Posts by Owain 1

Cybercrooks attempted credential-stuffing banks 3.5 BEEELLION times in the last 18 months alone

Hey, where did you get my (only) password from?

Human-free robo-cars on Washington streets after governor said the software is 'foolproof'

Re: How does your brain percieve the difference --

"How does your brain perceive the difference --

-- between a blowing plastic bag in the road and a running child in the road?"

I understand your point, but applying the brakes seems like a reasonable response under both of these circumstances until they really can tell the difference.

Also, I suspect this is generally something that people are not very good at either. Maybe we can't tell. Plenty of children darting into roads get hit. Plastic bags impacts aren't recorded...

Additionally, I'd hope that the software can track 'unknown objects' while they are still on the sidewalk (or when they have JUST left the sidewalk ie. 100% awareness), such that the car could slow down in anticipation of the plastic bag / child running into the street. I.e. less emergency braking.

Also, automatic cars might Actually drive fairly slowly in an urban setting e.g. 15-20 mph. In the UK we have signs that say 20 is plenty. So while I wouldn't want to get run over at 20 miles an hour (fatality 5% chance), it's WAY more survivable than being hit at 30 mph (fatality 45%). And hopefully the car would be stamping on the brakes anyway.

Either way, automated cars erring on the side of caution in an urban setting seems reasonable, and who's to say that people are any better at not hitting children than plastic bags.

US voting machine certification agency probes potential hack

Re: "liberal anti-people propaganda"

They come in pill form?

James Dyson's new startup: A university for engineers that doesn't suck

Malmesbury

Shhh. Don't tell let on about Malmesbury. Nobody mention the lovely pubs, the friendly locals, the beautiful ancient abbey, the easy access to the M4, the local Michelin two-starred restaurant (recommend the tasting menu... Mmm!), Westonbirt Arboretum, the Abbey House gardens, riverside walks, the carnival, Boondocks festival, Womad festival, Outstanding rated Secondary school, Outstanding rated primary school... Nothing to see here. Move on, move on.

Oh God, here comes the artificially intelligent boss bot – look busy!

Hey, It looks like you're trying to overlook some fraud.

Would you like to:

* take a bung

* embezzle the pension fund

* launder some stolen assets

* fire the CFO and install a puppet

* or continue overlook fraud on your own.

[] dont show me this tip again.

Former Microsoft HoloLens man: It's NOT about gaming

"We have a client in the architecture and construction space," says Hoffman.....“Recently they had a giant piece of equipment arrive that was different to what they had specified. It would not fit in the room they had provided. "

So they brought legal action against the supplier for breach of contract?

OR

They sent it back, and got the right one delivered?

Oh, no they decide the best solution was to build a model of the thing on the pallet outside, and the room, and then use augmented reality to see if they could somehow make the room bigger without actually moving any of the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling.

Maybe the amazon delivery guy who keeps leaving my parcels next to the bins in the pouring rain could remove his augmented reality headset long enough to actually ring the doorbell the next time he has a parcel that doesn't fit through my letter box.

Grrr (Yes it's monday morning and it's raining).

Domino's trials trundling four-wheeled pizza delivery bot

R2D2 or BigTrak

It seems quite big to me. I suspect lots of room inside. but not for pizza:

I think that each one is personally piloted R2D2 style by a dwarf. Thus keeping jobs for people and providing much required built in obstacle avoidance system / ability to climb stairs as and when required..

It also looks a tad like bigtrak. Perhaps there's some kid a block away who typed in F99, F99, Left, F2, [Deliver Pizza], Right, Right, F99, [Fire Laser]. [GO]

Middle-aged US bloke pleads guilty to iCloud celeb nude photo hack

Re: Middle aged?

I'm planning on preserving myself with alcohol.

When customers try to be programmers: 'I want this CHANGED TO A ZERO ASAP'

a week and 2 engineers

The bug is fairly obvious. I suspect though that the circumstances of the actual execution, and the knock on effects (software gets stuck in a loop) may have been non-obvious. The OP doesn't say whether this whole thing was conditional... i.e. maybe the whole code isn't triggered very often. Or maybe it's triggered by a non-obvious scenario. Imagine this was in the controls of a custard factory machine, and it is part of the nozzle blockage handling routine... Maybe the nozzles don't get blocked very often. Maybe they do but the whole factory gets coated with custard and so diagnosis of what went wrong is 'sticky'. However what it does point to is a lack of automated testing of the software. Which should have found this particular issue quickly... solving it shouldn't take 2 engineers though.

Maybe the engineers were being charged out by the hour ;)

Maybe the first one couldn't work after injuring himself through laughing.

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

Re: The drive's a Seagate...

Does that mean that, due to relativity, there is a tangible time difference between the inside and outside of the disc?

Call of Duty terror jabber just mindless banter

Actually I can see one thing of benefit to the terrorists... the base content of the chat messages in (for example) COD would be of people saying they want to blow stuff up and shoot/kill people vs (say) facebook where the base content is people talking about their children and pets. This gives 2 advantages that it would be difficult to monitor the whole COD network to pick up 'out of context' messages. And it would also be reasonable defence in court that you were indeed just playing COD.

Plusnet ignores GCHQ, spits out plaintext passwords to customers

but but but, that's the same as My password!!!

Robotic arm provides infosec automation for dodgy card readers

Re: Seriously....

During an 'interesting conversation' with GCHQ?

Here are the God-mode holes that gave TrueCrypt audit the slip

Re: Pfft

At the risk of being down-voted, then I would imagine Most users of drive encryption software on windows have little to hide from GCHQ, and are simply using it to enhance the privacy of their personal information from casual eaves droppers such as PC repair men or after casual theft of a laptop / leaving it on a train. To use an analogy, not using encryption is a bit like sending personal information on a post card. It's not that a paper envelope is an impenetrable barrier to a determined snooper, but it stops casual loss of personal data. Therefore I suggest that most users of Truecrypt on windows do care about security (otherwise they wouldn't use it), but don't require government proof security. Horses for courses as they say.

What's broken in this week's build of Windows 10? Installing it, for one

, including new icons and

You're kidding me. The headline feature is new icons?

Google I/O FORTRESS: Sold-out dev conference is in LOCKDOWN

Stick your own QR on the top.

I suggest you print out your own QR, perhaps a rickroll or similar, and stick it over the top of your google issued one.

Easy ... easy ... Aw CRAP! SpaceX rocket ALMOST lands on ocean hoverbase

Re: I dunno but

Apparently camels have lawyers, and blue whales do not.

Dev gives HBO free math tips to nail Game of Thrones pirate leakers

Re: Randomly add frames

My thoughts exactly. Although in order to defeat it, the pirate would have to know that the method of watermarking is a frame count. Maybe it's some coloured dots. Maybe it's a bit of audio 2 hours in that says "THIS COPY BELONGS TO FRED" in the audio. Who is going to watch 2 hours of this rubbish in order to be able to find that. I think the point is that it's easy to defeat an obvious visual watermark.

More importantly they were stupid to let such a large quantity of a valuable asset out in one chunk to a single 3rd party. Maybe next time they will employ more than one translation company and only give them half of each episode each (or something). Or get them to work in-house if that's too much of a risk. Or give them a really bad quality copy at 320x160 or something. Either way the error wasn't in the watermarking it was in trusting a 3rd party with the crown jewels in the first place.

Google Ads go NUCLEAR, foist exploit kit

Re: AdBlock

I had to turn off ad blocker and refresh TheReg to see what you meant. Gosh it looks terrible with the advertising. I hadn't realised. Back on now. Phew.

UK.gov: We want Britannia's mobe-enabled cars to rule the roads

Old lady rolling backward

You've slightly missquoted, and missed the point.

"an electronic handbrake enables hill-start tech - which stops the old lady in front rolling back into your Audi."

"NP: If the little old lady rolls back on a hillstart, she's not fit to drive, whatever she claims."

And you can keep repeating that to yourself as you admire the lovely dent she's made in your nice radiator, while she drives off having not noticed the impact. Personally I'd prefer she (and everybody else) has the electronic handbrake.

The coming of DAB+: Stereo eluded the radio star

Re: Satellite

Maybe they want to listen to radio in the room which doesn't have a satellite cable running to it... a sky dish isn't very portable. Personally I would love to be able to get our satellite signal to other rooms in the house (over IP?) but I haven't found anything to help. Anybody got any suggestions?

Cross-dressing blokes storm NSA HQ: One shot dead, one hurt

Re: Kerfuffle?

a "rumpus" perhaps.

Pass the Lollipop: Google creepily warms to body contact with Android lock function

Pure lazy

"This feature is mainly for people who generally don't lock their phones as they find it too inconvenient. ".

My goodness me people are lazy. Honestly it's not something I think twice about.. Dont you just up the unlock time, or turn it off (and lock with off button). Surely there are better features than this to concentrate the great minds of google on. I take it this just a tick box in the menu structure that says, "don't lock if being jiggled". Personally I'd like them to spend more time on the wifi stack to get it to roam between SIDs in the same network properly. I have an old house (thick stone walls) and 2 wifi spots (same SID same psk), and you can walk from one spot to the other and even stand on top of the router and the darn thing will not roam even though the signal is orders of magnitude higher. Arrrgh.

How many Androids does it take to change a light bulb?

Gas is cheeper than electric

My central heating gas is cheaper per watt than my electricity. Therefore it IS cheaper to use Central heating than lights to heat my house. (I note your 'relative costs' statement.) I guess you'd need to be on something worse than electric heating.

O

SanDisk launches 200GB microSD card

Re: Not much use...

I think the MicroSD card slot is just underneath the battery actually.

Hello Barbie: Hang on, this Wi-Fi doll records your child's voice?

Preload with 'knoledge'

Presumably you could buy one, and then before giving it to the kid preload it with all the things you think they might 'enjoy' talking about, by seeding the 'Barby learns all about you'. E.g. Buy Doll, ask doll lots of questions about maths, raspberry pi, the register, car mechanics, thai cooking, the joys of reading a book, playing outside, making dens, climbing trees, growing up to be an engineer etc and then hand the doll to the child, happy that Barbi will suggest something 'suitable' when they ask it an inane question. Having said that, my 4 year old recently asked me "What if the earth had legs?". I had no answer to that and so reflected it back to the child: "I don't know, what if the earth had legs?". He said "It would walk on the sun.". Fair enough.

UK Scouts database 'flaws' raise concerns

Re: Dib dib dib

I'd been a cub assistant leader for about 8 years before I realised that 'dib dib dib' should be 'dyb dyb dyb' and it stands for 'Do Your Best'. I assume the response was 'dob dob dob'. Note, this short term isn't used any more in Scouting. At our starting ceremony the leading cub shouts out "Cubs do your Best!". Then the Cubs all shout out "We Will do our best!"

Microsoft wants LAMP for wireless mobe charger

Skynet

Presumably once the machines achieve consciousness they will use these handy energy weapons to blind all the human scum.

Whistleblower behind PM's daughter scholarship leak must wait for fate

re no longer teach grammar

We leave it to our cartoon writers: ‘Are English split infinitives a form of irregular verb or past pronoun?’

No suitable 'pig' icon was found.

Little big phone: Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, a toothsome hand-fulla Android

Re: Z2 Compact

My bad, I meant the Z1 Compact. Yeesh, I use it everyday and I don't even know what it is. Good phone though. Well recommended.

Z2 Compact

Doesn't look like it's much of an improvement on Z2 compact which I have. It's a great little phone. Water proof etc, magnetic charge etc. My Z2 gets 41266 on the AnTuTu v5.3 benchmark too, so the Z3 version isn't much faster. My money is on the Z2 compact until the Z3 price drops. Z2 comact battery on stamina mode is currently suggesting I'll get 5 days out of it... I think it's the non-HD screen that really helps. I use my phone for phone stuff, email, minecraft, but not to watch HD movies on - I don't want to go blind. So the HD screen on higher models is a bit overkill methinks.

Friday: SpaceX will attempt to land rocket on floating, robotic 'spaceport drone ship'

After landing

What stops it from just falling over after landing even with the legs? I'm presuming it's pretty tall and it's on a non-static platform. I would have thought it needed something to grab it by the top (or the bottom I guess) just after it lands. Otherwise if there's a bit of a wave, it'll be .. .KABOOM time :(

UK.gov binds mobe operators to £5bn not-spot deal

69 per cent to 85 per cent of Blighty

Is that geographical, or population? Not much point in sticking a mast in the middle of nowhere just for the occasional hiker?

Branson sinks sub dream: Plan to explore Earth's bottom scrapped

What goes up

I guess there's an issue with recovery too if something does go wrong. At least if your spacecraft breaks up, you can find bits of it when they hit the dust. But if something sinks, then it's just gone :(

YIKES: Combination of LIVING WOMAN and MACHINE sighted in NYC

Re: Oh man

I thought that, then I saw it was from 'Sis'... and since my wife and her sister spend 'quite' some time on the phone, perhaps it's a simple statement of fact.

Philae healthier: Proud ESA shows off first comet surface pic

Leg off floor

Is this the leg that is off the floor? If you look to the right of the leg then the black shape could be its shadow thrown onto the rock, assuming light is coming from the left of the photo. Since the shadow and the leg aren't attached, that would suggest this is the leg off the floor? Additionally the leg seems to be very well lit, but you cant see any rock lit at the bottom of it, also suggestive that the leg is not touching the floor.

(I nearly said 'in the air' then. Which would have been an error.)

£2k burning a hole in your pocket? Let this 'advanced' DRONE relieve you

Re: Awesome Toy

I'm quite surprised that it cannot go down as fast as it can go up? Can anybody explain?

Google begins to roll out Lollipop to Nexus devices

Re: Longer battery life

I've been very impressed with my sony z1 mini. It lasts about 3 days without charging (albeit with low usage - a bit of googling, email checking, a call or two, and a text or 10), and a limp mode to drag that out for another day when it hits 15%. Antutu score of 40309. Waterproof. Removable micro sd card. Not the coolest looking (especially not when wearing a protective case), but certainly the most practical phone I've owned - coming from an S3.

Fraud shop OVERSTOCKED with stolen credit cards

Re: I just wonder....

Maybe they do.....

Bracelet could protect user herds from lurking PREDATORS

Neck

I think it should be a collar worn round the neck, perhaps with some HE in it in case the user wanders too far away from their computer. If they do.. KABOOM. Or perhaps some sort of intestine based version, depending on which film analogy you prefer.

Are you a HOT CELEB? Think your SEXY PICS are safe? Maybe NOT

Wonder if... Angela Merkel has any selfies

I suggest a kickstarter fund to pay to keep them out of the public domain.

Get ready: The top-bracket young coders of the 2020s will be mostly girls

Damn statistics

If less girls are taking the subject, but are receiving higher grades, then it stands to reason that perhaps they are only taking the subject if they are personally more interested in taking it, whereas perhaps more boys are taking it without being that interested, e.g. if their mates are also doing it.

While running code club at school, I find we get fewer but keener girls, and more boys but some of them are just there to mess around with games.

Fiendishly complex password app extension ships for iOS 8

Strong password to protect pictures of kittens.... WHY??!

It's been said many times before, but frankly I'd rather websites and apps stop forcing users to use strong passwords when the content they secure is worthless. Sure my bank should require a strong password, and paypal, and e-bay, and e-mails, and maybe even facebook (uuugh). Although two factor security would be far more reasonable: like gmail has (and paypal can afford to send me a text message to my mobile). Other websites essentially just keep my information private, and that's not worth much. I propose 4 classes of website - privacy, store account (without payment details retained), e-mail and social presence, payment/banking. I see no reason as to why privacy should be maintained by a unique strong password.

Robot cars to hit Blighty in 2015

Re: Will these night time trucking lorries

Correction:

....

Else

AllowOvertake = Hey, why not.

Microsoft's Brit kid Cortana lands on UK WinPhone 8.1, but China's is the real cutie

Re: "In the UK, Cortana will have a local accent ..."

No, it'll just have the stock cockney-chimney-sweep gorblimy guv'ner cheeky chappy voice that all people from the uk have...

DON’T add me to your social network, I have NO IDEA who you are

Pharrt

just sums it all up nicely.

I agree with everything you say. As a nobody, I'm assuming most of the random connection attempts I get are hacked accounts wanting to spam me with something. My wife insisted we get a facebook page for our holiday cottage. We have one. Some of our friends have have liked it. Nobody has ever enquired about a booking through it. Waste of time. Plenty of traffic through google and our website.

'Fan docks' are about to become a thing

Marketing blah blah

"Depth perception also means it will become possible to use one's hands to control on-screen action in games or with apps built to offer a gestural interface"

Which we already have (from plain old 2d cameras and touch screens) with limited take up. Primarily because it wears you out and isn't very precise; and, as a lazy git, the only time I really want to wave my hands about trying to attract attention and give direction to an uncomprehending other party is either when I want to order more food at the restaurant, or when I'm drowning.

Toot-toot. Intel pulls up in the connected car of the FU-TURE-TURE

Re: obscene level of profit

I will recognise it when I'm rolling around in it, and I'm throwing it onto a fire for fun. I suspect the purchase of an island is also a hint.

Quick Q: How many FLOPPIES do I need for 16 MILLION image files?

Effects of Ballet on the human body

"How awful. Did he at least die painlessly? To Shreds you say."

I've told my wife we should cancel our trip to see Swan Lake.

Bizarre Tolkien-inspired GCHQ Xmas card CAN'T BE READ by us PLEBS

@GrumpyOldBloke

"GCHQ: Mordor where the Shadows lie ?

A little further to the North."

You mean Tewkesbury?