Posts by Monkeigh

Samsung Galaxy S5 owners hit by fatal camera error problem

Re: Ads?

If you look at the specs you will see that the S5 is rated as IP67. The IP rating is used to provide a more quantifiable measure of dust and water protection than terms like 'waterproof' or water resistant.

The S5 is rated about the same as Sony's Xperia tablet and phone which I can personally attest work fine after being dunked in water.

For reference IP67 means the following:

Water

Immersion up to 1 m Ingress of water in harmful quantity shall not be possible when the enclosure is immersed in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1 m of submersion). Test duration: 30 minutes

Immersion at depth of at most 1 m measured at bottom of device, and at least 15 cm measured at top of device

Dust

Dust tight No ingress of dust; complete protection against contact (dust tight)

John Lewis to respray with coat of Oracle ERP: Don't worry, we won't be 'wall to wall' Larry

>like when builders filled the Victoria control room with concrete - the result was nothing worse than a > storm of angry Tweets, incredulous headlines, and red faces for those in charge.

You forgot to mention an entire Tube line knocked out of commission and the presumably very expensive replacement of a whole room of switching equipment.

Behold the world's first full-colour 3D printer

Re: to widen the discussion...

There just isn't a lot of benefit over existing methods. Potentially 3D printing the part of the prosthetic that fits on to the persons body would allow a better fit than standard part but it would be crazy to 3D print the whole thing. Mass producing prosthetics using injection moulding is far cheaper and quicker than 3D printing and allows for any cavities etc for other parts.

There is a reason 3D printing is generally a prototyping tool and that is once you need to produce more than a small amount of something 3D printing is very expensive and time consuming compared to established manufacturing methods.

While being able to print different types of material in a continuous process on the printer sounds cool it isn't really that useful. Take the headphones in the example, is there really any benefit in printing 3 the hard plastic and rubbery plastic components at the same time instead of just printing multiple parts and assembling them?

The items are unlikely to be manufactured as single pieces so why prototype them like that if 3D printing 3 separate parts and gluing them together is cheaper and easier.

3D printing is always presented as this magical way to create objects quickly and easily when in reality printing an object of any complexity takes many hours. If you want something to be of a high resolution and not require much finishing then it can take days to print a complex model which does erase a lot of the benefits over conventional prototyping techniques.

Apple's skinny new iMac line: Farewell, optical drives

Re: I don't

It will have to be a much better engineered stand than it has at the moment. A single touch of an iMac screen will tilt the whole thing. I'm just not sold on the idea of desktop touch screens for normal computer use, unless you keep a squidgee next to your keyboard the screen is going to be smudgy and annoying to view very quickly.

As well as the key reason why this tech won't catch on which is that operating a computer by touching all over a 27" screen is a lot more effort than making tiny movements of a mouse.

We already have large touch screens like the Wacom Cintiq which have been around for years but their use is limited to fields who actually benefit from accurate touch.

Re: @ Mr Client with the optical disk

As far as I know the last two generations only had back mounted USB ports. Unless you had a wired keyboard in which case it has 2 on the back of the keyboard.

I can confirm that plugging a USB stick into the back of the iMac has always been a pain. Unless you reach around and just stab it at ports in the back until you find the right one then you have to swivel the whole thing round. So every time you want to plug in or unplug anything you have to readjust the tilt of the screen.

In practice most people buy an external USB hub and use that which is hardly an elegant solution. I really don't see the point of making the iMac smaller if it means you have to have your desk littered with peripherals.

Foxconn to create workers' paradise?

Not that simple.

In reference to the AC asking how long until manufacturing just moves to the next source of cheap labour:

It isn't as easy as that. The huge boom in manufacturing on the Chinese coast isn't just due to low wages. There has been massive investment in infrastructure in terms of factories, warehousing and transportation. Even moving from the coastal region to inner regions of China where labour is cheaper isn't an attractive option as it can add a week to transit times. To put that in perspective it takes a week for the goods to be shipped from the Chinese Coast to the USA so moving production inland means doubling your lead time on a new delivery.

Other countries have attractive labour costs but don't have the transport infrastructure to suit modern production. It is no good having cheaper staff if they sit idle half the time because deliveries haven't arrived.

Apple Digital AV Adapter

You could argue...

'You could argue that an expensive gadget like the iPad should have HDMI as standard – but it doesn’t and that’s that.'

You could argue that they should have included this in the fucking box not charged an extra £35 for it.

Smartphones 'out sell' PCs for first time

Stop Press: Milk out sells smartphones! Smartphones are dead.

This sensationalist stuff is just junk news.

Smart phones aren't comparable with desktop or laptop computers, they are used for different tasks and most people have both. Phones have a 24 month lifetime max whereas computers are often used for far longer than that.

A

EU to lift flight ban on carry-on liquids

Umm... You always have been able to!

It will be great that the whole ridiculous "throw away all your drinks and then buy more 5 mins later from super high security WH Smiths", charade will be over. But this doesn't affect duty free at all.

One of the things that made the liquid restrictions so ridiculous was that you could take whatever liquids you wanted on to the plane as long as you bought them from the airport after you went through security. Because of course every single item sold from duty free/ boots / whsmiths has been thoroughly security checked...

Apple Magic Trackpad

Comments on actual use?

The review seems very short on information about what the product is actually like to use. Other reviews have commented on the lack of accuracy for tasks such as browsing web pages or at the very least assessed usage of the pad for a number of different types of task. Apart from the 'the first thing I did is change this setting' comment this could easily have been a hands-off preview based on press release info.

Orange to 'dump unlimited data tariffs'

Never was unlimited.

Orange tariffs never had unlimited data. They have always been capped to 750mb per month. They are quite up front about this despite calling it an 'unlimited' package!

HTC Tattoo

Screen resolution and android apps

I had heard that because of the low screen resolution a lot of android apps aren't compatible with the phone and don't even show up in the app store. This isn't mentioned in the review, is it indeed the case?