Posts by Lamont Cranston

Make masses carry their mobes, suggests wig in not-at-all-creepy speech

Re: in 10, 15 or 20 years' time." That's not dim. I for one wouldn't bet against him being right.

I'm pretty well accustomed to the wearing of shoes, but I'd take a dim view of a judge deciding that I couldn't leave the house without them.

UK consumer help bloke Martin Lewis is suing Facebook over fake ads

Can't deny he does some excellent work,

but he's been blessed with an eminently punchable face.

He's very much in the right with this facebook case, though. Good luck to him.

Millions of moaners vindicated: Man flu is 'a thing', says researcher, and big TVs are cure

Re: teachers

Schools only tend to insist on the 48 hour absence if you've been vomiting, these days.

I find presenteeism is a bit of an issue where I work, probably because we're understaffed.

YouTuber cements head inside microwave oven

Re: Confused

I don't think many of us can see much "need" for the emergency services to have saved his life. Lucky for him that they're obliged to, really.

Someone tell Thorpe Lane in Suffolk their internet sucks – they're still loading the page

Bit confusing.

Is the uSwitch fella saying that Thorpe Lane residents have slow broadband speeds because they've connected to their router over WiFi, with some thick walls in the way?

A certain millennial turned 30 recently: Welcome to middle age, Microsoft Excel v2

Re: highlight it in the formula bar and then copy

Always good to learn something new!

Harry Potter to get the Pokémon GO treatment

Re: Lovely.

At 30 something, I found them to be pretty poor (whilst appreciating that, as an adult, I wasn't really the target audience). Now that I'm approaching 40, I get to endure the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry as he works his way through each overwrought ending and exposition dump, whilst I drive the family on days out.

Augmented reality: Like it or not, only Apple's ready for the data-vomit gush

This all sounds very impressive,

but what on earth are we going to use it for?

Mythbuster seeks cash for roller skates to wear in virtual reality

Re: Yeah... No....

Good luck with strafing, too.

KRACK whacked, media playback holes packed, other bugs go splat in Android patch pact

Re: Wileyfox

I got my daughter a Wileyfox that was promptly bricked by the first update it installed. Replaced it, same thing happened. Wileyfox's oh-so-helpful suggestion was that I send it back to Amazon for a refund. Shame, really, as it was a nice phone when it worked, but I won't be buying from them again.

First iPhone X fondlers struggle to admit that Face ID sort of sucks

Re: "something you are"

My 2012 Nexus 7 had a facial recognition unlock option, that would fail if I decided to grow out (or shave off) my beard. Don't think it was too fond of me sometimes wearing glasses, either. The novelty wore off pretty quick.

You may not have noticed, but 'superfast' broadband is available to 94% of Blighty

Re: The need for speed?

*hangs head in shame*

Re: The need for speed?

I can't see 1Mb/s cutting it when I want to watch Netflix (preferably in HD, as that's what I'm paying for), and the kids all have YouTube running. Tiered pricing probably makes sense, although I'm all for simplicity and so would quite like to see everyone getting the best possible service for a fair price - I'd be a bit miffed if I switched to a better gas deal and got less calorific gas as a consequence!

50th anniversary of the ATM opens debate about mobile payments

Re: Extinct in ten years?

During my A-levels, I learned that Mondex would soon render cash obsolete. I don't think it'll ever go entirely, we'll just have more payment options available.

Insert coin: Atari retro console is coming back

Steam Machine with a wood panelled case

(plus a deal with Valve to release a bundle of classic games), or something Android based (in a wooden case, with a clutch of classic games)? Complemented, in either scenario, by an awful joystick that's no good for playing anything that isn't in the "Atari Classics" bundle.

Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman both have new Linux in mind

re: Miley Cyrus fans

Stop sending Friend Requests to 12 year olds?

Look who's joined the anti-encryption posse: Germany, come on down

"The privacy of a terrorist can never be more important than public safety – never."

That's a noble enough sentiment, I suppose (if you don't value universal human rights all that highly), but it quickly falls apart once you consider that these proposals will impact the privacy of everyone.

Good thing we only ever elect the best and brightest to political office, so I'm sure the powers that be will arrive at a satisfactory solution.

Class clowns literally classless: Harvard axes meme-flinging morons

Re: "Has Jessica Zhang never seen a Jimmy Carr stand-up video?"

No one deserves to suffer that fate.

Nest leaves competition in the dust with new smart camera

Re: never sell or share your data without a customer's explicit permission

Which customer?

Google wants to track your phone and credit card through meatspace

Re: "corporations exist to serve society"

Oh, stop - my sides are splitting!

Google DeepMind's use of 1.6m Brits' medical records to test app was 'legally inappropriate'

Re: Would it have been ethical for them...

The data used to train the AI should have been fully anonymised, so alerting patients that the machine has identified them as requiring treatment should never have been an option. Once the system has proven itself on anonymous data, then it can be fed the identifiable data providing the patients involved have consented to this use of their data.

Well, hot-diggity-damn, BlackBerry's KEYone is one hell of a comeback

Re: "It' really a poor mobile world where the only mobile OS choice is Android..."

Maybe so, but that's the world in which we live. Others have tried and failed, it's no surprise that Blackberry have admitted defeat in the OS arena.

The third option on the desktop is pretty mature, has a healthy app ecosystem, and you can fudge Windows applications onto it if needs be - there is no equivalent OS for phones . Blackberry tried having their own OS that also runs Android applications, but that didn't go so well, and all other efforts have failed, so you can't blame them for throwing in the towel.

Canonical look to be the best hope for getting an alternative phone OS off the ground, but overcoming Android's market dominance is going to be quite the feat.

Peer pressure, not money, lures youngsters into cybercrime – report

Re: Talk Talk got off essentially free

The Titanic might sunk as a consequence of the angle at which it collided with the iceberg, but I'd still give the iceberg some credit.

Re: Talk Talk got off essentially free

Their reputation got thoroughly trashed, the CEO has walked, and their share price isn't what it was before the hack. I'd say the incident has had a significant effect on their business.

Not the droids you're looking for – worst handsets to resell

Alternate headline:

Bargains to be had on 2nd hand phones.

Hard-pressed Juicero boss defends $400 IoT juicer after squeezing $120m from investors

@MonkeyCee

I tried to wank about the carrots, but now I'm banned from Sainsburys.

Re: "I enjoy a decent mixed diet including fruit and veg"

I think the problem is that too many people don't vary their diet much beyond protein/starch combinations. A balanced diet is always preferable, but for most people, that probably means eating more fruit/veg, hence all the health campaigns that focus on "getting your (x) a day".

Dishwasher has directory traversal bug

Re: "implementation stupids when it comes to switching provider"

@ pete_v

Yep - your "smart meter" reverts back to being a regular meter, except now you have to navigate through a menu to get a reading off of it. Smart Meters are a crock of shit.

It's happening! It's happening! W3C erects DRM as web standard

Re: Another reason for me to continue with piracy

I was going to downvote this, as my Kodi library is entirely full of rips of DVDs/Blu-Rays that I own, but then I remembered what a ballache it is ripping a Blu-Ray (and the occasional Disney DVD, that confuses Handbrake), so I'll be upvoting instead.

YouTube TV will be huge. Apple must respond

Re: D'oh!

Do people still want DVRs? Packaged mine up and sent it to the loft, recently, as Amazon/Netflix/iPlayer have rendered it unnecessary.

Instagram phishing apps pulled from Google Play

"in order to distribute spam and ads"

[unflattering comparison to existing social networks here]

Is your child a hacker? Liverpudlian parents get warning signs checklist

Re: A what?

He owes me a new bullshit detector - this one's overloaded.

'At least I can walk away with my dignity' – Streetmap founder after Google lawsuit loss

RE: "Am I missing something here? A company promoting it's own product before it's competitors?"

That would be abusing their position as a monopoly, the same thing that Microsoft got slapped over when it came to web browsers. I'd imagine that Google get accused of this whenever they add a new service, as they really are the leading search provider (China and Russia notwithstanding) and so in a prime position to drive out the competition from whichever market they choose to stick their nose into.

Google gets smooth early Android releases. OEMs are struggling

Samsung, et al. complaining about not receiving timely Android updates?

No, stop, my sides...

Tablets become feebleslabs as sales spiral down

Re: Complete shit marketing

I use GSMArena whenever I need to compare the specs of Android devices - pretty good, although it does have a few gaps (Wileyfox, for one).

Google loses Android friends with Pixel exclusivity

Given most OEMs' approach to Android updates,

I doubt there'll be many tears shed over this.

That said, I can't say I'm particularly happy about the phone market shrinking to just Google v Apple, but then maybe this will be just the push that's been needed for a third OS option to gain some traction?

Nintendo pulls the Switch, fires Joy-con at Microsoft and Sony

Re: You guys missed a big problem...

I've long been wanting a return to cartridges - both the Wii and the WiiU take an age to load things from disc (not to mention that our Mario Kart 8 disc became unreadable for no apparent reason - cartridges used to take a beating and keep on working forever, so far as I could tell).

Mind you, the way games work these days, I expect the cartridge will be little more than a key to unlock the relevant download to the (woefully small) internal SSD.

Tech moguls dominate Oxfam's rich people Hateful 8

I read the above as an excellent argument

in favour of international cooperation and an eventual end to the foolish notion of sovereignty. Y'know, the sort of revolution that Marx wrote about.

Opera scolds stale browsers with shocking Neon experiment

"Neon is visually appealing"

I know this isn't the way to highlight spelling errors, but you seem to have misspelled "appalling"

Customer: BT admitted it had 'mis-sold' me fibre broadband

I had this about 10 years ago.

BT salesman turned up at my door, telling me that they were rolling out Infinity in our area, so I signed up. Got a phone call about a week later to tell me that, in reality, they weren't rolling out Infinity in our area for a couple of years, at least.

Incompetent but honest, I suppose.

You know how cop cars pile into each other in old comedy movies? That's how the Moon was built, say boffins

Re: a Clangers angle

Here in Bedfordshire, we know that the north pole of the moon is filled with meat, while the south is filled with fruit.

Brace yourself, network admins, Amazon Video just hit 200 nations

Re: app support

I was pleased to find that both Amazon and Netflix (and YouTube) are still working on the Wii, which came in handy after the Netflix app on my TV packed up. The Amazon app (still branded as LoveFilm!) on the Wii is quite a bit more reliable than the version found on my Sony Bluray player, too (Netflix/iPlayer/YouTube are all long gone from that device).

A pity the BBC killed off the iPlayer for the Wii (I notice the WiiU version is on the way out, too), as that would have made the Wii quite a viable candidate for resident "smart" device for the TV.

Jeremy Hunt: Telcos must block teens from sexting each other

Re: Black Mirror

I thought the moral of that story was "if you must spank it to images of children, put a bit of tape over your webcam"?

Huawei Mate 9: The Note you've been waiting for?

Am I the only one giggling at "bottom-firing", then?

*hangs head in shame*

Canadian cops cuff 11-year-old lad after Grand Theft Auto gets real

Re: "Then why are you asking..."

At least she had the sense to ask, so she could make an informed decision. Far too many would just buy it in ignorance.

Nest Cam: A compelling piece of hardware-software

"And in a few years we'll wonder how we ever lived without them"

Probably not, but I did enjoy reading about the improved user experience.

Sega MegaDrive/Genesis lives again, in Brazil!

Re: the terrible ATGames version

I got one of those, then realised that I could get an immeasurably better experience by running an emulator on the old Wii that was knocking about. Ho-hum.

PayPal patches bone-headed two factor authentication bypass

Re: 2fa choices

£10 for a cheap PAYG mobile that'll act as your 2fa device for all online services, is probably preferable to accumulating various keyfobs and such.

Chap turns busted laptop into phone keyboard, in Himalayan book-rescue mission

Re: Not quite as hardcore but...

In my absence, my then girlfriend once sent her housemate round to fix her friend's computer. Said friend is blind, and so didn't own a monitor. If you're not used to it, text-to-speech software (and no screen) is a little disconcerting!

Coming soon to smart home devices? Best Before labels – with patch cut-off dates

Re: xkcd on toast

I've had to downvote you, just for giving them ideas. You weren't being serious, but no doubt a lightbulb has just gone on over someone's head, now that they have a reason to sell an online toaster.