Posts by Ben 56

Apple now world's second-largest company

Microsoft part owns Apple

Lets not forget Microsoft own $150 million of Apple shares:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/09/01/apples_g4_the_real_windows/

Dell Streak GPL snub enrages Android fans

Narrow minded view.

But the following 6 months will mean that you now have a new alternative OS to play with without spam/advertisements with new bug/security fixes, likely more corporate unfriendly (filesharing/VOIP etc etc) features, removal of OS restrictions, and lack of branding. Finally when Dell decide to no longer support the device the community will still be there to do it.

Dell should have factored the GPL source release timetable in advance, or even better released it while they worked on it, so it's not the open source "nutters" fault if Dell cut corners (hypothetically - they probably can just release it).

Average Joe (c/o Anon Coward) needs to see the bigger picture of open source instead of narrow mindedness that only a few "nutters" need it - it'll benefit everyone and competition is always good. Where would we be today if Netscape Navigator wasn't open sourced (Firefox)? or Sun's Star Office (Open Office), Minix (Linux/Unix/Ubuntu etc), Berkeley sockets (networking layer in Windows) etc etc.

Rant over :)

Raptor over Blighty: Watch the stealth fighter in infrared

Probably already done and you can guess the result

Training exercises have certainly already been done by the US to plan against the UK's, Europe's and Saudi Arabia's Eurofighter contingencies and any future tranches (i.e. the kind that might be deployed if war with the US were to come about and an advantage was needed to counter the F35). The reason I think we don't know the (likely confidential) results is probably down to the fact that it's too close to call or embarrassing (i.e. you don't want other countries to know that their jets can best your latest and greatest), otherwise we'd have "league" tables showing kill ratios like they do for (e.g.) US vs Russian vs old jets.

Treasury pulls plug on Wiki-cutback site

So the few spoil it for the many...

So what happens to all of those good suggestions that were made? I added one to stop employing lollipop people who stand at pedestrian lights and instead bring back the green cross code and educate kids on road safety...

Steve Jobs beheads iPad apps for acting like desktops

He's clearly not that bright

and doesn't learn from mistakes - in a month or so he'll rescind this blog comment about not writing software for a rival.

Exam board deletes C and PHP from CompSci A-levels

Pascal? Pah Cobol

Dumbing down of education again, all because the teacher doesn't want to learn harder languages the kids have to suffer with less options. You might as well be teaching Cobol for the use that will be in the real world.

NHS blames computer error for transplant fouls

Incorrect analogy

When was the last time you saw a meteor or ionzing particle affect any computer that wasn't in space? When was the last time you saw someone make a mistake?

Quod erat demonstrandum.

UK.gov rejects calls to open up on ContactPoint security

Typical government

...always reactive instead of proactive

"and an audit trail will be maintained to ensure that incidents can be investigated."

Here's me thinking audit trails on all government confidential databases were a norm.

Government rubbishes ID card hack report

Stupidity icon

@Sabine Miehlbradt

I vote for a picture of Blunkett or Jackie Smith for the stupidity icon.

LG's watchphone priced

What a ripoff - these things have been out for years

"Exclusive" ha! You can already get mobile phone watches at less than £70, e.g. see http://www.chinavasion.com/index.php/cName/mobile-phones-cell-phone-watch/