Posts by behzad

Fukushima fearmongers: It's your fault Japan dumped CO2 targets

Cost

$80 billion. And that's not even including the cost of decommissioning the reactors, which will take decades:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/12/us-japan-fukushima-borrowing-idUSBRE9AB0H520131112

'Nuff said - not worth it.

Sony unwraps Android 3.0 tablet pair

Mistake #1

Releasing the first images of a brand new device and then saying 'but the final thing will probably look different'. When did you last see Apple do that?

You would think, over a year after the iPad came out (and longer since rumoured), that Sony would by now have a response at hand that it could announce with complete confidence. It just smacks of 'amateur'.

And this is coming from a long-time admirer (and owner) of Sony products. Sort it out, please.

Jobs' Lion to marry Mac OS X and iOS

Would that be such a bad thing...

...if it meant people buying a lot more apps than they otherwise would have? Lower prices and easier access will probably bring in much greater revenues than developers currently get from Mac software sales (aside from the big guys of course).

Can we please lay this myth to rest...

...of $1 = £1 pricing? It may have been more common 10+ years ago, but I can't think of a single product more recently that has been priced this way. And I'm not just talking about Apple products, but pretty much anything.

(That said, given the way the GBP and our VAT rates are heading, we may well see a return of $1=£1 in future)

Apple signals disk free notebooks way to go

Well...

...you could just download them, which I think is fair enough if you already own the DVDs.

Sony Reader PRS-350 Pocket Edition

Library loans

One thing this review missed is that you can borrow ebooks from the library - eg. for Londoners check out http://llc.lib.overdrive.com

You can't do that with the Kindle.

The reason the Kindle is cheaper is because Amazon is prepared to take a hit on the device in return for locking you in to their ebook store. I'd rather pay a bit more to be part of an open system. That, and the Sony is actually quite pocketable.

Charging for blogs

Shame Amazon has the audacity to charge for them when they are completely free online. Way to cripple a very cool feature.

Apple states tax take on UK iPod pricing

Nowhere near as bad as before

Have people already forgotten the days when pricing was generally set on a $1 = £1 basis? Things are much, much better than they used to be, and the margin here seems reasonable given the fluctuations in the GBP over the past couple of years.

UK supermarket starts contactless payments

Why has it taken this long?

And what is all the fuss about?

Contactless payment is the norm in Japanese convenience stores, and transactions are so much smoother because of it. I'm frankly amazed it's taken this long to get going over here.

And for the AC above who doesn't like causing unnecessary queues - there'd be even less of them if we didn't have to fumble around with coins for a pack of chewing gum.

Bring it on.

Sony Walkman NWZ-A845 media player

Indeed...

Sony clearly still haven't got the knack of getting their various divisions to work together to produce a truly brilliant do-it-all device (despite Stringer's claims to do just that). Sony Ericsson was getting there in the early Walkman phone days, but completely lost it when the market started shifting towards smartphones.

It's a great shame, because under the right leadership Sony could utterly trash the iPhone. They've got the industrial designers, the best tech, and the Sony brand is still one that people associate with quality. If only they'd bloody make use of it!

If you ask me, they should forget about SE when it comes to smartphones. They need a single, landmark, iPhone-beating Android product to be produced in-house, under the Sony brand. Leave SE to the standard stuff - the smartphone should be given special treatment.

Clearly, they need me in charge.

Ten... Premium iPod Speakers

Shame the Philips doesn't have bluetooth...

What an omission - otherwise it looks like proper bo'.

Pirate Bay owners fined by Dutch court

Err...

...aren't the Swedes also party to the Arrest Warrant?

Cloud music: Apple set to clean up

Er

It was you who wondered why "people who on principle never bought a DRM-encrusted digital download" - past tense, i.e. back when music WAS 'DRM-encrusted' - would now use Spotify. The subsequent death of DRM doesn't change your point of comparison, nor does it invalidate Jerome's point.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Symbian smartphone

When will Sony gets its act together?

I'm stunned that Sony still hasn't caught up yet. The one company that has the potential to truly rival - and beat - Apple in this sphere just isn't bringing up the goods. Perhaps it's time to ditch this Ericsson venture and go it alone? At least for the smart phone sphere.

Sony have some fantastic industrial designers and brands (PlayStation) they could leverage to produce a true prestige product. If only they'd get their bloody act together.

Orange outs iPhone 4 pricing

So does that mean...

...you can use non-iPhone tariff sim with an iPhone? Or do the networks have some means of detection that forces you on to an iPhone tariff? (Anyone here have experience with this?)

Careful...

O2 have different (=pricier) simplicity tariffs for iPhone - http://shop.o2.co.uk/new-iphone/tariffs.html

And with the micro sim, you can't just put any old sim in it. Makes you wonder if Apple was in some sort of deal with the operators to use micro sim.

Apple to sell unlocked iPhone 4

We can thank the falling GBP for this...

iPhone 4 has exactly the same pricing as the 3GS in the US, while this represents a £50 hike considering you could get the 3GS for £450 on PAYG (£440 with Orange?). There's still a chance PAYG might be cheaper, but given the other perks of that (free data), I'm not holding my breath.

I think I might just wait for the iPhone 4-ified iPod Touch. The emasculation of data plans was already pushing me in that direction, but now the enormous price premium for what is basically the same hardware with 3G is becoming more and more difficult to swallow.

Ten Essential... iPad Accessories

Overlays

Why protect such a pristine screen if you can't appreciate how pristine it is because a sheet of plastic is obscuring it? Maybe these things are a lot better than they used to be, but if not it's a complete waste of pretty screen. Maybe makes sense if you've got kids?

That said, I've always thought manufacturers should make the front casing of LCDs removable and replaceable, that way you get the option of making it 'like new' after it's taken a few scratches without the downsides of an overlay.

'Gossips' say Apple will acquire ARM

Massive income?

£40m is peanuts compared to the $8 *billion* Apple made last year. ARM chips may be in virtually every handheld device going, but the money they make on each of those is pennies.For its share price, ARM's earnings are not attractive in the least.

And so it can only be a tactical move, a move that just has to be blocked by the competition authorities. And that's if this isn't complete BS (which it probably is).