Posts by Oli 1

Miniature Baumgartner jumps from 128,000ft

Congratulation Sirs!

Six months under water and iPhone 4 STILL WORKS

Testing?

Just threw my colleagues iPhone 5 on the river, I'll get back to you in 2013 ;-)

New Zealand Prime Minister apologizes for Dotcom spying

its the story that keeps on giving!

Megabox sounds like the new EMI / Universal / Insert Major Corporation name creaming off artists profits,

but i could be wrong. He is, afterall, such a nice chap!

Neil Gaiman’s saucy pop wife agrees to pay her musicians in money

Stuff like this is all too common place and needs to be highlighted more.

The dance music scene i worked in for ten years suddenly decided that DJs who didnt turn up with a minibus or coach load of full price ticket paying punters werent worth paying for their time anymore.

This has gone on for around 2 years now and the end result is, the really good up & coming DJs all disappeared and were replaced with VirtualDJ DJs.

"Go cry me a river" i hear you shout.

Well for two scenes i worked in, numbers are now so badly thru the floor, a lot of promoters gave up.

The end result is, there are around 75% less independent club nights happening, and the major ones have all put the prices up.

I'll stop ranting, but PAY THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR YOU!

Just because they are "creatives" who generally jump at the oppotunity of working (little work is better than no work) doesnt mean you should pay them less, or nothing at all.

Disgraceful she thought she could get away with this in the first place. I hope she is paying the artists that volunteered for free and not just asking her mates to come in and play now they are getting paid, which usually happens...

Apple: You'd want hi-fi streamage from us, not poor-people Wi-Fi audio

Re: typical apple yet again

@gary 24

I'm not hating for hating sake, i commend apple where they deserve it, and as a sound engineer I commend them for logic (the daw)

However, I stand by my comment that instead of play nice and fix dnla and make it truly cross platform they reinvent the wheel. Just once it would be nice for all big companies, not just apple, to think of all end users. Not just their immediate user base.

I know I know, I'll move along now. You can continue to shout and reduce yourself to attacking a person over a comment on a website. Have a great day btw!

typical apple yet again

Great, so all those cheap network streamers will either not exist in a few years or suddenly have a huge markup on to display this new AirPlay logo. Sigh.

Yet again apple just forcing more confusion on to all non-mac users and ensuring the loyal fanbois will have another item to covet.

Why cant we all just play nice and have open standards being used by the big companies, and oh i dunno, innovation being put forward to new versions of the standard rather than making YET ANOTHER walled garden so i have to explain for the millionth time, "i know you only bought it a week ago, and i know the nice man in curries said it works on open standard protocols (what ever they are) but Apple have decided you and your device are not worthy, so no, it wont work, and no, you have no one to blame but yourself.

EA kills Medal of Honour arms deal

Off topic observation

Love being the exception to the rule, im completely unable to lock a target in any game but give me a rifle and i hit my target first time.

High tech toilets receive big prizes from Bill Gates

To the first commenter, read the article!

This is also designed to create employment. Maintenance, tank or fuel emptying etc.

There's no money to be made by crapping in a pit. And the one thing these countries need is money.

Money brings, medicine, education and overall progress.

$1bn for Instagram? Knock yourself out, Facebook - UK watchdog

So over instagram now. It was good, but there are much better editors out now and I never cared for the social aspect anyway.

Full steam ahead zuck!

Kim Dotcom pressing on with Megabox music service plans

I love this guy. Think big!

P. S. I do realise he is a vile excuse for a human being.

Google may face grilling by MPs over 'immoral' tax avoidance

Make it illegal then....

They arent breaking the law...

When will the MP's get it in their heads?

If you want them to pay it, make it law! Simple.

If they then evade tax, you have a path for recourse. This whole "morality" non-sense is rich coming from the "duck house crew"

Galaxy S III dumps universal search, tries to dodge Apple's sueballs

Fuck you apple!

FFS!

I cannot wait for the day R&D slowly stops thanks to culture of ridiculous patents and licensing

Surely this is worthy of FRAND licensing?

LG Optimus 4X HD quad-core Android phone review

I'm actually a little gutted I didn't try this out before getting the s3.

I much prefer the shape of the lg.

Although as you say, they are worse than Motorola for updates.

Raspberry Pi rolls out speed surge Raspbian OS

@Bill Smith 1

Move along, its not meant for people like you...

Go buy another shiny shiny.

Olympic Phone touch-payment details revealed

as long as they train the staff to know whats going on its all good, i was in co-op this weekend and the utterly thick checkout dolly laughed at me when i bonked my card on the reader, she goes Oh it doesnt work like that you have ot insert it, i told her to read the sign stuck more or less to her forehead* which said PayWave. recieved the obligatory dirty look and Eventually she found the button to turn the pay by bonk sensor on and my life continued...

loosest link in the chain and all that...

IE7 Tax

IE7 Tax

I think they are spot on with this one, trust the aussies to find a way! ;)

Lifted from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australian-company-introduces-worlds-first-tax-on-microsoft-internet-explorer-7-browser-7851497.html

In a world first an Australian online retailer has introduced a 'tax' on customers using the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) browser.

The consumer electronics specialist Kogan has elected to bring in the levy on products ordered through its website using IE7.

The charge is set at 6.8% - 0.1% for each month since the IE7 launch.

Ruslan Kogan, the chief executive of the company told the BBC that the move was in order to get back some of the costs involved in "rendering the website into an antique browser".

Customers visiting the website using the Microsoft browser are met with a message saying,

'It appears you or your system administrator has been in a coma for over 5 years and you are still using IE7. To help make the Internet a better place, you will be charged a 6.8% tax on your purchase from Kogan.com. This is necessary due to the amount of time required to make web pages appear correctly in IE7.'

A posting on the Kogan blog today said,

“As Internet citizens, we all have a responsibility to make the Internet a better place. By taking these measures, we are doing our bit.”

Comments on the blog posting appeared to be largely positive following the announcement with one user posting 'web developers everywhere salute you, good sirs.'

Internet Explorer 7 was launched in 2006, but there have been two significant updates to the software since.

The latest version, Internet Explorer 10 is due to arrive this autumn.

EU gives Google till July to offer fix for search dominance

Am I the only one that appreciates other Google products within their own search listings?

A quick way of getting into maps with a Google search of a post code, with a brief look at the standard web search, and if relevent news search.

Or if I'm shopping, news, web and shopping results all in one page, and mostly relevent and useful.

You may hate them but they provide an amazing service compared to what we put up with in the early days and all of this built on text ads that are easily ignored, or sometimes useful in my experience, it ain't half bad.

Even if they do have to make changes I hope they are only for anonymous users, I'm happy with the info I hand over and as such want the best experience possible, who is some EU bureaucrat to tell me that I have to be offered an inferior product just because they lack market share. This shit annoys me on many levels, but mostly because older members of my family know how to use and enjoy using Google products, as far as they are concerned google is their portal to the net, on a few occasions they've followed emailed links an ended up on yahoo or Microsoft versions of search or maps and every time I get a phone call asking to put it back to normal. As far as I'm concerned the more Google can do to keep them contained and relatively safe, the better.

Samsung 'to launch Galaxy S III in US', snubs Apple's ban bid

Yaawwwwwn.

The only people that win are lawyers and consumers have even more conflicting information about devices, end result people hold off from buying. Obviously not the likes of early adopters but Gen pop, definitely.

Techies beg world to join the 1% on IPv6 launch day

We went IPv6 yesterday (apparently)

My record labels site now IPv6 thanks to CloudFlare's Automatic IPv6 Gateway.

Although i still have very little idea as to who is going to connect to us using it, it just seemed like a good thing to do whilst i was signing up for their proxy / cdn services.

Strong ARM: The Acorn Archimedes is 25

Great memories

I remember being around 11 when i was introduced to the Archie's at school. It was like the world had been turned upside down after playing around with an Amstrad 286 for the last couple of years.

I wrote a simple basic program to generate numbers to play on the national lottery when it had just started up, i felt it such a huge achievement at the time, sadly i never carried on learning more languages as by the time i hit year 7 (first year of senior school to the uninitiated) windows was everywhere and playing with excel and access seemed to be waaaaaaay more important that learning to code.

also remember our whole network at prep school was backed up onto a couple of zip disks via the "server" RiscOS workstation for our teacher, and a curious box called "Econet" that i still couldnt tell you what it did, other than having to be switched on in a very specific order.

Loved lander, but at my school it was "Chocks" or "Chucks" cant remember.... that caused the *BEEP* Acorn Reset sound when a teacher came in. A primitive dog fight flight simulator.

These were the days!

MPs: Border Agency's own staff don't trust airport-scanner tech

funnily enough

i just got back to the UK, via gatwick. All operational, and a nice lady trying to persuade people to use it, but everyone (few infront of me and few behind) all gave excxuses not to use it.

I dont have a bio passport yet, nor do i want one, but my mum and sister do. My mum has not once managed to get through without it locking her in the gate and someone being called in to check her details manually and release her from the improtu jail. she's been given any number of ridiculous excuses including my favourite (definetly not hers) "you're getting on now love so maybe your eyes have changed since your scans were taken" she nearly smacked the "Immigration Officer" in the face for that one.

just get rid of the damned things, and lets employ some people for once. not just find ways of replacing everyone with a gadget.

<rant over>

DLNA blesses HomePlug Ethernet-over-mains tech

I love powerline networking, but have never managed to stream anything over it without major buffering. I dont know if its interfearance or just not enough bandwidth by the time its got all round my ring main, but i finally succombed a got a legacy switch from work and chucked CAT6 all round the flat.

Never looked back!

Jabra Halo 2 Bluetooth headset

design?

am i the only one who thinks these look horrible, cheap and already dated? not to mention flimzy.

all wild accusations from a photo i grant you, i guess im an in-ear ear bud type of guy so any set of heaphones that arent Sony MDR 500's just dont appeal.

Scientists weave battery into clothing

not sure i want to wear something capable of collecting enough voltage to defibrilate someone.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone

Finally an option for view desktop site!

Notice this more on the tablets (honeycomb) but getting the often non-fully-functioning mobile edition of websiteswhilst on the move is a real pain in the ass. So thanks to google for sorting that out.

Now just proxy authentication without rooting would be nice :)

Hands on with the Motorola Xoom 2 10.1in Android tablet

@Tom38

i work in a state secaondary school.... we have 30 ipads for taking registers and virtual desktops.

15 were lost and another 30 ordered.

we're also getting 20 xoom 1's from the US to evaluate them vs an ipad as we can get two xoom's for one ipad.

SeeSaw shut down

From what i saw of SeaSaw it was awful. I use boxee on a number of PCs and i dont think i ever got to the end of a programme due to buffering or something else going wrong.

Also, having to pay for BBC content is a big no no!

BBC iPlayer to require TV licence

Finally!

Now you can make people sign-up for it with a reference number, so i can finally stop being hassled by the nazi's. oh sorry, i meant tv licensing "enforcement team" and constantly having to prove i have two 40" LCD TV's hooked up to my recording studio PC that cannot recieve live broadcast as the aerial socket has been smashed in so there is no way i could possibly watch live tv!

Get on with it and opt me out!

Gov: DAB must battle on, despite being old and rubbish

I'd rather pay the data usage on my phone to listen via 3g than buy a DAB, i only listen to spoken word FM radio though.

I tried DAB when it first came out when i was off to wales for Uni, i left the DAB in halls when i moved out it was so terrible, its luck it had an FM tuner as well otherwise it would have just been a paperweight.

im still interested to see what happens to the London pirate fm stations when the big switch off comes. they are the only real choice in music, around london anyway. all the others just play the same old playlists over and over. I wont be getting a DAB in my car, if i can get the fm pirates still i'll be listening, otherwise cd's or HDD all the way.

Radio quality overall has plumetted in the last 2 decades, i fear the FM switch off will be one of many nails in the radio coffin.

Reg hack desperately seeks deeply frustrated pensioner

Artcile of the year nomination?

Spotify adds 'temporary' private listening mode after Facebook backlash

to the earlier poster asking do the artists get their dues?

we do, but its hardly worth it being almost 0.0012p per play

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

i also own an independant record label, so i can tell you most of the above figures (although a year n a bit old) are still pretty accurate.

Be chums offer 1Gbit/s fibre-to-the-premises in London

bring it on!

Google SHOCK! Snaps up Motorola phone biz for $12.5bn

o rly?

does this mean motorola will finally update a phone or two?

nah, thought not.

Brussels acts to ensure arrival of new, unknown legal highs

i was going to comment

but then i remembered that it doesnt matter any way cause the drug board is basically non-existent, no mp will ever stand up and change things whilst theyre in power and for years people will continue this very boring discussion. Oh and its only boring cause it never gets anywhere.

so carry on.

im going for a joint

Boffin breakthrough doubles Wi-Fi speed

Figures?

Sounds like a good idea, the simplest ideas are often the best ones, but i guess its still early days to be asking for specs and proof?

When they can show some data on real life improvements over similar equipment in exact same environments i'll be interested to see what this actually delivers. As someone said above, its not going to double up capacity just by becoming full duplex surely?

Im no RF engineer but surely the signal would still be affected by the usual factors that make WiFI in busy locations so tempremental?

Gov will pay £2.25m compo to ID card suppliers

urm... WHAT?

"Blunkett argued there was no need to destroy the data, as it could have been integrated into biometric passports"

Are you f**king kidding me?

Someone drown this man please, that is all.

Toshiba previews TV UI for cloud content

Trial

I would like to trial this, as for the world cup we got the new LED Samsung with DLNA and IPTV etc. But samsungs app on the tv not only take ages to load and sync but the DLNA implementation is not what you'd call easy to use. For a techy its fine, but for mum and dad they just refuse to wait more than a few seconds for anything on the tele. They still moan about the time it takes to change channel on cable, "its just not what it used to be"

If this new UI from Tosh can actually run smoothly and doesnt make you wait 1minute+ for stuff you have in the cloud then it has half a chance of succeeding, if it lags like all the others, it will just be forgotten, or not noticed in the first place!

Grief and disbelief greet Elop's Nokia revolution

:O

I dropped Nokia after my N95 8GB which was one of the last great nokia handsets in my opinion. I couldnt find anything to replace it with until the Motorola Milestone turned up.

I was really hoping that Nokia would trial a few Android handsets at least, as their hardware is usually spot on, but the software always had bugs and updates were usually far and few between.

This decision has just confirmed what i was suspecting a year ago, i will never buy another nokia.

Sad sad day!

Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

not the first and wont be the last

The amount of friends whose kids have done similar is amazing to me, with all the supposed security around credit card details most of them thought it would be impossible to put a payment through without some sort of confirmation required by the card holder, ie enter a pin number or confirm the security code etc.

Lesson to parents really, read what your agreeing too or do as my "tech savy" xbl friends do, pay then login and change a few details so the card payment will fail on any future payments!

Texting teenager plunges to his death

Sad but come on...

Was his grandmother out on the piss with him then? How else does she know he had been drinking but wasnt drunk?

If you've been out drinking and you fall over anything... a coffee table, a curb, a fellow reveller in the gutter, then i'd go out on a limb and say your pissed!

For balance though, lets say he wasnt pissed.

Maybe she could blame the girls he helped back to their car. If it werent for them he wouldnt have been there.

If you cant manage the whole "look where your walking" then you should you be outside in the real world without someone holding your hand!

Facebook offers 500 million users SSL crypto

not yet...

Taylor 1 - It uses more computing power to host an SSL session, so times it by 500million users and the cost rises considerably.

Also echoing above, not got the option for SSL yet, but as soon as it turns up, it'll be turned on!

Similar to paris in that respect.

Couple crash into church, curse satnav

How stupid do you have to be?

I know it looks like a beautiful 19th century church, but my twat nav says its a road. FULL STEAM AHEAD CAPTAIN!

OPEN YOUR FRIGGIN EYES WHEN DRIVING!!!!

Fail of the tallest order!

Virgin extends 100Mb/s broadband reach

Not ready yet

From what ive heard from two early adopters the line looses sync every couple of hours, 1 has been hassling virgin to put him back down to 50mb as he got a sturdier connection before, the other isnt very techie and just recons that youtube loads quicker sometimes, and not at all at other times.

I'll wait til they make it work before attempting to jump on the bandwagon

Good starting point i suppose though

Apple lawyers land London lawsuit on Nokia

What patent?

So instead of paying royalties to nokia they are attempting to get the patents voided.

Am i correct in thinking that all other handset manafacturers have paid up to nokia for the IP they pioneered back in the early days of mobiles?

Why does apple think its above the law? Someone should probably tell them there were mobiles before the iphone

Steve Jobs takes 'medical leave of absence' from Apple

i never

knew we had so many doctors on el reg!

Facebook facing fall-down issues

Title

How the hell am i supposed to tell the world i am currently sitting at my desk, pressing F5 a lot, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil!

Paris, because she loves a bit of downtime

MP says she was misquoted over DNA test call

Glad shes not my MP

She sounds like a total pain in the arse.... first the postal vote incident which she escaped somehow and now this which shes backing away from.

Stand by your statements, even if they make you sound as stupid as you seem!

Microsoft Kinect goes gangbusters

i still want one

a surface that is...

no i dont know what i would do with it, but damnit i want one!

Motorola uncloaks 10.1-inch Xoom fondleslab

come to the UK!

very nice, lets just hope motorola will update the thing, unlike their mobiles....

i'll definetly be getting one of these :D

Worthless iPhone 'Wikileaks App' removed from Apple Store

If i had one wish...

..it would be that i could code.

In 3 days someone has, legally, had $5k dropped into their lap purely because "there is one born every minute"