Posts by StooMonster 275 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Dec 2006
the commonest keyboard in use still has its keys laid out in order to constrain the users speed lest the mechanical parts of almost forgotten typewriters get jammed
According to the QI elves and Wikipedia that is incorrect, QWERTY was designed to increase speed not decrease it (albeit by reducing jams).
Plus has happy coincidence of design of encouraging two handed multi-finger typing which is more efficient than alternatives.
There's an older fella on my commuting train who works on his laptop every morning. It's not that he's a classic two finger typist that is the problem but rather he hits the keys so hard that each punch can be heard down the other end of the carriage. What impresses me is that his generic windows laptop with MacBook Pro like keys can survive the bashing and continue to work.
There's no advantage as the extra colour bit depth is not there.
You are correct that broadcast television and Blu-ray's codecs only support 8-bit per channel colour, i.e. 24-bit colour
Where extra colour bit depth is useful is if your screen is upscaling material, such as SD up to native HD resolution as extra colours on 30-bit or 32-bit mean smoother scaling (can tween colours) and thus less banding and such artefacts.
This obviously doesn't work if say you use your Sky HD box to upscale SD channels to 1080i in 24-bit before it send them to display, which is why picture quality fans have Sky HD set to AUTO output so screens can better scale (with more colours) SD to HD.
Or early BBC HD on Freesat to BBC1 HD and BBC2 HD now on Freesat.
IIRC they've dropped the resolution from 1920x1080 square pixels to 1440x1080 rectangular pixels, plus dropped the bit-rate from north of 20Mb/s down to about half that.
The excuse was parity with Freeview HD and saying BBC was not going to favour quality on one particular platform.
In the 80s you would have had to wrestle a Koala Pad out of my cold dead hands, for creating graphics it was by far the best (cost effective) tool and second to none.
Isn't the modern equivalent the Walcom tablet? So it is an interface that stood the test of time after all, at least with graphic designers and other creatives.
RE: "UK birth certificate isn't necessarily proof of citizenship"
That's right, I have friends who are married where one is American and the other an EU citizen, their children were all born here in UK — and thus have British birth certificates — and grown up and gone to school here but they cannot get British passports.
So the kids have got dual citizenships of their parents homelands, but they always think it's a bit weird (you'd think they were British if you talked to them).
Seeing as you mention DirectX, on Windows 8 IE10 uses DX 11.1 for rendering. Which is why Microsoft had to port IE10 back for Windows 7. The reason being that for marketing purposes DX11.1 is not coming to Win7 and is Win8 exclusive.
So if instead they had "allowed" DX11.1 for Win7 they would've had an easier time making a version of IE10 work on this popular flavour of Windows.
Also might've encourage game developers to use DX11.1 features, which is plainly not happening ATM due to tiny markets share of Win8.
The BBC, Sky, etc say they have more than a quarter of their customers using GingerBread, so they cannot offer advanced features like HD streaming ... unless they want to cut off their service for a chunk of their customers.
(Last time I looked on Google Android analytics, couple of weeks ago, GingerBread was more than 50% of devices accessing Google Play in the prior two weeks.)
Of course they could develop different clients for different versions of Anroid, which is exactly the Android fragmentation issue in a nutshell.
Whereas their Apple iOS clients are shiny and packed with cutting edge features, such as programme downloads (so one can watch iPlayer on the train and not worry about tunnels).
I signed up with Netflix because they had High Definition support, when LoveFilm were low resolution streaming only at them time. Do LoveFilm have better HD support these days?
Another thing, was easy to roll out Netflix around the house, just used those Apple TV things: plugged them into power and HDMI and done.
Coincidentally had a conversation the other day with friend, where I realised that most of our current household viewing is Netflix — rather than Sky or optical discs — and it's because (a) there's not much we fancy to record on Sky at the moment and (b) there's loads of series on Netflix that we kind-of-fancied in the past but never got round to watching but can now watch the entire things in HD (mostly).
Microsoft only make money with Windows and Office, everything else they do bleeds cash, and they know this isn't going to last forever. So what can they do? Copy Apple! Take a fee for every app / program sold on their OS, that's how.
So, they have developed Metro as the successor OS to Windows desktop, where commercial apps are only available from the Microsoft Store (Enterprise apps can be distributed directly, as per iOS) and a large proportion of the revenue goes to Microsoft.
Windows 8 is the first step in this direction with the addition of Metro to desktop, but as Windows Blue arrives and we get annual updates to the desktop OS with relentless promotion of Metro apps we will see depreciation of desktop by stealth (like we did the transition from DOS to Windows in the past). They've given up on backwards compatibility, as few care (those that do can run VMs) and it doesn't help the cash flow.
Windows RT was obviously perceived as a driver of Metro apps, but really it's the timing that is wrong. It may be DOA but it will be like a zombie and come back from the dead because eventually Metro will be the mainstream Windows OS and desktop will be as relevant as DOS is today.
Like ITV here in UK they use 1440x1080 anamorphic, rather than 1920x1080, and also use low-bandwidth high-compression. Not good.
In UK I find one of the worst offenders to be the channel previous called FX but rebranding to Fox, sometimes they use such little bandwidth that there's no detail at all and it's like watching your programmes smeared with vacaline.
Also those 4K projectors out there now tend not to be native 4K, at least not the cheaper ones, they simulate 4K by offsetting pixels. There are real 4K physical pixel projectors, but they cannot accept a 4K signal as an input and only upscale 1080p to quad-HD.
If you want a real 4K projector you are still going to have to wait for one that has both 4K resolution (really, not pseudo) plus 4K over HDMI. But we should see them in 2013, same is true of 4K / quad-HD HDTVs as you'll have to watch out for early models that do not accept signal and only upscale 1080p.
For optimal viewing you'll also need a 4K source, but luckily the 4K format for Blu-ray is imminent (as is 4K support in HDMI).
The only problem I see is that MS don't make content but I could see them following Apple and demanding a 30% cut of everyone who has their content signed so it can be sold inside the walls.
Already happening, Windows RT is the first walled-garden version of Windows.
Specifically, with Windows RT the only source of software is the Microsoft Store. As per iOS, you cannot install software from anywhere else (until the device is jail-broken) and Microsoft runs the store on the same agency model as everyone else so get their 30% take of everyone's paid apps.
Android and Amazon are not "real competition" for iPad, but Microsoft Surface is?
At least these two offer cheaper alternatives if nothing else, what does Surface bring? The x86 version looks to me like an ultra book but with the mobo behind the screen rather than underneath the keyboard.
Oh, last I heard Office came with RT. If now you only get "Office Preview" then it looks like one will have to download Office Metro edition from the Microsoft Store.
I am sure that's a commercial decision, Office division could not have RT tablets cannibalising their margins.
They didn't announce the price and they didn't announce the battery life either.
Cynical El Reg readers may wonder why.
Also, RT includes Office pre-installed (i.e. "for free") whereas the Pro version does not and one has to purchase an Office licence in addition -- not a surprise but adds to the cost of "full version".
> It may even be the case that both versions are locked down to an app store so people cannot install apps except via the store.
Windows RT is locked down this way, you can only buy software from the Microsoft Store on the ARM tablets.
Similarly you can only buy Metro apps from the Microsoft Store in the x86/64 Windows 8.
Only "classic desktop" allows running of program's not purchased from Microsoft Store.
Metro apps (read programs) are only available from the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft take 30% of the revenue of third-party apps sold from the Microsoft Store, ergo they earn at least 30% of the revenue of all Metro apps.
That is why they will not allow you to turn off Metro, it is a revenue stream.
Ages ago I had exactly the same thing happen on Windows 7 64-bit and 32-bit editions too — two updates of .NET got into infinite update loops.
Wasted best part of a day trying to fix it myself and finally spent ages on phone to Microsoft Support — via MSDN subscription — and their conclusion in the end (after more than an hour on phone) was "Back up your data. Format drive. Re-install."
I was staggered that a 21st century 64-bit OS could be completely shagged by an update from its author, and require such radical fix.
...is easy access to and easy to use loss-less or loss-less compression codec downloads, without paying a premium price; the current mass-market solution of 'good enough' quality isn't good enough for my tastes.
Until that day CD it is, and ripping to whatever format takes my fancy.
Few friends have got Infinity and really pleased with it.
I use Virgin 100Mb package and get a rock solid 10Mb upstream, but keenly waiting to see what the speed bump does.
As to direct download speeds, I downloaded Dota2 from Steam in three minutes a couple of weeks ago and Mass Effect 3 from Origin in about eight minutes last week. Streaming any HD video service is usually a dream but can occasionally have buffering problems in the early evenings.
I get a phone call at least once a month from BT trying to sell me Infinity, the latest went like this:
BT: "Hello, this is BT. I'd like to talk to you about our super fast broadband,"
Me: "Sorry but..."
BT: "We are offering broadband that is four times faster than any of our competitors."
Me: "Really? Four times faster than any of your competitors?"
BT: "Yes!"
Me: "I have Virgin Media's 100Mb service, so what I hear you saying is that you can provide me with a 400Mb connection. Wow."
BT: "You know I mean broadband over BT's phone lines, not anything else."
Me: "That is not what you said."
I run two Windows 7 64-bit computers, and both of them have had the OS destroyed by Microsoft Updates. i.e. got into infinite loops that won't break and cannot be reversed. Both times called MSDN support and eventual 'official' problem resolution was format hard drive and reinstall OS.
What happens on a Windows 8 tablet when the OS gets shagged by Microsoft Updates, which is inevitable as far as I am concerned?
I can make Win7 64-bit BSoD on demand, if I uninstall AMD's CAP application support it always BSoD and the only way I can remove it to update to latest version is go through the Registry and do it manually -- I am not alone, there are plenty of people with same issue on support forums. There's also a couple of programs that BSoD Win7 when they crash too.
I'm still on CS3 suite, which (mostly) works without issue.
There's a few things I'd like in later versions, but it's just not worth the price of the upgrade to me (not my core business, but I do use it heavily every so often).
Definitely not going subscription route either, nor pay-as-you-go.
Guess I'll stick with CS3 until it stops working due to OS changes or Adobe have a more reasonable upgrade policy.
I know several people with Apple TV and none of them are IT professionals; rather they are doctors, dentists, managers, musicians, and entrepreneurs ... ordinary ABs in demographics terms.
They don't have them flashed for XBMC, rather they use them for Netflix and renting movies from iTunes -- one thing they have in common is they hate BSkyB (or at least the fees).
Why is Metro UI forced in Win8? For a similar reason it is the new interface on Xbox 360.
On 360 it's all about the advertising, and an additional revenue stream from all those Xbox gamers' eyeballs. It's the money.
On Win8 Metro programs can only be purchased from Microsoft's app store, and Microsoft take 30% of price. This doesn't affect "desktop" programs (yet), but certainly does affect tablets that are Metro only and those users who will buy things like 'Cut the Rope'. Again, it's the money.
I am amazed that El Reg readers aren't more vocal about Metro apps only being available from Microsoft's store.
You know that a lot of modern apartments / flats have only a microwave for heating stuff up, no oven and hob, there's no call for kitchens these days -- as dining rooms before them -- with particular demographics (young, urban, professionals) who eat out or buy ready meals.
My kids love an American tv show called 'The Middle' where the protagonist family use their cooker for bedding storage, as they eat take-away and warm popcorn in the microwave. I imagine there's plenty of households in the UK where cooker and hob are never turned on.
Similarly I already know people who've gone from desktop to laptop to netbook to iPad tablet exclusivity, not for me as I have proper work to do on workstation / desktop but I can see quite a lot of people going that way too.
Nokia might make more phones than anyone else, but with wafer thin margins it means their earnings (profits are tiny).
Apple have 6% market share but take 60% of profits of all handset manufacturers, whereas Nokia make 60% of handsets (not really, it's less) but take 6% of the profits of handset manufacturers (probably less, I don't have Nokia's figures to hand but you get the point).
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