Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

UK govt 'tearing up road laws' for Google's self-driving cars: The truth

Re: Driverless car

>The Docklands Light Railway?

Is it the Victoria line that has drivers only because computers can't strike?

UBER UBER ALLES: Investors value ride app at $17 BEEELLION

Re: Holland, Tulips, early/mid 1600s ...

>Did you get burned?

Yes but fortunately I also invested in a company making longevity potions

Re: Unter

>perhaps that is the way it supposed to be? True competition needs to have a fair market....

Yes but that is little comfort to the shareholders who just spent $19Bn building the level playing field.

Re: Unter

And that's their big weakness - which they would have to disclose if this were an SEC filing rather than a private round.

Uber put these billions into buying politicians to make this legal and fight the cabbies and building awareness among non-geeks. Then a 100 other companies simply clone it and benefit from the law changes.

The drivers will simply have an app for each and pickup whichever customers are paying most. There will then be a series of startups with apps which do arbitrage and pick the best service for drivers and passengers.

Bechtolsheim's baby Arista Networks soars in stock market debut

A new paradign

A staff of experts in the particular field of engineering actually building a high quality product with a strong demand from real customers who will rely on it for real work - and are willing to pay for it.

Is this an entirely new business method ?

Could we patent it ?

Whoops! Google's D-Day Doodle honors ... Japan

> World War II in the Japanese mass media, to be identical to what you would find in the United States.

That only the US took part, they won the battle of Britain while cracking the enigma and inventing radar and the jet engine?

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Re: Took ages to convince my parents...

>that an electronic engineering degree was not a qualification for fixing Christmas tree lights.

Have the standards for EEng degrees dropped that much ?

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! 3D HOLO-PHONE hinted in Amazon vid

re: 3D Holographic display

>Since our brightest minds have yet to figure out how to make an arbitrary part of open space look solid

You can make a real holographic display with programmable diffraction gratings.

At the moment it can only do small volumes and it takes all day to calculate the rendering of a frame.

Devs get first look at next Visual Studio

Re: Compiler as a service?

So us real programmers(tm) finally get intelisense, refactoring and a compiler that all use the same engine?

We present to you: 840 fine, upstanding young disks stuffed into a rack cabinet – DDN

Re: How do they keep all those buggers cool?

The optional RB211 cooling fan (it is important to position the rack IN FRONT of the fan for optimal cooling)

TrueCrypt hooked to life support in Switzerland: 'It must not die' say pair

Re: License smicense

Patent trolls will sue over copyrights and trademarks as well.

The point being that "they are good guys don't worry" doesn't work when they sell to bad guys

Re: License smicense

Until they, or their heirs, or the bank if they default on their mortgage - sell the rights to a patent troll who go after every Linux distribution and corporation using Truecrypt.

Either pick some name like TPFKAT or just hit the dictionary and call it something else.

Google: OK world, make our 'End-to-End' crypto tool SPOOK PROOF

Re: While THE PATRIOT Act is in force so what?

>To quote: "data encrypted locally in a user's browser and decrypted by the recipient using OpenPGP"

Using a key entered into and stored by a browser (and on chromebook, an OS) that Google control and you know nothing about.

Pixar frees its production-grade RenderMan software

The economics

>With RenderMan selling for just $US495 it's hard to see why Pixar cares

> can you explain what's afoot here?

Pixar aren't in the software selling business, they are in the movie making business

Renderman operators are expensive.

If every highschool kid and every art college start using Renderman there will be a lot of potential recruits. A glut reduces prices

It's the same reason ATT made C free, they needed to hire programmers.

CSIRO claims milestone in solar-powered steam turbines

Re: How well does it ramp?

Not necessarily, big power demand in Oz is for AC which tends to correlate quite well with sunshine, and desalination plants which don't need to be always on

Not all power sources need to be 24x7

Apple: We'll tailor Swift to be a fast new programming language

I find it doubtful that you can copyright a programming language's syntax

That's not what Oracle say about Java,

Apple could sell Swift to some evil supervillian years down the road who could claim that they own your independent implementation

Revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret Middle Eastern internet spy base

Re: I dont understand why everyone is acting so surprised that this is going on

That GCHQ would bother spying on potential enemies in a part of the world that has more than its fair share of wars.

Rather than its proper job of making sure it has dirt on any potential opponents of the current government, local council or PTA.

You've got two weeks to beat off Cryptolocker, GameoverZeus nasties

Re: Clicking links ...

QR codes are like telephone numbers.

You might not like what you hear when you call them - but it shouldn't be able to blow up your phone

Toshiba's CB30-102 13.3in Chromebook – imagine a tablet with a keyboard

Nice but

Other then the Pixel there isn't a lot of difference in Chromebooks.

You can pickup the original Samsung ARM one for $200 ($150 returns on Amazon) so why should I pay more for a more powerful dual core Intel CPU with a fan and shorter battery life?

Because I need to do some protein folding or CFD on the bus?

FAA: All systems GO for Virgin Galactic space plane to launch from US

Re: Comparison with SpaceX

>However, VG is a space *plane*: both modules take off and land from a runway, and land for re-use.

Plane yes, space almost, orbit - NO.

Getting to space is easy, just fly 60miles straight up

Staying in space involves then turning left and accelerating to 21,000mph - this is trickier

USA! USA! ... Aw, screw it. Motorola to close Texas smartphone plant

Re: Gracias

> closing the operation is the very last thing a company wants to do

True, right upto the point where the tax breaks or "inward investment incentive

runs out. I'm betting that a local of state tax money went into this operation and the deal just finished

The hoarder's dilemma: 'Why can't I throw anything away?'

Re: Get well soon

Surely he should be undergoing the patented beer and bacon diet at the el'reg own private clinic

TrueCrypt turmoil latest: Bruce Schneier reveals what he'll use instead

Re: Whoa there

Hint - it's like bronzy or goldy but made of iron

Re: Bruce Schneier *doesn't* reveal what he'll use

When Bruce Schneier uses double ROT13 encryption, the ciphertext is totally unbreakable.

Re: Whoa there

If you can't trust Microsoft to stand up for the little guy who can you trust ?

London officials declare cabbie-bothering Uber is legal – for now

Re: Interested in the logic

> The intent and result of the device is the same

Then the same could be said of anything that charged you a fare based on the distance between the endpoints - like a train ?

Re: Predictable outrage

Yes but it's the only High Court the UK has got

TrueCrypt considered HARMFUL – downloads, website meddled to warn: 'It's not secure'

Re: If you were the NSA...

>Or it's a red herring for you think it couldn't possibly be them

Or that's what they want you to think !

Tesla's top secret gigafactories: Lithium to power world's vehicles? Let's do the sums

Yes - rather better than on a baking Californian or Texan day when you need AC

Spanish village of 'Kill the Jews' votes for rebrand

Re: Next renaming project...

I think Waterloo station and Trafalgar Square are next

ARG! A GHOST SHIP! Pirates sunk by UK cops return from watery grave

Re: Another strong arm tactic based on lack of knowledge

> If making a request solves the "crime" rather than getting a court order, it seems like a fine use of taxpayers money to me.

Like "requesting" that somebody doesn't send tweets ridiculing UKIP policies?

Or "requesting" that UK ISPs block terrorist propaganda, like Al-Jazeera or SinnFein or CND or Greenpeace or the SNP

Re: Errrm...

>Courts actually consider all the evidence.

That's why the police dislike them - much better to "request" that the site be pulled, or its DNS blocked because they failed to engage - than have to go to the trouble of collecting evidence and going to court.

Carry On YouView Regardless, BBC Trust tells the BBC

Well it can't be that there is a revolving door between BT, BBC and Government for senior managers - so best to keep all your chums sweet - definitely not that

Employees grab Apple and Google's $325 MEEELLION olive branch in hiring suit

Re: Another sad day for the rule of law.

>Corporations broke the law, employees sued them, corporations are paying up.

Shouldn't the state be responsible for enforcing the law?

If you rob a bank, can you wait until all the account holders get together to bring a class action lawsuit to get their money back and then pay them a fraction of the amount they lost ?

SKA under budget cloud in the Great Oz Science Brain Drain

Ironically

When Oz and SA were competing for the site there was a lot of thinly veiled statements about the need for "stability and reliable organisation and government" in the choice.

Generally the people drafting these treaties have been caught like this before and there will be a Concorde Clause - so Oz science will end up paying for it's end even if it doesn't build it.

Boeing CEO says no more 'moonshots' after 787 Dreamliner ordeal

Re: OUT-SOURCED PROFITS – THE CORNERSTONE OF SUCCESSFUL SUBCONTRACTING

Like car makers, GE and IBM, Boeing is now really a hedge fund that happens to make stuff.

When you can make more profit in a year from switching your corporate leasing contracts to the right tax treaty on the right day - than you do from making the things with your name on it, then it makes sense to not bother with the boring aircraft stuff

The statement was to reassure shareholders that there isn't going to be another planned disaster anytime soon. That probably doesn't matter, the shares are actually held by high frequency trading algorithms in hedge funds - who don't listen to calming CEO words.

It does mean that it will be impossible to hire any decent employees in Seattle. Come and work for Boeing - and you will do routine boring work for 30years, or go to a commercial space flight startup?

Re: From an end user's perspective

Going higher also means no weather

The SR71 (at 80,000ft) navigated mostly by dead reckoning - with no weather you can decide to flay at x knots and arrive exactly y hours later.

Re: anyone read Wikinomics?

The outsourcing on the 7E7 seems to have been a disaster both financially and technically

Instead of the normal partnership model where BAe do the wings, Dassualt do the tail, etc they outsourced to outsourcers who outsourced to outscourcers.... until you literally had no idea which one man in a garage was building vital bits of your plane.

Come the downturn Boeing lawyers were flying around the country desperately buying up sub-sub-contractors who had gone bust before delivering some subsystem.

The other problem in aviation is the "when the document weighs more than the plane it is ready to fly" but Boeing subcontracted the design of the component to the maker bidding on it - for flexibility. Try writing an FAA FMEA for kit that you didn't design and have no idea how or why it was designed like that - assuming the maker is still in business and supplied you with any design documentation at all.

0x 7A7

Autodesk CEO: '3D printing has been way overhyped'

Re: Could care less / couldn't care less

How did I miss that? (well because I never go to youtube and I'm not on facebook)

That just wasted an hour

Microsoft swats away FBI request for Office 365 subscriber data

For individuals they will spy on your data without a warrant and prosecute you - as they did wiyth the hotmail account of someone who was selling stolen license keys

Why are Fujitsu and Toshiba growing lettuce in semiconductor plants?

Re: Seems like there's a better cash crop...

Insanely clean - when a single atom can ruin a crystal you tend to have pretty good air filteration

And heavy metals tend not to leap out of Silicon wafers

You know all those resources we're about to run out of? No, we aren't

Re: You can recycle energy as well

Paper recycling is about feeling like you are doing something and a little about landfill volume.

The trees you are saving are farmed pine forests, more trees are planted for every one that is harvested - "saving them" is like recycling flour to save the wheat.

It's horribly energy inefficient to collect and recycle paper and involves lots of nasty chemicals - but it is also expensive to bury large amounts of paper that never rots.

California gives green light to test self-driving cars on public roads

Re: Tech is the easy part

Exactly the same arguments were put forward against electronic engine management, ABS, etc

What will happen is that autonomous cars will have much fewer accidents, the insurance premiums for these will fall to the level that the manufacturers will self-insure as one of the benefits. Meanwhile the cost of all the drunk drivers, teenagers and general idiots will fall on the manually driven car owners - so their premiums will increase to the point that nobody could afford to drive a car manually

Technical hurdles

Researches first had to engineer a car that could talk on two cellphones while drinking a coffee

More chance you came a cropper on a UK road than bought a Chromebook this year

Re: Gullible Twat Dribbles into Beard

It will edit saved documents locally.

Re: Hmmm...

>Sofa surfing - it makes a better (and cheaper) tablet than a tablet

And it runs netflix, which my HP netbook can't

Plus I got it on a trip to the US open-box at BestBuy for $180