Posts by Stuart Halliday

LG Optimus GT540 Android smartphone

FM transmitter perchance?

My LG Arena has a FM transmitter which is useful in the Car.

Anyone know if this has that function?

Pliant does MLC flash

Silly

Of course the author means Many Bytes....

New 'iPhoD' can 'adjust the speed of light by turning a knob'

Ehh?

"Photons aren't just visible light!"

So what else are they?

Slowglass?

Have they invented 'Slowglass'?

People who don't read books (ROM devices made of cellulose) wouldn't get that Bob Shaw reference.

USB stick with anti-terror training found outside police station

Make them walk the plank

Oh please - any person with at least two brains cell has disabled the autoplay feature a long time ago...

I say, sack the IT manager who allows computer policies that do not disable unregistered USB storage sticks and allows data to be transferred to USB or CD/DVD/floppy discs without auto-encryption.

Also make it a sack-able offence if staff are caught during a random search who do use USB/DVD/CD storage with no encryption.

Irrelevant

> As for encryption on USB; the problems I've found is that the necessary software often has to run on an administrator account to be able to set-up a device driver. Then it doesn't work if you plug it into a different PC that doesn't give you admin rights, or it craps out if you need to use it on Vista or Win7, and in some cases then the USB stick cannot be recognised by the OS ever again (even to access the non-encrypted part)...

Rubbish. Data is data. OS is irrelevant.

What program needs admin rights to open a file for god sake?

Judge Dredd returns to the silver screen

Get it right Reg.

"with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot"

Err no... Dredd would never execute a tried criminal. Oh please try to keep up.

Sonic Screwdriver controller coming to Wii

Who's the Doctor

With all this attention being on Karen Gillan, you'd be forgiven to think she was the Doctor....

Toshiba touts £329 Folio Android tablet

We have our specification demands too

I'd want a solid guarantee from the manufacturers that they'd support and update whatever version of Android came out for it for at least 2 years.

Too many of these companies drop updates as soon as the product is out of the door.

Samsung specs up 7in Android tablet

Still lacking.

And yet Android 2.2 still doesn't support any of the grown up graphic file formats like TIFF, PSD and RAW...

So of us grown ups would like to show off our photos on it please....

.XXX domain deal stripped bare

let's do it

You can see why they wouldn't like it.

hosts file:

127.0.0.1 localhost

127.0.0.1 .xxx

Too simple to block or to search your logs for staff breaking policy if you're a IT bod?

Punters still puzzled by broadband ads

We known the speed ISP give their customers

We just need to go to the SamKnows web site.

That site gives test boxes to hundreds of ADSL users across the UK and does regular testing.

If anyone knows the state of the market this site does.

http://www.samknows.com

Boffins baffled by mysterious Martian crater

Pretty obvious to me

Pretty obvious it was a prototype Martian War Machine craft that went astray when launched....

Scottish iSchool goes 100% iPad

Wait for it....

I can just see a gang gathering outside at the end of the day figuring who to bully or how to break in to steal 10 or 20 iPads which will be worth quite a bit of money to druggies.

Ten... Wireless Headphones

Headphones for TV

I bought a pair of 2.4GHz wireless headphones from Maplin (code A36JQ) for under £40 for use with my TV a couple of months ago.

They are superb quality, decent ~30m range and of course you can have as many headphones as you like IMHO.

The only thing is you have to also buy a USB power adaptor to power the transmitter as it's designed for rechargeable AAA or via a USB port. But Maplin sells these too - N03GJ and it's going cheap this month!

The headphones take rechargeable or standard AAA. I bought a pack of 4 of the Maplin Hybrid rechargables so I just swap the batteries over once a week.

Best wireless I've bought. No more background sound effects.

ARM chips put on their server boots

Good old days are back...

Hehe, sounds like the BBC 128K model all over again. ;-)

Nice one ARM.

Stockholm schoolgirls fined for bugging staff room

Cough cough....

All sing along :

Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on.

Grab the nearest weapon; never mind which one.

The battle's to the strongest; might is always right.

Trample on the weakest; glory in their plight.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.

Stride towards your fortune boldly on your way,

Never once forgetting there's one born every day.

Let our motto be broadcast: "Get your blow in first!"

She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

LG touts 'surprisingly productive' iPad killer

Oh God I hope not...

If LGs Arena KM900 smartphone is any example of the way their programmers think then I don't want one.

Did no one in LG actually hand one to a Westerner and ask for their comments before it was released?

I say Westerner because it must be something about the way Easterners think that made LG release a smartphone with so many Apps that must have been designed to irritate people in the UK.

Acer Liquid E Android smartphone

You don't get out often do you?

Then you've never used a LG Arena KM900 phone then.

It's resistive screen is multi-touch or should that be multi-press once you put on a screen protector.

New US swarmsats will scatter to avoid space-war strikes

Can't be done

These satellites will have to be an awfully lot bigger to hold the extra fuel needed to move about.

Currently Satellites only carry enough to stop themselves from re-entering orbit or a little to force them into the atmosphere after the end of their life.

America is just trying scare tactics.

LG Cookie breaks into UK

LG don't get it

Unfortunately LG vis one of those sad Eastern companies that simply don't get it.

We don't want a modern phone with resistive touch screens, a UI that can't keep up with the user and its UI is totally brain dead designed so to irritate Western users constantly.

(Why would LG put a gallery function on its phones that doesn't display the image in full screen mode for example?).

I assume it must be a Western/Eastern culture thing or otherwise LG isn't giving the prototypes to Beta/Gamma users to test drive.

No wonder people buy the iPhone or an Android.

I'll never buy another LG.

Apple iPhone app patent claim 'doesn't feel right'

What's the problem?

Everybody copies UI, even Microsoft copied parts of Windows 95 from RISC OS, Xerox, etc.

Linux copies its UI from Microsoft and others.

So what's the problem?

;-)

RFID chips snooped from 66 metres

Get some prospective

Let's be clear here, Gen2 RFID tags are around the size of bricks as they have their own battery built-in. The usual RF-ID tag called Gen1 like Walmart is wanting to use are the size of a postage stamp....

Serpent imprisons rattled Yorkshire family

Phee Wheee.

Grass snakes have three forms of defence.

1. They try to run away.

2. They release a couple of drops of really _totally_ foul smelling liquid that you don't want to get on you.

3. They can bite but it's not worth making a fuss about.

Adders do the same too, but their bite is a little worse, about the same as a bee sting. So unless you're the rare individual who is allergic to it and so may need hospital attention, then for god sake take a step back and let it go about its business.

SanDisk launches Cruzer Blade USB thumblet drive

Duh.

Maplin has been selling these for months....

What's the difference between an iPod and an iPood?

Let's go into dreamland

Wouldn't it be so ironic if the Beatles changed their minds and decided to sue Apple for using their Music label name?

Police chief: Yes, my plods sometimes forget photo laws

Lets get real....

It has been scientifically proven in lots of studies that if you place people in any sort of control over other people then the first lot will eventually go power mad and start to enforce their own set of cultural values over the second lot.

So no real surprise that police forces all over the world start getting ideas above their station when left unchecked.

We need a system where these people are regularly checked, tested in secret and psychoanalysed to ensure that they don't go power mad.

We have 'mystery shoppers' for shops, why not 'mystery offenders' testing the officers?

Or is that too obvious for the Government?

UK.gov pledges licence fee 'rethink' over heavy catch-up use

generate revenue

Why not invent a 2nd category License like when we had a black & white version which is for online use?

Print a once only code on the license and get the users to enter this into iplayer?

This'll generate extra revenue.

NASA unveils global Martian map

Get it here

Seems to be incorporated in Microsoft's latest version of its Telescope Program.

Android's UK phone sales quadruple

Ignorance is bliss

If you were to ask the average consumer if they've heard of a iphone they'd tell you they have. But ask them what a Android phone is and they'd tell you they've never head of it.

Phone manufacturers just don't sell it as a feature. Just look at the latest Argos catalogue as an example.

Mozilla tames Firefox tab monster with Candy

Open source Rip

Oh this is _so_ a rip off the Microsoft table GUI where the person can use their fingers to separate pictures into groups and stacks.

Nice though!

Microsoft's ARM deal fuels hope of a chilled-out Xbox

At last

Great, finally I'll get Windows running on my RiscPC machine ! ;-)

Buffalo USB 3.0 PCI Express card

Turn up the Power

I'm more worried about this disturbing trend to offer 2 or 3 times the power output on USB3 ports.

The pins on USB3 are the same size as USB2 and that offers 0.5A .

Now USB3 is suppose to offer 0.9A. But with cards and Mobos (see Gigabyte) offering 3 times that, how on earth is 2.7A (13.5W!) going to flow through that same pin? It beggars belief!

Expect USB3 to develop a reputation of smoke, fire and melted plastic.

Google cracks open Android's closed development

Absolutely right

As an Electronic Engineer I can fully understand where Google is coming from.

Extraterrestrials strafe Bosnian with meteorites

What's more likely?

So either we're just seeing a isolated statistically high point in the random data of meteorites.

Or he is (kind of more likely IMHO) gathering these rocks and simply claiming they fell through/onto his roof in order to gain publicity and of course money.

NASA's WISE eyes skies

Not just for radiating heat

CCD scanning devices generate picture noise during the long exposures. So if you can keep it cold you generate less noise on the final image.

Amateur astronomers have been using dry ice for decades to achieve the same thing.

Steve Jobs death-grips iPhone 4 reality

Why it doesn't affect us

To: Alastair MacDiarmid

In American the mobile masts are far fewer and much further apart so the average American on a mobile gets a low signal.

So what do the phone companies in the USA do about this?

They fake the signal bars to show a higher level of signal. Common practise.

So when we in the UK grip the iPhone4 we still get that 24db of attenuation but due to the closer proximity of masts here we get a higher level to start with. Therefore we don't notice it any where as bad as in America. (Unless we are in a low level area like indoors)..

It's just plain ordinary physics.

If you allow a human to grip the bare metal of any aerial with a sweaty hand then you make the aerial much more inefficient. Apple allowed the bare metal of the aerial to be touched so it was bound to cause problems.

So put it in a case and be done with the problem.

UK.gov may cut BBC licence fee in 2012

Keep the Status Quo

Quite honestly the BBC is one of the best things that Britain make.

If its license fee is reduced or abolished then it'll be the end of a golden era of public TV that will be missed when people see the crap that will replace it.

Long may it continue.

I for one will be writing to my MP if this goes ahead.

Virgin eyes legal challenge to Canvas

All our Yesterdays...

Virgin hasn't a leg to stand on.

It's a cable service, so it can only give access to customer within its catchment area. Which is small. Last I heard Virgin haven't done any serious additional cabling for years.

So it'll have to remain price and service competitive with Canvas. Something I very much doubt it can do.

Virgin could have offered on-line services like YouTube, TV browsing, a large music catalogue to its customers years ago. But it's been virtually broke for years and can't afford to develop these kinds of eventual money earners.

Canvas will simply show it up next year as 'yesterdays' service!

Our Vulture 1 aircraft begins to take shape

Better Batteries

May I recommend you use the Hybrid AA rechargeable batteries sold by Maplin?

They don't discharge like ordinary AA Ni-MH over time so keep their power for far longer and will provide far better current for your camera than ordinary AA. Also far cheaper and easier to find than when you need them.

Apple greenlights browserless Firefox app for iPhone

Copycat

They may have done this because Xmarks, the better alternative Sync tool for Firefox, is doing the same?

Apple iPhone forums gripped by deleted thread paranoia

Eh? Who?

OK, who are 'Consumer Reports' and why should I care what they say?

Never heard of them before.

iPhone 4 burns, hurts owner

One Cheap USB charger for sale?

USB 2 only gives off 5V at 0.5A so that's 2.5W. Hardly enough to get warm let alone toast plastic.

I bet he's used one of those cheapo non-standard USB power chargers that like to supply a couple of amps for some reason. A disaster waiting to happen those things.

Sagemcom RTI90-320 Freeview+ HD recorder

Time to wake up.

When will set-top manufacturers wake up and realise that we want a UI that is fast and bug free.

Today it is getting very hard to find a shop willing to allow a customer to test the electronic gadgets we use in the home. So they can get away with this shoddy practise.

I'm tried of using systems that don't work or require me to slow down because they've decided to save some pennies by using a low cost, under-powered CPU in the box.

(That's you Virgin Media)

ISP condemns new BT backbone

Or it could be money?

Sounds like BT are shifting the blame onto the ISP for choosing a low capacity price plan on 21CN.

Maybe they have?

The 3G coverage picture that can't be published

Phone up Google?

Maybe time to contact Google and ask them to release the 3G coverage data they probably have from trawling around the UK with their car?

Secret docs reveal Dell knew PCs were faulty

Wait for it...

Just wait a couple of years for all the gadgets and LCD HD TVs people are buying to start going faulty.

These duff capacitors are just a side effect of all millions of fake components people are fitting into counterfeit goods.

The next time you buy a cheap gadget on eBay or Amazon Associates or you see a laptop charger power supply on sale for £12 then you're just helping these criminals.

We're going to see much more of this thing as the recession causes people to buy cheap goods.

Secret ancient code, basis of all modern civilisation, cracked

Lets do it correctly

If his claim has merit then let it be published in a reputable publication and be reviewed and tested independently by his peers. This is normal scientific procedure.

Then they can laugh at him to his face...

Neuroscientist: iPhone 4's 'Retina display' not bullsh*t

The Eyes have it

Probably why Pensioners are getting excited over the iPad.

At last a device with a large high contrast backlit with a zoom capability display that you don't need to be a computer expert in order to use.

Let's not forget that a large share of the over 60s also have surplus cash to spend.

Jobs tells iPhone users to get a grip

Next Add-on will therefore be...

Now that the aerial is available to the outside world, how long before the first dumb 'external aerial' add-on is put on sale?

Bad enough seeing 2dB external Wi-Fi aerials on sale for wi-fi dongles (hint for those not blessed with a technical education, 2dB is practically nothing). So no doubt Apple Fans will be conned into buying add-on aerials soon.