* Posts by HMB

638 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2010

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DVD plus nano-rods equals security, density: researchers

HMB

Animals

It's incredible how the different polarisations encode precisely for all those animals! Spooky eh? :P

HP to spin off webOS division as Gram stealth subsidiary

HMB

Ahhh WebOS

Every so often I take my HP Touchpad out of Android ICS and back into WebOS and I'm reminded of all the things they got right, all the lovely touches. Shame about the app support now, and the browser, but it is a nicely put together system.

Then I boot back into Android for maps, apps and a cracking up to date web browser.

Apple's lone wolf approach to security will bite it in the rear

HMB

Users don't want security

Windows NT based products have good levels of built in security, 9x was a patched on disaster, sure, but NT has always been good.

Microsoft's problem is that users don't want security. They don't want complicated passwords, they want their password to be "woofy". They don't want the screen dimming and a privilege escalation box. Hell, users don't even want to read system messages.

Microsoft know their users, so do Apple. For Microsoft they've had to learn to give their users things they didn't want for their own good.

Samsung to fight iPad with stylus, windows

HMB

Re: Old school?

"I'm sure if Apple introduced a stylus you'd see it as perfecting and revolutionising an old idea?

Or would you just forget that it ever existed before and return to your job at the US patent office, "Approved" stamp tightly gripped in hand?"

You forgot 'magical'.

Korean boffins discover secret to quick-charge batteries

HMB

Re: It's the year 2020...

It's ok, by 2020 the green lobby will have successfully campaigned against all meaningful forms of power anyway :P

HMB
Alert

Re: Fast charging

According to my calculations, if this technology ever get's good enough to allow charging in seconds, it's going to require 1.21 Jigawatts.

Android spanks Apple iOS in sales as fanbois hold out for iPhone 5

HMB

Re: Droids & Clones

Are you the designated troll for this evenings entertainment? :P

Being adult for a while:

http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html

Everything's a remix, nothing is original. :)

Multi touch itself was demoed at TED in TED 2006. Jobs claimed Apple invented multi touch as a brand new revolutionary and magical thing in 2007.

HMB

Re: Is it really though?

"Goog fanatics are simply amazing paying good money for a dead end OS phone."

"There is one born every minute."

I'm afraid that must be yourself kind Sir, as the people who are buying brand new iPad 2's will not be getting the most exciting stuff like Siri in iOS6. It hasn't even stopped being sold and is a dead end OS for that device. Nothing new to see here.

A larger number in iOS doesn't mean you get the features, ooo, but you do get the shiny number! Well done you!

I've got the latest update to Jelly Bean on my Google Galaxy Nexus and I'm very impressed with it. I can say "listen to the Prodigy" and it will start playing that using Spotify. I hear that Apple are going to copy that feature soon.

So I'm getting updates, but you seem to think I'm not, I guess that means you're just full of Apple.

Windows 8: Download it, then speak YOUR brains

HMB

Windows 8 isn't aimed as an upgrade

I honestly don't see Windows 8 as an upgrade.

Windows 8 is aimed at people buying new touch-enabled hardware. It's the only way it shines. Microsoft knows this.

Google to skew search results to punish PIRATES

HMB

Google to alter search results to hide PIRATES

Aiding and abetting are we Google? :P

A friend of mine tells me that he is a filthy, disgusting pirate who kills people on the seas near Somalia and violates Intellectual Property, but never looked up how to be one on Google. Apparently he heard it on the grapevine, or was a file sharing site recommended to him by his ISP's customer support team? (This has actually happened).

Whatever it was, he started because someone said "all you have to do is X Y Z".

I honestly think this move will benefit people who do want to violate IP. Google was shining a light on it in such a way it made it easy for people with the IT skills of politicians to see how many sites were offering copyright infringing content.

I personally think that file sharing with a casual attitude towards copyright violation will do much better in the dark, without the light of Google shining on it.

Greens wage war on clean low-carbon renewable energy

HMB

Re: Puritans

There are intelligent, open minded environmentalists who want a better world. Unfortunately there are masses of people calling themselves greens who simply don't understand that affordable, plentiful energy saves end enriches human life on a scale impossible for the mind to truly comprehend.

Apocalyptic misanthropy disguised as being green just makes me admire the Amish. At least when they say technology is bad, they actually avoid using most of it, unlike the AMDABG, who happily tell everyone to get used to being relatively poorer then hop on a plane to go tell another group the same thing.

Vodafone and pals can't kick the habit of cheap mobe prices

HMB

Easy to say just pay for the handset, but consider this:

3 give me the best deal on what I want, that is, they give me 2000 minutes, 5000 texts, unlimited data and a great data network. I loathed dropping to GPRS on Vodafone.

It's purely logical for my needs to go with 3, no one else comes close on bang for buck.

I can pay £25 for a rolling one month contract for the above, or... I can pay £27 and commit to 24 months and I get an S2.

It's almost not worth not getting the S2.

Crazy world.

Google updates Chrome Flash plugin for security, stability

HMB

Disabled in a flash

When I'm using my computer and suddenly uninvited sound flares up and it's flash that allowed it to happen, that's when I decided enough was enough.

I decided to install a flash blocking extension for the crash-fantastic plugin. I'm not going to tolerate websites farting audio into my personal space without me clicking on them.

The best / worst I heard was a friend whose computer suddenly started to make porn noises in the other room, because he'd left something open and it spontaneously re-ran itself after being quiet for hours.

Having to click once on a flash area to activate it is slightly inconvenient sometimes, but I'm just happier now most flash is gone.

The fact that a flash stability update makes news says a lot.

US and S Korea both claim first place on voice over LTE

HMB

Re: Voice over new Mobile Network??

I've had a long standing gripe against the quality of phone calls when I know it could be so much better. It's one of the reasons I loved Skype from the moment it came out. When Skype works well it's so damn clear.

Looking forward to this improvement being approved by Ofcom in 20 years time :)

Apple: Samsung was in 'crisis' over our iPhone awesomeness

HMB

Conflation

Apple have made an interesting move clouding the water.

Android was the key to competing with iOS, but Android (purchased by Google in 2005) isn't on trial here, Samsung is, at least officially. Apple can claim any win against Samsung a win against Android, conflating the two.

The best case I see Apple having here isn't that Samsung had similar looking phones (as the design was so generic and simple), but that Samsung used Touchwiz to "iOS-ify" android.

I just see lots of collateral damage being a distinct possibility in this case.

Cameron: We'll turn NHS patients into real-time drugs lab rats

HMB
Alert

Re: parasites

I totally agree with you.

The way I see it, the public purse will have more money and drugs companies will have more data available to them about possible problems.

What bastards!

I sincerely hope that if I have an adverse reaction to a drug that no one else knows about it so they can keep using it on other people. I know, I'm not a nice person.

Microsoft Surface slate: Acer, resellers predict a riot

HMB

Re: Go MS! - Actually customers should come first

I really dislike this attitude. I like the idea of more choice from OEM's there's no problem with that, but loads of people seem to have this ridiculous notion that Microsoft should look after their OEM's first when actually they should be looking after their customers first.

Companies aren't there to look after distributors, they're supposed to be looking after their customers. Occasionally that means a revolution resulting in pain for some businesses to the benefit of the consumer.

I sometimes wonder if the same people bitching about Microsoft not looking after it's distributors are also the people who praise Apple for being in control of the whole process.

Copyright bot boots NASA rover vid off YouTube

HMB

Great idea, but let's be clear that the fine needs to be paid by the person(s) or organisation(s) responsible for the claim of infringement in the first place and not Youtube or the service provider.

Curiosity success 'paves way for Man on Mars by 2030s'

HMB

Science Grade: Prince of Wales (E-)

To call rapidly self replicating nanobots science fiction really stretches the notion as they're not really scientifically plausible in our current understanding of science.

You want self replicating nanobots that eat anything? Leave a slice of bread out for a month and watch it go mouldy. Mould is severely limited in speed because chemical reactions take time. You can't change the laws of physics and chemistry.

Grey goo style nanotech is a big pile of steaming BS.

Euro NCAP to mandate auto-braking in new-car test

HMB

Re: No more likely than...

I don't agree. Your air bags go off when the car get's deformed, that's a pretty secure switching mechanism.

Radar and laser detection? Will there be an accident when a shopping bag blows out into the road as a car slams on?

I see people throwing bits of foil off bridges and laughing a lot.

If Ultrabooks lasted longer, would YOU open your wallet?

HMB

Re: Not a PC

"not being a PC" - Apple computer's don't have Intel x84/x64 processors, neither do they have RAM chips, PCI express bridges and USB host devices. They simply run on magic, fairy dust and the excited 'squees' of trendy people with goatees using them in coffee shops and airy loft converted design studios.

My PC doesn't have an ISA bridge and it's 5 years old. Do you think the presence of a serial port honestly effects battery life and performance?

Ridable giant robo-bug creeps, crawls toward reality

HMB

Doomed

Did anyone else look at this project and think:

"What this really needs is a giant brain shell for the passenger compartment that really looks like a big giant brain"

UK 4G auction: No word on what will be flogged, or what it costs

HMB

Behind the US and not moving...

Go google for speedtest demos over US LTE networks. 15 Mbps down and 7.5 Mbps up is the lower end with some running at 30/15 and higher.

I can't believe how amazingly behind we are now in terms of the latest technologies. I just have to conclude that Ofcom is a big, ineffective machine that eats money and produces results with the speed of a lethargic snail.

Military-grade IBM kit senses love, hate in Wimbo fans' tweets

HMB

Re: 'Military-grade'

It's because it's a military grade site. Originally all this news was set up as a dedicated feed for the A-Team, but it was kindly opened up to us too.

HMB
Happy

While David doesn't feel human emotions, he does understand them. ;)

Apple, Samsung begin battle for billions in US patent smackdown

HMB

Re: If I were King of the world.

Don't blame a lion for eating gazelles.

It's entirely the fault of idiot bureaucrats and politicians that we're in this mess.

"We don't understand technological progression and software, but we're happy to make laws and issue patents regardless. Who needs to know anything about what you do for a job anyway?"

Feckless morons.

Even without the politics of: "US court with US jury decide the fate of a top US company against foreigners at a time of yearning for the days when the US was a clear and leading superpower and wasn't in economic decline."

UK's thirst for energy falls, yet prices rise: Now why is that?

HMB

Re: In the 1950s....

With Nuclear we have a Policy of "if at first you don't succeed, try, try and then give up".

It may just be a matter of time before those people's comments about Nuclear (it being too cheap to meter) may still come true.

Current Nuclear plants aren't vastly more sophisticated than the ones created in the 50s. If computers had advanced at the pace of Nuclear Power we'd still be using punch cards in our biggest most powerful computers, forget the personal computer entirely.

Check out Terrapower if you want to catch a glimpse of something that might be real progress.

In the end, e=mc^2 trumps everything. Just ask the sun.

Apple refutes 'Sony Jony' iPhone prototypes

HMB

Re: Vote with your Pounds - Nonsense

This is such a stupid comment to make... Why?

Well the whole thing that's incensed many is that products are being banned from sale for reasons that may not stand up as ethical or fair.

How can you vote with your pounds if the courts have taken the product off the shelves for you? Your line has no substance. The public are being denied the vote.

Yes it will affect the UK too, it's an international market in this day and age.

Samsung lets slip info on WinPho 8 Odyssey

HMB

Always worth a look

Microsoft is just waiting patiently until Android and iOS have cancelled themselves out in some sort of cataclysmic legal chain reaction that wouldn't be possible without the USPTO and it's faithful European lackey.

Soon we'll all be forced to use WinPho :P

Seriously though, Microsoft do a great job of competing, unless you're a die hard fan boy from one camp or another their efforts are well worth a look. I only dismissed them from my last purchase because their phones were a bit behind the hardware curve.

IOC asks Olympic spectators to cut back TXTs and tweets

HMB

Professionalism

It's completely unprofessional. Relying on a public data connection for transferring mission critical data at the exact time when you expect mass public data usage.

They're getting paid too much to be this incompetent.

Galaxy S III dumps universal search, tries to dodge Apple's sueballs

HMB

Re: Fuck you google!

"Universal search? Someone paid to create that."

Not really. In the programming world picking up a bunch of objects and doing a simultaneous query as opposed to a single query on one object is a trivial less-than-an-hour-to-implement problem. It's such an obvious idea as a step forward that the only thing this patent succeeds in doing is showcasing the skill & knowledge of the Patent Office involved.

This sort of patent litigation harms us all, Apple, Android users & others. Patents were never supposed to protect the bleeding obvious, they were never supposed to stop competition either. Patents are supposed to be a fair way for individuals and companies to be reasonably rewarded for genuinely new ideas and designs ahead of their time.

Apple is a patent rapist, but don't blame Apple, blame the patent system.

Google Nexus 7 blighted by brightness blunder

HMB

Hmmm....

I do love my Android devices, but after reading the headline initially with anger considering it Google bashing, I did stop for a moment and think "You know what, Google do get up to some stupid shit at times". It's like they're making devices like me packing my things from being on holiday. Everything seems great then I realise there was one really stupid thing I forgot and left out.

Ice cream sandwich and low resolution photo sync on stock android anyone? Still a little bit of weird behaviour in Jelly Bean too.

Apple isn't perfect either and I can name examples but in the interests of not being a flaming arse, I'm not going to.

Come on Google, socks up a bit!

YouTube blurs faces to protect the innocent

HMB

Re: "never letting your kids be photographed in a uniform of any sort"

Even better, I never let my kids leave the house without wearing masks, that way their faces never get seen or recorded by anyone. It's simply the next logical step.

HMB

Re: Necessity in the modern world?

It's because paedophiles didn't exist before the invention of the Internet, so in earlier times you were completely safe :P

Euro cellcos hoard nano Sims ahead of iPhone 5 launch

HMB

Re: Why?

In a funny way, I agree. Apple never give you everything in one go.

I can imagine them deciding to go with a pico SIM at the iPhone 4 design, then realising they had to do it gradually so it feels like progress is being made. It will be a talking point. "Oooo it's got a smaller SIM, check us out".

Brit global warming skeptics now outnumber believers

HMB

Re: The question should really be

How on earth would you get that information? The press in general frequently misrepresent science (e.g. Faster than light neutrinos mean physics is broken).

There are scientists who are sceptics, but it's a hostile world for them. Any scientist doing something separate isn't going to want to stick their head over the top and upset they're funding. You only have to look at Marcus Brigstock's rhetoric to realise that it's a middle class social faux pas to challenge man made climate change theory and it's consequences.

Challenging theories is the basis of science. It makes it particularly alarming to hear people condemning intelligent and well reasoned challenge against man made global warming.

BT to fibre up another 98 exchanges, puffs 'FTTP on demand' offer

HMB

Fibre Superiority - Upload

FTTC - Up to 80 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up.

It's nice to know that FTTC's weakness (it's 20Mbps upload) has been addressed in the FTTP product. 330Mbps down and 20 or 30 Mbps up.

Big Whoop.

I can say being on a 50/5 Virgin service that downloading things is really no issue, faster would be nicer, but upload is the weakness. I download some things at speeds comparable to older LAN parties. What I want now is for my youtube uploads and Google Drive syncs not to take forever in an upload direction.

Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you'll go blind etc

HMB
Flame

Re: Hello? Anyone there?

"......Other browsers playing "catchup" (apparently not very well) isn't news to us."

IE 7 is the latest browser to try and catch up with Opera on market share (in UK anyway). Every day it gets a bit closer to Opera's market share :P

I bet Microsoft are really proud their old browser is approaching the popularity of Opera.

Says big things when that many people like what you're doing.

HMB

Re: No Chrome on Android?

"Any word on Chrome and Firefox for Symbian? No? Oh, OK."

It's dead Jim. :P

Watchdog tells Greenpeace to stop 'encouraging anti-social behaviour'

HMB

Re: As soon as I saw "hippies" in the headline...

You knew as soon as you saw the headline that you didn't want to read it, so you want it tagged too because you didn't work it out from the headline, that you said you....

Ohhh...

I see. You're an idiot.

Google+ dying on its arse – shock new poll

HMB

Old Addage

Give people something much better or half the cost.

Google+ just isn't much better, all this while Facebook continues to push forwards. Google+'s future might have been more interesting had it not insisted on real names, but it might be too late for that now.

Innovation fail.

Ten... alternatives to Samsung's Galaxy S III

HMB

Re: Samsung plus CyanogenMod.

CyanogenMod is absolutely awesome, but counting on a stable, fully functional release that will happen any time soon after launch seems foolish to me.

Spy tech exports from Europe face tighter scrutiny

HMB

I'm so glad our government doesn't have any heavy handed monitoring and censorship plans!

Minister blows away plans for more turbines

HMB
Alert

Re: Excellent.

You're right that Nuclear isn't as cost effective as coal. Trouble is that for some reason there's a problem burning coal. Nuclear Vs Wind power for price? Nuclear wins every time. Nuclear even edges out clean coal. Nuclear has fuel that could last for millenia, coal does not.

Now, you tell me, what's sustainable?

BT blows fibre into 'multiple biz units' for first time

HMB

15 Mbps Up

What, so with the upgrade to 76 / 19 Mbps for FTTC, FTTP customers have to have an artificial limit of 15 Mbps on their upload?

I'd be sore about that.

DARPA boffins seek Terminator-style disaster-zone rescue robot

HMB

Re: " emergency situations don't usually come with good WiFi."

This is for use cases where strict regulatory issues over spectrum use take precedence over stopping nuclear meltdowns. :P

HMB

Re: 'Dumb' robots

I think this is a far more achievable task. I think DARPA have gone a bit crazy with the requirements on this challenge.

HMB

Re: Why build a robot?

Robocop had a human brain, pretty useless in a high radiation environment.

UK top dog for home Wi-Fi usage... almost

HMB

Re: Does wireless put people off with lower throughput?

Being a 50Mbps customer has nothing to do with it, I addressed one particular issue brought up about Wireless being a bottle neck. I'm on one of the fastest services available in the UK for download speeds and my wireless is not a bottleneck, I didn't even go out and buy special equipment.

Please read and judge what I actually wrote, rather than what I didn't.

HMB

Does wireless put people off with lower throughput?

I get 50.46 Mbps on speedtest.net with my laptop on the other side of the apartment using the Virgin Media superhub, so I'd say no to that question.

Of course wireless is only as good as the manufacturer's implementation. A high quality chipset and driver combination with dual band and you can get over 150 Mbps actual throughput. Buy cheap kit and you can have reliability issues and struggle to get more than 40 Mbps actual throughput.

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