Posts by ChrisInAStrangeLand

Israel plots gigabit fibre-to-home rollout

Re: I'd be pretty happy with 100 Mb download speeds

"So far it looks like the "third world" is coming in first."

I'd just like to point out that Israel was not "unaligned" during the cold war.

The 'Digital Economy' in 2012: A big noisy hole where money should be

One of the yellowest articles i've seen on this site. I suppose you don't want to make a substantive allegation because of the defamation laws?

University of Western Sydney hands out 11k iPads

The purpose of this "flexible learning environment" plan is to reduce staff (who are contractors, almost no tenure at UWS and UTS) contact hours. You're essentially being enrolled at an "on premises online diploma mill."

WCIT settles into a long night as deadlocks solidify ... into logjam

Re: ITU to stay in the first couple of ISO layers

Too bad they planted it on the wrong summit. X.400 and X.500 are never, ever, going to be the dominant standard except in countries where use of SMTP and LDAP carries the death penalty.

H.323 merely demonstrates the simplicity, superiority and ease of use of SIP and IETF engineering standards in general.

'Kids' apps STILL siphoning too much info from mobes' - FTC boss

No parenting needed.

The solution to this problem is the same as the web.

Are you over 13?

*"Yes, Buy Apps"

*"No, Cancel".

Netflix names Google Fiber the fastest ISP in the US

I'd just like to point out that 20Mbit (2.55MBps) is where Netflix throttles it's data connections to Google, not what the link is capable of. There's no point buffering half a movie that might not be watched on a well commissioned gigabit link.

Intel launches Atom S Series at servers

I'd say the Error Correcting Curmudgeon's are working just fine.

I've got the 'fastest growing THINGY ever', boasts Google+ chief

Re: Google worries me

That's just IP Geolocation. The databases are public knowledge, every time you connect to a web service you're telling the service provider, roughly, where in the world you are.

Apple, Samsung patent judge: 'I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day here'

Re: No, Miss Koh, you are not.

"Both will end up as wasting the time of the general public."

The public are wasting the courts time by granting millions of dubious patents. "The People" are the villains in this case.

Tim Cook: Apple to manufacture Macs in US in 2013

Re: Ass hole

"What a load of crap. So I suppose all those television, radio, computer, cell phone, and you name it products that started life here in the good ole USA were NEVER made here?"

Most were made in Mexico, Japan or south east asia. No one has historically manufactured the volumes Apple needs.

Microsoft's anti-Android Twitter campaign draws ire, irony

Re: Bitter and dangerous people.

"The problem with most of the major companies today, MS, Google, Apple is that they all want a "large" slice of all the pies but when they dont manage they become bitter."

That is a media narrative. It's a problem with hack journalists and the impressionable idiots who read them.

Clap Google, Amazon in irons to end tax shenanigans - MPs

Re: Taxing rich companies that can afford it?

"Personally I'd deny them access to the vital infrastructure which they aren't contributing to. Roads, rail, electricity grid, gas supplies and so on."

They pay the national grid connection charge at their datacenters. Data also does not use road, rail, gas supplies or "so ons".

Cloud storage giant Amazon cuts S3 prices, waits for rivals to die

Re: Consumer vs enterprise?

Google Drive assumes a certain amount of duplication and over subscription.

GE study pimps ‘industrial Internet’

Re: Broadcast only while in the air

Rolls called one of Qantas's A380s over Jakarta when the compressor on their inboard engine blew up and took most of the wing. From the interview with the pilot, they asked if the engine had blown up and if the wing was damaged.

How about build an engine that doesn't fucking explode next time Rolls.

Google avoids tax with ‘Double Irish Dutch Sandwich’

Re: Very simple

Violation of recent free trade agreements. Australian produce would be immediately blocked from EU, US, and Japanese markets.As a commodity exporter Australia has everything to lose in this game.

Re: So why not something along the lines of

"1. If you are an business of at least a certain size, or operating under the brand of a business of a certain size you are required to have a registered UK branch and offices."

Common Market.

Withdraw from the EU or stop whining.

ACCC calls for liberalised copyright in Oz

Re: Citizens ARE copyright holders

Actually the ACCC are siding with Singtel, football doesn't fit into Google's kill all humans agenda. Maybe "bring back the biff".

FCC plans to make Twitter, mobile networks disaster proof

Re: Does the FCC even have a role to play any more?

The supreme court has already ruled that radio waves aren't speech, so they can claim all they want.

Retailers report slow Windows 8 sales, low demand

Zune was an extremely flawed media player in it's first iteration. The hardware (besides it's color palette) was excellent, well ahead of ipod. It had an extremely expensive 802.11g/bluetooth chip for music sharing, but only official zune library songs to other zunes. You couldn't buy music over wifi or sync your album between pc and zune. That was a lost opportunity.

What really killed zune however was playsforsure. If you made a Microsoft DRM investment earlier, say on a Sansa media player, it forsurecouldntplay on your Zune. Fool me once. Shame on you.

How Intel's faith in x86 cost it the mobile market

Re: Power consumption?

Atom SoCs are using the same amount of power as ARM. That's 1x the consumption of ARM.

Patent trolling to go under anti-trust spotlight

Hopefully they will rule patent monopolies illegal under section 2 of the Sherman Act. Also, copyrights and trademarks while they're at it.

Sydney Uni boffin wants database to track smokers

Re: And the obvious question for the Nanny state is?

"You have to do the same thing for any alcohol at the same time.... And the public gets to view the records of all pollie's drinking habits.....

Would that kill the proposal?"

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BobHawkeYardofale.jpg

Notebook price war slams Dell's revenues, slashes profits

"That said, CEO Dell piped up and said that the company has one customer that has bought a total of one exabyte of storage capacity from Dell."

Was it <a href="http://www.nsa.gov/">these guys?</a>

China blocks all Google services as new leader anointed

Re: Fine...

The businesses will now know better to not rely on those evil western devils email services.

Files aren’t property, says US government

Files are property if and only if you have a military to defend them.

Windows RT still haunted by the ghost of Microsoft's 2001 tablet fiasco

" It all reminds me of the new Samsung TVs with the stupid voice and gesture recognition control. WTF is the point when you can still switch channels or change the volume quicker by pressing a button"

Gestures aren't the point at all. How else are you going to get punters to pay for putting the NSA's surveillance cameras into a television?

I see the Asus 10" Atom tablet as ideal. A laptop with a full version of Matlab and TeXworks (and not a locked app store full of useless skeuomorphised desk calculators, burn in hell Apple) for class, and a 500g slate I can watch movies on and read webpages with on the train.

At $599 incl keyboard dock the price is right.

Debenhams cafes ban outré terms like 'espresso' and 'cappuccino'

""Coffee, milk two please."

Brilliant."

You've correctly asked for a small (they call it a short and for the purposes of upselling don't put it on display) filtered coffee, with milk and two sugars. Starbucks will always, always understand this and will be happy to serve it and pocket the $1.90 gross margin.

'I'd buy that for a dollar': Apple on Moto phone patents

Re: Fair, Non-discriminatory. Don't get the issue

Motorola doesn't have to re-offer Apple FRAND terms once they've refused them. They can deny Apple access to 3G patents Apple has claimed they don't need and won't buy, and is now saying they've willfully infringed, or they can charge the spoiled child any non-FRAND amount they choose.

AMD to 'reset' goals: servers, embedded, ultra-low power

Dual core Haswell is going to easily wipe the floor with Brazos on power consumption. AMD doesn't have a hope in hell of getting into ultrabooks and tablets.

325 Dicks sell for AUD$20m

"so they sold a business that makes a PROFIT of $20m p.a. at a loss of $400m on its value of $420m.

So $20m x 20yrs =$400m profit against $400m loss by selling. ???"

What Woolworths is writing down is not a cash loss, the business is and has been profitable for a decade, but an amount of "goodwill", an accounting figure that represents what they had previously told shareholders the brand is worth.

This is normal accounting practice.

ABC sends lawyers after iView freeware

The problem is that ABC had given copyright holders of imported content specific legal assurances about DRM being attached to their online streaming service. One of their suppliers (probably the Beeb) has complained, and If they do not cut off this app they will lose the streaming rights to that content.

They ABC is publicly funded, and their legal team are usually not psychopaths. They would have very politely made Mr Visser aware of their needs as licensors before sending the C&D, and he has simply chosen to ignore them.

UK's loyalty set for £1.2bn Huawei reward

re: playing debts

Look, I know it's politically unfashionable in Europe to honour sovereign debts, but perhaps he did, somewhat naively, mean "pay down" and "service" the olympic debts.

Elon Musk says he's planning a 'supersonic, electric hover jetplane'

He didn't say all-electric, he said electric. i.e

superconductor fan <------> motor controller <------> capacitor <-------> generator.

There are enormous efficiencies to be gained from mechanically decoupling the fan from the compressor and turbine and spinning each at the most optimal speed. The reason why it hasn't happened is because airlines and manufacturers are even more risk averse than car companies. They're even choking on geared turbofans, and they've been on the drawing boards for decades.

Mobe-maker flogs self-designed phones ... to your KIDS

Re: Much cheaper PAYG options

There are two things going for this phone. One, it's a simple device that was originally created for old people with dementia. Second, a larger battery could *potentially* keep this thing going for a month.

Where they fell down is the battery, 3 days standby is absolute bullshit for an emergency device. My Motofone weighed 68g and lasted two weeks, and it had a lot more crap (eink display, keys, plastic structure) taking up space that could have been used for battery.

Telstra aces LTE market

"Telstra’s network advantage" is predominantly a story of a government created regional fiber backhaul and 900mhz spectrum monopoly before it was privatized. Fortunately they've had to let go of some of that 900mhz spectrum. But don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

'That new Google button was our idea', claims lawsuit

Re: I think you misunderstand

"If you have a meeting with someone about an idea they propose, by having that meeting you are excepting that it's their idea, unless you can prove otherwise. If you didn't want to buy there ideas you shouldn't have had the meeting."

No patent, no copyright, no payment. Competitors copy each other's product improvements, that's pure capitalism working as the sky fairy intended.

Viviane Reding says imitate US and form FEDERAL EUROPE

"And *IF* the EU goes down this path, you WILL have your "War between the States". I don't know what the precipitating issue will be (I seriously doubt it will be slavery), but I know it will be horrible and divisive."

What if Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy demanded to leave the union? Germany says no and sends in tanks. UK and France say "oh no not this again" and fire missiles at Germany...

Re: Solid Dollar?

"Wonder what would happen if some European agencies or agencies from the BRICs block were to let fly with a rating that was less than favorable to the dollar..."

It would cause a global sovereign debt panic which would destroy most of Europe's ability to refinance their loans, leading to European default.

US trade body to 'revisit' Motorola's sole patent win over Apple

Re: This is an important one

Motorola are allowed to charge anything they want for their patent, and if Apple don't want to negotiate they are free to not ship an infringing video capability in their device. In the case of 3G moto have agreed to charge all licencees the same per unit fee, and his jobsness has decided that they simply don't need to pay it because fuck you we're Apple.

Australia 'should not be scared' of NBN cost

Re: NBN take-up is below expectations

I'm predicting that with the low latency of LTE and the enormous cost of a speed competitive 100Mbit circuit from the NBN monopoly, the majority of users will elect for leaving that brand new $3000/install fiber dead when it's brought into their homes.

75% of users are happy with 256k ADSL and/or dialup. They'll be equally happy with wireless.

Apple's Ping has fatal pong, says CEO

I have a Spotify specific Facebook account just for this. They can spam Avery Fakename's wall full of shit to their heart's content.

SpaceX joy as Space Station robo-arm grabs Dragon's tail

The CBM also has a larger hatch than the Russian end, which means Dragon can lift bigger cargo.

Google's 7in tablet stalled for last-minute tweaks

The confusion of Samsung and HTC leaving their customers for dead after purchase? The Nexus line of phones and tablets is trying to address that confusion.

Buying a Nexus means that the vendor is providing both first party support, and source code and packages of drivers for all of their hardware and custom software so that should they mysteriously have "delays" the community can provide it for them. No more laggy touchwiz binaries made built by work experience kid, no more promises of "in January we'll update your galaxy note to ICS, it'll have a 'premium pack' and everything." Nexus means yes the new version is available and everything works.