Posts by R 11 210 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2009
AEP actually serves about 1.5m customers in Ohio. Assuming the same or more users on iOS and that's 1 in 75 to 1 in 50 of their customers used the app. That's a pretty decent amount for something that's pretty geeky.
Not sure what the relevance of the Ohio population is for a company that doesn't serve the entire state and, where it does serve the population, has competition.
I'm struggling to understand why you'd complain about the boot up time of your email application and ignore the time it takes to find a receipt for the dodgy hard drive you bought in mid-October last year and want to return before the warranty expires?
The huge advantage of digital receipts is searchability. Worried about spam? Then sign up using an email address that you only use for receipts.
VPNs gain full access to a user's browsing history.
Do these apps get permission on iOS/Android to access browsing history? Is that something available without user agreement? Or do the apps actually operate as a browser?
I ask because, in this day and age, most major websites are secured and therefore while the browser knows where you have been, the network operator and any middle men should know only the root of the site. For example my ISP knows I visited forums.theregister.co.uk but can't see that I visited this page (at least not without trying to correlate the timestamp for this submission to that displayed by the post).
If you're visiting an insecure site, assume everyone and their grandmother knows where you went and what you did while you were there.
This should be interesting, particularly when you read the terms he agreed to upon installing the software:
9. Disclaimers of Warranties.
9.1 Unless stated in the Additional Terms, the Services and Software are provided “AS-IS.” To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including the implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose. We make no commitments about the content within the Services. We further disclaim any warranty that (a) the Services or Software will meet your requirements or will be constantly available, uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; (b) the results obtained from the use of the Services or Software will be effective, accurate, or reliable; (c) the quality of the Services or Software will meet your expectations; or (d) any errors or defects in the Services or Software will be corrected.
9.2 We specifically disclaim all liability for any actions resulting from your use of any Services or Software. You may use and access the Services or Software at your own discretion and risk, and you are solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the use of and access to any Service or Software.
9.3 If you post your Content on our servers to publicly Share through the Services, we are not responsible for: (a) any loss, corruption, or damage to your Content; (b) the deletion of Content by anyone other than Adobe; or (c) the inclusion of your Content by third parties on other websites or other media.
10. Limitation of Liability.
10.1 Unless stated in the Additional Terms, we are not liable to you or anyone else for any loss of use, data, goodwill, or profits, whatsoever, and any special, incidental, indirect, consequential, or punitive damages whatsoever, regardless of cause (even if we have been advised of the possibility of the loss or damages), including losses and damages (a) resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, whether or not foreseeable; (b) based on any theory of liability, including breach of contract or warranty, negligence or other tortious action; or (c) arising from any other claim arising out of or in connection with your use of or access to the Services or Software. Nothing in the Terms limits or excludes our liability for gross negligence, for our, or our employees’, intentional misconduct, or for death or personal injury.
10.2 Our total liability in any matter arising out of or related to the Terms is limited to US $100 or the aggregate amount that you paid for access to the Service and Software during the three-month period preceding the event giving rise to the liability, whichever is larger. This limitation will apply regardless of the form or source of claim or loss, whether the claim or loss was foreseeable, and whether a party has been advised of the possibility of the claim or loss.
10.3 The limitations and exclusions in this section 10 apply to the maximum extent permitted by law.
15. Dispute Resolution.
15.1 Process. If you have any concern or dispute, you agree to first try to resolve the dispute informally by contacting us. If a dispute is not resolved within 30 days of submission, any resulting legal actions must be resolved through final and binding arbitration, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify.
I spent a few weeks in the late 90s being paid by British Gas to sort computer printouts into alphabetical order. Along with at least four other temp workers. And I left to go back to university - there wasn't as far as a I know any plan to do anything about it other than keep paying folk to shuffle paper.
I still don't see what the point of the 'Smart' watch is, as far as I can tell they don't do anything that a smartphone can't already do but they do it less well and with a much more limited battery life.
Do you know any women? Go talk to them about the lack of pockets on their clothes in which to keep a phone. Imagine if every time you wanted your phone you had to unzip rummage through a bag?
Know any executives? Talk to them about how they like to receive notifications but don't want to look at their phone during a meeting?
Know any schoolkids? Talk to them about facing the same issues as business execs.
Know any fitness fanatics? Talk to them about tracking workouts.
There's a bunch of use cases right there that benefit from a smart watch. I suspect they cover most of what keeps the segment alive, but others might add more.
As more folk are seen wearing smart watches, the bulkiness becomes more acceptable and others join in. Also, among millennials (and increasingly also among older users) using a phone to actually call people is becoming rare. I think there's every prospect that we'll start to see more folk ditching phones altogether if their watch can do cellular data and input mechanisms can be improved along with battery life.
If they legislate to mandate a back door, you think Apple, Google and Microsoft will choose not to comply and will stop selling in all those countries?
Certainly they won't legislate backdoor-free strong encryption out of existence, but I dare say its use would return to the sort of level that PGP had in the mid-90s.
You forgot to mention Print document first, as these should be on the PC already. If you're dealing with paper forms, you have other issues to fix as well. Fax over digital lines has been possible for years.
Also, for many of these folk they're likely using fax servers. So, with something like RightFax, they can fax a doctor and it will come in to their outlook mailbox as a PDF. The doctor can fax back from their computer if necessary.
You forgot to mention Print document first, as these should be on the PC already. If you're dealing with paper forms, you have other issues to fix as well.
There's likely loads of paper forms. When the ED overflows into corridors, junior doctors can walk up and down assessing patients. A clipboard and a well designed form is much more efficient than a laptop (likely with a dying battery). Now you could probably replace it with a tablet computer but you still have battery life issues, and you're going to spend a fortune on the conversion for what gain?
While I am not a fan of Google (Do know evil to do no evil) , this is on the guy's company and not Google because they were most likely running on the wrong terms (SLAs) because it was cheaper.
It goes beyond that. Saving money by using a cheaper SLA might be fine if you can cope with the downtime. This guy apparently opted for an SLA that didn't meet their needs and didn't keep backups.
Why anyone would throw all their eggs in one virtual cloud is beyond me. With decent backups and a thought through process, they should be able to move vendor at the drop of a hat, allowing them to take advantage of better pricing or service from a competitor cloud.
I think you misunderstand. A professional DJ can likely afford a dedicated device. Indeed if they're smart, that's exactly what they'd do in case some app gone rogue destroys their set.
The amateur DJs, be they playing music for themselves, their friends, or another small gathering probably don't have a separate balanced output system. They have an iDevice and speakers.
Peter's interest was always communications, at least that's what I gathered from his contributions to numerous Usenet groups in the 1990s. I've used Gradwell for many years as a carrier on my asterisk server and haven't experienced any really significant problems during that time.
Perhaps moving back to focus on what they love will pay dividends?
It's a bit strange that the author couldn't think of one reason to control hue remotely?
How about you've been delayed getting home. You want the light on for your pet dog so they're not sitting in the dark for two hours? Or you've decided to stay at a "friend's" house overnight, but you want a light on for a couple of hours in the evening so it looks like your home is occupied? Or your parents called to say they're coming over, but they'll be at the house before you and you don't want them going into a dark house?
There's three reasonable use cases that took me about thirty seconds to come up with. I'm sure others have plenty more.
"Google have got form for disclosing security flaws before fixes are ready."
Giving the other party 90 days to fix, followed by them going into radio silence up to and beyond the 90 days isn't quite the same what happened here.
Seems more likely that these bugs affected so many systems that many more folk needed to be told. When so many people have a need to know, a leak becomes almost inevitable.
I'm reminded of Acorn's advert in The Times following Apple's PowerPC move to RISC in 1994:
*************************************************************************
[white text on black background, large text]
As a founder member,
Acorn is delighted
to welcome Apple
to the RISC Club.
[2/3 of way down page, switch to black on white, smaller text]
After 11 years of development and 7 years of production, we at Acorn are
still marvelling at the sheer power, performance and potential of 32-bit
RISC technology.
Our ARM 32-bit RISC processors have delivered these capabilities to our
many customers in education, the home and industry worldwide, in our
products since 1987.
So it comes as little surprise to hear that Apple's new desktop range
also incorporates 32-bit RISC technology.
[large italic text, stands out prominently]
Oh well. Better late than never.
...
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.powerpc/I2AlOpqdSik/KbTTGJbAAVoJ
*************************************************************************
Looks like Acorn get's the last laugh.
>>> And the contacts needs to cope with aliases - who includes an entry in their contacts for 'my wife'? Anne-Marie or Snookums, possibly...
They already do. Google contacts has support for nicknames and phonetic spellings so that an unusual or non-English name can be correctly recognized.
>>> Isn't this the sort of thing the EU went after Microsoft for when they tried to bake Explorer into the OS?
When the EU went after Microsoft, they were probably making the OS for more than 9 in every 10 computers sold. iOS has >30% of the UK smartphone market, so there's not the same competition concerns.
Who on earth has their spouse in their phone under the name "My Wife"? I ask my Google home to "call <firstname>" and that's exactly what happens. It calls folk anywhere in the world at the first time of asking. And my accent is one from the lesser-populated northern regions of the UK, so it's not a "you need to speak slowly and clearly" thing.
If you'd been reading The Register, you'd have known when you bought it that it was already 2 months out of support. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/google_eol_for_nexus_phones/
That said, I wouldn't worry about the Nexus 7. I'm sure all the router manufacturers will be quickly rolling out updates to protect wireless sessions.
455k reservations are at $1,000 a shot. That's almost half a billion dollars in down-payments. I think BMW, VW or Toyota would love to see that.
Musk has somehow managed to create a kick-starter for cars, getting punters to fund large chunks of capital outlay without expecting any of the stock a venture capital firm would demand.
Equally, last weekend I was driving outside Detroit, MI. A car made a left turn through two stationary lanes of traffic. Unfortunately, a women in a Porsche Cayenne was heading up the third lane at speed, invisible to the turning driver. She plowed straight into his pickup truck. Airbags went off.
We called 911 about thirty seconds later. On being connected to the operator I saw blue lights approaching from behind. We hadn't even relayed our position but the women's car had called emergency services with its location. That sort of tech can and does save lives.
Like most technology, it can be used for good or bad. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have it.
Are we concerned about over=consumption of solar power and/or wind?
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/technology/google-says-it-will-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-in-2017.html
Perhaps The Register is concerned Google will suck up all the sun?
http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/tech/town-rejects-solar-panels-that-would-suck-up-all-the-energy-from-the-sun/
"The irony of all this is that Google's maps really are just street maps. Streetmap's maps are maps of the terrain. No contest in my view."
Of course, you could turn on the terrain view in Google Maps - https://goo.gl/maps/UCJNtm4zhVu
Certainly it's not the same as an OS map, but topographic details are certainly there. At least in the US, this data has been available for a decade.
Or, if you read the article, you'd note that some users were able to mitigate by changing WiFi channel. It's possible that you could get a new neighbor who has a router blasting on the channel you're currently using. You might change you channel (or the airport could do it automagically if it's smart enough) and discover a problem - possibly after the warranty period expires.
Volvo apparently think that "autonomous technology will allow you to let your Volvo do the driving, giving you back control over your time. It will be a completely new, more convenient way to travel and we are already on the road to making it a reality."
http://www.volvocars.com/intl/about/our-innovation-brands/intellisafe/intellisafe-autopilot
I've been using one for a while - or at least kids in the car have. These make long distance journeys much better, particularly if the kids have the not uncommon misfortune of having a 16gb iDevice.
Fill the stick up with 30 or 40 movies and you're off. The cheap one can stream to three devices simultaneously, I think the more expensive models can do even more. Battery life is only a few hours, but you can simply plug it in to a $10 USB battery or a car charger and it will work fine.
I don't see as many use cases for adults (I suppose the camping one might be valid if you're stuck in a tent during rain), but I'm surprised more parents groups aren't raving about this.
It may be a surprise to folk in the UK as I'm not aware of the BBC doing this, but NPR in the US does offer transcripts of radio programs and has done for some time: http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2009/08/free_transcripts_now_available.html
To folk outside Blighty, it might not be such an unreasonable request. Particularly for folk who are deaf, hard of hearing or simply in an open-plan office!
Android uses the cloud to generate payment tokens. The phone stores a small number so that these can be used in a network black-spot.
Given that, for the likes of iTunes or Google Play, either operator is likely to already be storing a copy of your credit card details, I'm not sure this is a big concern. If you don't but anything online, you're unlikely to be opting in to either service.
How about, I no longer need to carry my wallet? Of course that requires widespread adoption, but it will come if customers demand it.
Secondly, there's the security aspect. Frankly I am much less concerned about the encrypted chip on my phone being compromised than I am about a store suffering a data breach and losing my details. With mobile payments a unique credit card number is generated for each transaction.
You're absolutely correct, it's not tricky.
If these users trust the source code because they can read it, they can easily confirm that the binary blob is never called unless the user affirmatively opts in.
Surely that's exactly what's intended by an open source license that permits linking to closed source binaries? If you don't trust the binary, you can satisfy yourself that it is never called or if it were to be called you can modify the code. If those are beyond your skill level then you can pay someone appropriately qualified to perform the task.
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