Posts by Gordon 10

Archos 35 Smart Home Phone

Lack of BT

Lack of Bluetooth seems a missed opportunity as the Dect incumbents tend to charge through the nose for it.

I presume its due to BT usally being provided by the radio chip, and dect chips with BT are few and far between.

Shame though.

Nintendo cuts full-year forecast – by BILLIONS

Design fail

have you seen a 3DS?

Someone should tell Nintendo the 80's called and they want their industrial design back.

Seriously I think Ninty see it as an iconic style thats part of the companies unique brand statement. In reality it looks like a cheap chinese OEM import in a world full of iconic looking phones, tablets and PS Vita's.

TVCatchup

Fail@Bunker_monkey

Your post should have everything - including a creator that has a brain.

Pwn2Own 2012 touts bigger prizes, drops mobile hacks

No mobes?

Seems a bit shortsighted given the increasing use of smartphones and the relative ease that flaws can be monetized by premium SMSes and the like.

Top RIM jobs shake-up: Heads roll... but not very far

I'll think you'll find they did come up with a new idea. unfortunately it was a shit one - clicky touchscreens.

fuckwits

Ultrabooks will devour notebook biz by 2016 - report

In other news

Some laptops will be getting thinner.

Some thin laptops will be getting cheaper (and even nastier)

Also the bog standard entry level laptop that sells the most will be completely unchanged.

That is all.

Remind me how you get paid for stating the bleeding obvious again?

Pay attention, 007: Wi-Fi cufflinks perfect for a spy

Me likey.

Of course a standard 3G dongle (with micro SD slot), adhoc networking in most major OSes and a cheap pair of cufflinks exists this functionality, but I still like them in a lottery winner kinda way.

Ten... IPTV set-top boxes

It would have been nice to see one of the foxsat freesat boxes instead of their freeview box.

Intel upsets apple cart, snaps up QLogic's InfiniBand biz

Really?

Care quote some numbers on which you based that opinion.

Ah my mistake - if you were going to make any solid claims you wouldn't be posting AC.

US Supremes: GPS tracking requires warrant

Too late?

Bit confused. The cops applied for a warrant but were too late in fixing the tracker to the car?

That doesn't make sense unless you have to apply the tracker on a specific date. Which is madness as long as the warant has be approved the tracking should be valid.

This isn't a blow for civil rights it's just quibbling over procedure.

Megaupload kingpin found in panic room when arrested, say cops

Oh really?

And how does megaupload differ from YouTube oh commentard?

Same situation lots of copyrighted content but respond to takedown notices but you don't see Eric Schmidt dragged off to court.

This stinks. Either acting as a middleman is illegal for copyright violation is illegal in which case every ISP and site that supports uploads should be shut down or it's not in which case the guy has done nothing wrong.

Poll: Linux's big data guzzling worries melt away

Confuzzled

Whats the definition of big data in this instance? My usual interpretation is Hadoop and its relatives and offspring. But this seems more like a sciencey HPC definition.

Why was there ever any doubt that Linux could handle these loads? Its working for GooHoo and others. Its not as if there are many credible alternatives in this space, unless you count explicit HPC OSes (which Im not doing).

What an odd survey.

Kodak's moment: Camera biz files for bankruptcy

I don't get the hard on

The author has for the inkjet business. Their printers are pretty reasonable and are a natural extension of their business. They might not be revolutionary but assuming they are even mildly profitable they are a reasonable step.

In addition we have bought 3 of their wireless photoframes and they are almost unique in the market and work brilliantly enabling the grandparents to see new photos with just an email. They are almost apple like in their ease of use.

Yahoo! cofounder! Jerry! Yang! quits!

Think the expression is twitching.

Mr Yang may think past a single quarter but that hasn't helped him stop Yahoo's gradual decline.

Sometimes you have to let go. Yahoo is bigger than him.

Data centers to cut LAN cord?

Sheesh

Or perhaps you didn't read the article properly.

This is primarily aimed at at situations where the physical network is saturated both in terms of bandwidth and physical connections. If the situation is temporary or short term why on earth would you spend huge amounts of effort reconfiguring several racks when you can create temporary wireless connections?

Physical is faster but it's not necessarily always convenient - that's the scenario this work is targeting.

OCZ refunds punter for dud drive shortly after El Reg steps in

What bollocks

A) I expect my hardware to work over a reasonable set of temperatures and environments.

B) I expect a failsoft mode - not an utter failure.

C) what are the stats for SSD heat related failures or are you just spouting cobblers off the top of your head?

Your vendor bent the truth. A warrantee or guarantee is in *addition* to your basic consumer rights not instead of.

Regardless of any warrantee they have to comply with the sale of goods act if the item becomes not fit for purpose over a reasonable period of time.

Reasonable period of time changes depending on the item but for electronic or electrical goods a year would be a minimum and courts have ruled in favour of the consumer for period over 5 years!

Know your rights or lose them.

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/understanding-the-sale-of-goods-act/your-rights/

Sale of Goods (UK)

I assume this was a uk based reader?

If so sale of goods act applies. Its not clear if the *vendor* was OCZ or someone else. A quick glance suggests OCZ dont retail direct. Therefore its the vendor you should be dealing with.

You contact the *vendor* and if they don't play ball - *as they are legally obliged to* - then a threat from trading standards or small claims court usually sorts them out.

Honestly this stuff isn't rocket science. You don't have to go to the manufacturer - your contract is with the vendor - its ALL their problem - even if the manufacturer has a direct RMA its irrelevant - I make a point of never going down this path.

Don't be fobbed off with anything else - be polite but dont hesistate to go Nuclear if you are not satisfied quickly.

If the product doesnt work you can demand a full refund. If they dont play ball it costs a tenner to lodge a small claims court request.

NSA constructs hardened Android, unleashes it on world

Any reason

The NSA should be pissing your hard earned tax dollars up the wall on this project?

Unless the object is to secure Android for formal government use (even then why?) then this is a waste of time and money.

Microsoft raises 'state of the art' son of NTFS

WinFS

no resurrection for this then?

AMD readies answer to Intel's Ultrabook

Sheesh. How many years since Centrino lauched and AMD still cannot achieve battery life anything like Intels. Talk about asleep at the wheel. They really are proving that they were a flash in the pan.

Apple will not kill iPad 2 at iPad 3 debut

because its massive overkill on a laptop.

And also because of the RI issues mentioned. Most OS'es do 1:1 pixel mapping and a desktop in 2048x1536 would be unreadably tiny on an 13-15" screen.

Frankly that Res will be of little functional use on an ipad but be more likely to drive percieved quality rather anything qualatitive.

Apple offers cash for old kit

Less than ebay

and all the other phone recyclers.

First ever private rocket to space station in launch delay

Sabotage

Given how much is at stake for ULA I wonder how at risk Spacex are from sabotage. It would only take dragon to prang the ISS to kill private commercial spaceflight dead.

Would like to think its not a risk but worse has been done for less gain.

Nokia flogs 350 vital mobile phone patents

Another moron

You do actually realise that without even making an attempt to understand what patents were sold you have no idea they are silly or reasonable. You dont even what country they were filed in.

Until you do and can actually prove they are all silly ir trivial why don't you shut it?

You moron

Did you even read the article before commentarding?

As it says there is a huge difference between FRAND patent aggregators than your standard patent trolls. In fact it can be argued that licensing a pool actually helps protect you from trolls as it makes sense for the pool owner to defend it against random trolls.

But hey don't let thought get in the way of a retarded comment.

Busted Phobos-Grunt in harmless splashdown

Indeed

Reminds me of the classic Simpsons episode where it shows a UN debate and the Russian Ambassador stands up and shouts "The USSR will not stand for this"

Then he presses a button and Russia's and all the Eastern Europeans countries signs flip over to display USSR again.

Scarily possible with Putin in control.

X Prize: Build a Star Trek 'tricorder' and win $10m

Not really a tricorder then.

There was never any suggestion that medical tricorders were usable by normal plebs in ST afaik.

Easy but expensive

Wireless finger clip or similar with small pin.

Takes pulse and blood. Wireless comms low power BT.

Either it's disposable or cartridge based.

The drop of blood goes on one or more of those labs on a chip that exist at least in prototype form.

Transmits results to med range smartphone with a diagnosis app plus links to a cloud based expert system like Watson or Siri.

Piece of piss. It could probably test that too.

All the technology already exists the problems are integration time and the expense of of the disposable bits.

Oz skeptic offers prize if Rossi’s E-cat works

Sadly you wouldn't

The Nobel science prizes tend to be awarded 5-10 years after the work was done.

Nuclear Mars tank thrusts hard into perfect position

Whilst I hope not I can't help but think this thrusting magnificence is going to splatter its load over the face of Mars.

Acorn King Moir: BBC Micros, Ataris and 'BS' marketing

Wasnt wordwise available on ROM

Tying up with the GCSE ICT story from yesterday I have fond memories of our IT Studies teacher showing wordwise search and replace by replacing AND with ARSE throughout a document - which was revolutionary technology for young teenage boys!

He followed that by teaching us rude variations on the 10 Hello World 20 goto 20

BBC basic program in the flashing 16 colour teletext modes the Beeb had.

Happy days.

Hubble probes star death blast clue to universe riddle

Typo in article

Article says explosion happened 9Bn LY's away - 1/3 the age of the universe.

Article should say 2/3rds age of universe as 9/13 ~ 2/3

Kids should be making software, not just using it - Gove

Dear God

Hysterical much?

There are dozens of companies far more evil than MS who for all their faults make some reasonably good products particularly as we are talking about programming their IDE.

Next time you feel the need to get your pitchfork and shout "burn them" I suggest you point yourself at Armaments, Tobacco and Healthcare companies like PIP.

For all their sins of which there are many MS have rarely if at all hurt people.

Speaking as an IT professional

In my one attempt to use it I found eclipse the most overly complex unintuitive POS its ever been my misfortune to install.

I don't see how it would add any value to ICT they'd be better off with textpad.

I'm baffled

Why it would take 2 years to rewrite the syllabus?

Most Reg commentards could write the outline in a couple of hours and 6-8 of us the whole 2 year syllabus in a few months.

You are partly wrong

I was in the first year of national gcse's the main reason we got great grades was that we had the benefit of at least 1 year of the relevant O level syllabus for some if not all of the subjects. Having done both mock O levels and real GCSE's I can assure you GCSE's were easier.

In practise you had it harder because your year had a syllabus designed to meet the requirements of the GCSE not potentially exceed it like ours.

Totally agree with you on the A* grade though. Don't any of these idiots understand about normalising the scores to a bell shaped curve as they did with my degree exams?

Who needs a CS degree?

I guarantee that most of the IT guys from my generation the BBC B/Master era were not taught by CS grads we were taught by people with something far more important enthusiasm and passion.

My GCSE teacher raised the funds for his computer lab almost single handedly and was a great teacher.

Powerline Ethernet group posts 1Gb/s spec

Solwise made such a walkwart last time I checked.

I bet the Radio Hams cant wait

For the shiny beacon of PE to further intrude in their hobby.

RIM demos PlayBook OS2

Active Sync?

I seem to remember that BB handsets have supported both their own protocols and AS for some time now. I wonder if the playbook decision was tactical based on available resource prioritsation on the OS2 project or strategic based on EOLing their own protocols?

Vodafail riles ACMA again

And how do you separate an approved dealer from a rogue one.

Whilst most cold callers are scum they often do their activities without the knowledge and approval of their suppliers.

Is this a cop out to make the carriers take the fall instead of legislating against the real bad guys?

I'm not a telco fan but this strikes me as a little unfair.

NASA halts 'naut flogging Apollo 13 notebook

Maybe not in the 60's-70's

today its a standard clause in a contract. I wouldnt bet on it existing back then.

iPhone demand strong months after 4S release

Why misleading?

I'm my POS work bb 8360 was good I would seriously consider a BB as my next consumer phone.

Instead as its got an OS and keyboard bettered by my last 2 Winmob 6x handsets - they haven't got a chance.

Having a BB mandated as a corp phone is an upsell opportunity that almost no other vendor has and BB are completely failing to leverage it.

Former coder, NASA 'naut to lead DARPA starship dream

Indeed

To quote from the Big Bang Theory - Damn you Will Wheaton!

Black hole radiation could provide insight into quantum gravity

Yes But

With out re-aquainting myself with the theory ,since its widely quoted as a mechanism for black hole evaporation, then by definition more anti-particles should fall in than particles. Otherwise the BH mass would stay constant.

So Im assuming that Hawking also theorised the mechanism you mention.

SEVENTY-FIVE wirelessly charged devices will demo at CES

Wake me when its stackable

The problem is that it just isnt a solution right now.

Like a lot of families we have a pile of electronics that live in the lounge or the bedroom - depending on the time of day. Quite often these end up piled on top of each other when they are not being used.

Ideally I should be able to put my laptop on the charger, then my ipad on the laptop and my iphone on the ipad - and they all charge from the same source.

Then wireless charging would have a unique USP.