destroy the music business

Re: How to destroy the music business? No, just the record companies.

Try again, Marco.

Musicians can always make money from T-shirts and playing live, and as far as I know, no one plans to take that away. What the article discusses is two ways of paying for sound recordings that are being shared. Pete's got one way, Playlouder is another.

You don't seem to have an answer to that. It's worth starting to think about.

Re: I've been seduced myself

" ... multiple hands will be stretched out for their share. BPI, IFPI, RIAA are just the start. You have the groups that support the printing and publishing of music; the groups that support the writers of the music, and then you have groups that support the performers of the music"

AC, are you suggesting that the people who actually created the music and invested in promoting music should get a share? Wash your mouth out, the Freight Hard Army will be after you.

If you're suggesting the system needs to be simpler, then you're stating the Bleeding Obvious: everyone already agrees with you. Or are you suggesting nothing goes back to creators - and Google and BT can empty the black box and keep the lot?

Police vet live music, DJs for 'terror risk'

Re: Why doesn't this stuff get on the front page of the BBC, Grauniad, Times etc?

They're too busy Twittering:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/13/twitter_radio/

Tragic Twitterers tweet goodbye to family life

Re: "... am I missing a joke here ?"

Uh huh.

Roll up for the freetard smackdown

Re: get it right

It's my debating opponent who uses the word "piracy", not me.

Sensible people stay well clear of the word "illegal", too, and I prefer "unlicensed". These reflect the history a bit better.

Remember that when a new media technology comes along, it's often used to store/record/play media for which the license has not been granted. These licenses eventually get granted - when some way of monetizing the anarchy has been agreed.

One small part of the music business has held this up longer than it should, but we're getting there:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/13/legal_p2p_shocker/

Apple ARMs up iPhone

"Company was called Scion"

The wisdom of crowds. Gotta love it:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/psion_special/

It's a long article - almost 40 pages in the PDF. You might want to print it out and read it in the bath.

America's CTO: We have a winner

Unfortunately...

Mentioning no names,but a certain Martian readed voted for all five candidates at once.

That just shows how far Martians are ahead of us, I guess.

History shaped Google's Trojan Horse

Re: What??

"Even in their heartland of corporate IT departments there are now many people who despise Microsoft and actively looking for alternatives"

Despised by significant sections of the corporate IT community? Possibly. Enough to influence IT strategy? In a recession? I have my doubts.

Amazon Kindle set to go massive

@ Martin

No.

(That's all)

Ten Tech Toys for Travellers

Well here's mine

http://www.jetboil.com/Products/Cooking-Systems/Personal-(PCS)

Boiling water in a few seconds. And also very useful for warding off killer badgers.

Reg readers kickstart WiReD UK recovery

Re: In 24 hours...

"Seriously, though, El Reg needs something to compete with Photoshop Phriday."

I was chuffed to bits, too. The response was fantastic, but I have a follow-up in mind that's even better.

But one question: should we run it on a Phriday? Or a Fursday? Or what?

Google and the End of Science

Re: Philosophs should study mathematics

"...but if you want to make things work, you better leave philosophy for the boring long winter sunday evenings, and start to work on mathematics and models"

Say, what?

Farewell then, Symbian

Re: Symbian all the way!!

"Well written article, but absolute clap trap! The N95 and succesors ALONE accounted for the majority of UK mobile sales in the past year."

No, they didn't.

Re: Comments? Comments?

"Shocking - Andrew Orlowski actually letting people respond to an article."

Matt, can I introduce you to this thing called "email"? It's quite easy once you get the hang of it. Just click on the byline and your instant response is in my Inbox, where it's read (not ignored, like Comments are).

The idea that I or anyone else can stop people responding to a Reg article is quite weird.

Nice comment, though ;-)

Why have Radiohead broken copyright activists' hearts?

Spoilt rich kids (again)

Richard, I can see why you're being purposefully obtuse: your argument is a fundamentally selfish and negative one. You're asking creators to give up a right. Any more rights you'd like people to give up? How about habeus corpus, or the right to a jury trial? I'm sure Nu Lab can arrange it for you.

In this thread you can't seem to decide whether to turn the clock back to 1850, or 50BC.

@Kirk: losing control

"once you lose control over the rate and means of repoduction especially digital repoduction as a market/industry your in BIG trouble, but this economic darwinism for you"

No, creators lost this control 100 years ago when electricity was invented. They still get paid, and it still feels like free to the audience.

You're deploying the argument-from-inevitability that Freetards use. (They do so because when they're honest, and argue that artists must lose the ability to be paid, most people tell them to sod off).

But there's nothing inevitable here - so using Marxist teleologies or psuedo Darwinian metaphors is just a way of kidding yourself.

This might help -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/11/why_wireless_will_end_piracy/