Posts by Gideon 1

Toyota and Joby complete Japan's first air taxi flight test

Safety

What happens when the power fails? Splat.

Party like it's 2014, if you can – that's the last time smartphone sales were this low

Spelling

"Reith reckons tho1se tactics"

You're not Boeing to believe this: Yet another show-stopping software bug found in ill-fated 737 Max airplanes

Re: Triple processing

If the 737 Max was safe without MCAS, why did they need to add it?

Blame of thrones: Those viral vids of PC monitors going blank when people stand up? Static electricity from chairs

BS EN 55024

Have these monitors even been tested to BS EN 55024 including the ESD test EN61000-4-2 ?

Blackout Bug: Boeing 737 cockpit screens go blank if pilots land on specific runways

Re: Lifestyle change

Smaller helicopters have a lower blade-disc rotational inertia, giving less time for the pilot to react to a power failure or air turbulence . For example the Robinson R44 has about 4 seconds of rotor inertia available rather than 1.6 seconds for the Robinson R22, before the incident becomes unrecoverable. Smaller helicopters also are more likely to have teeter-totter blade disc attachment, with it's risk of mast bumping or tail chop off. Smaller helicopters are not necessarily safer.

Canadian woman fined for not holding escalator handrail finally reaches the top after 10 years

Re: Other escalator laws

"Dogs" is plural.

Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion

7 years or 5

7 years in a cupboard to avoid a possible 5 year penalty

Two Arkansas dipsticks nicked after allegedly taking turns to shoot each other while wearing bulletproof vests

Willy Waving

"At least these bozos allegedly only used a .22 rather than something more potent which could have penetrated the thing. These vests are only really intended to stop low-energy pistol shots, not high-velocity rifle ammunition."

Cue the calibre vs lethality debate. Shooting at someone with any firearm is dangerous.

IR35 contractor tax reforms crawl closer to UK private sector with second consultation

Not the real problem

This is all because they split the tax system into income tax and national insurance payments, and employers equivalents. It all ends up in the same pot anyway.

Most munificent Apple killed itself with kindness. Oh. Really?

The Register missed the point, which is that battery replacements will only be for failing batteries which would otherwise have necessitated an upgrade.

Bank on it: It's either legal to port-scan someone without consent or it's not, fumes researcher

Scanning after login is too late; the malware could have got some login details

Though their website should get your agreement before scanning.

East Midlands network-sniffer wails: Openreach, fix my outage-ridden line

Electricity insulator failure

We had these symptoms in our village. It turned out to be a cracked electricity insulator arcing intermittently, and not a fault in the phone/broadband network. A thermal camera can help find that kind of fault.

Epyc fail? We can defeat AMD's virtual machine encryption, say boffins

Re: None issue

" It was a selling point AMD pushed for cloud and off-prem platforms."

Meh. Cloud customers often don't know what iron they are running on, or even then if security protections are enabled. You have to assume cloud is insecure, because encryption (other then 1 time pads) only ever slows down an attacker.

Getting strike through HTML to work in comment.

Re: Getting strike through HTML to work in comment.

Use s and /s in <>

Open justice FTW! El Reg fought the law – and El Reg won

Re: Wonderful

Some outlets/papers don't do ANY journalism now, simply quoting Wikipedia, PR, adverts and wire services The Register.

TFIFY

Windows 10 Springwatch: See the majestic Microsoft in its natural habitat, fixing stuff the last patch broke

Windows Ink vs Wacom: Fight! Fight! Fight!

Do the stylus updates fix the problems with Windows Ink that persuaded me to turn that feature off?

BT pushes ahead with plans to switch off telephone network

Re: Mobile as the emergency option?

There won't be POTS, instead fibre to the premises with a battery backed Optical Termination Unit.

Re: Oh well

No, you will not get a 50V pots line with fibre, instead at the premises you get an Optical Network Termination unit with a Battery Backup Unit which contains rechargeable cells. These will locally generate the 50V required to operate legacy POTS termination equipment. Openreach will roll this out to every line, completely removing all the copper network.

The exchange will only need a router with all optical interfaces.

Intel's security light bulb moment: Chips to recruit GPUs to scan memory for software nasties

Intel Graphics is a security risk

...because it can access the entire memory.

Guess who else Spectre is haunting? Yes, it's AMD. Four class-action CPU flaw lawsuits filed

Re: Now lets get technical.

All very good, but not the nub.

The problem is that speculative executions can load from forbidden memory locations, and only cause a violation exception if their results are committed. Loading - processing - throwing the data leaks the contents through clever timing analysis.

Fixing it is hard. Lessons need to be learnt from the cipher/encryption community, that complete separation between userland and kernel is required for true security.

Microsoft exec says ARM-powered Windows laptops have multi-day battery life

The Reg is now reporting from the future

"Qualcomm revealed its tie-up with Microsoft in December 2017,..."

Apple ups the stakes in patent royalties battle with Qualcomm

Re: Well knock me down with a feather

"One wrinkle is that I've read some patent license agreements mandate that no reimbursement is made if patents are later declared invalid."

If Qualcommm acted illegally then these terms could also be invalid and unenforceable.

Move over, Stuxnet: Industroyer malware linked to Kiev blackouts

Re: The as yet unknown authors of the malware were familiar with industrial control systems.

Do you wear a tinfoil hat?

Why software engineers should ditch Silicon Valley for Austin

Real Ale

The microbreweries across the pond do some pretty good brews these days.

NASA bakes Venus-proof electronics

Re: At last, technology to make phones toddler proof...

Jack-Jack Attack on the Incredibles DVD

Scottish court issues damages to couple over distress caused by neighbour's use of CCTV

Out-Law goading for big compensation claims

Scots law differs from English law in that prior rulings are for guidance rather than precedence. A Scots court would take a dim view of attempts to claim excessive amounts of money for distress, and would see it as an attempt to use the court as a tool of war rather than a way to settle a dispute.

Devonians try to drive Dartmoor whisky plan onto rocks

Re: A small correction...

The ice won't help. If it's a whisky made in Dartmoor it will need cola or ginger ale to make it palatable.

'Ancient' Mac backdoor discovered that targets medical research firms

Re: Quimitchin

"Quimitchin" were Aztec spies, apparently, though it could be just another hilarious Wikipedia hoax.

Why Theresa May’s hard Brexit might be softer than you think

Anyone else think...

...it's like the sky is about to fall on our heads in here.

Networks in 2016: A full fibre diet for UK.gov

You're watching 4k TV on your main set in the living room. The kids don't want to watch what you are watching so go watch 4k TV in their bedrooms, separately from each other. Then your partner watches more 4k TV in the kitchen while making the dinner... Apparently there is simply no need or use for 1Gbps.

Hackers waste Xbox One, PS4, MacBook, Pixel, with USB zapper

Re: No point in protecting against this

It's not just voltage you have to protect against, it's current and power too.

50kV might be a little hazardous to the perp as well as the port.

Intrinsic Safety (ATEX, IECEX)

MOVs and Zeners will protect against static discharge, but for real reliability (e.g. Intrinsic Safety) they then need to be protected against sustained overload with fuses, creepage and clearance distances, infallible connections, optocoupler "Distance Through Insulation"... It gets expensive.

Also, I've seen computer interface chips on motherboards explode when they are pushed into latch-up by inappropriately high currents (>15mA) through their inbuilt protection diodes.

Renewed calls for Tesla to scrap Autopilot after number of crashes

"The inaccurate and sensationalistic view of Autopilot put forth by this group is exactly the kind of misinformation that threatens to harm consumer safety."

The evidence suggests that Tesla's cars harm consumer safety.

AMD is a rounding error on Intel's spreadsheet and that sucks for us all

"On the other hand, Tesla just announced self-driving hardware in its new cars, all powered by Nvidia GPUs"

Which they have disabled at launch.

Basic income after automation? That’s not how capitalism works

Re: Errrm

That will be why women have so many shoes.

London cops strap on new body cams

Arms Race

Everybody will eventually have to start wearing body cams to counter the crooked cops. We're already half way there with dash cams.

Student software finds new Minor Planet found way out beyond Pluto

Re: Numbers in the title and article look a bit off...

The NPR article they referenced said 1,100 years.

BT will HATE us for this one weird 5G trick

Buzzword fail

"With 5G the world is looking at a MIMO – (multiple input multiple output) – which combines signals over lots of different frequencies to get more bandwidth."

No, it means using the same frequency over different paths to get more bandwidth.

Turkey blocks Drive, Github, OneDrive in bid to kill RedHack leaks

VPNs

Many Turks use VPNs to get unblocked internet access.

Russian hackers target MH17 journalists for embarrassing Putin

Re: Journalists or Churnalists?

Dutch Safety Board report, Page 146:

http://www.webcitation.org/6cFSGnsRg

Re: Journalists or Churnalists?

Then there is the calculated trajectory of the missile, derived from physical evidence, which placed the missile launch within rebel held territory.

Re: Journalists or Churnalists?

MH17 crashed well inside rebel held territory. That simple fact makes all your assertions "dicey proposition"s.

'Neural network' spotted deep inside Samsung's Galaxy S7 silicon brain

Re: Most Behind the Times

"Since when did a microcontroller have cache, TLBs, an MMU, and all the other gubbins needed by an application CPU."

Microcontrollers have had these features, and more (e.g. graphics accelerators), for many years. It is a microcontroller if it has built-in peripherals to control things.

HMRC's IR35 tweaks have 90% of UK's IT contractors up in arms

Re: Why only IT?

What, only tax stupid people?

Boffins shrink light-twister to silicon scale, multiply bandwidth 10x

Re: Vaporware

So TL;DR, meh, they need to invent a better polarisation receiver.

Milk IN the teapot: Innovation or abomination?

Re: Anyone who puts the milk in tea whilst the bag is still in the cup

>You can count me as one of the weirdos that puts milk in Earl Grey though.

Likewise ;o)

...and proud.

Microsoft blames dying Surface Pro 3 batteries on software bug

Re: Wow

You'd get some spectacular battery fires

Shakes on a plane: How dangerous is turbulence?

Re: Flexibility Doesn't Give Strength

Reminds me of the time I was interviewing a structural engineer for my self build, and trying to impress me with his knowledge, he said that my 1860 stone staircase was 'cantilevered' and the iron and wood balustrade takes most of the load. Suffice to say he didn't get hired.

In these troubling times, senators unite to end America's big divide – rural v urban broadband

Re: I live in a rural area

The cellular carriers are not going to install expensive LTE base-stations in rural areas because there will be too few LTE capable handsets there to justify the investment.

The only currently viable option is satellite broadband.

Cryptocat dev reckons WhatsApp is blocking calls to Saudi numbers

Could be that it is blocked in the network, but the app doesn't even try as it would get a timeout, and they're doing this in an effort to be a little more slick and user friendly. The blocking while roaming might just be collateral damage from over-simple code.