Posts by Steven H Taylor

US Air Force AI drone 'killed operator, attacked comms towers in simulation'

The Register used to run a series about the ai/robot uprising called "Rise of the Machines". What happened to that?

Slideshow: A History of the Smartphone in 20 Handsets

O2 XDA, indeed

Far more worthy of inclusion than the flopped N-gage handsets, the first HTC Windows Mobile phone, the O2 XDA was at least as revolutionary as the first iPhone, only without the hype.

It wasn't *my* first smartphone -- I jumped aboard with the O2 XDA II. It served me well for many years. The first in a long a still running string of relevant full touch-screen phones that spelled the end of the stand-alone PDA.

Microsoft: Gmail rival Outlook.com will 'look good on your iPad' 

Where's the uproar?

Last time Microsoft tried to 'reimagine hotmail' and came up with Windows Live Mail it triggered a storm of criticism, practically forcing them to revert. Where are those loyal fans this time?

I should probably look on twitter, but why would I want to do that from Outlook?

Flying Dutchman creates dead cat quadcopter

Black Helicopter alert

...indeed.

Microsoft explains bland new Windows logo

New light through old windows?

Looks like tiles indeed. Clever, but probably too subtle for most folks.

Twitter discovers MMS for photo tweeting

TLA

The reason Twitter doesn't refer to this protocol as MMS as simply they're an American company, a large part of their user base is American, and most Americans wouldn't even have clue what an SMS is, let alone an MMS. One can wonder whether their understanding of TLAs much exceeds USA, OMG and WTF.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Perhaps not the ultimate one

but still a fantastic science fiction story that would make for a great movie I've been waiting for decades to see made: "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin.

Lovefilm confirms PS3 streaming scheme

Coverage?

Lovefilm coming to PS3... in the UK, one has to presume. What do Europeans on the continent get? No Netflix, no Lovefilm for sure.

T-Mobile bribes fanbois to trade iPhone for...Windows Mobile 6.5

Something for US?

Presumably this deal is only valid for customers in the US of A, or perhaps also Canada but not on our side of the pond. Too bad the article makes no mention of this whatsoever.

Bloated Office 2010 kicks dirt in face of old computers

Late adopter?

Exactly. I don't consider myself a luddite but I happily continue tuse Office 2000 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and I think I hardly use any of the extra features it added over the previous version ('97? '98?).

Just a pity they never upgrade bonus applications like MS Photo Editor.

Google may exit China after 'highly targeted' attack

PS

BTW, the PRC government will also be glad to see Google leave because it will give them even more control over censorship than they've already got.

Has it occurred to anyone

and especially, has it occurred to Google, that the PRC government would be delighted to see Google leave? It would boost native Baidu's market share to 90% or so. The Chinese would love to get rid of western tech companies, once they've copied their technologies and products. That's why they've developed their own VCD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc variants, their own telecommunications standards, etc. Good riddance, if you ask them!

3D TV gets cold shower from Avatar man

Full dual encoding

is considered too inefficient. The left and right-eye video can be encoded together with much less bandwidth than twice a single one.

Anonymous Coward is right

The display technology need not be standardized; so long as the displays work with standardized sources as input, all is fine. Just don't try to use the glasses of one technology with the display of another.

Autostereoscopy may be the future

but Philips abanonded the no-glasses approach because the final crisis stretched the payback term by another year or so. The credit crunch caused a delay in investments in quad-HD screens which they felt were necessary for decent quality lenticular displays. Yes, they are that impatient. *Sighs*

Documents uncover PSP Go's true CPU speed

480MHz yes, but not the CPU

Apparently, this clock frequency pertains to the USB port, not the CPU.

Story withdrawn

You can ban me but

I cannot believe they did not include 'cewebrity'.

Ok, thank gawd it hasn't quite caught on but whoever came up with this term should be banned from the internet for ever, if not from media in general.

At first I thought the word was a pun on people with a certain speech problem but it turns out to refer to the sort of people featured in Weezer's "Pork and beans" video.

Brits decline to 'think outside the box'

'Downsizing' is so nineties

In the naughties this euphemism was replaced by the no less horrifying 'rightsizing', which in turn looks to be replaced by 'redesigning'.

I was also surprised not to find 'ballpark figure', 'low-hanging fruit' and 'being on the same page' in the top 20.

Linux weaktops poised for death by smartphone

Netbooks vs Smartphones

One key aspect of this battle remarkably appears to be overlooked here:

A netbook (even a 10" model including Windows XP, MS Works and the lot) is still significantly cheaper than a decent smartphone like an iPhone or HTC Touch family member like the Diamond, Pro or HD.

Pioneer DVR-116D multi-format DVD rewriter

DVD-RAM RIP (almost)

Why DVD-RAM never caught on? Easy -- the format has nothing else in common with DVD other than those three letters. DVD-RAM is recorded totally different at all levels and a disc does not resemble a DVD-ROM disc at all. That may be fine for archiving but not for sharing.

Harman Kardon brings high-end media centre to Blighty

PS3 audio quality

The PS3 actually makes for a great CD player thanks to upsampling and various other features. All PS3 models have analogue audio outputs and if you buy the right model you'll even get SACD playback, analogue stereo and digital multichannel via HDMI. See PS3SACD.com

Nintendo gets chatty with WiiSpeak

Why a separate dongle?

There already is a (thus far unused) microphone inside the Wiimote, isn't there?

See http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/storysupplement/wiiremote/index.htm and other reports.

Apple ARMs up iPhone

ARM all along

So we can finally put to rest any speculation about future iPhones being based on x86 such as this http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/03/apple_ponders_x86_iphone/ ?

PA Consulting begs for mercy after data loss axing

The rogue employee should not be fired

He should be added to the prison population whose details he 'lost'.

Google's Austro-Hungarian ambitions laid bare

What makes you think Britain is spared?

Without colours it's impossible to tell from this map whether the UK remains a sovereign state. Perhaps it too is ceded to Great Denmark.

By the way, the name is written as Habsburg.

Yelp 'pay to play' pitch makes shops scream for help

Extortion 2.0

I wonder how much Yelp is willing to pay me if I don't bump this story on Digg, Reddit and deli.cio.us.

'Different' Dell to downgrade XPS brand

Demotion

XPS already was a sub-brand, like Inspiron. The only actual brand here is Dell. So now XPS is demoted to a sub-sub-brand.

World's first Blu-ray record pressing

Of course

The SACD is compatible with PlayStation3 as well.

See http://www.ps3sacd.com

Intel: future iPhone to be Atom powered

Doesnt that dovetail nicely

with this story?

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/03/apple_ponders_x86_iphone/

Atari unveils Wii Fit rival

Why market a rebranded Dance Dance Revolution mat

when Atari invented the Wii Fit Board (Atari Joyboard, 1982) in the first place?

Apple fans roast Apple fans

Somehow...

'freezing' doesn't seem to be an appropriate term here.

It would make this the first material that freezes when heated up.

Then again, aren't solid-state things frozen by definition?

Sony chews the Blu-ray fat with Microsoft

More topics

What else they could be discussing? Well, inclusion of iHD, for instance. Though I doubt Sony would, some sources claim this. http://www.newsarcs.com/cda/story.php?article_id=1051

Vote now for your fave sci-fi movie quote

Better suggestion

I missed my all-time favourite line:

"Don't run -- we are your friends" (from Mars Attacks).

Warner puts Blu-ray, HD DVD combo disc 'on hold'

It's not Microsoft, it's Toshiba

Yoshihide Fujii of Toshiba admitted in Consumer Electronics Daily of September 1 that it was Toshiba who paid Paramount. He only denied that the bribe was as high as $150 million.

Surely Toshiba have invested in HD-DVD much more than Microsoft and consequently have much more to lose. No wonder they're desparate to make it fly. They're still the only CE brand making stand-alone HD-DVD players and they've got a modest position in North America, an even smaller one in the UK and they're non-existent as a CE brand in Europe. Only in Japan they've got a reasonable basis but there BD rules.

Sony to break out of Cell?

IBM not a rival

Clutch is right: it's odd the article should mention IBM as a rival since it was one of Sony's two partners in development of the Cell -- the other one being Toshiba. I only wonder: if Toshiba's factories didn't already serve as a fab for the Cell, what was the company's role in the first place?

Also, what's happening with Sony's other semiconductor business?

HTC jumps on touch-screen phone bandwagon

Is the advent of the iPhone a good or bad thing for HTC?

It's tough to see Apple getting virtually all of the credit where HTC deserves so much for relentlessly pushing the PDA Phone category but at least due to Apple's efforts the public awareness of this product concept is increased substantially which may be a benefit for the category as a whole, making it easier for companies like HTC to sell their stuff to the masses.