Posts by TkH11

BT ad banned for 'misleading' customers over broadband speeds

Typical

I don't care what the 'typical' speed a customer gets with an ISP I'm thinking of signing up with. What matters to me is what speed *I* will get. What value is it to me if the typical speed is 3Mbps and all I get is 1Mbps?

Next, let's take into consideration other ISPs. ISP1 says their typical speed is 3Mbps and ISP2 says their typical speed is 4.5Mbps. Which am I going to go for? I'll sign up with ISP2 because their typical speed is faster? Unfortunately, Joe Public is going to think in exactly this way.

Chances are, both ISPs are using the same technology down the same twisted pair to the home, with the source of the signal being in the same building, so the cable run lengths are the same for the two ISPs, so the chances are I'm going to get the same speed with both ISPs despite the fact ISP2 has a typical speed higher than ISP1 !!

This is why you can't use the idea of a typical speed!!!

Advertising broadband speeds 'up to' an upper limit is factually correct. The issue is that the public doesn't understand what this really means and the issues involved.

So there are two options:

1) Change the way broadband speeds are advertised

2) Educate the public.

Given the technological thickness of the majority of the UK population, I doubt we'd be sucessful in educating the public. (Hasn't worked so far has it?).

So what options are there open to us to change the way broadband speeds are advertised?

It's right to indicate what the maximum speed you *could* receive, because some people will actually receive that!

What's needed is more clarity, more explanation given.

I also think what's needed is a scaling price structure. The fundamental problem is that people think they're going to get 8Mbps broadband and they think that's what they're paying for, so when they only receive 1Mbps they feel they're being ripped off (and rightly so), because they're paying the same amount of money for a 1Mbps connection as someone who has an 8Mbps connection.

The price quoted should be for the maximum speed if it is achieved, with a sliding scale downward quoted if users don't receive that. Then they won't feel they're being ripped off.

In this way, they'll instantly see that there are different speeds available and the ad should state they may not receive the maximum speed. And they'll see how much they will pay.

That has to be the fairest way of dealing with this.

Royal Society opens inquiry into why kids hate tech

OCR GSCE in ICT

According to OCR Exam boards ICT National Level 2 GCSE, there are no exams, it's coursework based and one thing students have to demonstrate in order to pass is

"Candidates will set up at least two directories.

They will save some files in appropriate locations using appropriate filenames."

"Candidates will use search engines to find information on the Internet, although they may not use the most efficient criteria.

They will provide their source(s) website addresses.

They will send, receive, reply and forward email, including at least one message with a document attached."

FFS, this is a GCSE in Computing!!!!

No wonder, according to the Telegraph newspaper there's been a 669% increase in the number of students taking the course!

Learning how to send Email or run a search on Google should not be the focus of a formal GCSE in ICT !!!

You could pass the course without even attending a single lesson..heck, you don't even need to turn up for the exam, because there isn't one!

UK insurer hit with biggest ever data loss fine

Definition of Tangible

"Having physical existence and/or form, or discernible through one or more senses."

Alternatives:

a. Discernible by the touch; palpable: a tangible roughness of the skin.

b. Possible to touch.

c. Possible to be treated as fact; real or concrete: tangible evidence.

2. Possible to understand or realize: the tangible benefits of the plan.

3. Law That can be valued monetarily: tangible property.

According to this, data is not tangible as it can not be physically touched. However, in a legal context an additional definition exists. For the purposes of law I can accept this. But for most people in the literal definition, (where most people are not lawyers), data is not tangible.

@AC

You mentioned a tape. I didn't mention a tape. I questioned the subject of data loss!

I didn't describe the medium - if any - on which that data is held.

I was actually referring to loss of data into the ether, where there is no medium to loose.

@AC

@AC, my post was a response to the very first post, how do you actually lose data?

One doesn't lose data, it's not tangible. (Which was the subject of my first post).

One loses the medium on which the data is stored.

data lost?

Data isn't tangible, so does it matter if it gets lost? What actually is there to lose?

If a copy exists then has the data been lost?

LucasFilm sets lawyers on Jedi nameswipers

Pretend Religion

A pretend religion is one that has only just come into existence which has a relatively small following. In time, (tens of years, perhaps hundreds of years) if the following has grown into the millions, hundreds of millions then it will be classified as a 'real' religion.

The principles, the beliefs, the texts which underpin that real religion will be exactly the same as the pretend religion.

Both pretend and real religions will be based on a load of unprovable clap-trap with the 'mature' religion believing it to be superior to all other religions and will have generated a following of sufficient magnitude as to want to start a war in order to dominate, control and suppress followers of other religions.

And so the cycle of life, the universe repeats....

Cops cuff man who exposed holes in 'perfect' voting machines

@Francis Fish

Yes there is definitely corruption in the UK. My girlfriend's former lover was a barrister and she witnessed him bribing the judge in a criminal court with a brown envelope and her partner saying to her "watch this.."

I won't tell you the religion of the barrister, because the moderators of this forum will reject the post claiming it's racist. But the mods have a habit of rejecting posts of any mention of that religion.

Iran unveils 'robot bomber'

Let them get on with it

We should allow Iran to develop nukes, Mr Dinner Jacket can then attack Israel, Israel then attack back, perhaps Syria will get involved too, then before long, in a matter of a couple of weeks we'll be rid of these rotten religiously obsessed middle east countries that all think *their* religion is superior to every body else's.

And the world wil be a much happier place. I mean, who goes to Iran, Israel, Syria for a holiday? We're not missing much then are we?

More choosing maths A-Level

Average results

By definition it is not possible to have everyone achieving above average exam results.

The average result must lay somewhere between min and max.

Rise in Latvian botnets prompts Spamhaus row

It's eastern europe

What is it with Eastern European countries and their dodgy illegal practices?

Council staff breach DWP database

ContactPoint

Makes you wonder just how many abuses there would have been of the ContactPoint database had that gone live when there are literally hundreds of thousands of authorised users.

"Our staff are vetted and trained, they won't abuse the data in ContactPoint"..Yeah Yeah.

Perseid meteors 'thrill star-gazers'

Yes!!

South East, near Reading: I saw 3 over 40 minutes. First was a "f**k me" moment, very impressive. Second was a faint dot without a trail And third had a trail but not as impressive as the first.

Light pollution was very high: 15 metres away were orange street lights, but lay down on a park bench, look upwards and use the bench to shield eyes from street light. Meteors were clearly visible, when they occurred!

Next year, will think about heading in to the country side proper, away from the towns and set the camera up, and stay up all night!

Documents show CAA fears over powerline networks

Safety

The suggestion that the authorities can't do anything to prevent this technology being taken because the law doesn't cover it and OFCOM don't have the necessary powers is I think false.

It will be covered by European Directives to do with electromagnetic compatibility, the CE marking. Which basically state that devices must not interfere too much with other devices.

If aviation communication problems arise, anyone who thinks that existing powers can't or that new powers won't rapidly be put in place to deal with it is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Safety will come first. If that means banning the sale of PLN equipment, or making it a criminal offense to use it within say 10 miles of an airport, trust me, if there's a risk of an airliner crashing because the pilot didn't hear instructions from the control tower correctly, then this issue will be dealt with by the government very rapidly. So I wouldn't worry.

Touchscreen Compact Cameras

Useless

They're great until you try to use them out in the sunshine!

Accenture denies British Gas 'millions of errors' billing system claim

@Ravenger, Direct debit amounts

Ravenger, your experience with direct debits increasing was apparently a common thing at some point in the recent past, stories of that hit the national news with allegations being made that British Gas was quite deliberately upping the DD monthly amounts in a deliberate strategic attempt to collect as much money has possible, to line their coffers with the interest.

@AC

I am aware of Accentures history and the circumstances how they became Accenture

Further, I also know of their marketing and development strategy where's allegedly they sell a solution knowing it won't work and then charge huge amounts on the change requests required to make the system function.

But my money is still on Accenture. I've dealt with BG over the years as a residential customer and their sheer incompetence and lack of process knows no bounds.

My money's on Accenture

Knowing British Gas, I wouldn't be at all surprised if 99% of all the issues were down to them.

It's quite a simple matter to prove that the system meets the requirements laid down in the contract.

BG signed off the contract and signed off the design. If you want changes to the system, then raise change requests and that will cost you. Tough luck guys.

This will be another case of someone signing off the system, then discovering years later it doesn't do what they want and wanting it fixed free of charge and no surprise, the supplier tells them where to get off.

it's a billing system! Test it!

If BG accept a billing system without adequate testing then so fool them. FFS! It's a billing system, dealing with money, believe it or not it's incredibly important it does exactly what it's supposed to do and get the monetary values right!

Perseid meteors - brace for endazzlement

crap

I gave up years ago watching astronomical events of any kind. Didn't get a decent solar eclipse, didn't see Hailey's comet, and only about once in life ever saw a meteorite burning up.

Only other thing i've seen are the odd satellite flying over and that was from a very rural part of the country.

Naomi Campbell admits handling 'blood diamonds'

Factual inaccuracy

She didn't admit they were given to her by henchman of Charles Taylor. Register, you have incorrectly reported the proceedings in Court this morning.

What she actually has said that the guys giving her the diamonds didn't say who they were, who they were representing and didn't state who the gift was from.

She's trying to make out that she didn't engage in any one-on-one conversation with Taylor, except for group conversation at the dinner table. She's then trying to claim someone's given her a gift in the middle of the night when she was asleep, without disclosing who they are.

It's a little bizarre.

This part of the case hinges on whether it can be established, proven that the diamonds came from Taylor, and thereby prove some of Taylors earlier testimony in relation to not handling diamonds is untrue, and would prove that he was using diamonds other than for his own personal use at about the time of the war.

Personally, I think it inconceivable that somebody would give a gift in the middle of the night,wake someone up and for that person not to reveal who's giving the gift..you'd want the recipient to know the gift came from you!

Campbell is trying to make out she had no after diner contact of any kind with Taylor, whilst one of the other witnesses has claimed that Campbell was flirting with Taylor and that witness overheard Taylor saying to her that he was going to give her a diamond(s).

I think in reality what happened is the two henchman most likely said "this is a gift for you from Mr. Taylor", which is what other witnesses are claiming Cambell said happened the next morning.

Campbell doesn't want to get involved this case and is worried for the safety of herself and her family and so is conveniently denying all knowledge of where these diamonds came from.

It's simply her word against the other two witnesses, and as it was 13 years ago, no one can prove beyond doubt what really happened, so Cambell can lie through her teeth about the fine detail and get away with it.

questions

Fraser, you and I might ask questions if diamonds are given to us in the dead of night by unknown people, but we're talking Naomi Cambell here. She's not the brightest of girls.

She's acknowledged in court she never heard of the idea of "blood" diamonds.

Scotland's police inspector slams data entry record

Mainframes

The Meteorological Office now use an NEC computer based on mainframe technology as you call it, which is approx 6 times faster than the Cray 3TEs they used to use. One of the Crays had 840 processors.

Mainframe technology isn't necessarily past it at all. And for very large applications which need to be centralised it can be a very suitable technology.

And if you think about, Cloud Computing, is arguably a move back to a centralised computing resource.

SCR?

Going the same way as the summary care records for the NHS database!

It never ceases to amaze me how incompetent civil servants are. And when it comes to IT, government departments/agencies just don't get it, never have and never will.

Court slaps down coppers in photography case

Coppers

We need more court cases where the judge slaps the police down.

That journalist and her newspaper should commence litigation against the police for deleting the photos on her camera: they're not allowed to do that.

It's about time the Police were put in their place and made to realise their job is to enforce the law, to comply with the law, not to do as they see fit.

Boffins authenticate Apple 'Antennagate'

@Ascylto you can certainly trust them

You seem to be implying that because an individual in PA consulting lost a memory stick that you can not trust their test results of their RF testing.

Can you explain to me how one has a bearing on the other?

What precisely is it about the loss of a memory stick that invalidates radio frequency measurements?

Or are you just thinking illogically.

@SRS who's paying PA Consulting

Probably nobody. If PA consulting have the test equipment and chambers then the cost of running a set of tests on a suite of mobile phones is peanuts.

If I were them, I'd run the tests to obtain free publicity, and boy what publicity they're now getting!

Courts bar dodgy documents from divorce cases

Accountants

I had an ex girl friend whose former husband was an accountant. This was his 3rd divorce, and of course being an accountant he knew how to hide his money.

He deliberately ran up large debts on credit cards and then presented that as evidence to the court he was close to bankruptcy - who ever heard of a bankrupt accountant!

He ran an accountancy firm and used to boast he was making £90 per hour.

And every accountant and a very large number of people who are not - know that you don't run up debts on credit cards where the interest rate is very high. He planned the divorce at least 6 months in advance and set about hiding the money and presenting a picture that he was broke.

He got away with it, managed to convince the court he was just about flat broke (despite the fact he owned 4 houses), and she ended up with the princely sum of £50K out of which she was obliged to pay £20K in legal costs.

An accountant's job is to find where people have hidden the money, so he knew the mechanisms used to hide it. And the court had limited powers of investigation, being only a civil case.

Answer? Never get married. The men nearly always are the ones that come worst off in a divorce case, but this case is one exception.

DfT 'unwittingly' bigged-up speed camera benefits

no surprise

You mean the Labour government lied about something?

Wasn't that par for the course, big something up, issued exaggerated claims to the public..they did that a lot.

Apple sued over hot iPad shutdowns

temp ranges

"and -25 to 75 is fairly trivial to do without pushing the cost through the roof".

A partially valid point, but:

1)you're talking cars, not consumer products. Consumer products are intended to be operated indoors in an environment which is comfortable for human beings.

There's not much point in having an Ipad desiged to operate at a temperature of +50 C if the human being can't withstand that temperature!

Human must be with IPad for it to work.

So on first sight, the temperature range of 0-35 for an Ipad should be fine, most of the time in western countries. In Asia, the Middle East, where the ambient temperature hits 50 C, then there's a problem, but chances are you're not going to be sitting in 50C!

The issue is obviously direct sunlight and its absorbtion, not the ambient temperature.

You need to make a distinction between the two.

2) How do you deal with the sunlight question, or in general, too high a temperature?

Cool the device...put some forced cooling inside using a fan, say good bye to the battery life then! In sub zero, heat the IPad up? This is actually what some military products do, incorporate heaters in to the LCD screens to heat them up to bring them into their normal operating temperature range. Definitely kiss good bye to the battery life now!

Could they have designed the chips, could they have produced an LCD panel which would run down to -25 and up to +70 and still keep a commercially viable product based on the cost?

I doubt it, otherwise they would have.

What Apple have done wrong, is to oversell the idea that the Ipad can go anywhere, and any electronics engineer knows it can't, unless it's been designed with that in mind, and it almost certainly wasn't because of cost factors, battery life, and other technical performance issues with possibly the screen.

I know you know, but for the other readers here, battery life also depends on temperature.

@Ted, Ice cream

We had such a hot day here the other week, I was really impressed, the ice cream was melting just as fast as I could lick it! And that doesn't happen very often here..

Temperature Specification

The operating temperature range of 0-35 deg. C. is not unreasonable.

Years ago I used to be an integrated circuit chip designer. 3 temperature ranges were offered: Commercial, industrial and military.

I can't recall the exact temperature ranges, I think commercial was 0-70C, the military spec was the widest of all going down to something like -40 and up to +125 deg. C. Note, this is the operating temp of the chip, not the ambient air temperature.

if you use a comercial chip and try to put into freezing temperatures, then it's not going to work.

So many of you seem to want the device to work in sub zero and work in very hot conditions too.

The only way you can acheieve that is by using military grade/spec'ed chips and these are a) designed to work over the wider temperature range, b) burned in, c) more extensively tested.

Companies don't put military grade chips into a consumer product for one very good reason: price.

A major element in the manufacturing cost of a chip is the time to test it. The price of these chips is many many times higher than the same chip with the commerical temp specification.

Manufacturers do not use mil spec chips in consumer products because said product would e so f**ng expensive, Joe Public wouldn't buy it.

@Richard 118

This is BS! Just because a computer doesn't specify an operating temperature range does not mean to say it will work in any temperature.

In fact, if you read my other post - when the mod's publish it - you'll soon realise why what you said was BS and why it simply is not possible for a computer to run in all temperature conditions.

Here's some further information.

The temperature affects the performance of the chip. During the design stage, the designers will select a temperature range (of the chip that is,not the ambient temp) over which they want the chip to run. They will carry out logic simulations using different delay multipliers for the logic gates to simulate the effect of temperature.

Typically, 3 simulations will be conducted, min, typ (typical), max.

These simulations take into account of the temperature range and supply voltage variation over which the chip should expect.

The chip is laid out, logic gates place and routed (connected). And another set of simulations is conducted post-layout taking in to account the actual physical layout properties (capacitance, resistance).

Therefore, fundamentally, the operating temperate range of the consumer product is determined by the design of the integrated circuit chips.

The idea that a computer, an electronic device will work over a very wide temperature range is quite simply laughable. They have to be designed to work over that temp range and there's a very significant cost factor.

The issue is that that silicon chips are semiconductor devices, and the electrical properties (extrinsic carrier densities -electrons and holes) are strongly dependent on temperature).

In fact, it's precisely because of this temperature dependency that often, semiconductor devices are used as temperature sensors, - if correction is made for the non-linear temp.response.

Police chief: Yes, my plods sometimes forget photo laws

Trust?

Trust the Met. Police? NEVER. They look after their own. That's been shown time and time again.

Being a Met Police Officer means you can count on your superiors to help you quite literally get away with murder.

They should be able to investigate crime committed by their own just as independently and fairly in the same manner as they do with members of the public.

Look at how many serious incidents there have been and not a single officer is ever punished in anyway, let alone try and proseute them for an offence.

You only have to watch some of the videos on YouTube at the PCSOs in London to see the arrogant attitudes and quite literally bullying behaviour towards completely innocent members of the public going about their very lawful business. Do the Police investigate those incidents? No, of course not.

If they don't investigate properly when a member of the public is killed by a police officer then how on earth do we expect them to investigate properly when a Police officer deliberately sets about abusing his position of authority and try to lay down and enforce a law which doesn't even exist?

SOCA 'faces axe'

@AC, SOCA

It really doesn't matter whether SOCA have a good reputation internationality, one could say that's because the international organisations are so far away that they're not aware of what goes on in the UK.

The fact remains that SOCA is incredibly top heavy when it comes to management and bureaucracy. But this is so typical of British organisations, it's a cultural thing which we British are known for. There's something wrong with the people at the top, that seem to think that managers are more important than people doing the ground work.

Wikileaks creaks under demand for Afghan war logs

The 1911

Not sure what the legal position is here, but if someone in the UK is disclosing information from UK originating classified documents then this is a criminal offence under the Official Secrets Acts, and I don't think it matters whether that person is SC cleared or not.

Given that we have extradition laws and the same kind of legislation as the UK, if it's an offence here and and offence in the USA, wouldn't the Yanks be able to invoke extradition proceedings?

I believe there might be a public interest defence in the UK, but can a release of so much material be in the public interest? Snippets I believe could be.

If I recall correctly, the official secrets acts says that if a person comes in to receipt of classified material which they shouldn't have (which they don't need in the execution of their duties) then they themselves are guilty of an offence, and said individual is required to prove they didn't know the information was classified - which is difficult to prove given that the documents always have a protective marking stamped on them!

So are the newspaper editors vulnerable, or are they hoping that with such wide publicity that no one will attempt to prosecute them?

Country plods still not carrying mobile data devices

nothing new

Same old, same old. We think of countries in Asia has being backwards, or slow, we like to think of ourselves as being forward thinking, progressive. We delude ourselves.

But then the majority of our population doesn't understand technology, isn't technology literate and poke fun at those that are in IT, engineering, sciences. In the UK it's ok, even cool to be crap at Mathematics.

Look at India, they use electronic voting with finger print readers in their national elections. The UK? Still using paper ballot forms. And we all though India was backwards didn't we?

Oh boy, has this country got issues!

Huawei accused of corporate theft

Welcome to Asia

Asia generally has had little guard for copyright, intellectual property and that's the way it's been since the 80's. That's the culture there. Fake goods, fake chips, you name it, they'll copy it.

UK.gov sacks lead e-Borders contractor

Easy

How hard can it be to create a database which simply records the date/time when someone arrived and departed from the country?

Give everybody a unique ID number - that will be the passport number, and if they don't have a passport number, use a sequence object in Oracle to create a new unique number!

Store their name, address, date, place of birth.. - give them landing cards to fill in!

I could knock up a database in perhaps a day, ok, then you have to put the infrastructure together to scale it up to cope with the number of people coming and going.

It's easy. Or it can be, if they want it to be. But probably trying to be too ambitious!

How many simultaneous users are there likely to be? There aren't that many airports, seaports in this flippin' country!

lied?

So Woolas lied?

Wasn't one of the habitual liars in Brown's government. Seems to be a pre-requisite of the job - certainly in Blair's and Brown's governments

Cross-dresser shags mutt at historic castle

Devon, Cornwall

If you'd lived in Devon or Cornwall, then, well, the females are a bit thin on the ground and not much to look at anyway, you know, people get desperate.

predatory

I don't think bonking a dog can be classed as "predatory". You're stretching things there.

Perv scanner code of practice still a balls-up

You're mixed up

The choice of scanner, X ray or milimetre wave is left to the airport?

Are you seriously suggesting X ray scanners are used to scan people? FFS! I've never heard of such rubbish. X rays should NEVER be used to routinely scan people. Why? Because they're dangerous.

In medical applications, the diagnostic benefits of X rays is weighed up against, and outweights thee risk of the harm X rays cause.

To suggest that one would subject a person to a full body X ray scan is completely ludicrous.

What you're doing is mixing up two different types of scanner which are used for entirely different purposes.

Steve Jobs death-grips iPhone 4 reality

bars on display

Listen up folks: bars on display, how many you've got, how many bars drop when you hold the phone in a certain way: tis completely irrelevant. Why? Because you have no idea how they're mapping the actual signal strength expressed in dBm to the bars, secondly, the bar graph doesn't show any scale. So you definitely can't compare one phone or brand of phone to another. Infact, you can't tell anything other than "my phone drops one bar when I hold it like this.". You don't know what the signal strength is, you don't know at what level of signal the phone will drop the call.

Basically, you don't know anything, so it's completely useless talking about the things.

I have 5 apples, you have 5 apples, but your apples aren't the same as mine, I don't know what my apples are, you don't know what your apples are, but I have more of them,but if I hold them in a certain I have less of them, way but I don't know how much less in absolute signal terms...

FFS!

It's never been done before

So Job's says it's never been done before and it's really cool engineering.

Yes, there's a reason why it's never been done before...because any RF expert will tell you..it doesn't work, it's not a good thing to do.

Jobs was more interested in producing a cool gadget and quite deliberately overlooked the engineering side of it, went against the advice of his own RF antenna expert and now's he paying the price of it. It's caught him out.

He's another Tony Blair, in denial over Iraq.

Jobs has a choice. Admit there's an issue or keep on trying to cover up the truth.

He's chosen the latter and it's probably going to cost his reputation dear.

Probably counting on his loyal customer base that they won't dessert him, and he's probably right.

The Register comment guidelines 2010

Trolling

Your policy says "No Trolling".

Please define "trolling".

I've seen trolling used in contexts which simply do not apply to a forum site. This word seems to have a constantly changing meaning

Secret sub tech hints at spooks' TEMPEST-busting bugs

@John savard, X rays

What makes you think X rays don't travel far through air?

X rays are electromagnetic waves, the same as radio waves. The difference being X rays are higher energy. If X rays can travel a hundred miles, I'm pretty damn sure X rays can! That is, if can produce them with the same power output.

Perhaps you're getting confused with alpha or beta radiation which are ionising radiations.

If X rays don't travel far in air, then the question is what absorbs them? Air certainly doesn't absorb them, isn't that the point of them:? It's dense matter such as bones, lead that absorbs them.

BT hikes call charges

@AC getting out of it

If your contract with BT explicitly states that the fee paid by you is fixed at a price, or fixed for some length of time and BT have changed the price without negotiating you then that could constitute breach of contract.

However, I very much doubt BT contracts state that.

You can probably terminate the contract (examine the provisions contained within) by notifying them you want to cancel it but you may have to forego a penalty payment to make up for the lost revenue BT would have received from you, had you let the contract run to the expiry date.

It's a case of doing the arithmetic, how much would it cost you to cancel the contract early, and how much can you save by going to a new telephone service provider? If the latter is greater than the first, then do it, cancel the contract.

'Eternal' sun-plane still aloft after 7 days, aiming for 14

@MarvintheMartian

Solar panels still produce 99% of their output under cloudy conditions?

Don't talk wet man. You obviously haven't actually used any solar panels.

I was playing with them back in 1987, whilst I made no specific measurements regarding their power output under cloudy conditions but I can tell you it's not 99%.

Are you really saying that level of sunlight isn't reduced in cloudy conditions?

Funny, but being 40 years old and living in the UK all my life, I always thought winters were darker than summers...

Try thinking for a moment before you write.

Effectiveness of solar panels

Depends on the brightness of the light and the spectrum of light (amplitude of the wavelengths present).

In winter conditions, the aircraft can fly above the cloud, so clouds per se, don't matter.

The article suggests, quite correctly, the issue is to do with the angle of the sun.

Solar panels are quite sensitive to the angle of the incident radiation, with them working at their best when the radiation is perpendicular to the plane of the panel.

The question is, does the angle of the sun result in too low a power being produced to keep the batteries charged. It's a valid question.

At high altitude the sun is so bright that the angle of sun may not matter so much, subject to extreme angles.

There's no way we can know the answer to this, that's for the designers to answer that.