Posts by David Webb

This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

Not a patent, a trademark™

Obviously by looking at the image provided the first thing you think of is Apple.... okay, it isn't, does the apple even have a leaf? So no, it's an abuse of the trademark system and most likely will be thrown out.

Australian Prime Minister: Mayan calendar 'true'

Ever since the Queen jumped out of a helicopter, world leaders are trying to find a way to be as relevant and funny to the youth of today as an 86 year old woman. What better way than playing up to the end of the world! Next up, Obama appearing on Celebrity Big Brother.

Windows Phone 8 must be Microsoft's priority one, two AND three

Re: Suppliers

Your problem is that you went into a Vodafone shop, they can't get the deals that 3rd party shops (phones4u and cpwh get). Okay, so cpwh is evil but they do some good deals on upgrades, You can get the 820 for £25/month whilst the voda website still only lists the 7.5 mobiles.

Titsup Windows 8 PayPal payments snare upgraders

It's Paypal, they won't refund it as it's a virtual transaction, you're buying a CD Key and not a real, physical product (unless you opt for the DVD to be delivered) so the only real recourse is through MS.

Amazon makes BEELLIONS from British customers, pays pennies in tax

Re: Still seems shifty

If you were only turning over small amounts of goods than a 2.2p off sales of £1m then it would be pretty rubbish (£22,000 per year). When you're turning over billions though them 2.2p's rack up and you end up with millions in profit.

Bash Street bytes: Do UK schools really need the Raspberry Pi?

We really do need to get the kids into programming languages at an early age, but programming languages for the web. But that's not all, we need a system that will allow them to bring any ideas they have to fruition, that way (eventually) we'll hopefully have a British Facebook, Google, Twitter and such instead of the Americans bringing out all these multi-billion dollar properties.

Learning to program apps is fine, but if a kid has an idea about an amazing web service but is unable to bring it to light because they can't program or (worse) can't find a backer for their idea then they will most likely give up and the idea will eventually find its way to a person who can program and does have backing and is going to be in another country.

Google, Apple, eBay shouldn't pay taxes - people should pay taxes

*checks map*

...

...

*double checks map*

...

I can't seem to find Bermuda in the EU, can someone point it out? Is it near Luxembourg?

Licensing snafu leaves Windows 8 open to PIRATES

Re: Been using it today

That video was made by an idiot to be blunt. MS do a little tutorial at the start "move the mouse to the corners" which generally takes you back to Metro, needing to log in to access your calendar which is stored in the cloud? It's in the cloud, what would you expect?

I've been using Win8 since release, I'm having no issues with it, some small annoyances like it not updating on shutdown only on reboot, and that's about it.

Wii U 'has been JAILBROKEN' via legacy games, say homebrewers

If Ninty has any sense they will have partitioned off the Wii side of things from the Wii-U so getting an exploit working on the Wii side would never lead to exploits in the Wii-U side. As it is, the Wii is so cheap these days you can just buy one for homebrew rather than take your Wii-U offline to prevent updates blocking your Wii homebrew.

Swedish woman cuffed for sex with skeleton SHOCKER

Something must have happened in her past, but, well, we all have skeletons in our closet.......

US paper spaceplane disintegrates at 107,000ft

Re: Paper Airplane Launched From ISS

@Stoneshop - does the paper airplane actually need to survive for the record to stand, or is the record simply the highest altitude launch of a paper airplane? The boffins whose paper plane just blew up could (I think) claim the record if they can prove that the paper airplane was released intact so just by releasing the plane from the ISS should be more than enough to hold the record.... pretty much forever and kill the patents on paper airplane technology that El Reg have.

I'm thinking of El Reg teaming up with the guys from Top Gear for a spectacular paper plane throwing event. Think along the lines of the Robin Reliant Rocket, only instead of a Robin it's a massive paper airplane launched instead......

Or the Japanese could beat us all, a quick call to the man on the ISS "would you mind throwing a paper airplane next time your EVA?"

US team poised for second pop at PARIS spaceplane record

Re: Geronimo

Hopefully you chaps at USI remembered to add a pilot, breaking the record is one thing (especially if Lester does manage to intervene with his laser....) but if you don't have a little plastic model then, well, it's just no where near as much fun! Anyone can build a PARIS, but it takes a real man to.... so many ways to finish that sentence!

Anyhow, good luck.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game review

Re: Damn

As if, the X and Y consoles are frikken sucky for gameplay, everyone knows that the <console Z> is much better and when it comes to gameplay Z wipes the floor with X and Y!

Lord to sue Twitter users who falsely accused him of abuse

@Tom - who knows? If we're in an age where a person can accidentally accuse a person of abusing children which then ends up (worst case scenario) with a mob of angry people outside the local paediatricians* demanding the "peado" come out because of the retweet then maybe you'll get into a bit of trouble.

* that actually did happen, a mob formed outside the house/clinic because, well, I guess the average IQ of a mob is a bit below George W Bush's, simply because they thought "hey, that's sweet, they actually advertise on the outside of the house, I'd so make a frikken good copper, I could solve any crime!". Got to love the people who read the Sun every day and believe everything the Sun wants them to believe........

Subjects bestow Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 on Queen

Re: 'By Royal Appointment' ?

Samsung already hold a royal warrant:

Supplier of Televison and Audio Visual Products

HM The Queen - Master of the Household

Granted in 2012

http://www.royalwarrant.org/rwha-search

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

Re: Bleurgh

From what I gather, they report their profits in low tax areas so they pay low tax on the profits, they report their losses in high tax areas so reducing their tax burden in those areas to zilch. The tax code should really be simplified so that companies can't shift their profits out and bring their losses in, then they would have to start paying the appropriate amount of tax, or find another loophole.

As they point out, the UK is pretty profitable so they won't up and leave and if they threaten to up and leave, that's fine, Costa Coffee pays their taxes..........

Samsung turns screws on Apple, hikes A6 processor price 20%

Re: This is a decade that will live in history..

@Graphsboy - Apple survived because of Microsoft, and Microsoft giving them a bit of spare change that they had laying around, why? Because Microsoft *needs* a competitor, if Apple had died then Microsoft would have 99% market share and total domination which the regulators wouldn't like and so would have most likely forced Microsoft to split the company up to allow other competitors into the field.

The problem with Apple is that it's not really used to success, it's used to failing, now it has a whiff of being "top dog" and it's still trying to get away with the crap that regulators allowed it to do when it's competition was Microsoft, but being a big company they find that the regulators get pissy if they try to abuse their position, so it should stop acting like a company that is about to go under and start acting like a company which isn't going to get hammered by the powers that be.

Re: Very witty

Actually, with my strong creative streak I was thinking of becoming an accountant for Starbucks.....

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at Apple...

[after the trial]

Guy 1 : WOO, we won $1 billion, let's all go and get laid, whose turn is it to pay?

Guy 2: yours!

[today]

Guy 1 : Umm, Samsung have just upped their prices 20%

Guy 2: Shoot, how much extra is that going to cost us?

Guy 1: bout.... $1 billion a year....

Guy 2: Crap, lets find another supplier.... QUICK!!

Guy 1 : There isn't another supplier who can meet our demands!

Guy 2 : Oh, bugger.

Obama win may mean NASA 'nauts to Deep Space as soon as 2021

I know Orion isn't a rocket, from memory (they just launched into space in the Anime), a large stage 1 thingy is launched a few days before Orion, Orion is then launched with the typical rocket bits falling away as it goes WHEEEEEEEE into space. Orion then docks with the large stage 1 that is already in space (not sure what it contains, fuel and rockets maybe?) and then heads towards the moon.

No idea if Orion is a landing craft, if it is it can disengage from the large part (which then orbits the moon) and then lands on the moon, when it wants to return to Earth it can latch back onto the large machine, gets to Earth, disengage and safely land back on Earth with the large one either burning up or landing somewhere else if it's reusable.

Totally on topic and off topic at the same time, there is currently a (pretty good) anime called Space Brothers that is being made with tech support provided by Nasa (spelling... not so much) and actually features the Orion rocket and how it'll hook up with a 2nd system to take both systems to the Moon for a planned/future moon base. Also it has a dog.

Medical scan record that the NHS says will cost £2k to retrieve: Detail

Re: A few things

@AC - if you'd bothered to check you would have found out that the images were stored in DICOM Format, there is no question about that. The issue is that the machine to read the 9Gb Optical Discs is no longer available to read the discs to obtain the images. The machine in question being a Sonos 550 Phillips Echocardiography machine.

It's rather akin to storing stuff on a 1.44Mb floppy and trying to read the data on a modern Mac, you can't do it unless you get a bit of 3rd party hardware which can read the 1.44Mb floppy drive. Heck, I got a box full of 1.44's I can't use because I have no FDD but am I willing to spend money on buying an FDD that may only get 1 use? Nope.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-20235193

They did, no one has the obsolete gear anymore. Personally I think the guy is being unreasonable, there is no medical reason for him requiring the image other than for his own personal records, doctors have told him the image is useless and the only useful ones are current ones, but he'd rather take away money from patient care to get this image or take them to court taking MORE money from patient care.

Re: WTF

You forget the basic principle of the DPA, records should not be kept longer than necessary. The records in this case are - for medical purposes at least - useless so really the health authority should have deleted them once a newer scan became available and the scans on record became obsolete.

Classic game 'Elite' returns … on Kickstarter

Re: Multiplayer game based on Elite?

The only game I've played which I can compare to Elite really is the X series. In that series you can be whatever you want, a super trader, owner of huge fleets of ships which go and buy/sell stuff for you, a pirate who forces people to eject (who you then capture to sell as slaves) and steal their ships, a pirate hunter, salvager, can't remember if you can be a miner, but the combat is Elite style and isn't a bad game.

Firm-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's tax dodge profit shift? Totally legit

Re: So cancel corporation tax

Double VAT? You know that companies claim back VAT they pay themselves, although would you really be happy that an extra 20% is added to your weekly shopping list?

It's really quite simple what is happening, company A is a large multi-national and buys lots of stuff from all over the world, it'll post it's profits against the stuff it's buying, not just in that country, but from all over the world. So in the UK the company buys nothing at all, nada, zilch, it just sells stuff with parts bought in Canada, shipped to China where it is assembled and then shipped to the UK where it's sold. On the profits chart though it lists all the costs it has incurred in Canada and China which makes it look like there is no profit, so there is nothing for Mr Taxman to tax.

I wouldn't suggest any company would use this tactic for reporting tax in every country as an over-all tax dodge.... "US profits reported against worldwide outgoings, UK profits reported against worldwide outgoings, China, we don't sell much here so lets say we're making a HUGE loss because we're spending a fortune on making stuff here"

From memory it's crap like this that the film industry use so when a film makes billions of dollars (i.e. Star Wars) the film company can report the film as a loss so they don't have to pay the stars much money if they have in their contract that they get a % of profits.

Windows Phone 8: Everything you need to know at a glance

Battery Life

Like EddieD I have a Lumia 800 and have no issues with battery life, in fairness I do have a Vodafone Sure Signal so it's not really going to be expending a lot of effort trying to find a base station but the battery does last several days.

Apple must apologise for its surly apology on its website on Saturday

Next up, Apple find a loophole in that it's an EU wide judgement so they can put the page up in any language from the EU, bets are in and Welsh is odds on favourite. Actually I'd love to see that.....

Sony promotes Vita with QUAD-JUBBED WOMAN

Re: So the point of the ad

No, it means you'll feel a tit when using it.........

<-- owns a Vita

Inside the iPad mini: Pray you never have to open one

I think you would be pretty pissed off if your car needed a new wheel and you couldn't replace it. TV's and such are probably repaired by people who enjoy doing that kind of stuff, computer geeks really should get turned on by being able to replace component X when it decides to give up the ghost rather than throw away a £400 object because a £20 thingy inside threw a bit of a wobbly.

Dishwashers and TV's (as well as washing machines and fridges etc.) are usually repaired by a bloke called Bob who can take out a faulty part and replace it (unless it's not economical to do so), small appliances like microwaves are possibly not economically (or safety) viable to be taken apart to replace some stuff.

Nobody knows what to call Microsoft's ex-Metro UI

You had to google Gungam Style? Even I know about that song and my preference is for a band called AKB48 (who you should google, especially 【PV】 ヘビーローテーション / AKB48 [公式] hehehe - top tip, that video is much better if you turn the sound off......... ;)

I had to come back and post, a nightmare scenario popped up in to my head. Steve Balmer singing the Metro Style song to the tune of Gungam Style...... ARGHHHHH..... just had to come put that thought into your head... happy Halloween........ MWAHAHAHAHAHA /coff

I was uninstalling VS2012 Ultimate RC and managed to snag a screenshot which states...

"Windows Software Development Kit for Metro style Apps"

So if we can't call it Metro, lets call it Metro style?

Hurricane Sandy: Where are all the cynical online scams?

You know, you're probably really correct :)

I'm still wondering how much quicker everything in NY will be fully repaired compared to when Katrina hit, has New Orleans recovered fully yet?

Hmm, I think I'll order an iPad Mini on Amazon ... Oh no I won't

Re: Both products are a big fail.

@ Andrew James...

But then you could argue that the PS Vita isn't much more than a PS2 thats been shrunk down a bit,

You could argue that, but you'd be laughed at for stating something so obviously incorrect. The PS Vita is roughly as powerful as a PS3/360 (some games look exactly the same on the PSV as they do on the PS3) so if they had the hardware support they would be able to play PS2 games without breaking a sweat.

Publishing giants borg into Random Penguin ... But can it see off Amazon?

Re: Rupert won't be pleased.

They do, it's on page 3 and is tit-led "tits or GTFO", it's very arty.

Hurricane Sandy blows away Google Nexus launch in New York

Re: To be fair....

I think you'll find the comments would relate to Steve Jobs (though to iTards he is God) or even Bill Gates giving his best mate (Satan) a call to arrange it......

Yahoo! will! ignore! 'Do! Not! Track!' from! IE10!

Re: Nick Kew

The choice affects me 0.000%, I don't use IE.... I use Chrome and Kaspersky's adblock function so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be tracked no matter which browser I use.

BUT the choice is there, along with other stuff (location services being one) which when an average user looks at them may make them think "hang on a sec, I don't like the sound of these defaults.... I better change them" which in turn means they are going to make an informed choice about keeping DNT turned on (and turning off location based services) which is then going to be ignored by Yahoo!

As AC pointed out though, the settings are part of the configuration at the start, so even pre-installed will be given the option to change the defaults, it's no big surprise that companies which make their money from adverts, tracking etc. is going to end up ignoring them.

I installed Windows 8 yesterday... okay, stop laughing at the back.... and you in the middle.... okay and you at the front too........ and the "turn on Do Not Track" was actually there in the set up, MS saying "if you commit these defaults, these will be turned on..." so people would make the informed choice of sticking with the defaults (knowing what they are as they are on view) or changing the defaults, it's no back door entry.

Microsoft's 'official' Windows 8 Survival Guide leaks

Looks legit to me.

Latest PS3 hack hits Sony with massive migraine

Re: You mad bro?

No one is saying Sony is perfect, but the first whiff of an exploit on the PS3 came about because of OtherOS which they then promptly removed and so began the fight between Sony and the hackers. The initial hacks were caused by incompetence from Sony, the USB stick and using the same key (or something) which led to CFW which naturally lead to piracy.

Look at the PS3 Scene since then though, since 3.55 there have been no new hacks released, people have been stuck on the same firmware for..... 2 years? The hackers had what they wanted, Linux back on the PS3 so they had no reason to go after the lv0 keys, the lv0 keys were found a long time ago by the hackers and not released because it would lead to easier piracy of all PS3 games for pirates on 3.55. It was only released now because the Chinese website was going to charge people for the hackers work.

If the hackers didn't want people getting access to new firmware and the holy grail keys, they shouldn't have gone looking for them, even in an exercise to see if they could, they should have realised that it would eventually be leaked out one way or another so self restraint should have been the prime directive for them, now the lv0 keys are out and anyone with a fat PS3 can now use the newest firmware that Sony releases and there is nothing Sony can do to combat it on the fats.

As everyone knows, it's only of use to people with already hacked consoles (which the new CFW is bricking at quite a nice rate). The new consoles (3x and 4x) come with lv0.2 which (as far as I'm aware) cannot be hacked so the system is still locked down for anyone who has a PS3 that came with FW > 3.60 and most likely will never be hacked.

The "serious" hackers only really hacked it to get Linux support back (and don't support piracy) which begs the question, why were the serious hackers looking for the lv0 keys when they already had Linux and homebrew on 3.55 in the first place? If you built it, they will steal it and try to make a profit!

Apple unveils iPad mini, upgrades its big brother

The way I see it, with the pricing they have the main competitor for the mini is umm, an iPad 2 although you can get a Samsung Tab 2 for around the same price as a mini so it's a 7" competing with 10"? What kind of idiot would blow that much cash on a 7" and not a little more for the 10" version or a lot less if they really want a 7" from Google/Amazon? I'm discounting Windows RT tablets until they come out, the Surface is just too expensive.

Big labels try for ISP blocking on 3 more 'pirate' sites

Re: Really?

You beat me to the quote I was going to use. If the industry is burgeoning then doesn't it suggest that it isn't being damaged but is, you know, burgeoning? (rapidly growing).

Amazon accused of remotely wiping punter's Kindle

Sorta the same thing happened to me on Steam. I bought my CD Key and stuck it into Steam, played Saints Row the Third for a few weeks then one day it was just gone. THQ had told Steam to revoke the key claiming I got it from a keygen (keygens for Steam? Really?) and the retailer wasn't legit. One email later and my "not legit" seller refunded me the money whilst THQ have lost a guaranteed sale for SR:4 + DLC. At least with piracy I never get my key revoked :sarcastic grimacing smiley goes here:

Sanitary towel firm's 'CEO' sets traumatised man straight

I liked the pencil-snap. So calm on the exterior...

That's a metaphor for snapping something else.......

I think the part at the end where she farts is the real nice touch here, showing that women are indeed just like men, only without the male bits and.... actually, how many men would really post on a topic about a females time of the month without running away running and screaming in terror? Holy shit, that chick got men talking about periods!

Microsoft Surface ad targets preppy, Glee-watching youngsters

Re: See, I quite liked the look of the Surface Pro..

It's not hinged, it's magnetic......