Posts by Dave 126

Mods I have known, Mods I have loved, Mods I have hated: Motorola's failed experiment is now a savvy techie's dream

It's sad to see an enthusiastic article about a dying product range. I can't recall seeing a Reg article about the Moto Mod system since its launch.

I've suspected from the beginning that unless Moto licensed out their physical connector to other phone vendors the critical mass of developers and users ( to share development and tooling costs) just wouldn't be there.

Project Ara was to time, LG's modular system was just daft, but the Moto Mod system seemed ideal - offering genuine usefulness (especially hot swappable batteries) with no big downsides. For sure, it means that once you'd invested in a few Mods you'd be tied to phones of a certain size, but many users have already settled in a phone size that suits them.

If Moto had sold all the Mod phone range in the UK and every commented here who stated they just want a phone with swappable battery had bought one, they might still be a growing concern.

'Lightweight' UPS-style flywheels to power naval laser zappers

You can spin a lighter flywheel faster to store the same energy as a heavier and slower flywheel. If your flywheel was too heavy it would add too much to the mass of the ship, making it slower to accelerate.

Obviously faster flywheels present more engineering challenges. The Williams KERS system used a vacuum to allow the flywheel to spin at over 50,000 rpm.

Re: F1 KERS flywheels

https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/williams-f1-kers-explained/

Apple, Samsung feel the pain as smartphone market slumps to lowest shipments in 5 YEARS

Re: Just one question

> A combination of bundled phone insurance, third party repair shops and screen covers/cases being almost ubiquitous make replacement due to damage less likely also.

True. And Phones are also better built these days too (and SoCs are smaller and lighter), and the inclusion of waterproofing also aids their longevity.

Despite countless drops and tumbles, a case and screen protector has kept my S8 looking pristine. However, the case alone wouldn't be enough to prevent shock damage if the phone's internal components weren't robustly assembled.

Re: Just one question

It's possible the phone wasn't used too much, so wasn't subjected to too many charge discharge cycles. A smaller screen uses less power, and can also dissuade the user from using power apps, such as video and graphically intensive games.

Re: Phones are like cars now...

The 'ludicrously priced monoliths' usually drop in price after around nine months to closer resemble the price of a midrange phone.

Reviews of phones at the low end are likely a waste of time if a prospective buyer will just get the best deal he can on the day - a £70 or £ 90 phone being offered for half price on the highstreet is not uncommon. None will have great cameras, all be be just fine for Maps, email, calls, etc. Huawei won't let you change the launcher... Etc.

Apple iPhone sales down by double digits, Mac sales knifed by Intel CPU 'constraints'

Re: Progress

Magsafe to USB C adapters are available, but I'm not a Mac user and so I can't recommend them from personal experience, nor am I liable if they start a house fire.

As a non Mac user, I like it that Apple has aided the adoption of USB C and Thunderbolt.

Re: Business advise for Mr Cook

Follow your idea to its conclusion:

Subsidised iPhones > more sales > greater market share. If the market share is too great, Apple will not be allowed to lock users to its services, since it will deemed anti trust.

FYI: Yeah, the cops can force your finger onto a suspect's iPhone to see if it unlocks, says judge

Re: Another nail in the coffin for my regard for biometrics...

Biometrics are for stopping your mates faffing around with your phone for a prank, not deterring a motivated criminal or agency. Which is why iPhones have require a passcode if the power button is tapped 5 times, if it's been turned off or if a certain period of of time has elapsed since last last unlock. Similarly, Android phones require a passcode at power on.

The peelable, foldable phone has become the great white whale of tech

Re: I so don't need that

> What marketing genius came up with the idea that this would be a mass product?

Nobody did. Which is why why it was priced at nearly $2K and only made in limited numbers.

But hey, if you're confident that there's enough technophilic people rich enough to spend thousands on a whim (I understand there's some millionaires in the technology sector), why not use that to offset your development costs?

Re: Sigh. Rinse and repeat.

> Before fripperies like this, manufacturers really need to nail: 1) accessibility and useabilty issues, as their core demographic get older, slower, with poorer eyesight

I'd have thought that a device with a larger screen *would* be useful for people with poorer eyesight (and perhaps failing dexterity, too)?

Re: "Pholdable"

May I offer you my most heartfelt and sincere contrafibularities?

Surprising absolutely no one at all, Samsung's folding-screen phones knackered within days

Re: Why Inner Fold?

Samsung have Inner Fold because only they have the (potential) technology to do it. The inevitably scratchable (until Corning make more flexible Gorilla Glass) Outer Fold phones from everybody else source their panels from a 3rd party who can't achieve as tight a curve (minimum radius) as Samsung can.

Re: Pretty well Inevitable for an Alpha Version

> If you want a 'variable size screen', you don't need flexible displays.... latest tech for TVs mean two separate panes can be put together with a virtually 'invisible' join..

You're talking about Samsung's Micro LED tech (incidently, also being actively researched by Apple with a view to becoming independent from Samsubg for their scteens). However, TVs are placed further from the viewer, so a 0.01mm join between displays ( or pixel misalignment ) won't be visible when viewed from 2m away. To make a join invisible when viewed only 25cm away is much harder. In addition, a mobile device is exposed to more dust and fluff.

Re: Why would a layer you aren't supposed to remove

Well, let's just wait til Huawei's device gets released to journalists and its outwards facing plastic screen gets scratched. There is less embarrassment in failing to do something that no one else has done successfully than there is in screwing up something that should be easy (again, Note 7 battery, Pixel screen, LG bootloop). Even less embarrassing if it doesn't affect any paying customers.

Race is on for Samsung to tweak their laminations and Corning to release their Gorilla glass with a 5mm minium bend radius (as they've stated as their aim)

Re: At first glance, the $1,980 phone...

Well, $2K for a tablet that fits in a trouser, rather than a jacket, pocket.

Still, 2K buys you an iPad Mini and a really nice jacket to keep it in. Or an iPad Mini, a pretty nice jacket and a reasonable laptop.

I mention the iPad Mini because Google have largely given up on Android tablet software, focusing on ChromeOS and Fuschia instead. That said, these Samsung Fold devices have apparently been Google's test bed for incorporating features in Android that allow apps to move around on multi-screened devices ('continuity').

Re: There's a clue here

MS's Courier was two screens in a clamshell configuration. No more inherently fragile than a conventional laptop or Nintendo DS.

Re: Why would a layer you aren't supposed to remove

So, if the automated machine bending test is no substitute for real world testing, and real world testing is near impossible to do without letting the cat out of the bag (thus effectively forcing Samsung to announce the product), what would you have done if you were Samsung?

Tech enthusiasts understand it's a nascent technology and they're the only market for this MK I (or version 0.9, evidently) product. Samsung have tried and failed, true, but nobody has bought one yet and so no consumer is out of pocket. Embarrassing yes, but not massively, not compared to the Note 7 battery malarky, the Pixel screen palaver, the LG bootloop issue, i.e released products.

Re: Pretty well Inevitable for an Alpha Version

The more interesting question is why this didn't happen during Samsung's testing. Possibilities include:

- a difference between the testing and real world use, i.e, variations in temperature, dust and grit.

- a difference in the manufacturing process used for the test units and the process scaled up for the released units.

Google readies Pixel for the masses, but are the masses ready for Pixel?

The whining has spread to some other (but not all) programmes on Radio 4, such as The Film Programme. Their Inside Science is a waste of time, though A Life Scientific is good, though deliberately focused more on the scientist than the science itself.

Still, as long as Samantha and Sven appear on (or rather, we hear their excuses for not appearing on) I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue much can be forgiven.

Re: "Others found a persistent whining noise – even with Radio 4 turned off."

The whining has spread to some other (but not all) programmes on Radio 4, such as The Film Programme. Their Inside Science is a waste of time, though A Life Scientific is good, though deliberately focused more on the scientist than the science itself.

Still, as long as Samantha and Sven appear on (or rather, we hear their excuses for not appearing on) I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue much can be forgiven.

iOS 13 leaks suggest Apple is finally about to unleash the iPad as a computer for grownups

There may well be usable FOSS alternatives to AutoCAD, but if there is a FOSS alternative to Autodesk's Fusion 360 then pray tell us what it is.

The good news for some Linux users however is that some CAD solutions can be run through a browser to the cloud and are thus OS agnostic. This ksnds itself well to team working, and to renting compute power to deliver a simulation result or render more quickly.

Regarding tablets and phones of either Android or iOS flavours: Sony are pitching Time of Flight laser grid sensors to OEMs, so soon we can expect handheld devices that can be waved around to accurately 3D map a room or object. This will be bloody handy for some CAD related workflows. iPad Pros already have the silicon to accelerate such sensors.

Adobe is releasing a full featured Photoshop for iPad this year. For some people's workflows this only leaves a few small gaps in what you dub 'real software' to be filled.

Re: Ipad and Macbook gradually converge on features....and price?

And if your own ARM silicon can out perform Intel's per watt... you just need some native and full featured applications from the likes of Adobe.

Re: Well...

- musicians

- artists

- people who want to play full fat high Res Civilisation whilst lounging on the sofa

It is but 'LTE with new shoes': Industry bod points a judgy finger at the US and Korea's 5G fakery

Re: Sony, Betamax, and content over tech ..

> DAT and Minidiscs were both Sony, and they were both killed by Digital Restrictions Management, and writable CDs appeared which didn't have DRM.

Minidiscs were doing well in the UK after the appearance of writable CDs, since a portable CD player can not help but be bulky and skip-prone. It was the arrival MP3 players that killed Minidisc, though Minidisc might have gained more traction if the early generations could be 6ses for computer data storage ( in the age of Zip Disks)

User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

Rubber hammer? It's called a mallet. If you've only got a hammer and you wish to tap a cask of beer, use a piece of wood between the hammer and the tap. A piece of material between a hammer ( or 'persuader' if you're talking to a former army man) and an object to be persuaded is called a 'drift'.

Re: Tangential story

His plan worked though, no? His colleagues won't nick it!

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

Go to the stores and ask for a long weight. Oh, and while you're there, fetch me some stripy paint and a bucket of air.

Re: Don't underestimate users...

Files do sometimes go astray from a user's profile directory - often the user, sometines due to software. Is it normal for *technicians* to only copy that folder as opposed to the entire drive before wiping said drive? For sure, I can see that it would save a quarter hour, but is that time saving worth the risk that files might be elsewhere?

Israeli Moon probe crashes at the last minute but SpaceX scores with Falcon Heavy launch

You posted five minutes before I did, though I hadn't read your post before I too brought the Soup Dragon into this! :)

Re: crashed minutes before landing?

> ended in failure on Thursday when the vehicle crashed minutes before landing.

It crashed into [ blank ] minutes before landing on the moon.

[ Traffic light / soup dragon / UFO / drone / Canada goose / fish finger / Russell's teapot ]

Samsung's tricksy midrange teasers want your flagship catch

First thought was:

I would like this rotating camera for just one reason: double tapping the power button would (could) never launch the selfie camera. On several occasions I've double tapped my phone's power button to take a snap of a bird, only to find the dammed thing has launched the selfie camera and the bird has flown off before I can switch to the main camera. This irritating behaviour could be fixed by software, but there's no sign Samsung are planning on it.

Edit: to add: the costs of this design (mechanical wear, water and dust ingress) outweigh any benefit for me.

Apple disables iPad for 48 years after toddler runs amok

Re: Denial of use attack

> You will deprive someone of the data on it, as it can be reset.

You will temporarily deprive them of the data on it until they restore it or access the data through another device.

Data on just one device is data you don't care about.

Huawei P30 Pro: Nifty camera tricks haven't made mobe mandatory over last year's model

Re: But but but...

I've wanted to like like LG since their excellent G2, but but their weird design choices (that clumsy modular system), boot loop issues and sub par OLED screens are a turn off. Excellent analogue audio, though wasted on me since I treat wired earphones as consumable items (easily lost or broken).

You're right though - Sony phones, for example, were usually much cheaper than their list price even at launch. Ultimately though, it was the sum of many minor features such as wireless charging and waterproofing ( for redundancy and durability), plus good screen and camera that made me go for discounted Samsung hardware, with a view to keeping it for a good few years.

Re: But but but...

Galaxy S models usually drop around a 1/4 to 1/3 in price ten months after their first release - i.e around the time their successor is announced.

Google pholds! Just kidding. But Android Q Beta 2 drop supports those cool bendy mobes

'Focusable' microphones

Also in the beta. Ability to choose which mics to use, eg rear facing mic when recording video, front facing mic when taking voice memo.

Re: Usual horseshit

LG made the first Android phones that could playback 24bit 193khz audio files natively, and they then gave that work to the AOSP. Similarly, Sony have given their LDAC Bluetooth codec to the AOSP, though I don't know if can be used by 3rd party headphone vendors without licence.

Two Arkansas dipsticks nicked after allegedly taking turns to shoot each other while wearing bulletproof vests

Re: Testing in the real world

Using the equipment available, I would put the beer cans in the vest, put the vest against a thick mud bank and then shoot it, whilst making sure my mate was stood behind me.

I'd expect the beer cans to be burst, but you should be able to discern if one has been punctured.

How do you sing 'We're jamming and we hope you like jamming, too' in Russian? Kremlin's sat-nav spoofing revealed

Re: Who would do such a thing?

In real life it was the media mogul who bought the company that developed the encryption for their competitor's television service. A few months later Canal+ keys could be easily downloaded from the internet and copied to cards, enabling their encrypted satellite TV stations to be watched for free.

Source: Private Eye. I didn't read that there was proof that News International was naughty, only that the timing conveniently suited them.

The Register has previously reported on a countermeasure to GPS spoofing developed by BAE. Basically a missile or aircraft is fitted with a device that takes in all GNSS signals but also signals from many terrestrial transmitters such as FM, VHF and mobile phone masts. Whilst it might have a preloaded map of such transmitters, it can also compile a map on the fly. Should someone spoof the GNSS signals, the BAE device will detect a discrepancy with the terrestrial signals. The terrestrial signals are of such variety of distance, strength and frequency that it would be impossible to spoof them all. I can't remember if the article said the system also used inertial navigation to detect GNSS spoofing, but it seems more than likely in some applications.

Only one Huawei? We pitted the P30 Pro against Samsung and Apple's best – and this is what we found

Apple's website has the iPhone 8 Plus's secondary camera as having a 2x optical zoom, confirmed by DXOmark.

Regarding your back of the envelope calculations, most non-interchangeable lens digital cameras with zoom can achieve greater zoom than would otherwise be possible by compensating for barrel distortion in post-processing. It's this trick that makes 'travel zoom' pocket digital cameras possible.

> Smartphones can't perform a genuine optical zoom, but use interpolation and processing to present more image data to the user.

Total bollocks. The two camera iPhones have a genuine optical zoom on one of cameras, as do the secondary cameras on many other two camera phones ( sone vendors spec a wide angle lens or a black and white sensor instead if a 2x zoom lens).

This P30 phone has a genuine optical zoom as well, though it's mounted horizontally in the phone. This method used to be common in 'tough' cameras from Panasonic et al.

In poor light a FZ or similar 'bridge' camera will struggle, since they rely upon small sensors to make a big zoom range possible. However, a pocket sized camera such as a Sony RX 100 is very capable in low light... not as good as a DSLR with specific lenses, but it will fit in the inside pocket if your jacket.

Smartphones today can produce images on a par with premium compact cameras of only a few years ago, especially if you don't have time to twiddle the camera knobs for least compromise.

Apple redesigns wireless AirPower charger to be world's smallest, thinnest, lightest, cheapest, invisible... OK, it doesn't exist anymore

@Franco

Apple *do* use Qi. Qi is a baseline, supplying around 5W. Faster wireless charging is possible, but it's not a mandatory part of the Qi standard. Google's Pixel for example will only charge faster than the Qi baseline if they handshake with the wireless pad from a specific vendors. Apple phones will wireless charge up to 7.5W, and apparently are happy to do so from a Samsung charging pad. Galaxy phones can accept 9W.

Apple's iPhone was using 3.5 mm jacks when Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola were largely using proprietary weird audio connectors in their feature phones, and often several flavours per vendor.

Apple created Lightning connectors before USB C, and Lightning, like USB C, is clearly superior to micro USB. Regulations that would force a vendor to use a poorer connector would not be in the interests of the consumer.

I don't use Miracast (an inelegant way of doing things) but Chromecast plays nice with Android, iOS and MacOS kit.

Re: Check in the mail pls Apple/Google/Samsung?

Old Nokias had external charging and data pins, more recently Xperia Z mobiles have had magnetic external charging pins, as have Moto's mod system.

I just can't see Moto's sane mod system gaining much traction until other Android vendors can use it. The protocol is AOSP GreyBus but the physical connector is Moto proprietary.

Re: Yawn

I think you're right that Apple don't see the point in just making a generic Qi charging pad since there's no money in competing with Belkin, Xiaomi, Anker, Samsung etc.

They were attempting to do something difficult - make a pad that charged three devices simultaneously without the user being too careful with device placement - since that same difficulty has so far prevented Apple's rivals making such a thing. Alas for Apple the difficulty has proved too great.

A three device charger makes sense only for an of a iPhone, Apple watch and earbuds.

Re: Kudos to Apple…

It seems that Apple wanted to sell a product - a pad that simultaneously charged a phone, watchband earbuds - that nobody else could make. This convenience would have been its unique selling point, and without that most users would be just as well served by a 3rd party Qi charging mat by Belkin, Logitech, Samsung, Xiaomi etc al, and there would be no room for Apple to put a good margin on the price tag.

The very difficulty that would have given Apple a USP has proved in fact to have prevented Apple from achieving it.

The announcement of the pad was premature but this is hardly unprecedented... it was touch and go that the first iPhone Steve Jobs announced on stage would get through the presentation without crashing. He took a punt that the bugs would be ironed out between the announcement and the release date, and the punt paid off.

Apple must have had a few teams working on wireless charging. They were late to join the Qi standard party because they had been attempting to create a better system (i.e, charging over a greater distance) and had failed.

Are you sure you've got a floppy disk stuck in the drive? Or is it 100 lodged in the chassis?

I wonder if that isn't half way possible... you made me think of Flexi discs - low quality 7" plastic discs to played at 45 rpm on a record player that were given away on magazines... and then made me think of the magnetic ink that uses to be used on cheques... and then if it would be possible to print a floppy disc with magnetic ink. Low low data density, obviously, and the drive would require custom firmware to read it. Hmmm. There was that bloke who used a 3D printer to print a record - the song was recognisable even though it sounded underwater.