Posts by Chet Mannly

You get the internet you deserve

Re: Google has lost already

Oh absolutely - Google's actual search technology when given a specific target is fantastic. But on a wide scale it's too easily gamed...

Microsoft reportedly mulls a does-everything 'super app' to expand mobile search

Typo?

"If the report proves true, for Microsoft, a super app could help plug a hole as it competes with Microsoft and Apple,"

Think that's a typo - unless MS is genuinely trying to outcompete itself. Stranger things have happened I guess :)

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Re: Three letters TPM

100% with you. I just had the TPM (or the data in it) borked by a windows update last week - completely locked out of my machine, only option was to reinstall.

Someone has to say it: Voice assistants are not doing it for big tech

Re: But the data

5 minutes with ADB and Bixby, along with all the other Samsung bloatware is a distant memory....

Elon Musk jettisons Twitter leadership, says takeover was 'to try to help humanity'

His point was that it was negative, but yeah lets ignore that and focus on the definition of a single word instead....

You are talking like Elon is going to moderate every tweet - he has better things to do...

Let's wait and see. What if Twitter puts out a transparent set of rules for everyone to follow and applies them equally to everyone? At one point Musk said the algorithm could be made public, which says that he intends on transparency.

That has to be better than the completely opaque system in place now.

Re: Replaceable

"Since nobody is going to pay money to subscribe to Twitter,"

They already do - where do you think those blue ticks come from? Being verified is a paid subscription..

Re: "the bird is free"

"People will not buy products from adverts next to Donald's Tweets."

Sure about that? The erstwhile Mr Trump (who I think is a fool) received the second largest number of votes in US history. 70m+ people seems like a decent sized market segment.

It's 2023, let's check in with the metaverse... Nope, still doesn't exist

I think Pokemon Go was to AR what Avatar was to 3D movies.

Apple exec confirms iPhones will switch to USB-C because 'we have no choice'

Re: Apple is not making bank on $19 Lightning cables

If you bought 3 cables for $4, and Apple sells them for $19, then they are making $17 a cable, not a few pennies...

Sony, Honda collaborate on 'premium' electric vehicles that are born in the USA

Re: "continuous relationships with customers across the entire value-chain."

Or just leave it disconnected from the network if you want a dumb TV. No need to worry about security patches if there's no way to hack into it...

I use a separate TV stick that I have locked down for streaming.

You've heard of the cost-of-living crisis, now get ready for the cost-of-working crisis

Re: The real problem with 'Back to the office' is management....

100% this. You can't be a passive sit on your butt and wait for people to come to you type manager and make WFH work. You have to be proactive.

Most managers would rather demand employees come back in the office to suit their management style (or lack of it) than make an effort to improve.

Re: 4 Day Week

Well 4 days with reduced hours is already available - it's called working part-time...

Re: 4 Day Week

Loneliness is only an issue when people's social lives are work-based.

For those of us who have a life outside of work WFH means more time spent with your true friends (ie the non-work ones).

Re: The daily commute

You realise you can also sit down an do nothing at home to decompress right? I mean if you need 30 minutes sitting down commuting to decompress you could always just walk out to your garage and sit in your car for 30 minutes LOL

California Governor signs child privacy law requiring online age checks

Field day for google, FB et al

The only way this can work is if you have a third-party age verification of some form (it would be too much work for every web site to do it individually).

So expect Google and FB to demand identity verification and see lots more "sign in with google/FB/etc" log in pages, and the mountain of data slurping that will come with it.

Sounds like a lot of websites will be off my browsing list shortly...

Re: Simple way to dispense with the need for an age check

There's a right to free speech, constitution doesn't say anything about anonymous speech.

Ad blockers struggle under Chrome's new rules

There is a chromium fork called ungoogled chromium which strips out all the google sevices (or at least it says it does, I don't know enough to verify the source code...)

Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists

Re: Chemical process

Come to Australia - we have masses of useless sun-drenched desert that is ideal for this kid of thing.

Amazon’s Kindle bookstore to quit China

Re: Is "The Brick" a modern Tarot card?

You can use Calibre to put ebooks on a Kindle, so I assume that would work.

And there are ways of *cough* reformatting ebooks bought in the Kindle store so you can still access them. PITA though...

With 90% COVID-19 vax rate, Intel to step up return-to-office

Re: It's about conversation

"hands up how many of you have had a spontaneous - ie: not pre-scheduled by a meeting request invite or some precursory discussion over a text-based system - conversation with one of your colleagues or team in the last... oooh, let's say three months?"

I had 4 of those yesterday, which is typical for me. I'd average 3-4 spontaneous electronic conversations a day (whether text or call/video) in addition to scheduled meetings. And I now get at least 80% less interruptions from people wanting to talk about inane rubbish that has nothing to do with work..

"studies have shown that team productivity is down by anything up to 30%,"

Our team is actually producing all work ahead of schedule while WFH. Care to provide references for these "studies"?

Sounds like you are stuck in the past and haven't made the effort to actually use the technologies available to you. Or you are one of those odious people who have zero social life outside of work, and need everyone captive in the office so you can have a social outlet.

The first step to data privacy is admitting you have a problem, Google

Re: A bigger problem?

Yep, most of them are just different GUIs on the Google calendar.

The Proton Mail calendar isn't though, it's a completely separate app with no links to the built-in calendar. (usual no association beyond being a satisfied user disclaimer obviously).

Signal also does a good job of replacing the SMS app.

Re: meanwhile...

There are definitely alternatives. I use Signal for SMS instead of google messenger - you just have to tick a box in settings and say yes make it the default. Works flawlessly.

There are dialer alternatives as well, but I haven't bothered as I don't make enough phone calls to be worth the trouble...

Re: "Let's tackle that by assuming good faith"

The A in AOSP stands for Android. Huawei phones have no Google stuff on them and their OS is still called Android.

I agree Google wants everyone to *think* that it's the Google parts that are most important and make Android what it is, but they aren't really.

Re: "Let's tackle that by assuming good faith"

Another assumption you are making is that everyone uses Google's services. Google surveils everyone, not just those who use their services.

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is still pushing metaverse. Next step, language translation

Colour me skeptical...

Look it may turn out to be everything that Zuck dreams of, but didn't the completely failed 3D tv and movie "revolution" establish that people aren't particularly enamoured with wearing goggles to look at stuff?

Google Chrome's upcoming crackdown on ad-blockers and other extensions still really sucks, EFF laments

Adguard DNS gets around all of that

I started using adguard DNS and haven't seen a single ad since.

It's another good option.

Apple warns sideloading iOS apps will ruin everything

"Some sideloading initiatives would also mandate removing protections against third-party access to proprietary hardware elements"

In other words this could kill the massive margins we make on Apple Pay too!

This has been a long-running issue in Australia where Apple had a standoff with the local banks over the commission Apple charges on Apple Pay transactions. If the banks themselves could make their own pay function that would really mess up Apple's applecart...

Google to auto-enroll 150m users, 2m YouTubers with two-factor authentication

Nothing to do with forcing people to hand over their phone numbers right?

It's obviously for security purposes, not so that they can force people that haven't already to hand over their phone numbers as well as all the other data they have on you...

Apple responds to critics of CSAM scan plan with FAQs, says it'd block governments subverting its system

Re: Think about it the next time you vote

"Or a phone running LineageOS?"

Yep it will be rooted Androids running open-source/modified builds as the only way to get around that. Wonder how long before the Governments then ban unlockable bootloaders...

Re: They refused FBI pressure before

"They refused FBI pressure before"

Hard not to think this was a quid pro quo for that - we won't give you access to the device, but we'll scan it all for you and let you know if there's anything bad/relevant on it. After all if they find CP material they will notify the FBI straight away.

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, professor warns

Re: If this doesn't make people stop using Iphones... then what?

I swapped gmail for another provider for exactly that reason.

Judging by the user numbers I'm probably in the minority...

"Everyone else, Google included, scans in the Cloud. One way or another, you’ll get scanned - it’s just a question of where."

Not true. If you don't store anything in your google cloud they can't scan anything. With Apple you don't have that option...

If you're appy and you know it: The Huawei P40 Pro conclusively proves that top-notch specs aren't everything

Re: If you are desperate for Mountain Views spyware

"you'll likely end up with an experience that's ultimately crippled, or fails to run entirely"

What is that statement based on what exactly? My phone has all google stuff stripped out. Just installed Aurora store and proceeded as normal. Both of my banking apps work fine, Whatsapp works fine too.

Any app that gave errors worked fine in any browser you like. Most "apps" are just wrappers on websites anyway. Firefox lets you put shortcuts on your home screen so it's barely any different to an app.

Apple: EU can't make us use your stinking common charging standard

Re: Ban Them.

But last time the EU law wasn't binding - they expected everyone to play ball. This time the plan is for the law to be binding.

gouging their customers for expensive cables created value for those customers *who are also shareholders*

Re: "It'll stifle [..] innovation."cannot

"USB can't support music and movies at high fidelity."

I can listen to DSD master audio files, and 4k Video with DTSHD 7.1 sound through USBC no problem. That's pretty high fidelity in my book!

Re: "It'll stifle [..] innovation."

"I thought USB-C was in answer to Apple's Lightning?"

No it is the successor - that's why Apple use it on macbooks etc. Apple was one of the early adopters of it, there were very few USBC devices out there at the time..

If lightning was actually better it would be on macbooks too wouldn't it?

Trump-China trade war latest: Brave patriot Apple decides to do exact same thing, will still make Mac Pro in US

“The value of American-made components in the new Mac Pro is 2.5 times greater than in Apple’s previous generation Mac Pro.” Note the word “value” in there – not number."

From the US perspective value is all that matters - it means 2.5x the $$$ going into the US economy instead of the Chinese one - which is the whole point.

Reality is Apple did a deal with Trump - Apple significantly increased the amount of money they put into the US economy, Trump dropped tariffs. Everything is a negotiation with him.

Huawei to lob devs $1.5bn in apparent effort to Trump-proof cloud and mobile ecosystem

Re: Since money is being spent...

Yeah the lack of headphone jack is baffling in the pro phones!

Wanna keep the cameras though - they are awesome.

Re: Since money is being spent...

I have a 256gb card in my mate 20x. Plus the 128gb internal memory. That's plenty for me travelling or otherwise.

Genuine question - how much storage do you need in a phone?

Agree using micro sd would be better, but card was like $5 more expensive so it wasn't a big deal to me.

Re: No Googlebloat?

My thoughts exactly!! When I heard they were going to be completely Google-less open-source Android I was immediately interested in the Mate 30s.

Eco-activists arrested by Brit cops after threatening to close Heathrow with drones

Re: Odd

A bigger concern is if something more than a li-ion battery is strapped to it...

Re: To our knowledge Heathrow has done nothing to warn passengers or airlines yet

"Thats the same argument as build more motorways to solve congestion. Its been a proven failure for decades now"

Sorry that's rubbish - motorway upgrades allow for more cars to travel during a given period.

"Exactly. There are enough flights already...unless you believe the fatuous rubbish about the new runway leading to more business with china)."

Firstly, if you don't want to take more flights then don't, it's your choice. Please stop trying to make decisions for the rest of us. And if you don't believe Chinese tourist numbers I suggest you go anywhere in Europe - there are throngs of Chinese tourists everywhere, and the numbers are growing.

A protest that shuts down an airport isn't symbolic!

But their intention was to shut down flights, and it would have succeeded - the altitude is utterly irrelevant.

Good on the police for stopping these nutbags from ruining hundreds of people's days and costing them thousands.

What they don't get is that this turns people off their causes. As more nutters do these stupid things it lowers the credibility of the environmental movement generally, and people will stop listening.

There's no getting Huawei from 5G – Chinese giant joins Qualcomm, Samsung in bunging high-speed comms in mobe brains

Re: Trade war

Yeah the whole Google-less, open source Android phone sounds quite attractive to be honest.

So I for one will thank his orangeness if I get one!

Huawei new smartphone won't be Mate-y with Google apps as trade sanctions kick in

Re: Customer choice = fragmentation ?

There are already alternative app stores like Amazon available that you can install.

I'd frankly like a googleless phone!

Tesla’s Autopilot losing track of devs crashing out of 'leccy car maker

Re: I want some of what Musk is smoking

Spot on, and the thing is that if you dumbed roads down that much then the rate of human caused accidents would plummet too, really negating the need for FSD.