* Posts by thesykes

556 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Feb 2010

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New iPhones: C certainly DOESN'T stand for 'Cheap'

thesykes
Pint

Fingerprint scanning less secure than a PIN?

Let me explain...

You're at a party, had a shandy or two too many and have nodded off into a gentle slumber.

Your mates, being mates, decide that this is the perfect opportunity to shave your eyebrows off, draw a penis on your forehead, take a photo with your phone and send to all your contacts.

With a PIN, or unlock pattern, they're stuck. Can't get in. Fingerprint scanner? Perfect... try each finger until it unlocks... Bob's your uncle.

Seems to me that the very time you need security, when you're drunk or just asleep, is exactly when this technology becomes a serious failure.

Fingerprint scanning... insecure by design.

Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?

thesykes

So, are they also going to ban any possibly offensive words that may be French, German, Spanish etc. in origin? Or words that foreigners may find offensive, but, which are perfectly acceptable in English? Maybe foreign language translations of suspect words too?

Apparently apple is a code word for a mass murderer's next victim. Allegedly. Maybe. Not at all.

Google Nexus 7 2013: Fondledroids, THE 7-inch slab has arrived

thesykes

Re: On-The-Go?

it doesn't need rooting though, Nexus Media Importer does the job very nicely, no root required.

It's the software, stupid: Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch bags big apps

thesykes

Re: How annoying!

You could always use "Apple contacted the Reg first with this world exclusive"

It's official: Apple sends out invitations for September 10 event

thesykes

Re: I think it's going to be bigger than expected.

5S or 6... still be the same phone, the name means nothing.

And am I the only one that thinks that, with few exceptions, anything gold coloured invariably ends up looking cheap and tasteless?

Are you for reel? How the Compact Cassette struck a chord for millions

thesykes

And no mention of Sunday evenings spent recording the top 40 off Radio 1... perfecting the art of starting and stopping the recording to avoid the ramblings of the DJ. Wonder how many tapes were out there with the first and last 10 seconds of every song missing?

Google cripples Chromecast third party replay

thesykes
FAIL

So, it appears that Google have removed the very feature that would make me want one.

Kim Kardashian's bosom pal in bling snatch Instagram unpleasantness

thesykes
Facepalm

Just goes to show... money can't buy you taste... that is one hideous looking watch.

New use for old iPhones: Watch your house get robbed in REAL-TIME

thesykes

Prevention better than detection?

What's the point of this?

Sell your old shiny, go buy a cheap home CCTV setup and install it.

For the same price you'll probably get 4 night and day cameras and a PVR, which will come with a smartphone app that allows you to view (and sometimes control) all the cameras.

This has several obvious benefits.

It works in the dark

It allows coverage of all your property

It acts as a deterrent to the casual thief

It's the last bit that is the most important. If your house has a couple of cameras outside, and next door has an iPad on the coffee table, which one do you think a thief is going to be tempted to break into? Having footage of a masked burglar walking off with your TV and games console is of no use to anyone.

Luckily I've never had a break in, but, a neighbour has, when they were asleep in bed. The fear that someone can break in, with kids asleep upstairs, was far worse than replacing the locks and filling in an insurance claim.

You can't make your house burglar-proof, but, you can make yours just that little bit less tempting than those around you.

Wow, the future is HERE: Charge your phone (wirelessly) in your CAR

thesykes

What?

Who was the genius at GM who, when presented with the option to put wireless charging into their cars, said, "We'll have this one, the one that nobody in the world has a phone that will work with it"??

Here was an opportunity for a big car manufacturer to pick one of the two main competing technologies and start a possible move towards a single standard, and they managed to shoot themselves firmly in the foot,

Rate-my-boink app scores frisky fanbois, fangurlz' SCREAMS, VIBRATIONS

thesykes

"The app's designers also claim that fanbois have more fun than the rest of us, boasting twice as many lovers by the age of 30 than users of other mobiles."

Incredible sex gods or totally useless and once is enough for their unlucky partners?

Tu Me to go: Tu Go to be Telefonica's 'NEXT BIG AMAZEBALLS' for voice

thesykes

No Tu Go number to lose. You install the app, register it and all calls/texts sent to your normal O2 number also come through to other devices (or the mobile itself).

The O2 coverage is terrible where I live, and I regularly have to hold conversation on my tablet, whilst my phone is sitting doing nothing.

Only problem I've found with Tu Go is that it is a battery killer.

Shack in flat-pack bric-a-brac lack flap? Whack on this 3D flat-pack app

thesykes

Hmmm... never had a problem putting Ikea stuff together, usually very easy.

May the fourths be with you: Muso John Williams returns to Star Wars

thesykes

Re: Surprised...

He has two choices. Get on board, be in control and at least make sure the music is good... or... walk away and leave his music in the hands of Hollywood executives. They'd hand over his music to some talentless idiot, who'd garble it through something like Garageband and make a total pig's ear of things.

In the end, either way, his name would appear, as the composer of the main theme and imperial march.

Can you imagine the impact of the music being given the Jar-Jar Binks treatment?

thesykes

No plot? Hollywood movies these days have plots?

Typical! Google's wonder-dongle is a solution looking for a problem

thesykes

Re: Selective pricing quotes?

That would be acceptable if there weren't other streaming services that do not suffer from the problems Sky have made for themselves.

iPlayer, TVCatchup, Flixster. All work on my phone running Android 2.3, something I know Sky will never support.

Sky made the mistake of releasing a version last year, that had the device checking removed/disabled. This was shown to work on just about anything, as was the cracked version that XDA served up.

Sky choose to make the app not work on devices, purely because they can't be bothered to test them, and because they refuse to remove the device/OS version checking. Not 1 10" Android tablet supported. Pathetic.

When the Nexus 7 was upgraded from 4.21 to 4.22, it took Sky weeks to allow it to run Sky Go. When they did, all they had to do was update a setting on their servers, and it worked. There was no new app release, it was done at their end.

thesykes

Re: Selective pricing quotes?

"There is every chance that Sky will happily provide a chromecast interface for everything on their catch up service - they only care that you are paying, not how you are watching."

I suggest you pop over to the Sky Go On Android forum.... you may change your mind.

thesykes
Thumb Up

Re: DRM

If the Chromecast could tap into the Play Store to stream purchased content, or even on a rental basis, it would be a winner.

It does. From the Google Movies app description:

"Send what you’re watching to your TV screen (when used with Chromecast)."

Google's second-gen Nexus 7 fondleslab STRIPPED BARE

thesykes

Re: Oh the irony...

English, not english.

Hey, Silicon Valley milky drink fans: Starbucks intros wireless charging

thesykes

The biggest problem with wireless charging, as far as I can see, is that you can't really use your device whilst it's charging.

In the car, you can quite easily use your phone as a sat nav device, sat in a cheap cradle, plugged in with a USB cable. You'd need a cradle that was able to charge in order to do that.

Another big battery draining activity, playing games, also needs you to be able to pick up your phone, tablet, in order to comfortably play. Having it laid flat on a desk would be awkward, and impossible for games that use the accelerometer.

That other, little-mentioned, function of a smartphone, making and receiving telephone calls, would also be a little inconvenient if the phone had to remain laid on the table. It would make standing outside Starbucks, pointing and laughing at the lattemochachocofrappocino set, talking with their ears stuck to the table, more fun though.

New in Android 4.3: At last we get a grip on privacy-invading crApps

thesykes

Some good news. Will be trying this out when my Nexus 7 is updated and will be a deciding factor in which phone I get next... no 4.3, no sale.

I'm one of the few that actually reads the permissions. The last update for Real Racing 3 wanted user account permissions.. for a racing game? Needless to say it remains un-updated. When Facebook Home reared it's ill-fated head, the main FB app added a ridiculous number of permissions, and was promptly uninstalled completely, and I use the web page instead. The FB app has always been intrusive though, I had it on my old rooted phone, and had a permission blocker installed. Even after unticking the options to sync contacts and access location, the blocker showed repeated attempts by the app to access both functions, even when it wasn't being used and was sitting in the background.

Any app that crashes as a result of no access to location or network isn't worth keeping, as both those can be legitimately unavailable, either due to Airplane mode being on or no GPS chip in cheap tablets etc.

Chromecast: We get our SWEATY PAWS on Google's tiny telly pipe

thesykes

Could be useful

If more TV apps were enabled, such as iPlayer and TV Catchup (we all know Sky Go will NEVER do it), then this would be a perfect device for me.

I have an old, but perfectly good, TV in the bedroom. Being a few years old, it had no digital tuner, so is essentially now just a dumb monitor. It's hooked up to an old Sky+ box, which sits downstairs. WE binned off Sky a couple of months ago, so the Sky+ box serves up a few free-to-aid channels, which is fine, as we really only use it to watch the news & weather before going to work in a morning.

So, if this could stream from the various on demand services or TV Catchup, MX player etc, it would replace the Sky+ box.

Fanbois smash iPhone 5s much sooner than iPhone 3s ... but WHY?

thesykes

Re: the chap who smashed his while using it as a sex toy

have to feel sorry for him, those headphone sockets aren't that big.

Chromecast: You'll pop me in for HOT STREAMS of JOY, hopes Google

thesykes

Re: Shame it's HDMI 1.4

I'm no expert, but, I'd be amazed if it was not backwards-compatible, after all, it's those of use with perfectly good TV sets that aren't smart TV's that are the market for this thing, rather than people with brand-spanking new sets, that are highly likely to have the latest HDMI connections and provide all the functions that this will provide.

I have no idea what version HDMI ports my PS3, TV or home cinema have, and I don't care. It's up to the devices to sort themselves out and use whatever level of compatibility they can both support.

Tablets? Check. Mobes? Check. What's next, Apple? Fondlable CARS

thesykes

I see trouble ahead

According to the Apple website, the current iPad and iPhone have the following specification:

Operating ambient temperature: 0° to 35° C (32° to 95° F)

I think they're going to have something a little more robust if this goes into cars.

1953: How Quatermass switched Britons from TV royalty to TV sci-fi

thesykes
Thumb Up

Re: Not I

I was only a kid when I watched that with my dad, and that comment about Hobbs End is one of the few bits I can recall...

Apple files patent for refrigerator-magnet iPads

thesykes
Thumb Down

so...

how do these magnets on the back of a flat iPad work with curved fridge doors?

also.. what's the point?

US cops make 'first ever' Bitcoin seizure following house raid

thesykes
FAIL

The word you're clearly not understanding in your own post is "prescription". This means that, in order to obtain said drugs, you need a prescription from a doctor and for the drugs to be dispensed by a qualified pharmacist. I'm guessing the dealer in this case was neither.

MSX: The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming!

thesykes
Thumb Up

Ahh memories

Toshiba HX-10 here... only got rid the other year, only thing wrong with it was one of the pins on the joystick port had snapped off.

Galaxy S4 way faster than iPhone 5: Which?

thesykes
FAIL

Re: And?

Press the power or home button, swipe to unlock. Press the camera icon (always in exactly the same place, every time), press screen to take photo.

Wait a couple of minutes (depends on wifi speed and photo size) and then marvel at the notification pop up on my laptop screen, telling me the photo had arrived. Also available on my Nexus, and probably every other pc, mac, iOS, Android, WinPhone or BB in the world, thanks to not being locked into any particular online storage system.

All from my Xperia.

1 extra press. Wow.

Can't remember the last time I plugged my phone into my laptop, probably just after I got it. Same for battery removal, probably to put the SD card in or sim.

Home Office boffins slip out passport-scanning Android app

thesykes

Re: How do we know this app is real and not malicious?

As the only permission the app asks for is NFC, why worry? It can't access the internet, phone logs etc. As soon as it tried it would crash. One of the good things about Android permissions, if they're not specified in the manifest file, they won't work.

Apple dangles Spangles while Dabbsy's cables rankle

thesykes

Re: Cables

Both Epson printers (not expensive ones, either) I've had came with USB cables, although the HP and Canon ones before that didn't.

thesykes

Re: DEC... and SONY

Nintendo? Would that be the same Nintendo who switched charger plugs when they moved from the DS Lite to DSi? That one?

Review: Beagleboard Beaglebone Black

thesykes

Re: Well,

Quick check on Maplins website shows a "Pi starter kit" in stock at the 10 nearest shops to where I live... presume that means they're easy to get hold of. Hmm.....

Cold, dead hands of Steve Jobs slip from iPhones: The Cult of Ive is upon us

thesykes

Re: Does it do widgets?

You imagine wrong. On average, by far the biggest battery killer appears to be the screen, widgets make no discernible difference to my battery life.

Suppose it depends on the widget, but, on my phone I have a switch widget, which uses no power unless I click on one of the switches. A calendar, which shows static data (sync turned off). A 3G usage and data usage widget, which only update when needed. Add in a music player which again does nothing most of the time and quick access widget to various media apps.

If however you decide yo have live Facebook & Twitter feeds constantly churning away on your home screen, your battery will no doubt curl up and die pretty quickly. And it'd serve you right too.

thesykes

Re:iPhone keyboard

How does the iPhone keyboard offer extended characters? By that, I mean all those accents, graves etc. used in non-English words? For example, I have Swype, and a long press on the "a" key first gives me the @ character, hold a little longer and 11 options appear... aàáâãäåæ©@ᵃ

Never used one and the keys give no indication of there being any extra functionality.

Just wondering.

Magpie Apple plunders the competition for cosmetics, as egos run wild

thesykes

There are a lot posts flying around, on this article, and others, asking why are so many people upset with Apple copying Android/Palm/BB/WinPho?

Well, it's this.

We all know everyone copies each other. It's how designs and functions improve over time. You see what your competitors are doing, copy it, and hopefully make it better. It's a form of evolution.

So, Apple are quite happy to take other people's ideas, polish them a little maybe, and then triumphantly announce to the world that they've produced a wonderful new innovation. Nothing too wrong with that I suppose, if a little devious.

The thing that really annoys people is that Apple are doing this whilst suing the arse off anyone who dares to introduce a feature or graphical style that even remotely appears to be similar to anything Apple has used previously.

Now you can use your phone instead of your wallet at the ATM, too

thesykes

Great... so the muggers can see you have cash and an expensive smart phone on you... result!

Jobs' 'incredibly stupid' prattlings prove ebook price-fix plot, claim Feds

thesykes

Re: Surely the DoJ got some dirt on Apple from the publishers...

I'd guess the quote...

"In further evidence to support its allegations, the DoJ showed an email from Eliza Rivlin, then general counsel of publisher Simon & Schuster, who was horrified that Jobs had made the comments."

...would suggest at least one publisher handed over what the DoJ wanted.

Steelie Neelie: Crack down on wicked ISPs so we can Skype

thesykes

Re: "Innovation"

maybe... but trying to stop ISPs from throttling them and forcing them to provide realistic speed estimates are two very positive points.

whether either of these get anywhere is another matter.

BT! dumps! Yahoo! after! 10! long! years! together!

thesykes

Re: Terrible

Google does not mean spam.

I have both Gmail and Yahoo mail. I get no spam in my Gmail and tons of it on Yahoo, always have. Strangely, the Yahoo account isn't used and the Gmail one is and lots of companies have it.

Hey, O2 punters: Kiss goodbye to 4 MEELLION* Openzone hotspots

thesykes

news to this soon to be ex-O2 customer

"Customers ... were informed of the change in service by email."

Errr... apparently not all customers were.

Microsoft links Skype to Lync

thesykes

Re: Puzzled. What's wrong with Live Chat....?

What's wrong with Live Chat....?

Generally the level of intelligence of the person on the other end of the conversation.

thesykes
Thumb Up

Re: My sole experience of Lync

"You phone only works if your PC is turned on."

One of the best features of it. I finish work, turn off the PC, and those pesky users can't get hold of me. Perfect.

Qualcomm app 'extends battery life' by analysing fandroids' privates

thesykes

I found that disabling auto-sync on all the accounts saved far more battery life than anything else. I don't need notifying about emails arriving during the day, I'll read them either at lunch time or after work, when I have time to do something about any that are useful, and delete the junk.

As for Facebook killing my battery, I found that uninstalling it completely and using the web page solved that problem... along with all the background spying it does, triggering GPS and reading contacts even when the settings say not to.

The biggest hit on my phone battery life is the poor phone signal itself, with me losing all connection for long periods of the day... not sure if it depends on which way the wind blows...

If you've bought DRM'd film files from Acetrax, here's the bad news

thesykes

Re: Thank god I bought VHS

No DRM?

When my VCR was on it's last legs I tried to back up by collection onto DVD. Most would copy fine, but some refused, with the DVD recorder complaining that they were protected media.

Tried sending the signal to the TV and recording the TV output, still triggered the message. Disney films IIRC.

Review: Sony Xperia SP

thesykes

Re: @johnnytruant

Nice thought but... the bootloader is locked and cannot be unlocked. So, no root, no freedom. This is Sony Ericsson, not Sony, seems to be a big difference. May be O2 sticking it's nose in too.

However, the point of my question is... I've been there, done that, with unlocking, rooting etc. with my old Orange San Francisco, which was sorted within an hour of it leaving the shop. So, I've no fear of doing it but I don't want to, I just want to take it out of the box, turn it on and have it working without tons of crap getting in the way. Dumping apps such as Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail etc into the system area means that valuable storage is wasted, space that cannot be clawed back.

The Nexus 4 looks OK, but, I don't want a glass-backed phone (and there are plenty of stories of them breaking far too easily) and I don't really like the look of it.

thesykes

Re: But for £19.99 .....

Do Sony still bundle loads of useless apps on their phones? I'm thinking... 3D Album, 3D Camera, Connected devices, Data monitor, Facebook, Games & apps, Get apps, Get games, Livewire manager, Music & videos (Facebook), News and weather, OfficeSuite, Setup guide, Support, Sync, Timescape, TrackID, Update centre, Wisepilot.

All of these are littering my Xperia, cluttering up the app draw, constantly loading even though they are never used, and thanks to Sony Ericsson deciding to load them into the system storage and lock the bootloader, I cannot get rid of the bloody things.

Also, does the Sony app draw still refuse to show the apps in alphabetic order? Seems hell bent on showing them in "Own order"... What the hell order that is I have yet to decipher.

Nice phone, ruined by the bloatware.

Prankster 'Superhero' takes on robot traffic warden AND WINS

thesykes

you could always hark back to a bygone era a little and have someone walking in front of your car as you enter, obscuring the plate?

Life on Mars means subsisting on grim diet of turd-garden spinach

thesykes

Can't they just just eat the red weed?

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