* Posts by JohnG

1639 publicly visible posts • joined 27 May 2007

Russian Progress space truck crashes in Siberia

JohnG
Headmaster

*sea level

Did you mean sea level?

LG to demo mouse with diddy doc scanner

JohnG

Patents?

The idea of combining a handheld scanner and a mouse is not new and there are many hacks around for using an optical mouse as an image scanner. There are also several patents in existence, some going back as far as 1987. I guess LG have that all under control though.

Kremlin green lights Siberia-Alaska tunnel

JohnG

More rail than road in Siberia

"And I'm not sure the position is much better on the Russian side - it's a long way to Yakutsk (~2,000 miles)."

Yakutsk is already on the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline, connecting the Trans-Siberian Railway (from Moscow) with Magadan, on the Okhotsk Sea.

As the route at Tynda is not so far from the Chinese border, I guess the Chinese might be interested in the rail link for sending freight, eastwards and westwards.

Windows Phone may be cheaper than Android - Inq boss

JohnG

FAT32

"If they stop using FAT32..."

I am surprised none of them has taken this route and used a different file system. The file system in use is only significant if volumes are to be mounted on another system - and there are ways to get around that issue.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

JohnG

Funny you should say that...

I've just bought a Viewsonic Viewpad 10s for just over 200 Euros. It is directly equivalent with tablets sold under several different brands and can be flashed with ROMs from popular forums. I chose the version without 3G and GPS, as I don't need these features but it comes with HDMI out, a 10" capacitive screen and a 16GB microSD card included. They didn't include the USB male-male cable that is needed for flashing though.

BlackBerry Messenger archives open for inspection

JohnG

@So, they are just about to do what they have been telling India they *CANNOT* do?

"What they cannot do is intercept data between the BB and the server."

...and the servers for India might not actually be in India - they could be in the UK, for example. That would mean that the UK authorities could intercept Indian BB traffic but the Indian authorities could not. This could also be true for several countries in continental Europe and the Middle East.

Anonymous unsheathes new, potent attack weapon

JohnG

TOR and Proxies

TOR and proxies do feature in some of the lists of banned IP addresses and networks used by some organisations. Obviously, it is a game of Whac-A-Mole, with new addresses popping up all the time but the blocklists catch a reasonable chunk of undesired traffic.

Music biz now runs on Viagra®, not cocaine

JohnG

Via Gra and the music industry

Via Gra is a band, well-known in their native Russia...

http://www.via-gra.ru/

Ultra stealthy spy malware not so stealthy after all

JohnG

Link with details

http://www.secureworks.com/research/threats/htran/

Acoustic trauma: How wind farms make you sick

JohnG

Busy roads, etc.

When a new road is proposed somewhere quiet, it is not uncommon for locals to object to the anticipated noise and pollution - which seems fair enough if it will negatively impact their lives and the value of their properties. If you choose go to live somewhere where there is already some noise, pollution or similar annoyance, that's a different matter.

The assumption of many seems to be that, as wind turbines are "green", there cannot be any problems with them.

JohnG

Ice throwing

I would be more worried about ice throwing. There was a house in Germany or the Netherlands trashed by a large chunk of ice that fell through the roof, after being hurled from the local wind turbine.

JohnG

Heathrow and noise

If you live within a certain distance of Heathrow, the airport operator has to subsidise sound reduction measures for your house e.g. on my house, secondary double glazing. At least, that was the situation when I lived there about 10 years ago.

AT&T: 'Eat too much data and we'll strangle you'

JohnG

Unlimitied lies

"Let's put to one side the issue of whether unlimited should mean unlimited."

No, let's not put that aside, as it is at the heart of the issue. If any ISP wants to market something as "unlimited", then it should be as described, unlimited. There may be many perfectly good reasons why ISPs need to set limits but they should be honest about it.

A similar issue arose over "lifetime warranty" some years ago, where some manufacturers, having used the promise of a lifetime warranty in their marketing, retrospectively decided that a "lifetime warranty" was only valid for few years - until a court told them otherwise.

It is perfectly reasonable to have various constraints and limitations when selling goods and services but it is fraudulent to lie about or conceal those constraints and limitations in order to sucker people into a purchase.

'LONDON IS THE CENTRE OF THE technology WORLD'

JohnG

Unlucky bastards

...especially as the rates for contractors appear to be slightly less than when I was contracting there 15 or so years ago.

UK's first Stealth fighter in successful catapult test

JohnG

It may be funny if one of them is named after Sir Winston...

Even funnier if it was named after Nelson.

Microsoft's MS-DOS is 30 today

JohnG

Re: Formatting a punch card

"I suppose that it would involve another piece of card, and a bit of glue."

Punch cards tended to jam if you stuck anything on them. However, splicing paper tape was quite common. I can remember using a device which we called a "micro VAX" - this thing held two ends of paper tape in place while you spliced them together. It came with a little tool with which to manually punch through holes in fresh tape covering a spliced joint.

JohnG

Microsoft Security Essentials

"I thought MS were doing AV now - not that I know whether it is any good or not - I've never tried it."

Yes, free and actually quite good. It is not particularly "heavy" and MS seem to keep it quite up to date.

Post Office banking collapses in computer fail

JohnG

Has it changed from being a general post office to something else?

Well, yes - it has changed. Parcel business is shared with several competitors and the letters business has been in decline for many years, with the increasing use of email and other forms of communication. The Post Office is as much a bank as it is a post office.

JohnG

Systemic problem

"why not just turn over to the backup routes while fixing the problem?"

Because you will still be connected with the same centralised systems, which have all had the same dodgy update.

Russia: 'We'll dump the ISS into the sea after 2020'

JohnG

cargo shipments

There are also the ATVs - they can haul supplies and give the ISS a shove back to the correct height.

George Lucas defeated by Stormtrooper helmet man

JohnG

Re: Socialist, much?

Lucas did not lose 20 000 000 USD because someone else sold some helmets and made up to 30 000 GBP, so the damages claimed and awarded in the US were fictional. In other parts of the world, claimants have to prove the levels of damages which they claim, not simply pluck large numbers from thin air. That is the issue with US justice in this case.

Lucas's substantial wealth is relevant in that, by pursuing an individual over such a small sum, he looks like a vindictive bully.

"...using the molds and materials Lucas owns the exclusive intellectual property rights to"

Ainsworth owns the intellectual property rights as it was he that designed and built the original helmets, using his own materials - apparently, this is more important than being rich, having expensive lawyers and well-known friends.

Dead bloke reanimates in mortuary

JohnG

Last Will....

I guess this bloke will now change his will to say that his relatives will get nothing if they fail to get him a doctor for his next death.

Dongling P2P downloaders 2nd-biggest mobe data users

JohnG

Re: It's also a blatant display of ISP's analyzing your traffic

As I understand it, the use of traffic shaping devices that may use deep packet inspection to identify traffic classes is perceived quite differently from straightforward packet capture as the former does not imply storage of data for later analysis (by people).

JohnG

how would they know the difference?

Deep Packet Inspection. There are traffic shaping devices which look into packet payload data to identify the type of traffic e.g. Bittorrent using a port associated with http traffic (in order to get through a firewall restriction) can be identified by looking for certain details in the payload data. This can then be used to place all P2P traffic in a separate class from 'real' browser traffic.

Ofcom in screeching U-turn on BSkyB, begins probe

JohnG

Am I missing something?

Have I got this right?

When there was a big, Ofcom wouldn't investigate it.

Now the bid has been dropped, Ofcom will investigate something that is not going to happen (at the same time that News International detectives AKA the police are covering the same ground when checking how many bribes they took).

Chinese lecturer demands his students acquire iPads

JohnG

....he's trying to teach students how to survive in the business world...

No doubt, some of his students will demonstrate how they will survive in the business world by getting their Dads' lawyers and/or government connections to have his attitude and course requirements adjusted.

Toyota tech to steer cars round jaywalkers

JohnG

Responsibility

If car equipped with such a device hits a pedestrian, who is going to be held responsible? The driver or Toyota or the pedestrian? What if the car swerves to avoid a pedestrian but hits a motorcyclist?

Quite apart from the legal aspects, I don't think it is a good idea to give people more opportunities to evade responsibility for their own decisions/actions.

Heathrow to get new facial recognition scanners

JohnG

Separate national and international lounges

"...to help prevent an instance where an international passenger swaps tickets with a domestic passenger in the department lounge."

There should be separate departure lounges for national and international flights or you will also have the problem of people being handed other forms of ID (e.g. a residency permit for an EU country) when they are only in the departure lounge with a Transit Visa.

Anecdotally, I was on a flight from Kiev to Frankfurt which was stopped by immigration officials in a quiet part of Frankfurt Airport, instead of a the planned gate. The immigration officials then started checking passports and visas on the aircraft and promptly found a whole load of people without the correct documentation. I guess they had received a tip off.

Shale gas frees Europe from addiction to Putin's Pipe

JohnG

Gazprom and Ukraine

"...Gazprom, has used its gas exports as a political weapon: most recently turning off the tap to the Ukraine..."

Ukraine had not paid for some gas they had already been supplied (over 1bn US$, AFAIR) and failed to agree a new contract with Gazprom. As they had warned, Gazprom stopped supplying gas to Ukraine when the contract ran out. Ukraine then stole gas being piped through Ukraine intended for other countries.

When finished, the Nord Stream pipeline should avoid future supply problems in intermediary countries (much to the annoyance of Poland and Estonia, who had both hoped to interject themselves into gas supplies to Western Europe). Similar pipeline developments in Southern Europe should provide further diversity in gas supplies.

Nokia ‘giving away phones at cost’

JohnG

Re: Have you been to asia?

Yes. Try going to the rural areas of the Philippines and you'll meet people who don't have well paid jobs and don't have money to waste on the latest tech.

JohnG

Cheap phones make Nokia number 1

"In other words, Nokia's bargain basement models, sold to emerging markets and typically making use of very old technology, make it more money than its premium "flagship" models which boast its "state of the art" features."

Surely everyone knew that Nokia is the global market leader in cellular telephones (almost a third of the global market) and that smartphone manufacturers each have only about a tenth of Nokia's market share? Smartphones may be very sexy but most users just want to be able to make calls and send texts - especially in developing countries (e.g. China, Philippines) where most people only have a mobile phone and no landline. That's why this Elop guy, obsessing about Microsoft OS, is taking Nokia to an early grave.

US court test for rights not to hand over crypto keys

JohnG

Re: first person jailed for failing to hand over encryption keys?

It is a scary story. I did not hear any mention of him being given access to legal advice. If he had such advice, he might have been told that he no longer had an absolute right to silence and that RIPA trumped his EU rights.

Perhaps the US administration may use this case in their ongoing efforts to extradite Gary McKinnon.

Yuri Gagarin, legendary 'naut, makes London debut

JohnG

Delegate from the whole world

"Russians are very proud that [Gagarin] was Russian, but if you look at it more philosophically – he was a delegate from the whole world to space."

I'm not sure that was how he was/is perceived in the USA. It was not that long ago that US officials were talking about cosmonauts only eating their own food, only using their own toilet and not being allowed to use US exercise equipment in the ISS.

GCHQ losing its 'internet whizzes' to Microsoft, Google

JohnG

Cowboys and Indians

...or they could get some guys in from India on ICTs. Each one to be rotated within 12 months to avoid NI.

UK will obey Euro unisex-insurance rules from 2013

JohnG

Men, Women and accidents

"The basic fact is that gender has no link to driving skill whatsoever and is merely a handy money making stat for insurance companies."

The statistics for accident claims show that, on average, women have more accidents than men but their accidents tend to be low speed, few or no injuries and low cost. Men on the other hand, whilst having fewer accidents than women are the main culprits when it comes to multiple vehicle, high speed and extortionately expensive accidents. It doesn't really matter whether it is down to driving skill, spatial awareness, over confidence or different journey types - insurance companies only care about the cost of claims.

EU cloud data can be secretly accessed by US authorities

JohnG

Re: Cat amongst the pidgins

"It is easy to imagine situations where it is impossible to grant freedoms enshrined by law in one country and simultaneously protect rights guaranteed by law in another country,...."

Conventionally, multinationals obey the local laws in each country in which they operate, for their activities within that country's jurisdiction. Walmart sells guns in their stores in the USA but not in Europe. Supermarkets in the UK sell things like ibuprofen and cold remedies but their counterparts in Germany cannot.

The difference in this case is that US legislation appears to overstretch itself to include the activities of Microsoft (and others) well outside of US jurisdiction. By the same thinking, a court in Saudi Arabia might prosecute an multinational online book retailer for selling bibles in the USA and Europe.

Perhaps the EU agreed to this arrangement with the USA to favour cloud providers entirely based in Europe...

Do we really want 100Gig Ethernet?

JohnG

Vampire taps

"... that you had to drill vampire taps into to connect!"

In a recent rummage in my cellar, I stumbled across a hand tool for drilling the holes needed for vampire taps, still in it's box.

Who'll keep taking Windows Tablets in the iPad era?

JohnG

WindowsCE, PPC, XDA/MDA

"I thought the story was that the iPad came first but then they shrunk it to a phone as there wasn't a market for tablets."

Everyone seems to have forgotten that MS dominated this field only a few years back with PDAs (such as those from HP, manufactured by HTC, Mio, etc) and the XDA/MDA phones. Aside from web browsers and media players there were apps for navigation, VoIP, games and even VPN clients.

These now live on as PNAs - some with WinCE but many with a Linux OS.

Then there were older products like the SIMpad from Siemens. Running WinCE, the SIMpad would allow users to browse the Internet, view MS Office documents, etc. using a large touch-sensitive screen. These never caught on until Apple re-invented the idea with the iPad.

I'm just impressed that Apple has convinced so many people that the iPhone and iPad are so novel and now own the field, just as they did with MP3 players and the iPod.

Panasonic TX-P65VT30 65in plasma 3D TV

JohnG

Ethernet & WLAN speeds

The Panasonic specifications don't specify what speeds are supported by the Ethernet port and supplied USB WLAN adaptor - are they 1G and 300M?

Koreans visit Tesco through subway hoardings

JohnG

Favourites

For me, one of the most useful features offered by Tesco's online grocery store is remembering the things I buy regularly (I guess other stores offer something similar). It saves a lot of time to be able to pick from a selection of my favourite items/brands and then look for few special items afterwards.

Personally, I prefer shopping from home, with a sensible sized screen and where I can check in the fridge and cupboards to see if we are running out of anything. All the same, it is fairly clever giving people the feel of normal shopping and offering it to them while they are waiting about for a train with nothing better to do.

JohnG

Graffiti

In the UK, the displays and QR codes would just get tagged with a load of graffiti.

The freakonomics of smut: Does it actually cause rape?

JohnG

Why don't we execute paedophiles instead?

Probably because Social Services has a record of false accusations and coaching children for "evidence". If we followed your idea, a load of innocent people in South Ronaldsay and Rochdale could have been executed.

Hackers pierce network with jerry-rigged mouse

JohnG

RTFA again

"...the device would still need to be able to run privileged code"

All the clever stuff is run on the device itself - on the target system, it only needs to use standard applications to which the user would normally have access - but it would need to "know" the OS and what applications are available.

The objective here is not to modify the system in any way, it is to steal information from the user and his/her organisation. All that is needed is to use a standard application to upload interesting files to some site on the Internet - maybe using a minimised browser window to upload files to a hacker's account on Google Docs (using ssl), for example.

Google turns over user data in 94% of US demands

JohnG
Big Brother

Foreigners

It might be interesting to know what percentage of requests were for user data of non-citizens and non-residents.

The world wants cloud coders. Where are the cloud coders?

JohnG

Too young

"Why are we undoing the personal computing revolution of the last 30 years by moving everything back to centralised systems?"

Most of them are too young to remember or understand why centralised systems died out.

World+dog yawn over NFC smartphone shopping

JohnG

Tough sell

"But few of the 1,000 smartphone users surveyed in the Retrevo "Pulse" study seem to care."

Of the smartphone owners I know, about half are colleagues in IT. The majority of the other half have a smartphone only because they were offered one as part of a contract upgrade and use their phones to make calls, send/receive texts and maybe, take photos. These folk neither know nor care about NFC payment.

BT earmarks 66 more exchanges for fibre-to-the-cabinet upgrade

JohnG

Westgate?

"I live in the next town along and don;t see why on earth they would have chosen Westgate to install!"

Probably some big knob from BT (or their Mum) lives there

Cabinet Office talks to Facebook & co about new ID system

JohnG
Big Brother

Foreign companies

This is already going on in British embassies and consulates around the world. Passport renewals and visa applications are handled by one of two companies: Worldbridge or VFS Global. Employees of these foreign companies will collect and process the application forms and photos of British citizens renewing their passports. The situation is similar for UK visa applicants, except that their fingerprints are also taken.

When my wife applied for a visa at the British consulate in Düsseldorf last year, we did not come into contact with any British staff, only local Worldbridge employees. Even the person conducting my wife's visa interview was German and complained that my wife spoke English and not German - in the British Consulate! I assume my wife's details (and my details that were on her UK visa application) are now stored in some database in the USA.

3D-printed bikini goes on sale

JohnG

Spray-on clothes

...or maybe some of this stuff:

http://www.fabricanltd.com/fashion.php

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

JohnG

Defective memory

If everyone had defective memory, then I guess they would all have forgotten about the various problems a few years ago with data lost by people using online disk/backup companies which went bankrupt. Any online storage, whether cloudy or not, relies on the company operating the service to remain in business and to maintain the service. If they get bored with it and move onto the next big thing, those who chose to keep control of their own data may have the last laugh.