Posts by Dave 126

Panasonic Eluga DL1 waterproof Android

Re: Why is battery life not a desirable feature anymore?

Didn't Reghardware say that the Galaxy Advance would give you a couple of days?

Ahh, the golden days... when the battery lasted all week but call credit only lasted half an hour!

The touchscreens that push back, thanks to Brit hi-fi boffinry

Re: Sony had this in 2003

Correction to my last comment:

It wasn't shell fish, it turns out it was dehydrated bacterial slime that Sony used for diaphragms:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/568694/biocellulose-and-its-use-in-headphones-earphones-referring-the-recent-iem-example-vsonic-gr-07-r07

Re: Sony had this in 2003

Ahh, Sony, bless.

I'm trying to wrack by brains by remembering a pair of Sony headphones featured in a National Geographic article in the eighties, as an example of something made from shell fish. Can anyone supply a link, or am I to be left wondering if I ate too much cheese last night?

>some super-duper military speaker tech though

It wasn't so much military tech as in "we have unlimited budgets and first access to new kit". but rather "we sometimes work in bloomin' loud places". Bose seems to have done better from efforts to make aircraft more bearable, using anti-phase sound generated by the years, rather than on the windows.

Re: Pedantry excused

I heard a Quad at a friend's recently... sounded good but was bested by the kit it was sat on top of: A pianola with a Fats Waller roll loaded in it.

: D

Did your iPhone 'just stop working' - or did you drop it in your BEER?

Buy a Samsung Galaxy Note:

Its too big to fit into your pint glass!

Re: Warm wet places...

@Cyberelic

According to 3M, who make colour-changing tape- it is only activated by submersion, not by humidity.

Humidity doesn't bother electronics much if they are allow to air... It used to be in the instructions for our VHS player to let it stand for a day if bringing it into a warm room from the cold.

Re: Eh?

Weird- Nokias used to just vibrate incessantly after a dunking, but would would otherwise remain fully functional. I remember my 6210 buzzing for about 5 hours before its battery was depleted.

Get out the anti-tamper drivers and rip out the little motor with the weight on it, jobs a good un!

Re: Have the patient office been dunked in beer?

@ Metavisor - thank you for reading up on this more than the author of the article. As many have pointed out, there's nothing new about water-sensitive patches etc.

AC>"Now if apple had made a magical new method of detecting liquid then fine, patent that but something as obvious as having a moisture detector that changes colour when it gets wet is common sense."

What Apple have done is patent the sensible step of being able to see said sensor without having to open the device. Seems fairly obvious, but if no one has done it before, then I guess it isn't.

Re: They've done this for ages, haven't they?

I've seen advertisements from 3M tape products (over ten years ago, in engineering journals) that are aimed electronics manufacturers- one adhesive tape irreversibly changes colour if immersed in water but is not affected by water vapour, so can tell the difference between a humid pocket and and a glass of water.

I rather prefer Motorola's solution - make the bloody phone waterproof.

Sony Xperia P mid-range Android

Also not mentioned:

It comes with a mini HDMI > HDMI cable in the box.

CANNIBAL! Apple's 7.85in iPad will EAT 9.7in iPad sales

Re: It would be Tim Cook big second mistake at Apple...

There is something to be said for a device that will fit in a jacket pocket, car glove box or normal-sized handbag- some devices will, existing iPads won't.

Integrate joysticks? Why make the hardware bulkier for 80% users, just or the benefit of the rest who could use a Bluetooth HID option?

iPod Nano development? Yeah, the geek in me would like to see it talking to other devices (and I own no Apple), just as using an iPad as HID for a Mac applications seems to me (a commentard) a good idea... We all have little wish-lists of fantasy gadgets, but we don't always claim to know more than the CEO who hasn't given them to us.

Microsoft sets the price for a Windows 8 upgrade at $40

Re: Yes...I'm that guy

>I love how everyone is being downvoted simply for saying "I like it".

Yeah, it seems a bit off, doesn't it? They have gone to the effort of installing Win8 and and have used it for a while, and have been kind enough to report back here with their impressions... and people have just downvoted them.

I won't be getting Win8 on the basis of their favourable impressions, though- I will test-drive it myself, if I'm made aware of Win8 having any compelling advantages over Win7.

I do appreciate that secure boot will is rightly a matter of concern to the Linux community- relatively novice users are not likely to implement workarounds or disable it in order to run an alternative OS (though some would say that novice users aren't too likely to partition their HDD and configure GRUB from a text file, either)- but this has nothing to do with someone's appraisal of Win8's UI.

The Grundy NewBrain is 30

Re: Really good article series...

Or do one on the Vextrex games console!

BAE proposes GPS-less location

Re: It does have one fatal flaw currently

>I know when I moved my phone would think I was at my old address as poor old google hadn't driven past my new location and updated

Yeah, your phone can triangulate cell towers and obviously GPS birds... but if had been doing the same with FM, TV and a host of other transmissions, it would have enough to know that your WiFi- location was an aberration. Consider a missile would have inertial nav system too. Obviously this would take some software engineering, but easily possible.

>would need alot of areils and that will be interesting to not only see how apple implement it but also claim they invented it as they are a bunch of cnuts.

?! Who are cnuts? The shiny shiny consumer electronics company, or the people who make weapon systems that could help deliver mega-deaths? And how did Apple-bashing get on this thread?

Re: It's rollocks isn't it.

There aren't as many holes as you suppose- the article doesn't mention tricks such as using the GPS-jammer itself as navigation aid.

If you imagine it constantly triangulating a range of frequencies and building a 'map' on the fly, you might see how it won't be so bothered by losing one means of determining its location, or how it can know if it is suddenly having its GPS spoofed.

Put like that, it only seem sensible and straightforward way of bringing redundancy to a device you really don't want to hit the ground in the wrong place- as that poor fella in S Korea who got killed by his own drone last week would surely agree.

fire with fire

>I also fail to see how this does not suffer from exactly the same problems as GPS regards spoofing.

Because to spoof this system you would have to spoof all other radio transmissions too. Imagine it triangulating a range of signals all the time, (building a database in real time) and then suddenly the GPS disagrees with everything else, including its gyroscopes...

It can also use a GPS-jamming itself as a reference point for navigation. Cheeky.

http://www.baesystems.com/article/BAES_053641/bae-systems-locates-opportunity-to-replace-gps

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

Phew!

My new Android phone arrives tomorrow, my first smartphone- glad I read this story when I did.

<exit smug mode>

More revelers amp up hybrid memory cube party

It does like two different types nuclear fission reactor.

Oh, how I miss airbrushed cutaway diagrams in these days of glitzy CAD renderings.

Sony grabs cloud-gaming group Gaikai

Online gaming

Many gamers with consoles and disc-based games only play online games... when Xbox Live hiccups there is a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth.

Is anyone here knowledgeable enough to comment if a streaming multiplayer game would aid or prevent 'lag cheaters'- people gaining an advantage by spoofing the (now usually) peer-to-peer system?

(My gut feeling is that sending gigabytes of video data over the web is a bit of waste of bandwidth just to save on some local hardware.... but it is only a feeling and may well be based on my FUD)

Now, streaming productivity appiications (pay per use, no work lost if local computer gets hit by a meteorite etc, huge computing power available for big but infrequent jobs etc) definitely does have a role.

Ten... Androids for under 200 quid

Re: Battery

> if I run a task-kill on the bullshit (Facebook app, etc,

I seem to remember some story about 3G not being very power efficient for small quantities of data, of the kind that widgets like FB use.

My current dumbphone wastes a lot of power looking for (and failing to find) 3G when I'm in more rural areas- why it thinks that I might need 3G for incoming calls (as opposed to just turning on 3G when I'm actively web browsing etc) is beyond me. Changing the Network Mode to GSM 900 / 1800 helps the battery a lot in such circumstances.

Re: info

Thank you kindly. The info you supplied is the exactly the sort of thing I like to know about phones and the like, but isn't always clear from manufacturer's spec sheets. It usually means I have to read through reviews, in the hope that the reviewer mentions a particular feature / limitation.

The note about MTP rather than MSC storage is especially welcome, since I plug phones and MP3 players into my cheap car stereo. I seem to recall some story about Android supporting MTP only and Linux users (and others) getting peeved, though I may have got my wires crossed...

Second win for Apple as Galaxy Nexus sales banned in US

Re: Samsung had this coming

Maybe they have:

'New Samsung chief: I want SOFTWARE'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/19/samsung_better_software/

Re: Stalling tactic

Er, it seems to be Android handset manufacturers who often delay the latest releases of Android.

Re: Someone explain to me how the Nexus looks anything like the iphone?

I can't, because it doesn't.

"Friday's ruling centers on U.S. Patent 8,086,604, which covers a user interface for conveniently retrieving information from a computer system. The patent was filed by Apple in 2004."

(Google search 'Galaxy Nexus' and filter by 'News': the pcworld.com story carries links to the patents in question. Confusion is understandable because there are several devices and patents being slung about)

Re: Don't think Samsung will be too upset...

>designs for the iPhonesque touchscreen UI, patent them and sit on that for 10 years doing totally nothing (no comment why).

It invented by a small company who made multi-touch keyboards and trackpads before Apple bought them. I guess Apple were waiting for battery and mobile CPU technology to get to where it needed it to be - even then, the first iPhone had to forgo 3G in order to get an acceptable battery life.

What the IP in question?

Some sites are under the impression that the patent in question in this case is something to do with Siri voice search, not the look of the Nexus... Can anyone clarify this?

Apple's Mountain Lion to offer automatic security updates

Re: Holy Crap!

> like Windows Update but without the nagging reboot reminders every X minutes

Yeah, the Vista implementation was marvellous- a forced restart that couldn't be prevented, resulting in some lost work; not a lot of work, but than I have ever lost to a virus.

Win7 is better behaved.

Atari turns 40: Pong, Pac-Man and a $500 gamble

Re: The Curse Of Bladerunner

Like seeing Pan Am, AT&T and IBM (consumer hardware) in 2001: A Space Odyssey

I'm holding in my hand a 1983 Hamleys* catalogue. It contains systems from Texas Intruments, Vectrex, Coleco and Atari (£69.99). It also has something called the M5 Computer (the web now tells me it was a rebranded Sord M5**), a Phillips VideoPac and yes, a Sinclair Spectrum.

More expensive than any of these system, at £168.95 was a Sensory Chess Challanger '9' board, rated on 1771 points by the US Chess Federation, apparently.

Of these, the Vextrex vector console is worth a quick wiki, being based on a portrait CRT to display vectors. Colours or 3D could be added by means of a spinning disc in front of your eyes, synced to the console.

*Like Harrods, but for kids. Six floors of toys, often on large tables so they can be played with.

** A bit like an MSX

Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet, Android 4.1 and Nexus Q

Re: Why use "The Cloud"

MicroSD cards are too small... it wouldn't be so bad if they were made from a bright day-glo plastic so they were easier to spot on the ground.

However, I tend to use them in SD card adaptors, just to give me flexibility. Camera, Laptop and Car Stereo: SD. Phone, MP3 player and Keyring Card Reader: MicroSD.

AMD and Intel mainstream desktop CPUs

Re: Useless benchmarks

Certainly: Go to a specialist hardware review site, type in the name of the CPU and filter by 'reviews'. You will find pages of benchmarks, both artificial and based on specific games, along with analysis of different platforms and future offerings. You can also check their monthly 'Best [usually gaming, but other sectors too] CPU for the money' charts. More data than you shake a laser-pointer at.

The same is true of reviews of cameras and cars... other sites will have controlled lab tests, and the tools to compare X with Y and Z.

The Reg's strengths lie elsewhere.

Re: AMD still trailing

> consumers who do care about graphics generally get discrete graphics cards.

Some consumers want a small PC to use as a home theatre PC. Having the graphics built into the CPU allows them to decode HD video, for example.

Breaking: Megaupload seizures illegal says NZ High Court

Re: Didn't.... America used to be cool?

America was cool when I was a boy... every time I drew a rocket or space ship, it would have Stars and Stripes on it. Not to mention the Dukes of Hazard ( sorry, I didn't know what the Confederate Flag meant when I was four), and the A-Team...

America used to be so cool!

Sony SmartWatch Android remote

Re: USB Charging

>Oh, and it withstands EMPs, which the Sony clearly can't.

Might be a good idea for a poduct competing in the daft price bracket of watches: A gold plated rad-hardened quartz watch http://www.datasheetdir.com/HS-82C85RH+Clock-Timing. Place it in the obscene price bracket and you might sell one to a Russian politician.

Re: Please someone tell me the point in this?

I assume that there are a fair few people wearing watches in Sony's home market, given Japan has a watchmaking culture of its own and and a large range of strange watches that make reading the time a puzzle.

Also, I can imagine that people who spend time commuting on over-crowded subway trains* might see virtue in a device that lets them read messages without having to wrestle their phone from their pocket.

*http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2006/01/frustrations-in-japan-part-2-public-transportation/ links to Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure & Transportation - (I assume it is: I can only read English and some menus so can't check)

Sony has released an analogous product before in the mid-nineties; called the Walkman Wireless, it was a light matchbox-sized box with playback controls that you plugged your headphones into. It communicated wirelessly with its partner Walkman (a real one, it took cassettes!) that you kept in your bag. Handy for crowded places or for playing basketball. It probably extended the life span of the Walkman because the user couldn't drop it if they weren't holding it.

Then, as you consider the multitude of devices (Walkmans, Discmans, DATS, MD and MP3 player) that Sony have released with wired remote-control units, this new watch doesn't seem too surprising.

Strange how my, and that others here in 'the West'', first thought was of 'outdoor pursuits' applications like hillwalking and mountain biking- tasks this watch is unsuited for. Maybe it was the rubber strap that made us think that - it looks like something that reads your heartrate.

Re: So.... pebble watch was not a totally new idea?

>Sony must be in financial desperation to even market this.

Can you expand on this? I would have expected the release of niche/ experimental/ useless* products would be a sign of confidence.

Also, have you considered how this might be received in Japan or other territories beside your own?

*AIBO

Re: Wrong device at the wrong price

Indeed. It's two not-yet-here competitors share with this Sony a meh-looking silicone strap. The Sony looks weird, the other two both look like iPod Nanos... At least Sony know that anodised Aluminium is not used on watches for a reason- it soon dents and scratches - and have what appears to be stainless steel trim around it.

A nice aesthetic solution would be to copy Rado (known for their black ceramic timepieces) since the black screen of the watch wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb from the black casing and strap. It would look half-way civilised.

The trouble is that we are comparing phone tech (replace every 18 months) with watches - even a cheapish Casio comes with a ten-year battery.

Re: USB Charging

We'll be stopping Mr Morris in the street and asking him the time when the EMP hits us... but yeah, I have a fascination for tiny mechanical things and I'm glad that they, and the people who can make them, exist.

But that £10 Casio is the terrorist's favourite watch for good reasons. Accuracy, durability, affordability, internal contacts to the alarm that can be re-purposed to operate a...

Oh, the Japanese also make some fine mechanical watches - see Grand Seiko- as does the Isle of Man.

Re: Wristband

Materials exist to make the strap far stronger than is necessary, and last for a very long time. But you usually wouldn't do so, on the grounds that it is better to lose your watch than your hand, in the event of the strap getting caught on anything. The weak spot is usually the pins that attach it to the 'horns' of the watch.

Materials used for watch straps: Silicone 'rubber' (like this one), Kevlar, Nylon, stainless steel, leather, titanium, and others.

This is Sony we're talking about.

A normal person would integrate the cable into the strap, with a slim contacts-only male USB A plug on the end. The strap would be replaceable so that a, it can be replaced because cables do fail, b, Sony can offer different colours and styles.

Whilst we're talking about connectors... what would it take to make a microUSB female socket waterproof? Can it be done, or would partial shorting of the contacts upset the electronics inside?

Re: These sorts of things

Inspired by the first commenter to skim-read-up on it, I see the Pebble Watch will support Windows Phone8, as well as iOS and Android. When it comes out. Sometime.

Re: Please someone tell me the point in this?

Good point. Rain, and / or gloved hands... Is a touch-screen really necessary, or could its functions be navigated by a four-way menu system like phones of old?

There was a patent for a watch screen that would move slightly (up 12 down 6 left 9 right 3) when pushed by a finger, giving you input without adding a separate D-pad. It might be better for these outdoors enthusiasts than a capacitive touch screen, though as a breed they don't seem to mind big chunky watches with barometers sticking out of them!

(Hehe, my local train station has an exposed ticket vending machine with a touch-screen that goes haywire in the rain. All the train operator's dire warning notices about boarding the train without a valid ticket are to be ignored)

Re: So.... pebble watch was not a totally new idea?

Actually, +1 to Sony for bringing not one, but two products to market. The Pebble Watch and a similar Italian effort called 'i'm watch' -from people who previously tried to sell alcohol-free wine- have yet to materialise.

Re E-Ink display... depends how much of its energy the watch spends on the display, and how much on its radio and brains. Other factors such as how often the display changes, ghosting, colour, night-time and sunlight visibility would also influence the choice.

It is easy to imagine simple applications not requiring a conventional display at all: a light to alert you to new messages, a watch hand could be used for hiking navigation (like a compass but changing bearing based on the maps and GPS of the linked phone) voice memos, vibrate at call alert etc.

And regarding charging, I would have thought that the strap could function as a cable, with its end slipping into a Female USB A socket. Alibaba has dozens: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/watch-strap-usb.html but strangely they all use full size Male USB connectors, rather than the thin contacts-only version seen on some slim USB thumbsticks.

Apple users get pricier hotel options from Orbitz

Re: Not that big of a deal

Captain, that is not the logic that I am espousing, so I won't defend it. I will admit that I could have written my comment less ambiguously; I was describing a more mature and wealthy demographic, some of whom buy Macs (not because they are 'Fanbois') and some who buy PCs. And I wasn't saying all the PC buyers were unhappy - or that all the Mac users were content, I was just trying to get across this demographic group's attitude to things. First of all, even before buying anything, learning about the technology is something they have limited patience for.

My point was merely that there are people who place a different dollar value on their time than you or I might. If they have more money, it is unlikely that they are 'morons', as one commantard put it. Identifying the cause of BSOD by getting acquainted by Symbols and crash logs and then hunting down and installing a better driver for their laptop's built in SD card reader just to stop the bloody thing crashing is not something I would expect members of this crudely-defined group to do. (Thanks, Dell, all your customer support did was to sell my name and telephone number). I use PCs, but I do like little tossers blindly insulting the people I share my streets and pubs with.

- "Wanting devices that work well doesn't have to equate to spunking a load of chase for $Brand_name." You're right, it does not necessarily meaning spending loads of cash. However, it means spending some- otherwise all the manufacturers are just going to cram as many Ghz and GBs into a box and whack their sticker on it - if the customer is merely comparing two lists of numerical data, the manufacturer would be a fool to spend time improving other aspects of the machine. Things such as: the feel of the keyboard, quality of the sound*, responsiveness of the track pad, does the power cable yank your laptop to the floor... these and many other considerations that can't be expressed in a list need to be signalled to the buyer, in order to get a return on the cost of developing them. How to do that? ONE way is to establish a reputation and then use your brand name. Take ThinkPads, for example. If you have always had a good experience with them, and found them comfortable to use and durable, would that make you a fool for spending an extra 10% on getting one when you next need to upgrade?

As for marketing... marketing is marketing. See Bill Hicks. But basically, any advert is going to talk up its product, you expect that, you don't worry about it. The Ridley Scott one was fun, the Jeff Golblum ones with tanks were confusing... many of the current ones appear to show an Apple product being used to do something like video-calling. Maybe there are some weirder ones - I don't watch much TV - but Scarlett Johansson and her mates seems more like a Lynx deodorant advert aimed at PFYs. And curing cancer? Surely that's the PS3? (see Folding @Home)

*Sound... we see a few laptops with 3rd party stickers... Harmon Kardon, Beats by Monster, B&O etc all trying to use established brand names with perceived quality in order to distinguish THIS laptop's speakers from something tinny. The system kinda works because B&O would suffer 'brand dilution' if they stuck their sticker on shit speakers, so we trust any laptop featuring them will sound better than average.

Raspberry Pi to skipper microship across Atlantic

I'm not a nautical type, but I know boats have been able to automatically maintain a compass bearing since at least the forties. If it were just to cross the Atlantic, could it just be told to head West, or does it need to head against the currents?

Nokia details 808 Pureview release

Comparison

There has been a much-cited comparison with Lumix LX-5 (10 Megapixel, 1/1.6 sensor, F2 lens) which gives the nod in low light to the Nokia... However, in the test both cameras were at ISO 1600 but no mention was made of exposure time or of aperture settings. I would wait til all the information is in, though the Nokia does look promising.

The LX-5 is bulkier than most compact cameras but slips into a jacket pocket, and can let you get away with ISO 800 at 1/25seconds at F2 in say, a poorly lit beer garden at night.

I know there has been a blind test against an Olympus PEN E1 micro 4/3rds camera... this time for the zoom. No mention is made of the lens on the Olympus. The Nokia holds up very well, and was voted the best - though the

Olympus images are slightly sharper and better white-balanced.

Re: What is it?

>All it shows is that Nokia has lost its way and so the downward spiral continues.

Really? Even in all this Elop-era mess, Nokia still have a reputation for good reception and clear phone calls, and also for having best cameras found in phones. These are its current strengths, since it has lost the rest. This new device plays on its current strengths, since they can't differentiate themselves in other ways.

Apple wins US ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1

Re: Most peculiar. I may have misunderstood of course but when a judge granting a.......

>she is giving the rather unfortunate impression that she has already made her mind up about the final merits of the case before the full trial.

How so? By kicking the case out, only to having dumped back on her by an appeals court?

Re: Probably good for everyone in the end

Okay, so you don't want a 10" screen in a minimal case (there are only so many ways of achieving that)... Perhaps you want:

- Sony Vaio clamshell tablet, with that split screen

- 7" Samsung Tab

- Asus Transformer - tablet with keyboard.

- My idea- a 10" tablet with a couple of analogue joysticks.

Can you give us a clue to what sort of differences you would like to see? No cheating and specifying roll-up flexible OLED screens or pixie dust, now!

Ultrabook makers take the Ivy Bridge path

Re: Touch screen on laptops?

Not only grimy finger smears on the screen (its bad enough when showing someone some drawings and they insist on prodding the screen) that puts me off touchscreen, but the poor ergonomics of reaching that far forward, too.

A scaled-down Microsoft Kinect might be better suited- (might be, with the right software) to interacting with laptops, as it doesn't merely replicate what the mouse does, doesn't leave smears and doesn't require me to lean forwards.