Posts by Andrew Jones 2

HTC woes prompts 'leave now' tweet from former staffer

Good riddance HTC

Like many others -

had the HTC Desire, loved it - then the world moved on and apps got bigger - was forever getting messages about low storage and the phone became unusable (Gmail and various apps would just stop working - including push messages until some space was freed). Rooted - stuck Oxygen on and continued loving it. Upgraded to the HTC One X - HTC promised at the launch of the One X that they had learnt from their mistakes and would henceforth be releasing LESS phones..... The HTC One X has various software issues from day one - the worst one for me - was the constant issue with Sense crashing when leaving an app and having to wait 30 seconds - 1 minute while it restored itself - the worst reproducible situation was taking a HDR photo and then pressing "home". After a few software updates - Sense seemed more stable and the phone seemed a bit faster - but it still wasn't keen on staying connected to the mobile network. Then I noticed that Skype and G+ could not actually do a video call - that is - they could for about 30 seconds and then the main process would be killed by Android because there is actually not a lot of RAM left by the time Sense (Rosie?) has got it's share. Frustrated with HTC and Three (because of their abysmal update process) I jumped ship to the Nexus 4 - Never again will I go HTC or Carrier branded. It's a shame because HTC phones are nice - but they always seem to have "just enough" hardware to get by - but not enough for future proofing. The Desire would have been amazing had it had a bit more internal storage and the One X would have been amazing if it had another 1GB of RAM. It's worth noting that my HTC Desire is still running as a replacement house phone on CM7 - whereas I lost faith in the One X when the screen cracked one night just sitting there doing nothing - never been dropped - suspect it was a temperature thing.

Stand aside, Wi-Fi - these boffins are doing 40Gbps over the air

....and will this need a car battery being lugged around to power it?!

Dev writes comments as limericks and other coding secrets

Re: My second job

Clearly you are the holy grail - unfortunately the rest of us are human and make mistakes, sometimes we spend hours and hours staring at the same piece of code that *should* do exactly what we want it to - but for some reason it just doesn't. Sometimes we spend weeks trying to fix a bit of code. Sometimes we re-use old code from a different project that we know works fine - but it's been so long since we wrote it - we can't actually remember *how* it works. That being said - I doubt anyone will want to touch your code ever if it truly warrants comments *at least* every 5 lines.....

Stephen Hawking nixes Intel voice upgrade plan

Re: I know that voice!

No - Ye Olde Speak and Spell (That was the Orange one with the Green vacuum fluorescent display) had inflections (but I believe it was playing recorded sounds rather than synthesising on the fly). It was later followed by the Blue Speak and Spell with an LCD display and a woman's voice which was definitely pre-recorded.

However - Upvotes given because most people don't remember them - but because of the number of times it told me to spell "necessary" it's permanently imprinted on the brain cells!

Gay marriage? We'll put a stop to that 'human bug', says Nintendo

Hmmm Nintendo seem determined to generate as much bad press for themselves as they possibly can at the moment.....

Nintendo throws flaming legal barrel at YouTubing fans

There are a whole load of videos teaching players how to do things in the new Sim City game which feature game graphics and music - yet - as far as I know - EA haven't demanded revenue from the ads...... Maybe EA aren't quite as bad as we originally thought!

Samsung sends gigabit '5G' signal TWO WHOLE KILOMETRES

A phone.... transmitting at 28GHz.... are Samsung also making the backpacks that we will all have to wear that contain the car batteries to keep the thing running?

UK.gov blows a fuse at smart meter stall, sets new 2020 deadline

The bit that makes me laugh the most is this -

supposedly the point of a smart meter is to tell your washing machine to delay for a bit or to tell your freezer not to switch on for the next 15 minutes - it all sounds really logical and useful and that aspect of smart meters I think will be useful..... but...... there is a problem. The "control your house" technology hasn't been decided on or standardised - and it is most certainly not shipping in current domestic products. The last I heard was Zigbee was going to the be likely candidate because of it's mesh technology (z-wave is licence encumbered) - but for the foreseeable future at least these smart meters are not going to be able to control appliances when the grid demand is too high - and we are likely to be left in a situation where thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of early smart meters don't even contain the necessary technology to talk to household appliances.

I can't help thinking that we really need to sort out the appliance technology and then introduce the smart meter rather than the other way around.

Re: Happy with mine

Shouldn't worry about that - when the main use of "off-tariff" ends up being people charging their electric cars that the government is so insistent on everyone having - the electric companies will do away with cheap electricity overnight as the demand for it will be through the roof (it's roughly 4-7kW for 5-8 hours) which means they will want to charge much more for night-time electric. Taking the Nissan Leaf as an example - the blurb says it takes 12 hours to charge at 10amps - that is roughly 2.5kW * 12hours = 30kW @ 12p (standard rate) is £3.60 or it can charge in 8 hours at 16amps! and costs pretty much the same - BUT can you really see the electric companies allowing hundreds of thousands of people to charge their cars cheaply overnight?

33,333 people charging their cars overnight will consume a total of 1MW

Apple asked me for my BANK statements, says outraged reader

Re: "she emailed over copies of them... and then immediately began panicking"

In the same situation I would have emailed my documents - the important part of the email is that the email is being sent to *THE* apple domain and not just any address that has apple in it, Thus I could be 100% certain that at the very least - the email was going to *someone* at Apple.

On the hunt for a new ampere

All I can say is GTF! Clearly the way we do things now is so terrible that buildings fall down because the measurements they use to build them are not accurate enough, and millions of electronic devices are blowing up left right and centre because the components used to build them are not rated tightly enough.....

What a joke - how much exactly are these new new (since we already have new) units of measurement a) costing to standardise and b) costing to integrate?

The speed and distance signs in the UK are what they are because it would simply cost far too much to change them...

I shall assume this is EU sticking it's fat wrinkly nose in again to further make life difficult for this country - because they come up with such fantastic ideas that make no sense (like the Cookie Law) which no-one else in EU bothers to implement - just the UK - at great expense.... (like the battery hens law)

Ban Samsung sales in the US? Sorry, Apple: Tech titans say 'No'

The more this drags on, the more I think of kids having an argument in a school playground...... except in this case the kids appear to have lost the use of their mouths and have to write everything down instead.

I imagine Judge Koh has had to buy a new filing cabinet to keep all the paperwork relating to this case in......

Google's Schmidt calls for 'DELETE from INTERWEBS' button

um.....

The problem with changing your name or giving your kids the most common name you can think of is - there is this search engine - you might of heard of it.... I'm just trying to remember it's name, it's got an "oogle" type sound in it's name.... anyway it gives you the ability to drag a photo into the search box... like.... the sort that might be submitted with a Job Application (or the employer might take a photo of you at your first interview) and then this search engine works it's magic and returns a whole list of images that look a bit like the one you provided, along with links where each image came from - it's actually pretty good at taking a photo of someone you lost touch with and providing you with their Facebook page for instance,

Point is - if an employer want's to skip searching through the noise - they can just search by your picture instead.

Facebook Messenger tech to glue 50bn-strong Internet of Stuff

Additionally - talk of a broker is something I read as "central server" - meaning another box that plugs in somewhere and essentially acts as an "internet of things" router. I thought the point was that your washing machine could talk directly to your TV - not via an intermediary?

And then in a few years stuff that is missing will be hacked on to the standard and you will have to replace all your stuff if you want to take advantage of the latest features (because the chances of light switches being firmware upgradeable are slim to non)

While we are on the topic - in the past year I have seen 4 computer monitors and 3 TV's die - and in every case - even though they are from different manufacturers - they have all pretty much gone the same way - the screen dies (or rather as it seems - some component inside the device responsible for regulating power) - the TV in my bedroom for instance, made by Goodmans when you switch it on the screen is all kinds of colours but no actual picture to speak of - you can hear the tuned in station and it responds to the remote control - you just can't see anything, for about 20 minutes - and then suddenly it works! 2 ACER computer monitors have gone a similar way - but instead of showing colours on the panel - the screen remains off and the power light flashes for about 20 minutes and then suddenly it switches on properly. I know of several friends who have experienced similar failures - and in EVERY case - it's been a device that is less than a few years old. Add to that a deep fat fryer that died just outside it's warranty period when the element took the RCD and a washing machine that after a year developed a lovely fault whereby any programme that isn't the longest possible one - hangs, half way, full of water and refuses to open the door until you have turned the dial all the way to the longest programme and set it running.......

Now what does this have to do with the article? Is it such a good idea to have even the most simplest thing like a light switch need a microprocessor and IP connectivity when more complicated stuff has a ridiculously short lifespan?

Ultra-hackable Google Glass could be a security nightmare

Um..... it's a developer prototype......

Also - sorry but if there was some spyware "bugging" the Glass camera and Microphone.... the give-away to the user would be how quickly the battery runs down, it never ceases to amaze me how people in the tech blogging industry don't seem to appreciate this fundamental fact - battery technology is terrible and it has been for years and according to battery makers - there is nothing on the horizon that is going to change this fact - using the camera and/or microphone costs battery life, in terms of the camera - quite a bit of battery life, then we need to consider the fact of storage - is the non-existent spyware going to record locally and then upload or just broadcast it live - both solutions require a crap load of bandwidth and no matter what radio the device uses, both will have another significant battery cost.

One of the world's oldest experiments crawls towards a fall

...not even sure what I am supposed to be waiting for - a picture showing what it is I am waiting to see would be handy - I'm assuming that I'm waiting for the bulge at the bottom of the funnel to fall - but with what is already beneath the bulge it makes it difficult to tell :/

Canadian TV station wails: NFC bonking... it's not SAFE

Apart from the fact that the range on NFC is completely pathetic.... most websites that I use ask for the CVC on the back of the card, there are some that don't - they have been highlighted above by other people. Additionally - I quite often have to enter certain digits from my bank account password too - further reducing the possibility that someone might be able to do something with just my card details.

Having been the victim of a very low tech and *never* reported fraud scam though - I no longer worry about these things - because the reality is there is *literally* (and that is being used in the proper context) NOTHING* you can do to prevent being a victim.

* shops could - but they choose not to.

Tight White Spaces to be penetrated in Blighty this year - Ofcom

So the question is.... if they have to contact a database first - how do they get on the internet?

As well as which - if they have to be redirected by the OFCOM website..... what happens if the OFCOM website goes offline - would a DOS attack on the OFCOM website mean all UK whitespace devices would just stop working?

Serial killer hack threat to gas pipes, traffic lights, power plants

In general a lot of kit comes with serial ports so the installers can configure it - but the chance of the end user fiddling about with it - is a lot slimmer.

Trust me - you install sound systems in a Theatre that are configurable via TCP/IP and it won't be long until the service calls start coming in about how "the noise sensing mic in the foyer is making the paging system far too loud" well yes, that's what happens when you remotely turn up the gain control.....

Not really sure why this kit is then being connected to an Ethernet convertor though - but I suppose certainly in the event of traffic lights - they will be controlled by some central authority - although I thought they tended to be wireless these days....

Anyhow by all means connect the kit up if you really must - but don't let it talk to people outside the network unless you have a VERY good reason for doing so.

As a side note -

There is an architectural lighting installation somewhere in the UK (I won't say where) that has 2 windows computers sitting on standard broadband connections just waiting for remote desktop connections for remote update of the lighting programs....

Bogus gov online test tells people on dole they're just SO employable

Right where to begin?

1) Mixing of tenses - if the government cannot even be literate online - what hope for the next generation?!

2) It seems to test can only be accessed by visiting "strengths.php" at "behaviourlibrary.com" - could they be any more obvious about what the test is really for?

3) Does every Job seeker have access to an internet-connected computer and a printer now then? I know it seems like a good idea - but paper and ink costs money - if you have to go to the library to do this test and print it out - it's 2 A4 pages in colour - that's anywhere from 25p to £1 depending on the library - those who don't think that's relevant have never had to live on the dole.

4) If someone visits www.behaviourlibrary.com without adding "strengths.php" (since most people will probably actually open a browser and type behaviourlibrary into Google - seriously - I do computer free computer courses for older people - you wouldn't believe how many times they Google ASDA and Tesco to do their shopping - and yes the IT Crowd favourite - older people Google "Google".... anyhow if one visits the root site - one is presented with a very scary looking "FORBIDDEN"

Finally - if you can't be bothered clicking (I got bored after 16 questions) just typing into the address bar javascript:currentQuestion=48; and click an answer and then next and you will have completed all the questions......

Climate-cooling effect 'stronger than volcanoes' is looking solid

Whether I agree or disagree with the whole man made Global Warming at this point is no longer really that relevant any more - I have a much more profound question that everyone seems to be unwilling to ask - and really it's the question we should all be asking....

So here goes....

If it has taken hundreds of years for us to "cause" the climate to heat up then it is pretty clear that there is a lag / delayed process at play - so looking at the situation hypothetically for a moment - let's say that tomorrow we magically manage to output no CO2 whatsoever for the rest of our existence... that's it CO2 output switched off - do we really think it's actually going to make any difference for at least 100 years? It's like the talk of the tipping point that climate scientists like to mention so very often - the thing is - the climate does not react instantly - the greenhouse effect is not an instant switch on / switch off thing - so I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single climate scientist out there that can even state with 100% certainty that the damage has not already been done - the tipping point has been reached and it's just going to take a bit of time before we start to see the effects of it.

(for the record as far as I am concerned the science behind global warming is too disconnected and non-sensical - and no - I don't have a degree in it - but I can state with 100% certainty that I don't need one - that line only ever gets trotted out by the people who do have one - as the only form of attack they can think of - it might surprise you to know - that you can actually learn things on your own without spending thousands of pounds to get a degree - there is a wealth of information from science publications, libraries and a fair amount of information on the internet (and I don't mean Wikipedia and sites that that have been specifically setup to prove their side of the debate) all you need is a passion to want to know more about the things you are interested in - from computer programming to horticulture - it's all available for you to pick up a book and read)

EE: Of course we're going to get 1m 4G users by the end of the year!

Oh, I must of missed the press announcement where they expressed deep regret for charging stupid prices and introduced a new range of competitive prices..... no? In which case we must have a lot of lottery winners in this country then....

I find it interesting that pretty much every tech blog I have seen in the last few months that runs an article about EE attracts lots of comments and generally a good 80% of them are along the lines of "I like Three" and "I'm staying with Three" (comments which I completely agree with)

Black-eyed Pies reel from BeagleBoard's $45 Linux micro blow

To everyone who seems to be commenting about some older board - HERE http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone%20Black is the new board - yes it has 3D accelerated GFX and it's expansion options (called capes) are quite impressive - see http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=BeagleBone_Capes

Game designer spills beans on chubby-fancying chap with his stolen Mac

Re: I like it !

If you pop along to the actual website you will see that not only has he provided the police with the screenshots and webcam footage but also the address the laptop is at as well as the address the thief gets his purchases delivered to (his mum/sister/aunty) - the only reason the guy hasn't confronted the thief is because the police would no doubt arrest him for harassment or some nonsense - even with 2.5GB of evidence prooving "Mr Plumper" IS the mugger - the Police have "closed the investigation pending further leads"

Google erects tech specs tech specs, APIs hit the decks

The thing I find funny is the number of people who say it will make people look creepy - and yet - people wearing bluetooth handsfree thingies who often look like they are muttering away to themselves walking down the street have largely been accepted nowadays. Prediction - Glass users will become accepted - it's not like we are going to have a choice - not when Google aren't the only company developing said technology and especially not when Apple inevitably realise they are missing a new market and jump on board.

EE extends network: Soon, 1 million users will pay us for 4G

And unless you specifically configured the connection not to do so then by default when connecting to your VPN over the mobile network (any external internet connection) then ALL traffic will be routed over the VPN - so when you request a webpage instead of going [Mobile Device -> Operator -> Internet -> Operator -> Mobile Device] your request instead goes [Mobile Device -> Operator -> VPN -> Internet -> VPN -> Operator -> Mobile Device] and your network speed is pretty much limited by the UPLOAD speed of your VPN connection.

For the record - I never have any problems VPN'ing into my home network via the Three network and accessing the CCTV system with live audio and video and no lagging

Operators look on in horror as Facebook takes mobe users Home

I watched most of the Facebook livestream event and have seen various blogs showing off the HTC phone - but I have yet to see the mobile phone being used for the the number 1 reason it exists in the first place. Other than going in to the dialer app - how many steps does it take to PHONE someone from the homescreen? (that goes for existing contacts and new numbers)

New rules to end cries of 'WTF... a £10 online booking fee?'

So where will this put us in the current direct debit situation?

Apparently paying by Direct Debit saves us £9 a month - which over a quarter is a fair bit - but as a charity we cannot always guarantee the money will be in the bank when they want it - so we opt to pay by card / post office instead which means we can use our personal card if the charities funds are too low to cover the payment. But I really cannot believe that it costs them £9 to let us use our card. Our Phone line is already stupidly expensive being a business line which we don't make any outgoing calls on (but have to have as part of the Entertainment License regulations)

Ancient website from 1999: By Mark Zuckerberg aged 15¾

Re: if it was real...

Ah but you see you haven't looked closely enough at the source code.

The fact that the section appears right at the top of the source and the Google Analytics code appears immediately straight after - and the fact that there is also lycos javascript in there - and that fact that when all the javascript is done with the rest of the site is written with html tags in BLOCK CAPITALS - tells me - that Mark is not the one who put the javascript in the code. Angelfire and Geocities and the like were great for hosting free websites - provided you didn't object to the fact that they injected code into your site as it was served that you didn't put there and could not get rid of. This enabled them to always make sure that they slapped advertising and pop-up-windows on your website that could not be removed. The fact that the "CustomVar" is 'member_name', 'ny/mez51' and the domain is angelfire.com is another giveaway - because only the person responsible for the GA account for angelfire.com can see those stats - ie Mark would never see them. Notice how the lycos code follows a similar format - var angelfire_member_name = "ny/mez51";

var angelfire_member_page = "ny/mez51/index.html"; which is most definitely injected code - and finally adMgr.renderHeader(); adMgr.renderFooter();

Entire internet credits snapper for taking great pic while actually dead

Years ago I'm sure I read about some sort of digital watermarking - where the watermark doesn't actually appear ON the image but is a string of data inside the image file which identifies who owns the image - note this is a different thing to metadata - didn't anything happen with that? A quick Google reveals Digimarc for example.

Apple: OK, we tracked your every move... but let's call it a caching bug, m'kay?

Wow the US justice system is confusing!

How is demanding that Apple turn over documents related to this case in order to show harm any different from say Apple demanding that Samsung turn over all emails relating to alleged product copying in order to prove harm - any different?

In any case - I lost interest once I saw the judge involved - it's clear how this one will go.

Japanese govt: Use operator-run app stores, not Google Play

Oh god where to start?

1) sexy porn wallpaper? really? are people that stupid?

2) Google Play is unsafe because X, Y, Z - well - we better ban email immediately then - because there are just as many people (and many more) clicking on dodgy links in emails and opening unexpected dodgy attachments as there are people not bothering to read the list of permissions or even the reviews on a Google Play app.

3) I love the fact it is always anti virus companies screaming about how the Google Play store is littered with malware - and then saying - but hey guess what - we just happen to have an app to help you detect said malware.

4) Phone State permissions - confusing one this one - people only notice the phone calls bit and think the app wants access to your phone calls - but actually the unique id of the Android installation is accessed with this permission which developers generally store in a database to detect unique users. In theory depending on how an app is coded on the backend - you should be able to do a factory reset of your device and reinstall the app and get your data back without needing a login - though I don't know of any app that does this - the majority of developers that store your unique id - do so to make sending push notifications easy.

Texan contends iPod EXPLODED IN HER FACE

.....and just like all the other stories of other gadgets which suddenly explode for no reason..... it will turn out - she dropped it in something wet, so decided the best thing to do was microwave it to dry it..... then while charging it - was surprised to find that batteries are normally just this side of stable - but when microwaved - they tend to get less stable....

So you won a 4G licence. The Freeview interference squad wants a word

Re: Sigh

Sorry but in Selkirk we get one of our multiplexes on C62 which according to the UKfree thingy is in the 800MHz band - http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=NT500294 (until the April retune)

I note with interest that there may also be plans to shunt transmissions into the 600MHz band in the future and sell off the 700MHz band too.

Just what does BT have planned for its 4G licence: We drill into UK LTE

Re: in-home LTE?

Um.... last time I checked - I thought the physics ran the other way around - lower frequency = better propagation but also lower capacity.

Ad-titan Google blocks Adblock Plus in Android security tweak

Adding *another* permission is a pointless exercise - the vast majority of users install apps from the Market without even looking at the list of permissions so adding yet another permission would not protect users in the way the maker of Ad Block is suggesting. The hole was a major security hole - and really - if you want to be able to run something like Ad Block it should not just work out of the box - people seem all to quick to forget that the web is largely free because it is sponsored by advertising, remove the advertising and we would all have to pay. I don't have a problem with more technical users blocking ad's system wide - but this definitely should not be something anyone can do just from downloading an app. Incidentally - here http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=40506 is the thread where this was talked about.

Apple and world HACKED by Facebook plunderers

Sorry to the folks saying Windows was designed much better -

up until XP Service pack 3 - the AT command by default gave all added scheduled tasks full system privileges regardless of the limitations of the current user.

Eg - "at 14:56 /interactive cmd" would add a scheduled task to execute at 2:56pm that would run a command prompt. then once the command prompt runs, ctrl+lt+del and kill explorer.exe. Type explorer and hit enter into the dos prompt and voila - you are now running as the system account which gives you full access to every part of the system - with more privileges than even the local administrator.

AMD: Star Trek holodecks within reach

Re: Holodecks aren't just about processing power

Surely the most efficient way of creating smell and tactile feedback will be by wirelessly manipulating the relevant areas of the brain. In the same way it's a proven scientific fact that coloured light and specific music can change the mood of a person - so it will be likely that vibrating electromagnetic waves in specific sequences will be able to directly manipulate the brain into feeling something and smelling something that isn't there. You may be interested to know that air conditioning systems that cause some buildings to vibrate at a very low frequency are often the site of "haunting" s where people are said to feel uneasy and on edge.

HYPERSONIC METEOR smashes into Russia, injuring hundreds

Re: As D.A.M. hinted

Generally cancer is not normally the cause of death is it? Organ failure tends to be the cause of death - cancer just causes the organ failure. I've always found it very inconsistent what they write down sometimes as the cause of death - for instance:

My dad died of a heart attack, but while trying to give him mouth to mouth - he had some toast stuck in his throat - so the likely conclusion was that he choked and that caused a heart attack. His cause of death was a heart attack (not choking). In Hollyoaks Esther was at risk of death from renal failure - had she died - they would of classed the cause of death as renal failure and not "bullying" which caused the renal failure.

So as you can see - cancer causing organ failure should therefore not be listed as the cause of death - the cause of death is organ failure.

Spotted: Android 4.2.2 update for Google Nexus devices

Apparently Google have updated the Play store listings for the Nexus 7 - the battery life figure has been changed from "up to 7 hours" to "up to 10 hours" - that this has happened the same day 4.2.2 started rolling out - leads many to believe there are significant battery fixes in this update.

3 million Freesat receivers now out there, and boxes to get YouTube

Re: Freesat is on a different frequency

I don't know about now - because I have stopped following it - but -

When Freesat launched - there were actually duplicated channels - because:

1) Various channels had contracts with Sky which meant they could not suddenly switch off Encryption - so those channels (Ch4) launched a second copy of their stream with encryption turned off specifically for freesat.

2) In order for channels to appear in the Freesat EPG they had to carry additional data in their MPEG streams (stuff related to the Freesat EPG) but Sky were not particularly keen to allow the channels to add this data - claiming that it would interfere with the way the Sky EPG works (which is technically as I understand it - true since there is a published standard with regards to how the EPG systems work on digital broadcast mediums) and IIRC Sky had to change something on their end to allow the Freesat metadata and Sky metadata to co-exist on the same stream - but they were imposed a limit of X channels a month that they would do that for - so in the meantime many channels launched a simulcast that carried the Freesat data and not the Sky data.

This has likely all been tidied up now and both systems are happily co-existing. But for a time - yes it was true that Freesat channels were a separate stream from the Sky version.

Mind out, Apple: Ericsson leads charge against the SIM

Re: eCall

When I was having problems with O2 a number of years back - a network engineer popped out to visit me with his Engineering iPhone to show me that the problem was with my phone not the network - because his iPhone was able to get about 3 bars more signal than my phone could, the fact that every other O2 mobile in the village got substantially less than his almost full signal was besides the point.

In any case I briefly mentioned that most of the time the screen said Emrg Calls Only - and he off-handedly told me that while I was supposed to be able to make emergency calls via another network when I was out of signal of the "home" network, the network operators in the UK had never come to an agreement about this - and so while the phone claims I can make emergency calls - the calls will fail to be connected.

But then.... this is the Network Engineer who upon being asked to look at the cell in the village a number of times - because he could not contact the owner of the field where the cell lives - would "verify" that the cell "looked" OK through a pair of binoculars from the road. So - who knows if he was telling the truth or not - I can say that since 1998 when I got my first Mobile Phone (M3788e on Orange) I have never actually tried ringing 999 from either my home network or any other UK network.

Shocked jocks' O2 calls crossed with Brummies, now everyone's cross

Mistake or not - I'll bet OFCOM has something to say about it..... not that O2 should be worried about OFCOM - I'm starting to believe they wave around the talk of fines in the same way the BBC wave around talk of detector vans....

iOS 6.1 KNACKERED our mobile phone networks, claim Vodafone, Three

What I'd like to know is -

How much extra bandwidth per handset has been used due to this syncing bug?

Have any users on capped tariffs - either at home or on the mobile network ran into overage charges or is the extra bandwidth consumed just not that large?

And yes I am aware that Android is not immune and it's not that long ago that there were articles about various networks demanding Google remove certain offending apps from the Play store due to network performance issues (read: opening far too many connections in quick succession in a loop)

BBC blueprint to make EVERY programme on TV a repeat revealed

Interesting that this seems to coincide with the Trust's reviews of the BBC channels.

Now bearing in mind that it's long been talked about that the BBC has too many channels and needs to axe some - I wonder if this is the start of the BBC looking at creating "online" only channels.

Facebook glitch briefly crashes several sites

Sigh - it did not just affect pages that used Facebook to login.

It also affected any site that included ANY social plugin from Facebook - eg:

"Other pages people liked" or the box you stick on your page to invite people to become a fan of your page.

None of my sites use Facebook for logging in - but they were all affected because they either have the box to become a fan of the page on facebook or the box that shows what other pages on the site people like.

City sugar daddies mulling £10bn bid for EE, say sources

So glad that Three have announced 4G with no price rises. I think I'll stay where I am thanks.

Jammy b*stards: Admen flog chocolate bars with 'Wi-Fi-free' zones

While Ofcom might very well deem such a thing to be illegal in this country - the bigger question is - would they actually bother to do anything about it should it occur?!

UK cookies cop changes own policy to ‘implied consent’

As I pointed out at the time, yet another EU legislation has been forced onto the UK that is supposed to be Europe wide but yet again - the only country stupid enough to obey - was us - the rest of Europe said - "That's nice, but we won't be implementing that one thanks" just as they have on so many other useless, restrictive laws that we are the only country to take seriously enough to waste time and money implementing while the rest of Europe just points and laughs.