Posts by Chris Beach 150 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
HSDPA+ isn't 4G, never has been, its 3.9G if anything. Unfortunatly the American marketting confused the crap out of everybody by branding HSDPA as 4G, esp if it did the 14Mbps/22Mbps.
Even the current LTE (as used by Verizon in the US), isn't proper 4G, when they start mentioning LTE Advanced do they actually start to fully comply with the 4G standards.
Probably because I grew up with computers being used more an more, and that the internet has meant I seen a lot more photographs and videos than my grandparents ever have, a photoshopped (or in any way digitally created) image stands out far more than I think the advertisers realise.
I always thought that a space only fighter (i.e. just does dog fights in space) would be more spherical than any other shape. After all, just as 'up' is pretty irrelevant in space, so is 'forward'.
You'd want an even 360deg propulsion, and weapon arcs, after all, why would you want to waste time doing a Immelmann to face the bad guy?
Not sure how you'd control it though...wouldn't be a joystick for sure...
Oh dear, MS think they are actually going to compete with Apple with WinMo...no way. Let Apple keep the more-money-than-sense crowd and compete for the Android and Blackberry users.
From what I've seen Windows Mobile does have that extra bit of polish over Android, and Nokia can make very decent, if not spectacular, hardware. So they should go for the high-mid range phones, and an 8 sounds very good for that.
I'm hoping Ice Cream Sandwich brings some polish to android, it needs it.
This is damn right, esp if they are missing a few key features: Like an IPS or equiv screen. Tablets need much better viewing angles. 10+hour battery, and esp a long life if in standby, if its sitting on the sofa all night I don't want it loosing more than a few % battery.
If you have both of those, (and the storage size etc) is the same, then you still can't charge iPad prices unless you've got iPad build quailty as well! Sorry plastic isn't it.
The Asus Transformer, is still the only Android tablet worth buying, mainly due to the IPS screen. They have accepted its plastic, not quite as well built, and aren't charging premium price.
Sony Tablet S, same as any other honeycomb pad spec wise, still plastic build, ok nice design and the remote's a nice feature...but that doesn't make it worth iPad pricing.
Shure's had replaceable cables for ages.
In the previous gen it was the lower half of the set, and now its the entire cable.
But agreed comparing the 400 or 300 series would have better. The 535's are really IEMs.
And for those saying whats the point, that's fine, as long as you also just use the speakers in your HD TV...
odd, I'd have thought El Reg would have made more of the odd bets Google were making, the last being $3.14159!
More here http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/dealtalk-nortel-google-idUSN1E7601QM20110702?feedType=RSS&feedName=marketsNews&rpc=43, now to be fair, the fact that Google did that is just awesome.
I think Google are best at 'using' the right tech for the job, they don't have some nihilistic obsession with something. Flash fits the needs of the product now, HTML5/WebM doesn't...yet.
When, not if, it does Google will switch over.
Microsoft have thier 'not developed here', and god knows how Apple decides what to obsess on...
The screen isn't as good as the IPS panel in the iPad. It's better than most of the competition that are using the same tech, TN i think.
But the Asus Transformer, does use an IPS panel and is as good as the iPad. Is also cheaper (less onboard memory) and has a working sd card slot.
With the latest kit games are easily playable at 2560x1600, anything lower and that hardware is wasted. So I'd be interested in a 2k/4k projector:) dunno what lag/latency whatever is like though, that could put a downer on things.
It's pretty annoying that monitors haven't progressed, were stuck with low PPI 1080 displays...
It's daft that my cheapo £100 android phone at 800x480 has a higher density screen than any 1080 tv out there...
It's amazing how many people keep trying to fit ChomeOS into their established ideas about what a PC should be/do.
Yes it doesn't work well offline, its not supposed to, and why does it need too? We only think its a need at the moment because wireless is still in its infancy.
Why do you need to manage your files locally? Just because you do on all the other OS's doesn't mean you should need to. What are you actually achieving when your managing your files?
If there is a negative point to be made about ChromeOS, its that its not answering these questions in a clear manner. So people are just lumping it as a kinda netbook that doesn't work as well.
Personally when I had my netbook, I could have used ChromeOS instead.
Then we can talk...oh wait there is no How.
Internet Browsers already have a content system in place, and all the government could do is rule that all web hosts *in the UK* have this set correctly. Which would limit probably less that 1% of net smut.
Wait, I thought of a how, parents could do their damn job properly!
tbh I think he's right. 10" puts the device nearer the laptop side which is what the tablet replacing. Its never going to replace your 2"-4" smartphone, but it can replace the light usage netbook or your cheaper 13/14" that you only use for internet anyways.
I also agree that buying a tablet with 2.2 and no guarentee that it will be upgraded to 3.0, is daft. Having another app market isn't the solution either.
Sorry but I fail to see how tethering affects the operator at all. You're not going to get any faster speeds, or any lower pings just because using a laptop instead of your phone.
Due to the relative ease of use, your probably going to go through your unlimited allocation quicker, and then have to pay them more. But that's not a technical restriction.
Put it another way, all operators sell mobile broadband dongles...which are nothing more than just the radio part of the phone...so its just greed they want to double charge you for doing nothing themselves.
This might fail for Intel, but for consumers it could be that we get what's been missing for a while: Decent laptop graphics capability!
If SandyBridge is 'good enough' to make the current AMD and Nvidia offerings too expensive for the performance, then I'd imagine one or both of them will release updated products that will outperform the Intel offerijng. And then we might actually have laptops that can run most games at the native res of the monitor...and not rely on horrible scaling or running everything on low.
But having said all that, gaming laptops is niche, even if OS's and other products start to use the GPU for offloading more work...the general consumer probly doesn't care, and SandyBridge will be a cheap all in one solution for most OEM's.
Freeview is hardly tightly specced!
Take the sound format, apparently the broadcasters can use AAC or Dolby Digital+, unfortunatly they didn't specifiy that the output should be transcoded to a more universal format (dolby digital or dts)...so your fancy HD TV will just be feeding stereo to your amp...how 'modern'!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/06/questions_around_surround_soun.html)
Nor did they specificy a minium bitrate, so you end up with overly compressed crap that only looks good on youtube or your phone.
They don't even correctly apply the H.264 video standard, so your recorded programs can't be played on devices that 'support' h.264.
So all in all its about the same as all the other tech standards, incomplete with masses of room for user confusion and 'new' versions.
Half-Assed, over complicated, standards rushed out to meet some invisible and pointless marketting effort. Just one extra line in the spec mandating transcoding would have solved it.
The whole tech industry keeps doing the same thing. HDMI, 3D, blu-ray, bluetooth, the list just goes on.
What the hell is behind this thinking? If one .net language is suitable for teaching then both should be. Arguably C# also has a seconday benefit of being similar in syntax to Java and C++ making the future learning of those easier. Which will be needed as you aint going to getta job with Delphi or Pascal!
This is yet more reason why software patents need to be scrapped and Patent rules in general need reworking.
If a company, Apple in this case, don't try to enforce the patent at the time they suspected infringement, the patent should become null and void and enter pubic domain.
Patents were supposed to give a reward/protect so you could profit from your original hardwork, if you can live without that reward (as Apple, HTC and Nokia all have done), then you don't need the patent protection.
I can't see Nokia wanting the 3 OS's. I think they'd much rather push Symbian ^3/^4 out, and keep that push concentrated. People arguing about the difficulties of development, seem to forget that its been around for the longest and has the largest install base...so developers will never be hard to find.
However Samsung:, ditch the stupid and unproven bada crap, hopefully they haven't pissed to much money on it. They can make the phones, and have the size to support both Android and WebOS devices. The only issue I can see is can they scale either os down to the dumb phone range?
HTC does sound good, but it could alienate them from their current core of winmo and android, so unless they came out with a set of outstanding webos devices.
The other option would be one of the more Japan/Asia corps like Panasonic, Toshiba etc that want more of an eu/us presence.
Sorry, but the PS3 isn't a generation ahead of the 360. It just took a different tack, going for lots of smaller cores rather than the 3 in the 360.
Unfortunatly Sony didn't do enough on the dev side to help the studios use those cores effectivly. Microsoft did what they do best, and harness the developers, with lots of docs, decent tools and old fashioned bribes.
The other big diff technically is the GPU, the 360's is slightly better, and more importantly (as it turns out) has a larger memory for the framebuffer.
If you read any of the EuroGamer head-to-heads, its this framebuffer size that tends to allow the 360 to have proper AA, and not the blur-o-vision smear of the PS3.
Both consoles have enough power to have decent games, and both companies are supporting them long term with addons and internal redesigns. I don't think we'll see new devices until after the next GPU generation (ie the one after Nvidia's fermi and ATI's 5970 gen)
Bank I work for is still on IE6, lazy web devs on a 'important' web app, means we didn't change when we went to XP (sp2), and there isn't the technical know-how at the higher levels to understand that you could keep ie6 for those using that app, and give ff or chrome or ie8 to the rest of us.
The other point that gets missed is that Googles 'Highway' is better than the others for consuemers too, in fact more like the German Autobahn.
Personally I see that most of the whinging against Google comes from two camps: Corps who act slower than Goolge and then complain when Google comes in, does their job better and faster. The 2nd bunch are the privacy, and legal 'experts'.
Only the 2nd have anything relevant to say, and the various Governments and regulators need to balance the laws so that services like Maps, Voice etc can be provided, but certain privacies are respected and laws amended (for the modern age)
The first though can go swivel...who cares if Google is destroying your business model, adapt or die.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around this. I'd watch some of the youtube videos. There will be 'apps' like a music player...but the apps will work with data on the internet, so 90% of the music played will be streamed (aka spotify and last.fm). You can get pictures off your camera so that you can upload them to the cloud, not run photoshop and organize locally.
I guess ofcom will just rollover on this? The networks are effectivly saying "we can't be arsed to provide a complete service, but we wont mention that when we flog you a locked handset on a overpriced tarrif. But if you've got problems with reception pay us some more money and you can fix it yourself. By the way we do a great unlimited 1gb broadband deal..."
This boxes would great if they were network unlocked, then I could see a purpose. Business and public locations (hotels/pubs) could get one and improve everyones cell coverage.
What I don't understand is why the underlying mobile OS can't support post installation of the carrier 'customisations'. So every model starts with the base, and then the carriers can do all the limiting and ui destroying tweaks they want?
Given that the carriers always want to do this, its surprising thats its still an issue unsolved by the manufactures.
Typical Google responce, which I think is one of their strongest assets. It's an clear honest, technical explanation about the problems and what they intend do in the future in order to prevent it again.
Not just a 'we're sorry, we're looking into it' response that you get from 99% of all the other big names.
So far all I can see is that Palm are doing what every OS manufacturer should do, which is gather metrics on the use of that system, in order to improve it.
Notification? mmm, maybe it would be nice, but its a phone, I don't want the slim resources wasted on a notification feature only the paranoid care about.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
