Posts by Andy 40

Official: EU goes after Google, alleges it uses Android to kill competition

"foreclosed the market to competing apps and search engines." ?

"...foreclosed the market to competing apps and search engines."

How so exactly? I can download competing search engine apps from the Play store, heck I can install an alternative App Store if I want (e.g. Amazon). Or even just download an app from the web and install it (even on a non-rooted phone).

This is the main selling point of Android vs Apple for me, no vendor lock in.

I am stuggling to see how this action is in the interests of the consumer. The platform already allows total freedom of what users run on their own hardware. I wonder why the EU doesn't have a problem with Apples much more blatent vendor lock in? Is it because Apple touts this as a 'security feature'?

Bizarre...

Wakey wakey, app developers. Mobile ad blocking will kill you all

Re: Am I the only one that thinks this is a sinister move by networks?

"BTW, re your prediction. How are Google going to send ads to Android devices if the networks are ad-blocking?"

You seriously think its not possible for Google to prevent blocking of ads when they have control of the operating system? This would be trivially easy.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a sinister move by networks?

Am I the only one who thinks network level blocking of ads sets a bad precedent?

I'm no fan of ads and I run adblockers on most of my devices, but network level blocking is a whole different kettle of fish. Its a big step away from the network (ISP) being a dumb pipe and puts them in the role of a content curator. I am sure that networks see this a way to leverage back some control and insert them selves in between the user and the internet - something that they tried to do in the early days of mobile internet access with curated walled gardens. Users, quite rightly, rejected this strongly and demanded unfettered access to the internet. This feels like it could be a step backwards and is debatably a breach net neutrality.

Users may not object to the blocking of ads, but what happens when networks get the bright idea of selling ads themselves which will automatically replace Google/Facebook ads at the network level? This could get very messy and if I was Google/Facebook I would be very concerned.

Predicion: Google/Facebook will start encrypting and embedding ads (in Googles case at the Android OS level) such that mobile operaters can not filter then them out and we will be back to square one, but worse off since personal ad blockers will also be shafted.

Andreessen stokes the Facebook Free Basics ‘colonialism’ row

“It’s akin to a debate among the well fed about whether the starving should be given soup that isn’t organically sourced.”

No its not. It’s akin to a debate about whether the starving should be forced to get their soup from one company from the rest of eternity.

Or perhaps a better analogy, its akin to tobacco companies giving away free cigarettes to those who haven't heard of lung cancer - by the time they understand the health risk they are hooked and it’s too late.

To call protecting the poor from exploitative western corporations 'colonialism' is the most ludicrous argument I have ever heard. It's Facebook that is acting in a colonial manner here.

UK.gov makes total pig's ear of attempt to legalise home CD ripping

The whole idea of format shifting is totally moot in the digital age. Should artists get compensated when I copy an mp3 from one part of my hard drive to another? What about from once hard disk to another in the same PC? What about from one hard drive to another hard drive on another PC, what about from a hard drive to an SSD? To a USB stick? To a memory card? To a CD? When you play an mp3 it gets copied from the hard disk to RAM, should I pay for this?

The whole thing is nonsense, of course artists do not deserve any more when when we move bits about from one digital storage medium to another.

The sooner artists start thinking of digital copies of their music as advertising for their talents rather than the product itself, the better.

Steve Jobs funeral is quiet family affair

RIP Steve

I heard that Steve was buried in a private walled garden, and that only people vetted and approved by apple will be allowed in to mourn.

A spokesman from Apple said "he'd have wanted it that way...'

Robot wars break out on poker sites

Uninformed comments...

Why to people feel the need to post inane comments about something they know nothing about?

To answer some of the worst offenders:

@Eduard Coli: Online poker is not illegal in the US except for a couple of states (eg. Washington). What is illegal is for US banks to allow their customers to transfer money to these sites. There are of course ways round this.

@Paul172: Just plain wrong, and shows you don't understand the game, I could show you stats for players who have played over 1 million hands (a sample size big enough to pretty much eliminate 'luck') and are huge winners. I myself am a significant winner.

The fact is bots are a relatively minor problem, they certainly don't stop a decent player winning.

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

How many others?

I wonder how many other eminent scientists will speak out when it comes time for them to retire and they are no longer have to worry about getting funding? The problem with climate 'science' at the moment is that there is huge rewards for following the herd and huge financial penalties for daring to say you disagree. Want guaranteed funding for your next research project? Put the words 'To study the impact of Climate Change on X' in your proposal....

iPhone 4 developers get software update, but will it fix death grip?

brilliant video

Just wanted to say that the Xtranormal video is brilliant, and absolutely spot on in summing up the attitude of the brainwashed masses.

It's not just a phone its an 'i'phone!

Apparently the iPhone INVENTED the idea of running an application on a phone!

And apparently they have now invented the idea of running an application on a portable (sort of) computing device. Genius!

230,000 apps in the Apple Store? Not impressed, what about the _millions_ that I can run on my laptop....

P2P judge trims student's fine by 90 per cent

@Robert Hill - artists _deserve_ to get paid?

Are you really saying that if I spend years creating an artistic work I _deserve_ to get paid? Err, wrong. I only deserve to get paid if people like my work and pay for it. No one has the right to indulge their passion and _expect_ to get paid.

The sooner musicians start seeing digital copies of their work as free advertising and not as a 'product' in itself, the better. Then they can get back to being paid for (gasp) actually performing their music. Maybe they wouldn't make quite as much money (although AFAIK most big artists make more money from tours than record sales anyway), but why should they?

A musician has historically been a pretty low paid job, the 'invention' of the concept of copyright has allowed them to massively increase their earning power far beyond their real contribution to society.

Now I don't mean to knock musicians, obviously the world would be a much duller place without them, but it really annoys me that people like Robert Hill seem to think that anyone who can bash out a tune _deserves_ to get paid, and paid more than doctors, scientists and others who make a real difference.

Mystic Met closed Europe with computer model

climate change anyone?

Hmm, so the met office is making headline grabbing doom and gloom predictions based on dodgy models and insufficient data,and not checking their predictions against the real world? Sounds familier...

UK competition authority probes Amazon

I'm with Amazon on this one...

When I find something I want on Amazon market place, I often have to do a search to find the companies own site to check that they aren't offering it cheaper. And of course if they are I don't use Amazon. So Amazon is giving the seller free advertising. This is unfair for Amazon and also a pain for the consumer. I'd like to have confidence that the price on Amazon is cheapest.

I really don't see the problem here, if companies don't like paying the 15% commission, then they don't have to use Amazon, no one is forcing them. Either offer consistent pricing or GTFO.

Simples.

Andy.

Can $100m a year keep Google on the iPhone?

Hmm, Apple being somewhat hypocritical here

"We did not enter the search business," Jobs said in reference to Google. "They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them."

That's a bit rich, when Apple entered the phone business it was hardly their core business. I'm sure Nokia et al, were pretty peeved when the iPhone came out, but they didn't feel the need to start making MP3 players and overpriced PCs!

Andy

Gmail to get realtime with Web2.0rhea makeover?

oh god please no

GMail is so good, because it does one thing very well - email. It's simple, clean, quick and minimalist.

Listen up Google - I don't give a rats a** what my contacts happen to be doing or thinking at that moment, and I'm not such an egomaniac that I want to tell everyone what I'm doing/thinking right now either. So please - keep gmail pure!

Andy.

Tories will force BT to open up ducts to rivals

Speed is a red-herring

I'm pretty tired of all this harping on about increased speeds - the real issue is capacity. What use is a 50Mbps connection if I can only download 10G a month?

When I signed up to Sky they were offering 40G a month at 'up to' 8Mbps. Ofcourse I could only get 2Mbps, but I was happy. Then they tell me they are 'improving' the service by upping the max speed to 10Mps (which makes no difference to the 99% of people who don't live next door to an exchange). What they only mention in the small print is that they are dropping the usage limit to 10G a month. Gee thanks Sky, please don't 'improve' my service any more will you?

There is no use being able to watch streaming HD in iPlayer if you hit your download limit after watching 2 programs!

Andy

Nokia's free Ovi Maps scores a download every second

why is this not available for n95?

Very annoying that us n95 users cant get the free version - seems like a completely artificial restriction. I refuse to pay anymore now that other Nokia mobiles can get this for free. Why not just make the licences free? Anyone managed to get the free version running on the n95? Which version did you download?

iPhone App Store bars mention of Google Android

and this is why I will never buy an iPhone

...because Apple has complete control over its App Store and it has complete power to decide whats allowed on MY phone and whats not.