Posts by Dave 126

Apple share-price-off-a-cliff: Told you that would happen

Re: pathetically dependent?

>Part of Apple's problem is that a huge proportion its profits are derived from two products - the iPhone and the iPad. Both are market leaders, and it's hard to grow market share when you're in front. If either product falls out of fashion (how many iPods do you see these days, for example?), or is replaced by a newer model that doesn't find favour with consumers, Apple's profits will take a very sharp tumble.

Very true. So if I were Apple, I would want to make myself market leader for whatever the next "mp3 / smartphone / tablet" thingie is, and a pile of cash would be bloody helpful in that aim. Cash to both to pay more people to develop it faster, or to buy in a company who has the technology they need (like they did with Fingerworks' multitouch patents and experience).

Having cash can only help them get preferential treatment in the supply chain, too.

Stephen Fry explains… Alan Turing's amazing computer

Re: Spelling

>He's also misspelt program as programme. Surely the greatest crime of all.

Original English spelling was 'program', but 'programme' was popularised by entertainment promoters using it to add some French glamour to their posters.

Just to amuse myself, I use 'program' for computery stuff, and 'programme' for entertainment stuff, but I don't know if there is a hard rule, fluid thing this language is.

Re: Problem is not Fry

> Nothing, nothing at all on ANY BBC channel - radio or TV is remotely scientific, engineering or based on anything other than the arts.

Ug?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mgxf or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Miodownik - who has done the long-running Royal Institute Christmas lectures, shown on the BBC, as well as other series.

There are also the BBC / Open University co-productions.

Do you want to rewrite your post so as not to distract from the grains of truth it contains?

>If I had my way the BBC would be forced to rely on subscription for funding, it would then lose out.

So you'd have it preaching to the choir? Okay...

Re: And he's not a bad writer

>Just read one book of his, it was a disgustingly complete rip-off of "The Count of Monte-Cristo" set in modern times and not even a tenth as good.

>Black Adder, Jeeves etc are diamond, just stick to the acting, mate, OK?

I didn't enjoy 'The Star's Tennis Balls' very much, though I have his other books. However, he was writing (and indeed very rich from writing another adaptation, of My Fair Lady) before he was in Black Adder or Jeeves and Wooster.

An interesting juxtaposition is between the semi-autobiographical The Liar, and his later autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, written a few years after his 1995 nervous breakdown... something happened to reduce his need for disguise. He's appeared much more comfortable in his own skin since then, too.

Re: God I'm getting sick of Fry

>I'm getting a bit sick of Fry

The simple solution is for you to watch less television. Try reading.

>Fry is only revered due to QI and having a air of pomposity about him

Or for his writing, which made him a millionaire in early twenties. One national broadsheet columnist took a pop at him the other week- amusing, because Fry's columns are infinitely more perceptive, witty and self depreciating than that no-name hack's.

>In a survey 8% of people wanted Fry to be Chancellor and 3% wanted Cox, no idea why as neither have anything to do with economics.

Neither has past experience of the current chancellor of the exchequer, who studied History of Art and then a stint as a data entry clerk... I would imagine that Brian Cox has a better grasp of mathematics and computer modelling, which are might considered to be 'transferable skills'. Stephen Fry has spent time in prison for credit card fraud... whether this makes him more or less suitable for the role than Mr Osborne I'll leave to you to decide.

It's a Universal Turing Machine, that is a Turing Machine that can compute anything any other Turing Machine can. As you say, it was a concept, and wasn't implemented by Turing.

I remember Gödel, Escher, Bach explained it quite well, but alas, all I can recall from the book are lots of conversations with a tortoise.

Re: I have an issue with Fry

I don't think he's claimed to be anything other than a consumer of technology, and has made no secret of buying the latest gadget for the sake of it- if I had made myself as rich as he did in his early twenties, I probably would have spent a load on soon-to-obsolete gizmos too. He's had every latest flashy device from the mid-eighties onwards, so as consumers go he's had more first-hand experience than most.

Likewise his friend Douglas Adams, though he took a slightly deeper interest he explained thus: "I'm the kind of person who, if faced with a two hour task on the computer, will spend two days writing some software to do it for me"

Beep! -And your challenge is?

Well, he was never the best at Just A Minute.

Oi, Microsoft, where's my effin' toolbar gone?

Re: watch on ??

I'm trying rework that Bacarach David classic "Walk on by" by your rule... Nah, it doesn't have the same ring to it.

Re: Probably a memory issue

I swear that it was Word that broke the handy coffee-cup holder on my desktop PC.

Re: Toolbars, schmoolbars...

>What the hell is wrong with hierarchical text menus anyway?

Not much. My only niggle with them is that if the name of the menu items are too long, navigating it with a mouse becomes a test of dexterity... fall off the path and and you have to start again.

I've never known why pie menus aren't more common- since they happily co-exist with normal context menus, I don't see the downside.

Re: The worst thing, by a mile...

>Menu items that just disappeared if you didn't use them often.

Ha! I'd forgotten about those... incomplete menus, stripped of most of their items should they 'confuse' novice users. Grr. At least that 'feature' could be turned off.

For the love all that is holy, I don't know why MS didn't give a hand-over period of few versions between menus and Ribbon. Or just leave menus in.

Re: There is a simple explanation

Oh hell, yeah... my university faculty had the latest version of Word, the campus reprographics department, where we were to get our projects printed and bound to a deadline, didn't. Genius.

Shame, because some bits of Word I really like, such as the Document Map.

>Together we go hunting for the runaway toolbar. According to the View menu, it’s ticked and ought to be visible. So we do as you do in computing, untick it and retick it

I often do that in Adobe packages... it's not so much that the toolbar has gone AWOL, its just that I can't spot the one I need amongst its peers, despite having used just a moment ago. Unticking and reticking highlights its position to me. I'm aware that Adobe have attempted to give me ways of organising these toolbars, such as tabbing them, but that just gives the buggers more places to hide.

I don't think I've used Word - or Excel - since the "Where the flipping hell has [X] gone? Ferfuxake!" fun of the Ribbon Menu. Similar adventures in Windows Media Player have me using its simpler Classic cousin.

I do love Solidworks' UI - it has menus, a command manager, customisable toolbars, context menus, context pie menus, keyboard shortcuts... hell, even a command line emulator for those who've spend time on 2D drafting.

Cop an eyeful of that: Moto bungs 5-megapixel cam into plod radio

It does seem a strange choice not to have a front facing camera, so the officer can snap a picture as soon as they turn up on the scene- perhaps as a crime is happening.

As for video, those are good point- but you've got storage issues, and the editing down to the pertinent footage is complicated by the need to keep an audit trail.

Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

Re: I don't understand

>Honest curiosity.

Okay, these figure are a bit out of date:

According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, the U.S. currently has the largest documented prison population in the world, both in absolute and proportional terms. We've got roughly 2.03 million people behind bars, or 701 per 100,000 population. China has the second-largest number of prisoners (1.51 million, for a rate of 117 per 100,000),

-http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2494/does-the-united-states-lead-the-world-in-prison-population

> can marry 14 year olds?

Alabama: You can get married at 14, but you will need a certified copy of your birth certificate. Both parents must be present with identification, or if you have a legal guardian they must be present with a court order and identification. The state requires a $200 bond to be executed, payable to the State of Alabama. If one or both parents are deceased, proper evidence of such must be provided.

-http://marriage.about.com/cs/teenmarriage/a/teenus.htm

NASA chief: Earth is DOOMED if we spot a big asteroid at short notice

Re: Acceptable losses?

>Popping a huge asteroid into BIG bits, a long way from earth, is a LOT better than a HUGE one hitting earth...

Yeah.... instead of being all dead quickly, we're deaf and starve to death. "a LOT better" as you say.

Re: Obama's goals

As Richard Feynman established from Nasa engineers, the estimated chance of a catastrophic Shuttle incident was 1 in 200. According to Nasa management, it was 1 in 10, 000. He refused to sign the report into the Challenger disaster unless it was concluded with "You can't fool nature".

Richard Feynman- physicist, bongo player, educator, amateur safe-cracker, supporter of a strip club.

Samsung: We're doing smart watches too

Re: If this is a "watch" I'd be very surprised

>Hack! How old are you? You sound like a 5 year old.

I'm genuinely confused.

I wear a sober, small faced analogue watch. It does strike that for telling the time it is superior to my phone.

Also, for setting a reminder it is superior to my phone- I just rotate the bezel to remind myself of when to take my dinner out of the oven. To do the same on my phone would require quite a few steps.

Being able to instantly silence a ringing phone is a social nicety, for those occasions we have forgotten to turn it to silent.

Many mobile phones are used as audio players, connected to a sound system away from where one might be sat... and people of all ages have used music players with remote controls for decades. I'm not sure why implementing this feature (which can be done without making a wristwatch look like naff gizmo) would mark me out as a 5 year old.

I've been arguing that a 'smartwatch' can be made to resemble a normal watch. A single RGB pixel on the watch face can tell me if that phone vibration in my pocket is a message from someone I need to get back to quickly, or not.

Yeah, my inner five year-old would like Dick Tracey video call watch... but the rest of me doesn't.

What would you like to see in a smartwatch, AC?

Re: If this is a "watch" @Dave 126

Hiya Ledswinger

Sorry for my clumsy post if it gave the impression of indignation... though I am wary of the mention of Apple since sometimes it can cause Reg posts to deteriorate : D

I know it does look Apple's rivals are merely responding to the Apple rumours, but I think that has more to do with how things have been reported than it has history. (And also, people who feel Apple refined/defined the MP3 player and the smartphone will of course believe Apple have a better chance than anyone else of doing the same for the 'smartwatch'... previous 'smartwatch' efforts have hardly set the world alight)

I suspect Samsung's efforts in this area, though no doubt partly inspired by the Apple rumours, are more related to their own previous efforts, Kickstarter projects such as Pebble and I'm Watch, and also emerging technology (Corning saying that flexible Gorilla glass will be available in a couple of years, battery and charging tech etc) that might make such a device a useful item and not just a toy.

Sony and Samsung have made connected watches in the past - and they are more useful in cities like Tokyo where the severe overcrowding on public transport makes pulling a phone from your pocket a chore.

All the phone makers keen to move on to a new sector, where they can steal a technological lead of their competitors... phones have become too mature to do so.

I agree with you that Apple wouldn't deign to merely create the small feature list I outlined (they need to regain the 'Wow!' factor)... but it is within the scope of Samsung, a crowd-sourced effort, or perhaps a sober and respected wristwatch maker such as Seiko.

Re: Rolex?

Just a thought: As our population ages, more medical devices will be worn- either transmitting data to doctors or relatives in real-time, or logging it to provide more data points for the quack to work with.

This ageing population may be the reason why many posh watches (in the £1500+) are now often around 42mm in diameter instead of the traditional smaller faces... changes in taste might explain it, but it might also be a consequence of there being more wearers with presbyopia- especially since a posh watch has been a traditional retirement gift.

Re: Working on it for so long...

>Yeah, 30 seconds after information about an Apple watch - sometimes i think Apple make stuff up, leak it to see what Samsung does. Quite funny really.

Not really: Samsung and Sony have both made smartwatches before. On top of that, all firms are finding that their smartphones are getting more mature and thus less exciting each year. Add to that the 'just around the corner' promise of flexible components such as displays and batteries, and advances in wireless charging and processor efficiency... and you'll see why these watch stories are emerging at the same time.

Re: I'm pretty sure neither of them were first to smartwatches

>So who's patents are they?

Full-blown watch-phones were sold years ago (but they just weren't worthwhile for fairly obvious reasons) and the concept itself can't be protected by patents- see Dick Tracey. What might be covered by patents are the clever things you do to implement the concept.

Re: ...

@ Mr Hagood

- Indeed, the first working watch-phone was made years ago- it didn't catch on for the very reasons you outlined: Ergonomics.

@ Eddy Ito

I've seen that design in concept form over ten years ago (it was featured in 'Spoon 100', pub. Phaidon) - the strap was like those wrist snap toys - when removed from the wrist it was rigid, and placed the mike and earpiece in the correct place). Whilst it neatly answers most of the ergonomic points raised by Mr Hagood above, it was before the raise of the 4"+ screened smartphone, and I suspect that people will be happy to keep a handset in their pocket for the screen-based functionality it offers.

Re: If this is a "watch" I'd be very surprised

>A real GOOD watch will go for £300-£400, anything less and the shops consider them 'fashion' watches they expect to last only a few years...

The Casio G-Shock with low power Bluetooth remote control for iPhone is to be released at around £111, and like other G shocks is designed to last upwards of ten years http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/49247/casio-g-shock-gb-6900-watch-other-colours. Other specialist functional watches - like those for hikers with barometers and altimeters etc are rarely more than £150. In fact, there seems to be a bit of gulf between things like the Seiko Kinetic at around £200, and the brand-name sapphire crystal mechanical watches at around £1500.

You do raise a good point, though- more than even a phone, a 'smart watch' will benefit from year on year improvements in electronic energy efficiency and battery improvements.

Re: If this is a "watch" I'd be very surprised

>Well, we'll see, but I wouldn't have thought there was much in that idea to justify a company as large as Apple getting involved

This was a thread about Samsung, not Apple. I only reiterate that because they have a much larger product portfolio than Apple. Haven't Samsung made a smart watch before? Sony certainly have.

Samsung have used the 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' approach. If they make a 'smartwatch' - or merely a 'connected [to a phone] watch' - it is conceivable that they might make a simpler model. My friend used to have a Samsung phone the size of pack of chewing gum- damned near unusable, the keypad was two tall columns - but it shows Samsung are happier to try more product variations than Apple. Maybe the people who bought into the crowd-funded Pebble watch will come to find they actually want a simpler device, and fund its development to greater adoption. Who knows?

> No good asking most people what innovation they want, because we more commonly know what we want when we see it, rather than (always) being able to describe that. The art of technology innovation is being able to invent (or further refine) something that is workable, that people will want, but generally aren't crying out for.

Those were sentiments expressed by the head of Sony Design in the '90s, and in their way are just a rephrasing of Henry Ford's "They [the people on the street] would tell me they wanted a faster horse". Nevertheless, those remarks were about focus groups and mass markets, respectively, but this is The Reg. Its readership is self selecting. The people commenting in the Reg forums even more so, hopefully because they have mulled ideas over before posting. Also, Reg Commentards may have had a few gizmos in the past, and may have some interesting input on what works and what doesn't. Some may have had experience of using or implementing technology that may overcome the technical hurdles- the chief two in this case being the power supply and user interaction.

Re: If this is a "watch" I'd be very surprised

> for most other things the screen will be too small.

My phone can communicate a range of alerts and states with a single RGB LED: Blinks blue, green or white for text message, email, or phone call, blinks red for low battery. Solid colours during charging to show progress.

A similar system on a watch would allow it to masquerade as a normal analogue watch if that what the user wants.

>On the other hand, I have no idea what a smartwatch is meant to do.

What might you want it do? Personally, I'd prefer a limited range of well-implemented features to a full Dick Tracey effort. A tap on the watch face to silence my phone, for example, or a twist of the bezel to control my phone's media player.

Review: HTC One

>but also the fact that the last update to it broke the ability to attach it to my PC as a removable drive.

IIRC, that was a Android issue across the board- it was reported when a particular Android version was released. Kudos to Sony on the Xperia Z for implementing a good ol fashioned option to access the internal storage as Mass Storage Class, thus making it Mac, Linux and older XP happy.

(The Xperia P lacks such feature, and to transfer files from a Mac over USB requires Sony software and is painfully slow... though I guess most people would use WiFi these days)

64 bit XP? You masochist! : D

Re: "Chrome just doesn’t excel at JavaScript rendering"

When Anadtech benchmarked the iPhone 5, they found that its Sunspider result beat any other phone by a very large margin. They also noted that in context, it was more a test of caching than anything else i.e, benchmarks != real world performance.

You don't need an app if USB OTG has been properly implemented. It does vary by manufacturer, though. Some have hobbled hardware that software can't fix (LG's Nexus 4, for example).

Re: Disposable phone

>The lack of exchangable battery makes it another disposable phone. I don't like those, because I tend to use my electronic gadgets forever

I think we can see the cause and effect here: You've just identified yourself as someone who buys fewer phones than someone who trades in after their 18 or 24 month contract ends.

I'm not knocking you, just noting that you are less of a customer to the manufacturer.

Of course, the other argument for removable batteries is for road warriors who like Gordon Gecko are never off their phone... but these days, with several USB-charged gadgets, an external and thus universal battery pack makes sense- it'l do your phone, your tablet, your e-reader and your emergency spare phone. More everyday devices have a female USB A port for charging things, be it a car, TV or router.

Re: Marketing nonsense

>All other things being equal, image noise is a function of sensor size, not pixel size. Using fewer, larger pixels just makes the noise coarser and more difficult to deal with.

Ug?

It is a function of pixel size, it's just that for images of the same resolution larger pixels by definition mean a larger sensor- but as the review clearly stated, this HTC only produces 4 megapixel images (which is fine for the most common end-use: posting online).

Get yourself a coffee : D

Re: very upbeat review

(Sorry for repeating my post, but it seems pertinent to RockBurner)

Major differences:

The Sony Xperia Z give you a uSD card slot, waterproofing and charging via an optional drop-in cradle.

This HTC trades those for a better screen, better speakers and an IR remote.

Neither has a removable battery. The Reg reviews suggest the HTC might have a longer lasting battery, but if it's an important issue to you you might do well to find other reviews online to confirm this.

Re: Why have an extra battery floating around in your pocket...

>Does nobody remember how long dumbphones can last?

Ahhh, back in the day... when my phone battery would last all week, but my call credit would last five minutes.

: D

Re: Depends on use....

>As far as this phone goes, no expandable storage is just crazy.

It does have expandable storage, just not very elegant or compact expandable storage.

It's not convenient if you want the storage for snapping photos (though 32 GB is a lot of photos), but if you're using it to watch movies on a long train or plane journey it doesn't seem like a deal breaker.

Re: No SD card slot, no removable battery

So, the Sony Xperia Z give you a uSD card support, waterproofing and charging via an optional drop-in cradle.

This HTC trades those for a better screen, better speakers, a longer lasting battery (possibly) and an IR remote.

Re: No SD card slot, no removable battery

>"One could argue the Nexus series share those traits?"

The Nexus 4 doesn't support USB OTG for external storage, this HTC phone does. True, it is no use for the 'drop phone in puddle, retrieve photos from uSD card' scenerio outlined above, but does provide a storage option.

Nvidia's skirt-chasing chips ogle babes, eyeball Twitter and YouTube

Re: End User

>Just don't see the average Joe snapping away at pretty girls to identify her shoes

Average Joe maybe not, Average Jolene possibly... though Jolene might just ask the pretty girl where she got those gorgeous shoes. As a demo of the tech though, clothes might interest more people than agricultural or military applications.

In another Reg article today, some pervert in a pet shop was caught trying to use an iPad app to identify what brand of knickers an attractive female shopper was wearing.

Another MYSTERY evacuation: Google UK empties swanky offices

Re: I realise Google are crap at anything to do with customer service...

>... but I didn't know they were just as poor at informing their employees about why things go tits up.

You've never heard the HR dept expression "Make them part of the facilities management team, where they can't do much harm"?

Re: They almost look like normal people

And normal people have large elliptical eyes, green skin and no body hair?

Kinky Android X-ray app laid bare as malware

Re: I can understand why people were duped

I have nothing against girls in Basingstoke, but always found it a strange claim on pesky web adverts, since I live no where near Basingstoke. Nor, as far as I know, does Basingstoke enjoy the same reputation in popular culture as, say, Ipanema or California.

Re: I can understand why people were duped

>I do worry about the kind of person that thinks a free app will do the same job though.

Yeah, you'd expect that you'd at least have to prise the camera module apart and remove the IR filter.

In other news, pills won't make your member bigger, belly fat can be shed by diet and exercise, and girls in Basingstoke do not want to meet you.

Re: This gave me an idea

I haven't tried it, but unless the tracking was very accurate, there would be a risk of falling into the 'uncanny valley'. It might be more suitable for 'cartoonising' the subjects, for fun and giggles though.

Of course, you could cover the subject in ping pong balls on a stage next to a render farm, as was done on Avatar- a rough rendering was done in real time during the actors performances, to give the crew an idea of what the eventual scene would look like.

A batch of Sony camcorders...

...were withdrawn from sale many years ago, because of the way a 'low light mode' was implemented. However, this Infra Red detection actually made people look as if they were just wearing underwear.

Those units that Sony couldn't recall sold out very quickly indeed.

ICO clamps down on nuisance calls, slaps £90k fine on Glasgow firm

Re: They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

Try Companies House.

Re: The fault is that caller ID is useless

My friend has BT block all calls from 'number withheld' to his landline. The NHS and other gov services are obliged to call him on an identifiable number.

Drilling into 3D printing: Gimmick, revolution or spooks' nightmare?

Re: Niche-not

Okay, fair enough....

If you offered people a Star Trek-style 'Replicator' - any object, any material- including meals - then yeah, for sure, most people will say 'Hell yeah!' However, even on the Starship Enterprise, I would imagine that there is a central replicator that is dedicated to making uniforms, and another that is tuned to the production of Phasers. There would probably be a replicator that makes replicators. I.e, if you have the technology to make a machine that makes anything, then you will have the technology to make a more specialised machine even faster/efficient.

Re: Part of the process

>Hmm... there's no need to go with all that complexity

A wax-printing desktop machine (a few hundred dollars), plus the kit required to cast aluminium is with the reach of anyone who wants it. A selective laser sintering machine? I wish!

Someone might be able to reformulate 'silver clay' for use in small 3D printers - silver particles suspended in a clay-like binder, which after the sculptor has created their desired form is placed in the kiln. It produces something like 95%+ solid metal part after firing.

Review: Sony Xperia Z

Re: Are memories of Sony's Digital Walkmans....

Possibly, SonicStage was pretty awful. Still, so is Samsung's Kies phone management software, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them!

Google turns Street View into Mountain View

Re: Abominable!

Yeti spotted urinating behind a parked car, Yeti mooning the camera, Yeti giving the camera the finger, Yeti spotted by Mrs Yeti with another lady Yeti...