It should open the pod bay doors.
Posts by Rob 15
25 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Sep 2010
Linux rolls out the welcome mat for Microsoft's Copilot key
Microsoft decides it's a good time for bad UI to die
IUI
It would have been good to have some discussion of different UI design methodologies piecing together Win10/11. The category view is derived from this: https://web.archive.org/web/20080828113751/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997506.aspx apparently influenced by MS Money 2000. It includes what appears to be a prototype screenshot of the control panel.
There's still a version of that article on MS's win32 site, dated 2019. It would appear no one at MS has read it for a while.
Microsoft sends Windows Control Panel to tech graveyard
Mozilla Thunderbird finally gets system tray notifications
Japanese government finally bids sayonara to the 3.5" floppy disk
Mozilla CEO pockets a packet, asks biz to pick up pace the 'Mozilla way'
Moz Ad network
If Mozilla wanted to do something useful, couldn't they create a new ad network, non personalised ads only, with no cookies, data harvesting or consent popups? With Adsense about to force consent popups on EU visitors with no options for publishers to opt out (other than getting struck off) - it seems like there's a gap in the market, and it would be an extra revenue stream for Mozilla.
LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions
Full of bugs
I've got an LG telly, it's the buggiest piece of hardware I've ever had. The EPG is slow, randomly reboots, UI inconsistencies, no design sensibilities, randomly loses the connection to the sound bar. LG support is 'do a factory reset'. They did a couple of firmware updates but it just added more crap to the UI instead of fixing anything. Not getting an LG TV again. The display itself is good.
Aside from that, TV reviews on AV websites always seem to be fawning and geared to promoting affiliate links. None of the reviews mention the speed of EPG or changing channels.
Samsung’s midrange A54 is lovely, but users won't feel seen
Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries
Other devices
Not too bothered about phones as they get replaced anyway. More annoying are things like my Garmin watch, which is a sealed blob of plastic, so there's no way to replace the rechargeable battery unless you melt it. I also had a mains powered heat alarm with a sealed in rechargeable backup battery. The battery expired so I had to replace the whole unit. Deliberately designing these with no way to change the batteries, even at a service centre, seems short sighted.
Microsoft tackles SaaSy URL sprawl, dumping its dotcom in favor of cloud.microsoft
Chromebook expiration date, repair issues 'bad for people and planet'
Why I love my Chromebook: Reason 1, it's a Linux desktop

I approve
I do the same thing - using a Asus C434. I run VS Code and mess around with node development, Firefox is my main browser, occasionally use Inkscape, and run Google's calendar and Keep Android apps. I only drop in to Chrome if I have to, and use it for Google Docs. The OS updates are super quick and not stuffed with 'suggested apps' and other popups/nags. You can also raise bugs directly with Google and track them. The caps lock thing is weird but you get used to it after a couple of hours. Linux apps appear directly in the launcher. I recommend it.
Log4j RCE latest: In case you hadn't noticed, this is Really Very Bad, exploited in the wild, needs urgent patching
Good news: Google no longer requires publishers to use the AMP format. Bad news: What replaces it might be worse
Latency
I thought low page latency is something any decent web developer or organisation would strive for, i.e. the opposite of most news sites. Other vitals would include 'not covering the page in crap making it impossible to read' (take a look at the Evening Standard website). So because Google is asking for low latency and other metrics it's evil? Or is the evil bit that it has a way of enforcing that in return for exposure?
Beyond video to interactive, personalised content: BBC is experimenting with rebuilding its iPlayer in WebAssembly
Re: Independent R&D Subcontractors
Whenever it is so obviously failing so spectacularly, Rob 15, quadrophonic stereo for British Brainwashing would be more considered as virtually useless and somewhat gratuitous.
Not really. Most drama, sport and films already created and broadcast in surround. Some of the music does, like Jools' shows. Despite having created or acquired the surround mix for broadcast, the BBC then chucks this away and uses a stereo mix for iPlayer. Multiple streaming services use surround and promote it alongside HD/4K as a core part of their service.
R&D
I wonder how much the BBC spends on R&D, and is it still justified? Their hit rate seems quite low but maybe that's normal for R&D. But it seems like rebuilding iPlayer repeatedly isn't a particular problem that R&D seems to solve. If the BBC still need an R&D department it should be much more tightly focussed.
BBC have done interactive TV / branched narrative stuff before (see Attack of the Graske, Test the Nation and so on). It's fun and gimmicky, but has high production overheads and little use. And the technologies it was built in have all disappeared so there's no longetivity to it. At the time, the BBC hailed interactive TV as a new medium, after TV and radio, but they eventually closed the interactive TV team as a waste of licence fee money. In pursuing this again (but with shinier technology) it seems that the BBC tech departments have no accumulated corp experience and too much cash to blow.
UK's National Rail backs down from greyscale website tribute to Prince Phil after visually impaired users complain
Venerable text editor GNU Nano reaches version 5.0 and adds the modern frippery that is scrollbars
What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you
Sony Ericsson: 'We dropped the ball on iPhone'
I used to have a string of SE phones, culminating with the C750. It had a beautiful camera and a reasonable battery life, which only now are the current generation of Android phones matching. Why did SE drop the Cybershot line of phones? I don't see how that had anything to do with iPhones.
I've still got it as a spare, since it can handily tether data via Bluetooth to my laptop.