Posts by DB2k

EE 4G LTE review

aye I would think that was roaming in the uk i.e. on orange or Tmo.

I get 24Mb down (well that is the fastest, normally its about 19) in Maidenhead. On Three/iPhone5.

Looking forward to seeing the figures updated when you get 42MB from Three.

Payment protection tops list of SMS spam scams

in the UK you can forward SMS to SPAM which is 7726 (altough that makes little sense for smart phones so just use the short code).

On Three that number is 37726.

This doesn't block it, but it does give the operator a way to investigate the issue, and which post submission, should result in a reply asking for the MSISDN which sent the message in the first place, since as you correctly state - it is lost in forwarding a short message.

Re: Network operators can stop this if they want to

Its very hard actually, especially when you have commercial propositions on the network offering say 5000 SMS for £5. These can be purchased by anyone and used by a spammer, and if they have many many of these they can throttle the spamming from each SIM, but still achieve high levels of message sending making it significantly harder to trace. And if its PAYG how do you phisically locate them? Well, you can't.

Re: Cost

a positive repsonse to a PPI nets the spammer a significant amount of money as a referral fee to a legitimate PPI business. Whether the claim is successful or not, the spammer gets a cut up front. That is how they make money.

Re: give us customer configured filtering

That would require SMS Home Routing where the message is passed from the originating network, via the terminating networks SMS before delivery. In a CDMA network such as in the states, this is how SMS works. In a GSM network, like the UK, the flow is for the originating SMSC to deliver the message directly to the recipient via the attached MSC.

Home Routing of SMS is not something that happens (yet) in the UK as it adds a massive cost to networks. Where as before the network would only have to serve its own customers, it then has to serve all the messages originated by other networks too. So no.. its not "pretty simple".

Re: contractual responsibility to deliver messages which have been paid for

SMS is not a guaranteed service - its contractual to attempt to deliver it. Not to deliver it.

And if it breaches the terms of use - then the carrier doesn't have to attempt to deliver it at all.

Re: carriers being lazy

Its not as simple as that - imagine a spammer with 100 computers all with sims sending sms out at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes per device for instance... This is what happens as often as not, not just your "flooding" example. Its a very complex problem.

Huawei: Inside the lair of the not-so-hidden dragon

I've been there. Its an incredible place. Some parts a real mix if new styles with history. Came out of one room into a lobby where there was a lady making tea and would perform a full Chinese tea ceremony. Then we went to the logistics area which was a dark warehouse controlled by robot arms whizzing around moving parcels.

Siri gets Android rival as Cluzee goes live

Siri was a standalone app wasnt it before apple owned it.. and this company didn't look into that someone else was already doing what they want to do? I find that a bit hard to believe..

The Great Smartphone OS Shoot-out

useless article, never going to be useful

Surprised to see such a light on content article supplied by El Reg, with so little information, missing basic parts of the feature set (iOS Reader was the first I saw missing, saw a few more after that and gave up counting). It is always going to be very hard to say "which is best" so you've opted for a very light touch to try and keep it tight and short but it reads like someone hasnt understood how to use the devices to compare them best.

Did you talk about the insane fragmentation of Android? Look at this:

http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support

As iPhone 4S battery suckage spreads, fixes appear

I turned the GPS time zone thing off. that helped it not go so hot but the battery was still not performing well.Then I found a tip on another forum, to deleted all my email accounts and reboot and re-add.

Did this, and it fixed it bizarrely. So I assume one of my email accounts was constantly interneting something even though push was off. After that I re-enabled the GPS timezone check and its been behaving fine. Better than my iPhone 4 was actually.

Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray disc set

Technical review

And if you want a review of the changes to the movies, then look to DVDActive:

http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/star-wars-the-changes-part-one.html

Chris is putting together some proper reviews of each Bluray too. Bit more in depth than the one here.. for those that actually want a review

http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace3.html

AndyPad Pro low-cost Android tablet now on sale

Touchpad

So happy with my 32GB Touchpad. All these tabs make it look like such a steal its just not true.

Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part Two

email

If you hit "see more from blah" you get to see your emails too.

I guess it assumes you know what you said.

Now why is shift 3 a # and not a £ which is now a alt 3?

Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part One

pointless

What a pointless review. If you've hacked around with the operating system, buggered up the fonts etc how is this representative to a standard user? You should have installed 10.6 with a weeks worth of normal use then upgraded to 10.7

Hacking around in terminal? Special font utilities? give me a break..

FWIW I would class myself as a more advanced than standard user, but not a terminal window level of nerd. My install was fine. All multi touch gestures work on my magic mouse and all my fonts are fine. So.. upgrade to a new OS on top of a hacked around OS and some of it doesn't work? What do you expect. Pointless printing such a poor "review"..

Does a flash motor make a man more desirable?

new hip required

soooooooooooo.. driving a Porsche will get me loads of bedroom action, but mean that none of them want to settle down or cuddle? Porsche should put this in their advertising, verbatim.

New Sony hack exposes more consumer passwords

press release?

hackers now do press releases? wow.

Official: Apple to float iCloud on 6 June

ill?

any reason why you feel you need to point out that Steve Jobs is seriously ill? Not sure it adds anything to the news item and looks like you're poking fun at someone who might be dying. Which isn't very nice is it?

Everything Everywhere stops plundering the charity box

unbelieveable

Even if they for some reason think that passing an SMS through an existing SMSc to an existing large account, and do some existing billing process, costs more than the standard SMS, to say that processing say a £1 donation costs more than a £5 donation is insane.

Ten... tech treats for mum

bit late?

Well done - you've listed a load of things that would need to be bought online, 2 days before Mother's Day - making half the article redundant.

O2 tariff rejig bundles tethering with data

£72?

So if I want over 1300 minutes and a decent amount of data, its £72 a month? Sounds like a bargain. Sign me up :-/

First day WinPho 7 sales top 40k, claims market watcher

too early to tell

Bit early to tell isn't it, since the 3rd parties making the phones clearly didn't get enough stock out. Everywhere I looked in the Uk they were sold out and only had tiny volumes to start with.

Reg Hardware Reviews Digest

iPhone headsets

Hi

On another review a member of El Reg said there would be reviews of iPhone wired headsets coming soon. Can you let me know what sort of time frame we are dealing with please? Days, weeks, months?

Any idea at all appreciated..

thanks

DB

Google slips $3.1bn through 'Double Irish' tax loophole

scandalous

Seriously.. this is obscene.

Seat in sexy e-sportster shock

Alfa

Brera?

Apple TV stripdown reveals mystery solder pads

content

"This might let you connect to USB-equipped computing devices and view content on a television connected to the Apple TV through its HDMI port."

Well using Airplay you can put content from your phone or ipod onto the TV, and it already streams content from your Mac (and I assume PC) wirelessly, so what content are you referring to? Something like paid for streaming on your computer to port to your AppleTV?

Ten... iPhone 4 accessories

thanks

Thanks. Got a timeframe for that, in that is it in the next week or two, or just "sometime before Christmas"?

thanks

Dave

wheel?

Surprised to see a ridiculous looking game wheel in the list, but no tethered headphones. Was hoping to get a recommendation. Bluetooth headsets might be ok for driving but you look like an absolute plonker using one in an office.

Nintendo hails Super Mario's silver anniversary

incorrect!

Even on his wiki it says this is incorrect...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario#1981.E2.80.931990

Mario first appeared as "Jumpman" in 1981 game of Donkey Kong. Ok - he looked the same but had a different name so perhaps you could say that wasn't "Mario". But then he was in the 1982 arcade game Donkey Kong Jnr.. and was called Mario in that. So he's at least 26 and maybe 27. Well done Nintendo.

Oh and El Reg, his name is Mario, not Super Mario. That would be silly.

Reg hack celebrates happy event

bobby?

Bobby Zamoran?

Vodafone gets out of China

Tax

maybe it can use some of that money to pay its 6bn UK tax bill....

Orange and T-Mobile splice customers

Orange and MBNL

Orange joined MBNL

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/Mobile_Exec/Orange_hooks_up_with_MBNL.aspx

So all 3, Tmo and Orange subscribers will soon benefit from sharing their radio networks.

MBNL

Remember 3 and Tmobile are in the throes of sharing their access infrastructure and radio network too via the MBNL joint venture.

New iPod crew: 'Phoney, futuristic, retro, doomed'

3rd gen shuffle

Come on the register - you've not used the 3rd gen shuffle have you?

I agree its got drawbacks, but the single button use is not confusing at all - its actually quite intuitive. I'm not saying it's perfect or anything, but I fail to see how it's confusing. A monkey could work it.

Half of UK road users support usage-based road charging

road tax

Hows about the money the government gets from Road Tax is used solely for the roads instead of for duck islands and helicopter rides.

George Lucas names Star Wars Blu-ray release date

DVDActive

Kudos to Chris for his article at DVDActive - stil lbeing linked to in news items because it's so thorough

Tesco touts budget textaholic SIM-only deal

correct

yes, but then the tesco deal is probably only for people with a tesco handset, or at most an O2 handset (who tesco use for network).

T-Mobile UK pumps out the iPhone 4

3

3 launched today too

Android's UK phone sales quadruple

good data to market

ah the quarter before iPhone 4 was released. Of course there will be a decline in 3GS sales when everyone knows the 4 is coming. I bet that even with 4 versions of android OS being sold across many manufacruters, all with different SKUs, the next quarters figures will show the iPhone regaining ground again.