Posts by JP Cavendish

NASA Geotail spacecraft's 30-year mission ends after last data recorder fails

Re: Say what you want about NASA's inefficiencies

@Lord Elpuss: "Nasa planning meeting: "So guys, how long do we think the spacecraft will last?" "

Guys? Women work at NASA too Elpuss.

2020 MacBook Air teardown shows in graphic detail how butterfly keyboards were snipped for scissor switch

Re: Methinks ...

Fscking hell Elpuss & Jake - get a room already. People make choices. Those choices aren't always the same ones YOU would make, doesn't make them right or wrong.

Elpuss - It's up to you if you buy Apple. Doesn't make you an idiot. But it's a Reg punchline that's been around for ever, nothing personal and not the end of the world. Stop whinging.

Jake - I'm sure you've been around, seen a lot and done some stuff. But you don't half shout about it a lot so do us a favour and STFU when others have a different viewpoint.

First World Problems both of you.

</rant>

Apple demands $707m more from Samsung

Samsung is no different.

See title.

Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review

Re: "Apple have never taken the "rip it up and start again" route"

"The luxury car analogy doesn't wash, no matter how many times it's trotted out." Actually, the analogy does work, in almost every respect.

- Luxury* build quality (Lamborghini had a reputation for shoddy build quality for years, as indeed did Porsche with several models. The early 2.7l engines needed a complete rebuild at 40k miles)

- Luxury* looks (Porsche Panamera? Cayenne? 917?)

- Luxury* materials (McLaren F1s were built around a carbon-fiber 'bathtub' - great until you crashed it and it shattered)

- Luxury* price (Come on, you gotta agree with that)

- Luxury* features list (luxury cars seldom excel on outright features - they tend to focus on one or two things. And I remember well the satnav voice on the Aston Martin DB9 being compared to the warder from a women's prison as well as it's keyfob being from a 20 grand volvo)

- Luxury* usability (the Mercedes AMG Black editions. Utterly undriveable. The McLaren MP4-12; clinical, clean, precise and boring as shite. iOS anyone?)

*'Luxury' doesn't necessarily equate to 'Good' or 'More'.

iPhone 5: skinny li'l fella with better display, camera, software

Here's something odd

That combined backplate design would be ideal to cover a removable battery. It even looks like it's designed that way. So why didn't they give it a damn removable battery, given that the reason cited for not doing it so far is "it would spoil the design"?!?!?!?

Opportunity missed in my book.

What I'd have liked

is a really thin phone, with a front that's 100% screen. No bezel at all, and no visible earpiece, microphone, home button or camera. Apple can use their 'Innovativeness' to figure out how to do all this but haptic or piezo technology should work for the speakers, they've already invented cameras that can look through LCD screens and the microphone should be child's play.

Give us a phone that's literally all screen, and we'll all be walking around feeling like extras from Star Trek as opposed to now where I followed the entire live blog expecting to be blown away, and ended up with a bit of a 'meh' moment. Closest to this at the moment is the Galaxy Note, but even that's a bit bezel-heavy and it's ginormous.

I have an iPhone 4, I saw no reason to upgrade to the 4S and unfortunately see no reason to upgrade to the 5 either. Shame as I was looking forward to this.

Hacker uses Kindle as Raspberry Pi screen

See post

"I quickly realized that if I wanted to do anything productive at this point it was better to get myself a computer," Gef wrote.

Fair enough, but that's missing the point of the Pi by a country mile...

Archos 101 XS 10.1in Android tablet review

Can't put my finger on it...

But for some reason this looks like it was designed by Renault. Is there a French school of design which all French companies have to stick to?

Apple eyes $$$ iDevice adapter bonanza

Re: Whilst Nokia makes the future, Apple sells the past

Hilarious. Again, not my experience; YMMV.

Re: go proprietary!

@Nick de Plume; interesting about the robustness of Micro vs MiniUSB; I've always assumed that because micro is that much more 'precise' in terms of tolerances, that it is less forgiving when abused. It's also a pain in the ass if you get dust in either plug or socket, especially if you don't notice and just ram it home.

In terms of whether microUSB would do the job just as well as the proprietary connector, I can think of two possible reasons of the top of my head why they might not want to use it; 1. Related to dust getting in, maybe they had issues with putting 2.1A through a dusty connector hence their own 'magical and revolutionary dust-rejection mechanism' in their own connector, and 2. Given that they are already butchering the USB spec by delivering massively higher current than the spec allows, maybe the USB Working Group wouldn't let them use it.

Just my $0.02

@Matt Bryant

Lord Elpuss is right.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4060

"The fastest way to charge your iPad is with the included 10W USB Power Adapter. iPad will also charge, although more slowly, when attached to a computer with a high-power USB port (many recent Mac computers) or with an iPhone Power Adapter. When attached to a computer via a standard USB port (most PCs or older Mac computers) iPad will charge, but only when it's in sleep mode. Make sure your computer is on while charging iPad via USB. If iPad is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, the iPad battery will continue to drain."

If your colleagues ipad isn't charging *at all* over USB, even when asleep, it's probably broken and your colleague should take it back to the Apple store.

A little research works wonders...

Re: Whilst Nokia makes the future, Apple sells the past

Have to say I've never in my life heard an Apple fan crowing. Apple Marketing dept certainly, but the users are a quiet lot for the most part.

HTC's 4G patent beef could get iPhone 5 BANNED in US

An eye for an eye...

...and the whole Tech world is blind. That's the way this will end up if these companies keep lobbing patent sueballs at each other; the only losers will be the end users.