Posts by Ammaross Danan

Humanity facing GLOBAL BACON SHORTAGE

Re: AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!

All because of mandated ethanol and a bad yield year....

Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review

Re: its rubbish

"Yep, same old UI. That one the customers love, and know how to use..."

Ignorant customers love it. Pull out an Android phone and show them homescreen widgets (such as your email inbox or your calendar) and they instantly go "wow! that would be great to have!" Sure, you can launch an App, perhaps have to wait for it to open/load depending on your iOS, but having it on the homescreen is very convenient. We'll see how long until Apple steals widgets like they did the notification pulldown...

The only valid point you give is the "know how to use." Swapping a UI in a major way (Ribbons, in your example, or the Not-Metro UI of Win8) is a major problem. However, the transition can be done, and it can sometimes be fairly painless. Look at how Android added a task manager in 3.0+. I'm not a big fan of the permanent black bar on their Tablets, but the phone execution of 4.0 tasks is flawless. Apple could do the same if they tried.

iPhone 5: skinny li'l fella with better display, camera, software

Notes

So, they're calling the mini-dock a "Lightning" connector? Isn't this the same term AMD uses for their Thunderbolt-alike DisplayPort technology? I think someone may be getting sued shortly....

These spec lines read rather underwhelming. Not even a full 720p screen? Seriously? At least they finally got the camera to 8MP like all the Androids. The list of features they're enumerating to merit the "iOS6" tag sound more like the list of features you'd read about in Sense, Motion, or other GUI mods from manufacturers. Task switching, GUI overhaul, hardware-accelerated 3D, and SMP ALL TOGETHER may merit a full version bump, but being able to tweet from the notification pulldown and throwing a few app upgrades in merits iOS5->iOS6? Guess they're on the Firefox versioning system now: numbers for the sake of numbers.

SanDisk flogs strap-on to speed up your lazy Windows 7 PC

Re: DoH

Just use the Intel Z77 caching feature. Does the same thing transparently.

iPhone's market share in China sliced in HALF

@AC: "Android phones of a similar quality are not much if at all cheaper than an iPhone on contract."

Nope. You can get a Galaxy Nexus for less than an iPhone 4, along with many other Android devices. Perhaps the reason more Android devices are sold is because they are more multifunctional? Heck, just having an SD slot means I have 64GB (32 internal, 32 on card) in my phone, with the option of 32/64 for a total of 96GB (plus the spare 32GB I can swap back in when needed). That capability along makes an Android device loads better than any iDevice for portable media storage and having 1080p recording space.

Jury awards Apple $1bn damages in Samsung patent case

Re: Can you hear

@Metavisor: It's not in dispute that Samsung "copied" Apple. It IS in dispute, however, that the things they "copied" were truly novel and patentable (as demonstrated by all of the prior art provided, which apparently didn't amount to a hill of beans in the jury's opinion).

Re: I think that I should....

"...that Samsung had failed to present clear and convincing evidence that the patent was invalid."

Yeah, unfortunately, a mountain of prior art isn't enough to invalidate patents such as multi-touch or rectangular objects with rounded corners...

Apple TV: Rubbish, you don't like documentaries – I'll just flick to porn

What about...

A big problem would be multiple users... Watching Discovery nature show that you don't like? Flips to Teletubbies! Or worse yet, it knows that you immediately flip from child shows (except when it's the kids watching), and the "Don't like this?" logic comes around and *flick* Oh look, now your kids are watching soft porn on HBO....

Google loads Moto Mobility cannon, fires patent shells at Apple

Re: And what did

Doesn't even matter if Moto used them or not (they may well have). Just ask Patent Trolls.

On the article however, it digresses into the whole FRAND crap again at the bottom. These 7 patents do not appear to be related to FRAND in any way, and thus, Moto could extort $30/device licensing fees if they so desired (coincidentally, that's how much Apple wanted to extort from Samsung to use a rounded-corner rectangular form factor...)

Scientists find safer way to store hydrogen

Re: What?

"I certainly wouldnt mind a car with half the range if it cost half as much to run."

"Wouldn't that mean it costs the exact same amount, then?"

@NukEvil: Nope. Half as much to run, at half the distance, is still half as much to run, you just get less range per fill-up. If it was half as much to run over half the range (note the change in word order and the use of "over"), then you're just saying it costs less due to reducing the distance driven.

New MPEG format paves the way for UHDTV

Re: HDTV at 8k! Just wow!

1080p vs not, all I gotta say is my phone camera recording 720p (or worse), it's hard to make out gravel as anything more than a mixed-shade blur. 1080p, you can see rocks.

That is all.

Facebook shares hit all-time low

"All-time low"

It's quite easy to hit an "All-time low" if your stock hasn't been around enough to have taken "the plunge" before....Shame Facebook's stock looks more like a park slide than a rollercoaster...

Did Mitt Romney really get 117,000 REAL Twitter followers in ONE DAY?

Re: waitaminnit

From the article:

"Dealers sometimes try to make fake profiles harder to detect by randomly following some famous and some average people, or posting tweets grabbed from the Twitter stream."

Note the "randomly following some famous...people." What would be interesting is the unsaid: if Obama had any fake followers too. If the article's statement is to be assumed true, the accounts may be following one, the other, or both.

Apple's lone wolf approach to security will bite it in the rear

Re: Really?

Let's correct a couple of things (so far):

Speaking of Apple: "...but it has dominated the smartphone and tablet markets for years without any significant hacker exploits."

So, the fact that each iOS version has been able to be rooted by jailbreakme.com isn't considered a significant hack/exploit? Not to mention the App Store's free in-app downloading vuln? For shame.

"...Apple has long benefited from treating security as a first-class citizen in its engineering philosophy."

Since when? Likely around 2003 when iOS was being developed. The article praises Apple over the "security-conscious" OSX, which is based on BeOS (Unix variant) of which Apple did not develop, but simply bought and slapped their GUI on top. The fact it was secure from the ground up wasn't Apple's doing, but something they lucked out in inheriting.

I'm sorry, but stating: "Apple has long benefited from treating security as a first-class citizen in its engineering philosophy. This carries through to the design of Apple's mobile operating system iOS, as well." followed two sentences later by "Apple, which was somewhat blasé about iOS security early on, releasing the iPhone with serious security design flaws, has since smartened up about mobile security." is so contradictory that it hardly requires commenting. You can't "carry through" a strong security ethic, but then say that they were "blasé" about said ethic.

Apple 'offered Samsung $30-per-mobe' patent licence truce

Re: Apples innovation is more than I thought

"but everyone here must see that Apple's re-inventions have re-defined what people expect such devices to be like."

Nope. All the Apple walled-garden people bought each iDevice that was released (a phone in this case) regardless of how groundbreaking (or not) it was, and then used /that/ as the "definition" of what people should expect, be it better or worse than alternatives out at the time. I could hold the torch of an Acer laptop up as the pinnacle of invention, but that doesn't make it true.

Snap suggests Apple out to 'screw' hardware hackers

X shape

An X shape does not necessarily have to be the shape of a +

^ note that the angles on a typed X (Times New Roman) are greater on the sides than the top and bottom....

Apple patents shopping lists

Yay!

Someone patented NextTag, Google Shopping, etc, etc. Only real "innovation" is that it can do this automagically for a whole list of items rather than one at a time....Oh, and the best route for brick'n'mortar shopping. Personally, I think Buy.com -> Amazon.com -> Half.com makes for an easier driving route.

Intel 330 120GB SSD review

Re: SSD Mounting kit

Also, there's some media-card reader/USB hub all-in-one bay things kicking around that have a 2.5" drive tray mount on the back of them for just this sort of thing. Loads of features for ~$20 (check NewEgg.com). Other option is to duct tape it to the side of your case or the underside of your DVD drive. SSDs don't have moving parts and are feather-light, so no problem.

Sharp cuts exFAT deal with Microsoft for Android mobes

Re: File systems on Android really need sorting

My Android device can store 1080p film with no trouble. >1GB files even. Might want to check again.

Scribe's mobe, MacBook pwned after hacker 'fast-talked Apple support'

Re: Don't Apple do backups?

My thoughts exactly. His docs, pics, etc should be mirrored out there in the iCloud. If the remote wipe feature purges all data from the computer, whether the iCloud has a copy or not, and the question remains of why not, that's a fairly scarey situation to be in. Someone hacks Apple and now you run the risk of losing everything on all your iDevices before you get notification from Apple.

If I lose my laptop, remote wipe isn't my savior, it's the full-disk encryption and long password that saves me.

Curiosity landing live from NASA's JPL: How the drama unfolded

Just saw!

12:09am PST timestamp for The Register's question on the post-landing Q&A. Woot for representing!

Martian lakes seen where NASA Curiosity rover WON'T BE GOING

"Why build one..."

"...when you can build two for twice the price."

So, they already have a rover design, launch and landing system figured out, and now experience with it. Why not just send up a second one? It seriously can't cost near as much as the first one since all the hard stuff is done.

Republican filibuster blocks Senate Cybersecurity bill

Re: I completely agree, US Politicians are no better than two year olds that need a spanking

@Dan Paul: Apparently you're too busy frothing at the mouth to actually research your bias.

Either way, back to the matter at hand: an abortion regulation and weapon magazine restrictions amended to the Act? WTF? There should be a regulation/law/bylaw/whatever that prohibits amending legislation to bills that does not directly tie into the bill at hand. Of course, such a motion would never pass because it would be weighed down by amendments to ban McDonalds from Spokane, Washington, mandating the use of solar panels on gov't buildings in Alaska, regulating the number of corn farms in the state of Kansas, and reducing funding for toiletry kits for troops abroad.

Apple MacBook Pro 13in

If...

If you're "gaming" on a MBP 13", you've already failed. And since when is a $1000 laptop "entry level" as quoted in the verdict? A $500 gateway laptop can run circles (gaming wise) around this MBP.

US mulls outlawing rival product bans using standards patents

Re: He who pays the piper

Not just peanuts. They could then outright REFUSE to license any SEP patents, and still run around the market anyway (of course running the risk of "damages," which amounts apparently to ~$2mil to block sales of the Galaxy Tab, so an easy trade while the courts run circles for years beyond the life of the product...)

The touchscreens that push back, thanks to Brit hi-fi boffinry

iPad

"Corning's Gorilla Glass, which graces the front of every device worth its salt these days."

I believe Apple still refuses to use Gorilla Glass in their iDevices last I checked....oh, worth its [weight in] salt....I see what you did there....

'Apple is corrupting App Store downloads', warn angry devs

Re: From a company who are regarded (with some justice) as master marketeers it seems to me....

"fanbois" and "think"....

I see what you did there...

Samsung S3 finally catches up with the Palm Pre - if modified

Re: Only took a few posts

Because Apple will bring themselves into it by attempting to sue Samsung over something about the S3, perhaps that they colored it white.

Surface: Because Microsoft does so well making hardware?

Re: Xbox Loss?

The Touchpad firesale made it VERY successful (sold millions of units overnight), however, how profitable do you think was? Exactly.

Is it time for enterprise PC outfits to carry Apple Macs?

Re: In the USA

"I worked in healthcare and,...our organisation was forced to support Macs"

So, I take it you were still using a paper chart for your patients? Most EHR systems are Windows only. If you point at a "web-based" EHR and tell me they could just use that, then I do not believe your "healthcare" experience was with more than 1 provider....

Re: Cheesy article...or should I say Fruity article?

"...5 year old Mac is still a pretty good computer today."

And if you spent just half of what you did on your Mac on a decent PC instead, you'd find that the same statement would hold true. Of course, if you tried to run something other than iTunes and Safari on your 5-year-old computer, you'll find that "pretty good" doesn't quite cut it in Creative Suite 6 or some modern games (if they even run on OSX in the first place).

Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

Other papers

"Increased CO2, the paper contends, contributes to "a higher rate of global warming than occurred at the last global-scale state shift,"

Apparently, they missed the other paper that says the exact opposite.... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/07/warmth_and_carbon_decoupled_miocene/

World+Dog to demand ever larger tablet-phones

Re: bigger != better

@Bassey: "They aren't forcing you to buy them. There are litterally hundreds of choices out there." Perhaps the OP has an iPhone...then you're wrong on both parts (first part is in the T&C under "recurring business requirement", right after the "proselytizing" section).

Minority Report-style swishery demoed with cheap webcam

RDFM

"RDFM" as in http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rdfm

or likely the more sophisticated "RTFM"....

Toshiba swaps skinny Android tablet's CPU

Transformer

This will be out end of June, Transformer Infinity will be out early June.... Hrm, wonder which one will win (also considering the new Tosh tab is the same specs as the current Transformer Prime....).

SpaceX does what it HASN'T done before: Dragon in close ISS flyby

Re: Go SpaceX -- waste?

Space gives us SatNav. Cell towers give us mobile phones (unless yours is of the brick type from the likes of Iridium and other sat phone ilk).

Nvidia drops veil on game-changing might of VGX

Oh fun

"but it’s not as much as, say, thousands of users downloading and uploading documents all day long."

Just as a correction for you, thousands of users sporadically downloading/uploading ~100k docs or even 3MB files compared to the same thousands of users streaming H.264@1080p (or at least 1280x1024 if you're still using old square monitors) is not even close to the same network usage. You'd be hard pressed to have 100 users eat 5Mbps continuously (using fat PCs), whereas an H.264 stream of their desktop could easily run 500Kbps/user (total of ~50Mbps aggregate in 100 user scenario) of streaming bandwidth requirements. In best-case, you'll have people typing a document or idling at a desktop (reading), thus near-zero traffic, but scrolling a webpage or flipping windows would burst their streaming usage. Just imagine what would happen if a company-wide email was sent and everyone clicked to open it and your network wasn't designed to handle the max-conceivable-load....

Google Knowledge Graph straddles semantic web and Star Trek

Bah, reporters....

"The search giant's forays outside its core market haven’t gone so well... It now sounds like the company is trying to recapture the intellectual high ground in an area where it remains strong by doing something it has already tried..."

Why is it that people assume (in their writing at least) that a company can't be multitasking? Your slight is worded as if Google has pulled all their search engine developers and reassigned them to other (singular, at a time) projects at which they consistently fail, and are now reassigning back to search engine improvements. You might as well comment how Windows is/not failing due to XBox success/fail and "Microsoft has lost its focus."

Intel lets loose with 3rd gen Ivy Bridge tri-gate chips

next....

when will they actually go on sale...?

Laptop computers are crap

Gateway NV73

My Gateway NV73 is 17" screen, granted the resolution isn't a preferred 1080p, but with TWO storage bays, I could easily have 2TB of HDD space. Granted, I don't need that, even remotely on a laptop. If you want to "create content" and need 1.5TB+, your content is likely high-def video. Spreadsheets and Word docs are easy to fit on a 500GB, not to mention storing loads of pictures to boot. The NV73 has well spaced USB ports (2 per side), well spaced HDMI, VGA, NIC, etc ports. If you're having port-cram issues, try shopping in a realm of computing that doesn't believe in one model of computer for all (you gave away that you punch on a Mac with your port and keypad woe pictures). Oh, my NV73 has a full numpad as well.

Why do I have these features? I specifically sought them out. I can plug in fat USB sticks, HDMI, type with a numpad for spreadsheets, have a spacey and comfortable keyboard, and view it all on a screen that I don't have to squint to see. It's also nice to have a SSD+HDD storage space. Oh, did I mention it was $430? You don't have to go expensive to get a great PC. In another year, I'll dump another ~$450 for another mid-range computer that will still be less than the woeful MacBook, but outperform it by then.

OCZ's new Vertex 4 SSD: Faster... and slower

Another Matter

So, you end your article citing poor response in fixes/firmware and reliability concerns as a potential "let's wait and see if they do better," HOWEVER, the only thing OCZ had to do with the Vertex 3 was putting SandForce controllers together with Micron (or otherwise) NAND on a PCB. They didn't make the chips, they didn't make the controller, and they arguably didn't make the firmware (they have a custom firmware spin, yes, but they didn't write it from scratch). Now, with the Vertex 4, they're using their own (acquired) controller, and thus firmware. The ball is nearly entirely in their court for reliability of the controller and firmware, as well as response times for problems, since they can actually do something about it now other than just drop-ship you a new drive.

Stop giving a negative spin and almost lying to do it. Unfortunately, this stab wasn't near as obvious as your terrible graphing.

Hitachi GST lays 4TB Easter egg

Re: WD at 2TB

Antitrust.

What system builders need to know about solid state drives

VM servers

I have several banks of mainstream SSDs hosting VMs. Blazingly fast, no problems. 3/1 read/write ratio. Our workstations (also SSDs) have even better read/write ratios. You'll find that it is rare ($100k+/server data center situations) that you require 10+ full writes of the drive per day. In those environments, you're likely running a very large SAN with 40Gbps links and have loads of money to toss at these SSDs. Your data likely requires it. However, even for mid-level enterprise, setting up a RAID10 with mainstream drives, even with the need to pop drives once a year, the savings are enormous. It would be far easier to simply buy 512GB drives when you were only planning 200GB drives, and buying twice as many at that, and solve any potential "speed" issues or "data resiliency" issues using common methods: "spindle count" and RAID-type methods. Think your SandForce 2xxx series 500MB/s read/write is slow? Buy 2 and RAID1 them. Still too slow? Make a RAID10 out of a bank of 24. Leave a few disks out as hot spares even. Bump them to 512GB rather than 240GB. A bank of 24 240GB Vertex3s run $9600 (give or take sales/promotions). Assuming, 20 live drives in a RAID10, running even just SATA2, and assuming the RAID controller can even handle it, you have potentially 3.2GB/s (GigaBYTES, not bits) of read throughput, same for writes. Also, 2.3TB of usable space.

Either that set up or a single 400GB enterprise SSD sitting on a SAS channel in a server....hrm, I don't think it will be a hard choice for me.

Apple tightens grip on tablet market with iPad 2 and 3 pincer move

Re: Sure

The Transformer series from Asus does a good job at providing content-creation capabilities (keyboard dock, microSD reader, USB port, etc). Sporting Android 4, they can get their foot in the door. iOS on the other hand, has a large established userbase, and who would want to dump their $100's spend on usb, hdmi, SDcard, radio tuner, etc dongles and speaker docks? Fortunately, there's less secondary market in the Android space because you don't need to carry around a bag of dongles to get USB, HDMI, or microSD support. You can even hook up your PS3/XBox360 controller and play emulators if you so desired. Apple makes money hand over fist on the iOS ecosystem because people are willing to pay for it, and then get nickle-and-dimed for additional functionality.

Tim Cook scoffs $11m slice of warm Apple pie

Re: Share Value

"...a faster processor..."

Wrong. It's the same old 1GHz dual core, just with some extra graphics oomph to drive the high-res screen. (see http://www.reghardware.com/2012/03/13/apple_ipad_3_tablet_benchmarked/)

Want something faster?

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/577328/550834

New Yorker sues Apple: 'Misleading and deceptive' Siri ads

Re: It depends...

It isn't that he can't get a refund (although, he is likely far outside the normal return window by now), it is most likely a bid for fame. HOWEVER, if he doesn't fight it (due to having an excess of time on hand is likely), but instead quietly returns the device as bunk vs adverts, how can such an errant advertising campaign be stopped? I can't say how many people I've spoken to that whisper to me in back corners about this "new thing" that is Siri and extolling the advertising-based knowledge of the wonders of this feature. They refuse to believe anything I say about Siri not living up to the hype. It's sad really. Good for this guy to actually call Apple out on their adverts.

AMD uncloaks (more) next-generation graphics cards

Re: really?

Sounds like there was more blame to lay at the feet of Brink developer than at AMD, considering they implemented it in OpenGL and screwed up their implementation of it at that. nVidia just needs the edge enough they're willing to fudge their drivers to work around flawed games.

Intel runs three Ivy Bridge fabs ragged for April blast off

Re: Those prices converted to GBP

Problem is, those are 2xxx part numbers, which are Sandy Bridge CPUs, not Ivy Bridge. FAIL.

Feds unlock suspect's encrypted drive, avoid Constitution meltdown

Re: Any word...

Just use a password that has a suitably long length. Likelihood in this case was she used a poor (short) password. TrueCrypt can offer great security, but it can't save you from yourself when your password is less than 10 characters or you don't use keyfiles.

"Sorry Your Honor, my hard drive was encrypted with multiple keyfiles but I can't remember which ones they were as I had only just set it up the night before my house was raided..."

Disk shortages stall Q4 server sales (a bit)

Re: Disk shortage = Not a major impact on servers

I agree. I know our corp would have bought a few E5 servers had they been available.....