* Posts by HMB

638 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2010

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Apple predicted AI assistant for tablets in 1987

HMB
Stop

Eating it all up, Crystal Bull

What really?

You think that Siri is an artificial intelligence?

Again... really??

The work they've done could be impressive, but I already have a mic button on my virtual keyboard. When I talk to my Nexus One it sends what I've said back to the cloud, that analyses it and presents me with a nonsensical alternative to what I actually said. I can insert this nonsense into email or text messaging whenever I want to confuse people and make myself look like I've finally lost all my marbles.

What's worse is that without a great signal, it gives up on being able to send what I said back to the cloud.

Oh Siri is different? Obviously someone wasn't paying attention to the keynote, where the cloud and Apple's data centres were mentioned in relation to Siri.

The $35 android tablet, a snip at $50

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High End Android Still Disapointing

"The ipad cretins think this is what all Android tablets are like, they are blind to the fact there are REAL competitors like the Asus Transformer..."

Bull.

I have a Nexus One and a Touchpad, so I'm no iFan, but after years of development, even Honeycomb doesn't animate scrolls without nasty juddering. Having played with iPads and iPhone's they're as smooth as a new silk tie draped over a baby's bottom at a Jazz festival.

Nice.

Android is the user interface runt of the smartphone OS litter, but let's hope Google correct that in Ice Cream Sandwhich. I'm looking forward to it.

October 14 declared 'Steve Jobs Day'

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FFS, He can be a Prick and a Visionary Guys

Sure Jobs is a bit of a prick, but he's also a visionary technologist who brought about modern smart phones and tablets as we know them today.

He ruffles feathers, treats people unfairly and has a legal team that would pull the plug on terminally ill children if ordered to and the law allowed, but the man has been such a positive force in computing. He's given people what they want and wowed people with ideas and drive.

You don't have to agree with him or think he's a "nice person" to acknowledge what he has positively contributed.

Microsoft’s Mango update falls from tech tree

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WiFi Tether

I've got my WiFi tablet and my WiFi laptop and quite frankly the reason I didn't by an iPhone was because Android offered the promise of free WiFi tether from my existing data bundle (that I am paying for). This was before Apple cottoned on how important it was and added it to the iPhone for free.

Microsoft, if I can't easily get my hands on a WiFi tethering Windows Phone it's a deal breaker. I love the sound of the voice recognition and the option to read out incoming texts with the control over bluetooth, hell I want IE9, but none of it will matter if you leave my gadgets without My Mobile WiFi.

(No I don't want mobile wifi in a separate device I have to remember to charge and take with me everywhere, or in several stupid 3G SIMs all on separate contracts. I want it in my phone!)

Ex-Microsofties' IE6 kill squad hits UK

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FAIL

The Right Way

I'm impressed, this is the right way to do it.

What a shame Microsoft (as opposed to 3rd party) didn't include this sort of functionality as a default part of Windows 7. It might have increased commercial uptake of their product.

Interference-dodging app sidesteps Wi-Fi band-hoggers

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Software Radio

Software Radio Rules. How much more to say is there than that?

One Chipset to rule them all, One Chipset to find them,

One Chipset to bring them all and in the software bind them

New trojan masquerades as Microsoft enforcement-ware

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Evil Genius

You have to hand it to them, as evil as they might be, I can't help but be impressed by the ploy.

Linux and Mac fan boys are always so quick to blast this sort of scenario, it distracts them from the fact that around 90% of all computer users don't use their software. Don't tell me there isn't choice either, or whine that Windows is pre-installed. If linux was so damn good then it would be talked about enough to get spread around and easy enough to install for a noob.

People I know grumble about using Open Office, let alone full blown open source OS's.

P.S.

I do use Linux for certain things and wish it every success, I'm just sick of stupid fanboys.

Why modern music sounds rubbish

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There is a Technological Solution Damn it!!

Seriously, this is all so pointless and sad. It would be so easy to have a sound format that had large dynamic range (better quality), but that as part of the standard, defaulted to dynamic compression (making it louder) for the ignorant, with an option on the playback to enable the full dynamic range.

That way you can please everyone!

Seriously, why hasn't this been done already?

Virgin Media to beef up mobile-data backhaul

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Better than rural BT ADSL?

I live in a rural setting (but right next to exchange) and BT needlessly limit the exchange to ADSL1 with an additional limit of 448Kbps on the upload. I can pull my phone out my pocket, wifi tether my desktop to it and attain 4x the upload rate on my phone with Three HSDPA.

The latency isn't bad either.

Bring on the wireless Internet. :D

Windows 8 ribbon entangles Microsoft

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Getting pushy with Touch Support?

Is this not something being done for touch support that for consistency's sake is being pushed on all of us?

I love the ribbon interface, but looking at the screenshot just made me pull a face like I'd eaten a lemon. One of the things I loved about Windows 7 was the useless guff that just added clutter in Windows XP's explorer was gone and the new look was good!

Android bakes bitter 20th birthday cake for Linux

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Web Apps are for people who don't like Copy & Paste

On a project I'm working on currently, we decided to test out Google Docs for a bug tracking spreadsheet (no time for a fancier solution and better than spreadsheet files in emails).

So that worked great until users couldn't copy and paste spreadsheet sections for reporting. It's not an easily solved problem too because of the potential abuse a malicious website can make of copy and paste.

Firefox 6 silently released ahead of official unwrap date

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Chrome Ignorance

So chrome does major updates constantly? What of it, they don't blow a trumpet, call a press release or even push dialogues to the user (unless you don't shut down chrome for days). To most users it's the most awesome update model ever.

It never bugs you.

Except when the Google monster decides to make a UI change you don't like! Then it's a horrible case of update rape.

ARM daddy simulates human brain with million-chip super

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And they called it John Henry

So you get the neuron count up to 85bn and well done! You have a baby, so who's going to raise the first AI and bloody hell, what's it going to be like as a teenager?!

It's nuclear power all over again.

For your entertainment over the next few decades, witness the almighty clash of the luddites Vs the technocrats!

On the luddites team are millions of people all in complete denial with little gratitude as to how much technology has made their lives better. In this camp the more ignorant you are, the better you can argue!

On the technocrats team are a much smaller number of technically minded people who understand what's going on. Let's hope they far sighted enough to avoid any unpleasantness that could spring up with the increasingly powerful and potentially world changing technologies of tomorrow.

Back to gaslight, coal and steam power - it's the future

HMB

re: the end of the article makes it interesting

Better still I'm planning on buying an electic bike and outfitting it with dynamos to recharge the battery while I'm riding it.

Free energy forever!!

*facepalms*

It seems a few commenters don't get the difference between using carbon in the carbon cycle and releasing it from carbon sinks such as coal....

Comments are going downhill.

Google floats monthly subscriptions to Chrome OS notebooks

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Chromebook will be so Awesome!

Having a chromebook will be so awesome!

So long as you don't have BT as your internet provider or wholesale internet provider. (Tiny usage caps)

Or so long as you don't have to rely on 3G coverage which is pretty flaky

Or as long as you didn't want to do any capture or editing of video

Or so long as you didn't want to be able to zoom the document you were working on to fit the width of the page (global zoom will mess up the interface), you know, like you do in Word.

I do like Google stuff, I have a Nexus One android phone. I do see the appeal of a Google DumbBook, but even if I bought this for my Nan she'd be asking why it wasn't working and where her email had gone to when she wondered into a signal dead spot.

It's a lovely idea, but ahead of it's time. Neither the web apps nor network infrastructure are going to make using this device fun just at the moment.

On the other hand, maybe it will make some really kick as web-apps happen. Oh wait! We still have to code for IE7 & 8. Never mind then.

Cops raid man whose Wi-Fi was used to download child porn

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Re: WPA2 CUDA

It's the same old problem. 128/256 bit security and a 64 bit password (16 chars with half byte ASCII).

WPA2 is incredibly safe even against your CUDA just so long as you choose a password that makes people cry if you ask them to read it to you. :P

Most passwords are pretty shit if analysed to a bit depth level.

You could churn out a billion brute force guesses a second and still not scratch a proper 256bit password.

256 Bit = 2 to the 256 = 1.15 X 10 to the power of 77.

That's 77 mofo zeros at the end. I struggle to understand such a large number. A billion is a paltry 9 zeros. It's literally a minute rounding error in comparison. The sun would have consumed all it's hydrogen and consumed the earth in a fiery hell before your password was compromised.

Just a reminder people.

P.S. DES was going to be 128-bit until the NSA asked IBM to make it less good (yes, way back in the 70s).

Google to close pre-YouTube Video service

HMB

Cloud Computing W*nk

If you've ever watched BBC's click you'd think we were all moving to cloud computing. Here comes a dose of reality.

I'm sure the cloud has it's applications (good ones too), but just as we wont all give up desktops for tablets, I can hardly see all data going into the cloud either, especially with Internet provided by BT. Just another little reminder that data in the cloud lasts only as long as the host feels like.

On another note....

Maybe they should have done a slow brand transition. Youtube -> Gootube.....

White iPhone 4 out by month's end

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Upset Celebrities

Now everyone can pretend to be Stephen Fry.

Mozilla rejigs Firefox release schedule in nod to Google's Chrome

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Alert

Nightly Release Cycle

So long as I've been eating enough fibre, I have a nightly release cycle too!

Everything Everywhere accused of lining pockets with charity cash

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Chuggers

Charity Muggers. People who ask you the time on a dark night, only to pull knife on you and say "Give to the NSPCC or I'll kill you".

Never seen that.

Charrassers (charity harassers), sure.

If a company squanders it's money it goes bankrupt. If a charity squanders it's money it becomes less effective at helping those it set out to help and how do we know if that happens?

Fujitsu £2bn broadband project throttled at both ends

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A Hard Time

I think a £2bn investment from Fujitsu to £0.5bn from the taxpayer is a good deal. I think if this Government is serious about investing (investing, not agreeing it's a good thing) in rolling out high speed internet beyond cities that it will look pretty bad if they don't take advantage of this.

I hope their broadband kit is better than Fujitsu's hard disks though!

Opera embraces Google's open source JPEG killer

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Fanboi Reality Distortion Field

Obviously my observations about Opera and it's lack of adoption went through some sort of reality distortion field that surrounds the most zealous of the Opera fanbois. You see, at no point did I say Chrome was the best browser. I said it was my personal choice and made no other assertions.

As far as I'm concerned any improvement Opera makes help drive the whole web forward, so I'm very pleased to hear news of progression. Of course that doesn't matter. Why? Well even when you try to be fair to Opera you still get a load of juvenile accusations and arguments, often based on what you didn't say anyway.

It really doesn't do Opera any favours either.

HMB

Nice WebP support, Shame about the fanbois

I tried Opera on my Android, didn't like it. I tried Opera on my desktop, didn't like that either. I stick with the native browser on my phone and Chrome on my desktop. I'm in the majority. Deal with it.

I think the inclusion of WebP support is great. People forget that you have to have a widely deployed standard BEFORE developers start to code for it. Suggesting that it could have waited until wider use is just nonsense. Who designs websites that don't work in browsers?

Opera innovates and does an impressive job keeping up with most things, but suggesting that it's the best browser and people just don't know it is a bit cultish.

Microsoft cranks out Internet Explorer 10 preview

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Go

CSS Transistions Too

Don't forget the IE Blog saying that IE 10 is to feature CSS Transitions too! I think that was one of the most missed opportunities of IE9.

I for one and delighted with the news. IE supporting more HTML5 is a good things for everyone, whether they realise this or not.

Also, IE 10 will make IE 6, 7 and perhaps even 8 look increasingly ludicrous options to hang on to and that's just outstanding.

I know some corps are still stuck in the past, but sooner or later, they'll have to move on. IE 10 makes the case even more compelling.

Panasonic beefs up 3D video camera

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P2 Cards

Are P2 cards PCMCIA? If so, doesn't that mean you have to have an *older* laptop to read them directly?

DARPA wants secure Droids, iPads, iPhones

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Re: They are DARPA!

I'm sorry, was the Internet not good enough for you? Since when did you invent a world changing technology?

CTIA cites First Amendment protection of radiation levels

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Alert

Science is... But....

Science isn't science unless it's peer reviewed and verified across different experiments and studies.

As such I'm not aware of any corroborated studies or scientific consensus leading to the idea that radiation from phones presents a problem.

Though wait a minute! If phone's give off radiation, doesn't that mean they can explode like nuclear bombs? You know, just like nuclear power plants? It's a conspiracy! Radiation is giving everyone cancer! ARGGHHH!!! Where's my Tinfoil hat!!!? *runs off*

Windows Home Server 2011 signed off

HMB

Linux Win

You know every time I hear some linux fanboi go on about how linux can be a proper windows substitute it just annoys me.

But equally, why on God's green earth would you buy a Windows Home Server license for a job that can be done well with a simple linux distro.

Do Microsoft make any money on Windows Home Server?

Microsoft: IE9 not yet 'broadly' available

HMB

Seriously...

I've endured pain at the hands of IE, but some of these comments are very fanboi.

IE9 is a huge step forward and doesn't require any hacks to get standard code working on it. This is a huge leap forward. The sooner IE9 usurps another IE install on a computer, the better for the entire web as web designers raise the lowest common denominator.

There's this idea that chrome prompts the user to update. It does not. It does it silently without asking. Sure you can get a prompt if you've not restarted it in ages, but who is going to keep 100% uptime to maintain a browser version, seriously? I think this is the best strategy for the web personally.

Windows 7 share (by trend, look it up on gs.statcounter.com) is increasing in a linear fashion as XP falls. It will just be a question of time before it completely replaces XP.

If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't support XP either. Continued use of XP just makes Microsoft look like a Dinosaur. If Windows 7 hadn't of come out I'd have probably have switched to Ubuntu. XP is very tired.

HTC Incredible S Android smartphone

HMB

Dual Core!!!??

What's this obsession with dual core on phone? It makes no sense!

I'm sure it's just because it's a buzzword-catchphrase that the zeitgeist sucked on, masticated, churned, digested and popped out the other end.

Not once have I ever thought to myself "my android phone needs to be quicker". The only times I've ever wondered about speed were animations that I'm positive are GPU accelerated on magical, revolutionary iDevices. So throw in some clever code and a good mobile GPU, job done.

What's the point in taking a 1Ghz mobile chip and dual coring it? Threaded applications on your mobile? Ha!

It's just a pointless suck down of juice. Go imagery!!

Intel gets spanking new SSD

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Re: Point of order

Without figures, surely speculation is a bit meaningless? I do hear what you're saying and so figures become important, but if I say "It could be more reliable than a spinning drive, it could be less reliable", it really doesn't say very much at all.

I'd like to see MTBFs speak for themselves.

Internet pioneer Paul Baran dies

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Re: Hedy Lamarr got there first

Frequency Hopping is identical to Packet Switching in every way except all of them.

If I jiggle up and down fast enough my voice get's pitch shifted by the doppler effect. I'd never try to pretend that sitting on a washing machine meant my speech was packet switched.

Try harder next time Timmy!!! :P

Russian jailed for 6 years for smutty billboard stunt

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Sloppy Seconds

It always amazes me how people who can figure out how to do stuff like that sometimes manage to leave a trail right back to them.

4G: What does the auction mean for the incumbents?

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Things Moving So Quickly

It's so exciting to see LTE and 4G networks moving so quickly! If things keep going at this giddy pace we'll be sure to have high speed, low latency, high capacity Internet over the mobile networks in time for 2020!! We could be the first country to deploy 4G networks at that rate! How crazy and cutting edge is that?

This rapid movement towards a more evolved information infrastructure can only serve to strengthen the economy and help get things moving again. Who know's what we can do with this! It's also so good to see swift action to help protect against the digital divide.

I'm going to have to sit down now and breathe slowly for a bit, this pace of technological innovation, sped up so much by government offices like Ofcom, is making me dizzy!!

Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mobile 11 debut

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Privacy & Security Concerns

I hear a lot of flack about privacy issues using Google Chrome, an open source based browser by Google, which is currently taking more and more market share, but no one ever seems to mind that Opera is not just closed source, but has a proxy function that routes all your traffic through one company's servers.

It seems overwhelmingly obvious to me that Opera holds far more *potential* for mischief than Chrome does.

With that said I am impressed that Opera manage to keep up a codebase that is more or less standards compliant in an age where HTML and it's associated technologies keep getting more and more complicated. You have to admire the Norwegian company for being plucky if nothing else.

Firefox 4 gets yet another final test build release

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Re: Firefox 7

I know I gave Firefox a hard time! I don't retract what I said, it's simply true, but I do have some love for the new browser. The hardware acceleration is particularly good.

Also as a web developer FF4 puts a smile on my face. I'm hoping the stats for migration will look as good as they have done in the past for previous version upgrades.

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Firefox 7

Since they're releasing 4 versions this year, I'm waiting for Firefox 7.

I'm hoping that by FF7 they will have at least (don't forget web workers) one process per tab for stability and non interference (especially pages slowing the interface), sandboxing for security and other features that IE and Chrome have now already.

I'm sure there's another browser that omits these features too, but I can't think what it's name is, something beginning with... O? No, I honestly can't remember :P

Samsung intros 'skinnier than iPad 2' tablets

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I want Super AMOLED!

I want a Super AMOLED screen now damn it!!

I'm so impetulant :P

Impressively looking products! I have been tempted by iPad 1 prices recently, though the idea of being forced to install iTunes to my PC to keep my tablet up to date makes me queasy.

No doubt if an AMOLED screen does debut that some apple aficionados (see I'm being nice) will complain that AMOLED is too bright and too colourful and vibrant to give accurate colour rendering.

Fukushima explained in crap cartoon

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Less crap than News 24!

Less crap than News 24!.. was my immediate thought.

So guys, shouldn't we be pouring danone with friendlium bacterium into nuclear power... like right now?

Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA

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Thanks Lewis

Thanks again Lewis!

I like the figures, the explanations and the general reporting.

MS embraces/shuns Google's open video codec

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H.264 Industry Standard

Errr...

Broken Spellchecker?

H.264 is used in Video Cameras, Mobile phones (in hardware), Bluray and DVB-S2 (Digital Satellite). H.264 enjoys universal video support in professional video software too.

So now, which part of industry standard did you have a problem with?

Japanese nuke meltdown may be underway

HMB

Re: yesterday

So you're prophecising nuclear doom based on what? Smug? Listen to yourself.

It's a bad situation that human intervention has had to be relied upon to keep this plant under control. That is not really acceptable and is a sign of the age of the plant.

So if this thing does end safely, what happens to your hysteric rhetoric? Are you going to eat your own words then or just shuffle off somewhere?

If there is a large release of radiation, are you going to be smiling at people saying "I told you so?". As has been said in this forum before, some modern nuclear designs go so far as to be safe even in the event of a meltdown. Why don't you do something constructive and campaign for better designs of nuclear power instead of throwing out the best energy source mankind currently has for it's future?

Emergency declared at second quake-wracked Japanese nuke plant

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Safe Radiation?

Since that mountain spar town in Iran (Ramsar, Mazandaran) has 200 times average background radiation and people are fine there, can anyone give an indication of how much radiation this process might vent relative to normal background radiation level extremes (low and high) and how it's likely to disperse?

From the major news outlets no one seems willing to discuss the finer points of radiation in any scientific way.

Japanese earthquake sparks nuclear emergency

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What sort of Radioactive Steam?

Looking at the beeb's twitter feed, the situation is not getting any better. Pressure has built up in the reactor vessels and has had to be vented into the containment areas. It may be that further venting to the environment might be required if this continues.

The big question is of course, is if radioactive steam is released, what radioactive products would it actually have in it? With water only going heavy through neutron capture, the only radioactive escape artist I could think of would be Xenon from the fission products. Can anyone (who knows what they're on about) expand on this?

HMB

Core Catchers

What I'd really like to know is if the facility and reactor design has a core catcher.

A core catcher is an absolutely bonkers but incredibly brilliant high temp ceramic dish that as you guessed, can catch a meltdown and let it cool with perfect safety without breach of primary containment.

Yes our new plants have them.

The line "We had a core meltdown, but it's not serious to the environment or local population." Now that would be a line that just shows how much things have moved on and how safe the plants can be.

A meltdown then becomes just be a large economic cost of repairing/decommissioning the affected plant. You could work at the plant and still be perfectly safe.

Yes of course a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor would be better, but we have to wait for China to become world leader and sell us the tech first don't we? Because we're not forward looking enough to do that sort of thing anymore.

Caution and respect is absolutely the right way to go with how to treat nuclear, but if you give it that, it could save the world. Without nuclear power I'd be seriously worried about World War III, The Last Struggle for resources, being a real shitter.

Google adds tool to block shabby, dirty, vulgar sites from search results

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Evil Google, Really?

Google is only trying to give users what they want. Unless you're looking for porn, you don't want it appearing in search results.

I can think of plenty of times that I've tried to search for something for my effort to be undermined by a load of rubbish.

Endangering the free web. Really?

Google is changing it's own product to try and meet the needs of it's customers (no not webmaster but the average Joe looking for something). I really don't see a big problem here.

World's bees face multiple threats

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United Nations Win

I'm delighted to hear this fantastic news that the United Nations are finally getting down to the hard decisions and making sure that injustice and evil are not tolerated in today's world.

What do you mean this wasn't about Libya?

WTF.... Bees?!

The desktop lifecycle: How long is it anyway?

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Some 'techies' miss the point...

As someone who deals with computer maintenance, I think that hobbyists frequently miss the point. Their time is free to them and computers cost money.

Small businesses in particular can spend at least £100 repairing a computer that might then pop a motherboard 6 months later (due to age), combine that with the staff downtime (company loses money) and it would have been cheaper just to get new kit in.

It's very much like the argument of when does keeping an old car become more expensive than buying a newer used car.

VMware lets Apple fondleslabs tickle Windows VDI

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Nothing like a laggy Virtual Desktop

Mmmm... nothing like waiting a couple of seconds for an input to be received and rendered back at the client. Even better over WiFi too.

Seriously, virtual desktops are great for admin, but they're no substitute for working on a local machine.

Google juices VP8 open source video codec

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Quality Improvement

Just what VP8 desperately needed.

All the VP8 previews I'd seen so far looked crap because VP8 fuzzed up the images. It'd be a wonderful thing if Google have fixed this.

Keep it up Google and remember not everything is about speed (that's what my girlfriend keeps telling me).

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