Posts by Richard 51

IATA: this iPad could BRING DOWN A PLANE

How crap are these planes anyway ?

I really don't have a problem with turning on flight mode through the flight, after all the likelihood of getting a connection at 35K ft is miniscule. But why with 15 - 20 mins before landing do they insist on swtiching off a smartphone that i am reading a book on?

If Planes are that susceptible to interference they ought to fall out of the sky more often. What sort of scientific process is relying on a few unsubstantiated reports from pilots. They maybe able to fly but when was it requirement for a pilot to also be an RF Engineer.

£1.1bn Royal Navy warship finally armed, sort of

Lucky we are not at war with Austalia, India or Pakistan

We might have a defense against fast bowlers but not their spin bowlers!

Stop sexing up IT and give Civil Servants Macs, says gov tech boss

Whichever Government

I don't know about others on this site. But I have worked with both Central and Local Government on consulting and IT projects and I doubt whether the majority of the problems can be placed at the door of some figurehead MP. The Senior Civil Servants and their project managers are generally to blame for poor project management, poor specification, constant changes and general inertia.

So whichever government is in power the same old crap occurs.

But its always easy to blame the last lot.

Wi-Fi body wants hotspots to override 3G

Public WIFI had better improve then

My experience is when my phone does connect to WIFI the signal is generally so poor that I switch back to 3G. Unless of course you are sitting underneath the WIFI box nailed to the wall.

Lets hope the work on improving connection handshakes also pushes the WIFI providers to put in place more hotspots.

Virgin Media, Readers - an apology

Glad you're on the ball

Probably the price and the sometimes poor latency that comes with Virgin. But to give them their due, the speed is pretty close to the advertised rate, unlike some of its competitors.

Android phone to replace shop till

Playground Muggers Application of Choice

Can you imagine joey walks up to unsuspecting kid and nicks his lunch money off of of his android phone with his own phone. Its progress folks !

Scanner snares senior servant

Ahem

So if we worked in Australia's public sector by reading this article with its liberal sprinkling of the word "Knockers" we would all be walking to the dole office.

Apple says no to Android-oriented iPad mag

Don't buy apple products

I am amazed that more people don't raise a stink over Apples business policies. If Mozilla or Microsoft said you cannot read any web pages that are about the opposition there would be hell to pay.

I have an iphone but my next phone will in all likelihood not be apple and I certainly won't buy an IPAD until Apple grow up and realise that they cannot control content in the long term. What with this and the Flash debacle Apple are beginning to look very dark.

'Looking and acting like an employee' didn't make him one

Couple of things

He would have been able to route some of the profits from the contract to himself at corp tax rates as dividends, reduce his payment of national insurance, claim expenses against his earnings.

Content producers should chip in for mobile internet costs

Don't the content producers pay to be connected to the internet?

I am sorry, they themselves are fueling the increase by pushing ever more sophisticated handsets, I don't remember O2 saying when I bought my Iphone please don't use it for mobile internet.

This idea that content producers don't pay for their content to be hosted or transmitted over the internet is crazy, of course they do... so why would they pay twice?

Stop whinging O2 and stop stealing the money from our pockets, I don't remember you reporting losses. The AT&T of UK

Google halts deletion of Street View Wi-Fi data

Why was Google Collecting this data for gods sake?

"its mobile team included payload-capturing code in the Street View cars' software despite the fact that the project leaders "did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data."

Why was google equiping its vehicles with the hardware needed to capture WIfI data in the first place? I would assume that their vehicles had 3g or satelite technology to upload the images as they were collected or download them at the end of day by plugging the harddrive into a computer?

In this country it is illegal under the wireless telegraphy act to listen to a communications that you are not a party to or that is not by its nature intended fpr public consumption. Snooping on someone elses radio conversation is illegal. The fact its very easy to do does not detract from the illegality of doing it and you would expect a company "that does no harm" to have checked with their lawyers before embarking on an enterprse such as this.

Google have been caught with their trousers done and are wriggling to avoid the consequences.

Adobe declares 'LOVE' for Apple

Standards ?

Why are we debating whether flash is a standard? It's not! But it is used on a large number of very useful websites, Apple talks about HTML 5 as the standard, well guess what Apple is pushing H.264 for video, which is not a standard. I think the issue for me is that Apple for whatever reason is deliberately making a large part of the web innaccessible to me. I love my iphone but I won't buy another apple product until Apple allows technologies in common use on the web to be used on their safari browser. Whether Apple allows Adobe technologies to build applications for the Apple Iphone is a completely different arguement.

IBM gooses dividend, share buybacks

Sams leaving present

This is as much about protecting the greed of the senior managers as the greed of Wall Street. Stock exchanges and CEOs are not interested in the long term viability of the company, only their wallets today.

Thats why Sam spends billions propping up the share price while refusing to award pay increases to the majority of its employees and when it does they are small beer compared to the 18% increase in dividends. The recent row in the UK over early retirement and pensions was the company engineering a way of forcing staff into taking early retirement rather than offering redundancy, thus saving the parent company millions.

How a Tory gov will be the most tech-savvy in history

That was a party election broadcast on behalf of the tory party

Since when has El Reg supported electioneering on its hallowed site?

Google backtracks on cause of China search block

Sorry still don't get it !

I still don't understand why media coverage (presumably google made the original link) links the attempted - or actual - penetration of email by hackers and their decision to discontinue filtering search results. They seem to me to be two quite separate issues. Not only that, Google has been willing to accept the filtering for sometime and no doubt many hackers have attempted to penetrate Google servers and will continue to do so.

Whatever happened to the email app?

I wish!

I use Outlook, not because I am a fan, just that its convenient. I want my phone / contacts / calendar to be sync'd with my laptop. My iphone can only do this with outlook on Windows. I guess I could move to hotmail / googlemail but why should I give these more opportunities to shove adverts down my throat.

So please someone develop a bulletproof way of syncing all my devices (work laptop, home laptop, iphone and blackberry). It would be nice to also have all my contacts / calendar in one place too. So I know tomorrow I have a business meeting at 5 and meeting the boys for a beer at 8. Without having to stick it in multiple devices.

Its not the email app its the integration of communications !

Vulcan kept airborne by £400k refuel

What next

You may be right, I doubt whether we have anything that can reach F.I. anymore. Without a carrier or something to transport it there. Now all our carriers are in dock undergoing long term maintenance (can't afford to put to sea) and the new carriers are looking less and less likely to be built. So there is only one thing left to do. Capitulate!

Steve Wozniak, your time is up

Amazing

How many people will rise to the bait! It certainly got the plebs talking !

So who's next for the hatchet job to get some debate going!

Chuck a grenade into the room and see what happens!

Google: Do no evil, pay no tax

Yep just take a look at any of the multi-nationals whether IT or other

For example, Dell is based in Ireland, probably soon to move. Itunes based in Luxembourg, Skype either the same or Switzerland. Because of the tax laws across Europe allow for a company to be only taxed in their HQ country to avoid complications means Companies take advantage and position their billing in a low tax country. Ireland deliberately set their corporate tax low to attract business, ditto luxembourg and Switzerland (by virtue of their bilateral agreement with the EU).

There is an argument to require companies to pay tax in the country in which the customer is located, this would be a nightmare for many companies but it would ensure a fair allocation across the EU.

PGP disk encrypt approved by MoD for military use

not usually the technology thats the flaw

Its the humans, leaving papers on the train for example.

It would be nice to know how big a super computer you would need to break pgp disk encryption !

Windows 7 - Microsoft minus the martyrdom

Right on one thing

Windows 7 is a Vista Service Pack.... My upgraded Vista Dell Laptop still hangs occasionally, Explorer stops working quite frequently and those annoying requests to allow programs to alter something or other! Especially Outlook... almost wish for Linux or XP.

Mozilla hatches Thunderbird 3 release candidate

I wish

that Moz would bring out TB with calendar functionality and an interface to Iphone so I can get rid of Outlook which is probably the most crappiest application ever!

Swiss roll Street View into court

Another example of a small minority

I am sorry but this theoretical risk of "invading" someones privacy is just hogwash. They take the photos on a public street, they for the most part blur peoples faces. This should be sufficient.

A small minority of people whose presence is captured for posterity are potentially disrupting a service that many thousands or even millions find very useful. I visit many new places in my job and being able to see the clients office and the route from the metro or bus station including landmarks is probably the best thing Google has delivered ever.

The minority are people with something to hide or don't like anything new ! It seems to me that the bureaucrats in most other countries have found it acceptable. So lets get behind Google on this and tell them where to get off.

HP tosses EDS brand

Change of name

HP were so enamoured with the Name Monday, they tried to buy the company. Maybe they should call HPES Tuesday or Wednesday?

Apple sends iPhones into 'Coma Mode'

Not enough data

Ok, OK, we have all had some fun reading about dead Iphones ! But I have not seen any evidence as to how much of a problem this is? If tens of people with access to forums complain it will seem like a major problem, but there are millions of phones out there, and I have not seen millions of forum posts.

By the way, my iphone 3gs is fine updated without any trouble whatsoever.

So lets get some perspective on this and hopefully Apple will do the right thing by those who do have a problem.

O2 just can't keep it up

Bloody O2

I had no data service all day on Saturday in Brighton and Portsmouth. This is happening too often and not a squeak from O2 with an explantion.

While every mobile operator has problems, O2 seem to take it to extremes. If we had options for service provider it would probably force people like O2 to improve their service.

I look forward to compensation or at least an apology, I won't hold my breath.

Man with my coat, its O2 lifting my wallet...

Fire at Google UK

Deliberate attack

A Hitherto unknown feature of the MobileMe Service is that the iphone reports back any unauthorised apps being installed and Apple have the capability to send an instruction to said Iphone to self destruct.

Apple admits iPhone apps not suitable for business

VAT for Luxuries?

Sorry, I think your correspondent has his facts a bit twisted. VAT is not a tax on luxury goods its a tax on the value to the buyer. So joe bloggs in the street pays VAT on just about anything they buy.

But Companies pay tax on the difference between what they buy something for and what they sell. So simple example mobile phone retailer buys the Nokia N97 for $200 from Nokia. Pays VAT to Nokia and then sells the phone to me at $300 and I pay VAT on the $300. The retailer only pays to the government the difference between the VAT on $200 and $300. The value he has "added" in his trade.

AT&T's iPhone MMS to be free

Why are we paying twice?

OK So I have a monthly plan from O2 which includes unlimited (subject to fair use policy) data and because I happen to want to use my Laptop linked to my phone I also have to pay per megabyte on top of the component of my not inconsiderable monthly fee allocated to pay for the data service.

I can understand possibly if they wanted to charge an incrememental fee to compensate for the possibly higher volume of data and the benefit of not having a separate data only account for my laptop. But these per megabyte rates are higher than taking a data only account.

How is that a good deal for the consumer? What has OFCOM got to say about charging twice?

Skull and cross bones because this is just piracy...