Posts by Metrognome

Netflix needling you? BBC pimps up iPlayer ahead of BBC3 move

Re: charge iPlayer-only viewers the full fee

I sympathise with you.

Back in the day, I was once parallel watching an F1 grand prix from BBC and a Greek TV station. Queue a series of blunders:

- Major events happening during commercial breaks (Murphy's law anyone?)

- The hapless Greek studio commentators didn't realise for a few laps that the front runner was losing ground; at the same time the BBC had their woman in the pits telling us "the gearbox had overheated in the last few laps forcing the engineers to lower the power output somewhat until the thermal profile recovered" (or something like that, anyway).

It's the difference of being given exclusive VIP room access to the event and trying to surmise what might be happening from the background noise that makes it to the pavement where you've been banished.

Re: Charging

That's easy.

If the "target" is households, as you put it, then you allow unlimited connections from the household IP address (we're still some way away from multi IP addressed households) and also allow a nominal (no more than 3-5) number of instances that are outside the established household IP.

If it works with enterprise licencing for various types of software (think simultaneous connections/users) I don't see a problem extending it to the iPlayer.

However, it is the rights holders that need convincing, not the population.

For example, BBC had to switch to a satellite transponder with an even narrower footprint than before to continue with unscrambled broadcasts and still claim to only make them available to the UK (otherwise they would need to scramble or pay international distribution rights - about 10 times more expensive).

[rant] so much for the "single market" [/rant]

Re: Monetised

I'm with zb on this one.

Although my "workaround" is much more prosaic (and actually legal here in Switzerland), I too would love to hand over the cash, to enter the advert free blissdom that is the BBC.

More than any Netflix, iTunes or other service, the iPlayer is the only one I wish I was allowed to pay. Bring it on, I say.

(FWIW I think it would be right to charge only non-TV licence holders for access to iPlayer. After all, I recall from my years in Blighty that the TV licence is meant to support all public service broadcasters, like ITV and C4; so unless the online only licence came with 4OD and whatever the ITV equivalent is, I don't see the point).

Microsoft loses grip on Christmas shoppers... despite XBox boost

You wrote:"My voicemails are texted to me".

How exactly is this a winpho specific feature and exactly how well would it work with non English voice messages?

Ex-NSA guru builds $4m encrypted email biz - but its nemesis right now is control-C, control-V

Lavabit was secure but only by virtue of its owner preferring to shut the whole thing down rather than surrender his keys.

Having said that, shutting down your stervice at every official request isn't exactly a recipe for success.

Kudos to the Lavabit guy nonetheless.

Qualcomm pleads innocence as Chinese regulators turn the screw

No sympathy

I have the same respect and admiration for Qualcomm as I do for Oracle. And I wish them both well...

(OK, seriously why do we still have no irony icon?)

Drooping smartphone sales mean hard times ahead for Brit chipmaker

No sympathy

That's the same Imagination Tech of Poulsbo infamy.

They even managed to tarnish Intel's otherwise OK reputation among the Linux community with their antics.

As far as I'm concerned I-T can disappear and hopefully take Qualcom with them while they're at it.

Google unveils ten-year plan to build its ROBOT ARMY of the future

Rubin's Robots

So they will need all sorts of invasive and unnecessary permissions, escape their sandbox environment and when the proverbial hits the fan we'll be left with Google's (in)famous product support forum.

Count me in; where do I sign?... (not)

Bring Your Own Disks: The Synology DS214 network storage box

A few questions

Guys I could use your expert help.

I finally moved to a place that is well kitted out to make the most of a NAS box (FTTH coupled with 24 LAN sockets scattered across all rooms and a cisco switch just under the electrical panel/cabinet).

While I have various leftovers enough to make a screaming server if I got round to it; sadly I just can't devote the time anymore.

I was drawn to any 4-bay box and the three main usage scenarios are: 1) Torrent client & library, 2) DLNA playback to a smartTV and 3) using their app to access the box directly on my tab/phones when travelling so I don't have to load media beforehand (I travel a LOT and internationally, unfortunately).The playback is only about transporting the data; the TV should be capable of handling the playback of the media. As for the streaming via the app, essentially I only want the box to dumbly stream the data. My tabs/phones are more than capable of playing anything back with no help.

I read you guys talking about the underpowered option of the -j models. But then you get the normal numbers and the "+" versions. Only the + ones come with Atoms and the normals come with Marvells. The -j are hobbled on the CPU and RAM front. Given that a 412+/414+ bare cost as much as a 413j with 4x2TB WD Reds I want your opinion on a possible choice. I'm not sure I need to aim for "+" given the cost.

Apologies for the long post but sometimes (despite much evidence to the contrary) these fora are populated with some very sharp, smart and helpful people so I thought I'd ask.

Meet the BlackBerry wizardry that created its 'better Android than Android'

@ ElNumbre

'powered by Android, secured by [insert_any_name]' ...

Isn't this a contradiction in terms?

Hate data fees but love your HD slab? Here's a better way to pay for bytes

Even going by example cited in the article, do you know of many places that offer sufficient speeds for a HD download?

Most terminals (airports, train stations, ports) have dreadful speeds.

The only shiny exception in my experience are Zurich, Dubai and London City airports.

Whodathunkit? Media barons slit own throats in flawed piracy crackdowns

@ Mike Re: "voluntary solutions"?

Actually the "don't make crappy movies" is part of the "don't bet the farm on each film".

Making films so expensive means that producers focus group and market test everything to death. The result is everyone playing safe and ultimately just copying what worked for others. (see stream of fantasy adventure films or vampire themed literature).

Psycho as was pointed out on QI recently was vehemently opposed by Hitchcock's producers which resulted in it being black and white and using a TV crew instead of a film one to keep costs down.

So fewer crappy movies requires less costly films and opportunities for risk taking.

Gates, Zuckerberg to deliver free coding lesson

Re: @ Jake

While you can engage in pedantry and endlessly argue about the minutiae the fact of the matter is that coding (yes, even for basic) can teach valuable lessons about problem solving, logic, architecture and mapping.

Languages are just tools. The skills of programmers though are in good efficient problem mapping and solving.

Master that and you have all your life ahead to refine your output further.

So even basic is better than nothing. The shallower the learning curve the better for getting people hooked on coding and *problem solving*!

T-Mobile FREES AMERICANS to roam world sans terrifying charges

Re: This article doesn't get the scope of the problem.

My hunch, which could be way off, is that the "idiot contingent" is basically comprised of travelling workers who have low motivation for cost control. Either they're high up enough to not care or they are in the middle where the higher ups demand (and sponsor) their 24/7 connectability.

Add to the mix the corporate comms buyer (IT or purchasing) who rather than choose the most cost effective solution they go to whoever provides the best coverage at the C-suites' homes.

RIP charging bricks: $279 HP Chromebook 11 charges via USB

Re: I wonder how long it takes to fully charge? @JeffyPooh

6-8 hrs to charge!?

Well, if it's wrong to assume it's wrong to assume that gadgets would off when charging (fair enough), why do you assume that every single one of them would be drained down to 0 and needing the full monty to re-charge!?

Re: I wonder how long it takes to fully charge?

Not saying that it is the case but it could be the same trick that Asus did on their TF line.

Extra powerful usb charger and modified usb cable. Once the charger realised that it was connected to the TF it would bump the power to 2.5 amps. Failing that, anything else connected would only be served the usual 1 or 0.5 amps.

Smart solution though not very elegant. The charger though usb nominally still was needed for the TF to charge in less than an eternity.

Tech specs wreck: Details of Google's Nexus 5 smartphone leaked over internet

To all those talking about competitors utilising the manual

Sorry to sound like a spoilsport but there is nothing, *nothing* that any known handset manufacturer doesn't already know.

If a maker found any new knowledge in there then they are behind the curve by some years.

And as for the intel value of knowing the competition's products before launch, any half decent marketing department would have worked it out from its market intelligence.

So, to the makers at least, this is a non story.

A couple of legit questions

Guys, just 4 years ago was when the first mainstream quad-cores made it to market. Back then 2.3 ghz meant a hefty cooling fan.

Nowadays they're in a phone (I understand the exaggeration but bear with me).

So have we got successful parallelism that so plagued early x86 code to make the most of the extra cores?

Is parallelism handled differently on ARM and is easier to leverage?

At the end of the day I recall from the x86 camp that twice the cores!=twice the power. How is it on ARM and Android?

(Funnily enough the phone's specs albeit with a little more RAM has been the "good - enough" setup that slowed pc sales down the last 5 years).

Wikipedia Foundation exec: Yes, we've been wasting your money

Still, for all its flaws it's refreshing to see the headhoncho airing the dirty linen as publicly as she has.

And while it suffers from many flaws I still respect what it has achieved, especially thinking that private enterprises and governments hadn't come close.

Study accuses media companies of cooking the books on piracy losses

Careful...

Now now, don't get carried away with the sarcasm and the evidence-based commenting or Orlowski will barge in and tell us how media companies are the best thing since sliced bread and all that sharing malarkey is the death; period.

BlackBerry ripped itself apart wooing CIOs AND iPhone fanbois - insiders

Typing fail. Swear should really read 'sweat'.

See BB, there WAS something you were good at and some of us miss...

It was the CIO's wot dun it.

I have always maintained that it was the fact that CIO's loved it that spelled its doom. What with the granular locking up and lack of capabilities that other phones could do without breaking a swear.

It is funny to see it confirmed.

Where were those CIO's when iThings were flooding the enterprise?

Nokia was listening to the telecoms and BB to the techies. Well, did it ever occur to anyone to listen to the users?

How I hacked SIM cards with a single text - and the networks DON'T CARE

Re: Please explain, not my area of expertise. @asdf

Can't fault you there.

Although things are not as expensive as you make out (not when take home pay is 80+% of your gross) but after 10 years here I've yet to fit in :-)

Re: Please explain, not my area of expertise. @John T.

You write: "Name one single telco that's nice.... Any one will do."

Try Swisscom. Reasonable prices, crazy dense network, 4G at all the main population centres, venues and motorways.

Among the earliest rollouts of VDSL2 and already offering FTTH since a couple of years. Broadband speeds always marginally exceed quoted ones. Couple that with the Swiss supreme Court ruling that mass IP address trawling is illegal (forcing most such collection companies out of the country overnight). IP address monitoring can only be on a case by case basis and only once a case can be made.

The only naff thing they have done is their attempt to charge for IPTV content that is FTA on satellite. But that's a minor annoyance.

BlackBerry BLOODBATH! Company warns of nearly $1bn quarterly loss

Re: This is going to hurt

"A senior manager said to me "you can install far more apps on a smartphone" like that was a good business IT reason for going that way".

Well, old boy, that was half the reason for Blackberry's demise. The multilock, utterly throttled handsets may give IT admins a hard-on but gave nothing but frustration to the users. I still remember bluetooth issues, lack of tethering etc etc.

Couple this with devices that would struggle and crash attempting to display a Web page and then the writing is on the wall in bold 72pt arial.

Former! Android! Open! Source! Boss! Takes! Job! At! Yahoo!

Re: Can't say I blame him

I stand corrected.

I thought the images and binaries were the object of his ire and eventual departure.

I think I got confused by the link provided in the article.

Re: Can't say I blame him

Completely incidentally, the images in question were indeed released about 2 days after the rant. (http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/08/09/google-changes-course-posts-2013-nexus-7-razor-factory-image-and-binaries/)

Make of it what you will but it doesn't change the principle that open source code will stumble on proprietary gear.

City of Munich throws Ubuntu lifeline to Windows XP holdouts

Re: Ubuntu @Jedidiah

Sorry to shatter your convictions but I know plenty of semi newbs who put their rig together and installed it from scratch.

Any and all possible hardware and chips assembled on the motherboard have windows drivers.

Linux? Manual searching required.

And don't get me started on laptops and their fn combo keys for controlling brightness, projector behaviour or wifi state.

I really wish it wasn't the case but Linux of all flavours just fights you every step of the way. And having most of the fancy, blingy peripheral makers exclusively supporting Windows doesn't help. Not to start on iTunes (I know it's filthy but folk use it), netflix or the various iplayers of the various channels.

Re: How does this help? @eulampios

With respect, I will agree with you only when the latest and greatest peripherals have Linux drivers.

That includes: webcams, 7.1 headphones, touch pads and styluses, joysticks with all the customization options, any and all wifi and bluetooth USB dangles, any and all printers with their control programmes for scanning etc.

Then go to the more esoteric peripherals for audio production and then you can triumphantly declare that Linux is better supported.

I wish it was the case, alas it's not.

Private UK torrent site closes, citing 'hostile climate'

Re: Here's an idea

Hey Orlowski,

Go do a Nokia-is-marvellous piece and stop trolling.

Wow! British Gas bungs a million remote-controlled sales-droids in UK homes

The meters ARE the sensors :)

So no, the meter's own consumption is not calculated in the bill.

As for gas meters, there is one great big unsung innovation. They can work and run (opening and closing the supply valve if necessary) for over 10 years on a couple of D-size batteries. (Of course they are special Thionyl Chloride ones rated @19Ah but still...)

Don't worry, such a function is a long way off.

The reason is that currently the meter does not have the necessary granularity to result in any acceptable rate of false positives.

Until appliances become networked, or at minimum report their own flows to the meter, the picture the meter has isn't sufficient to correctly identify anything before the old-fashioned fuses and safety relays kick in.

Re: It's a pity Google killed their ...

Here's a bit of insider knowledge.

Google et al. didn't kill their efforts. They just froze them. No need to enter the fray now while everything is fluid.

Google, Cisco and IBM have smart grid firmly on their sights but won't enter the space until:

1) Standards and interoperability is ensured (70% of the way there on this one)

2) Taxpayer funded roll-outs are completed and smart meters reach critical mass (not even 20% of the way on that).

Reasoning: How do you justify higher prices/taxpayer-billpayer subsidies to roll out the network if Google et al. are seen to be bathing in a sea of money like Scrooge McD? So they're biding their time, waiting for the traditional players to slug it out and then once one of them (Itron, Landis+Gyr, etc.) prevails snap them up, fold'em in and take over the market.

In fact, ALL metering manufacturers and utilities are way out of their depth when it comes to data management, security or exploitation of the wealth of data provied by these meters.

Re: No Reception

You could; but all that you'd achieve is a switch (read re-installation) with one of the other comms modules.

At the moment meters support:

- Zigbee

- GSM (All flavours)

- CDMA

- Wi-Fi

- PowerLine Comms

- M-Bus (IEC 870, EN 1434)

- Optical (IEC 61107)

Sure, be difficult all you like but my suggestion is that your energies would be better expended in lobbying and acting in coordination with consumer groups rather than be the single outlier who Quixotically thinks they can stem the tide.

Warning long post ahead

First a disclaimer: I have been working at the headquarters of the world's no. 1 metering company for 10 years till a year ago.

There are a lot of myths and misinformation bandied about on the subject so let me try and dispel some of them.

1) the smart meters are a clever way for the utilities to have a more fine grained picture of their network. However they aren't so foolish as to for them themselves. So this neat story is promoted (with a grain of truth, admittedly) that smart meters save people money. Hey presto OFGEM (the quintessential example of regulatory capture) argues to allow above inflation price hikes. (if they had grown a pair they would argue that the rollout should not be predicated on inflated prices).

Power Factors: for the kind of loads of residential meters no PF circuitry is needed by the consumer. The measuring chips have a battery of algorithms to account for this.

What you see now is a prelude. So far smart grids and the rest are driven by the meter manufacturers and the utilities. Wait for Cisco, IBM and Google to join and then things will go to the next level.

Finally, BG's apparent hurry was because the regulator didn't specify a particular standard and this meant that the player to make it first in the market would be the defacto standard and could push for the features they want.

And to the honourable conspiracy theorists I can testify that there are so many bungling fools on both sides (manufacturers, utilities, regulator) that a piss up in a brewery would be the absolute limit of their coordination.

New draft cybersecurity law: US Senate hits ctrl-alt-del, reboot

Say what?

Republicans voting against the expansion of powers of the DHS? Whatever next...

The sooner this department is disbanded into its constituent agencies and the so-called patriot act is repealed, the better.

Boeing batteries back under spotlight as 787 burns at Heathrow

Yep, the g/f switch is no more. It's been replaced by electronics reading via sensors tied to pressure on the wheel bogies.

Google loses Latitude in Maps app shake-up

Re: @Metrognome... B0rked @Ian

Absolutely! I harbour no such illusions. The thing is though that's for Google to know. Under G+ it would be publicly accessible to all and sundry.

Re: You are the Product.... Just accept it @joekhul and JDX

Ah, but that's where you are wrong.

I already pay G for storage space and I would jump at the chance to pay a modest (which it usually is with Google) sub to remove all tracking let me own my data and allow me to use the services with some semblance of an SLA.

It is the same analogy to receiving the BBC over satellite in Europe. I know a ton of people that would love to pay the license fee in exchange for a advert free tv experience but it is not on the table.

Re: B0rked @JDX

Because google having my data (which are all fictitious since my account was opened back when you could have any username you liked) is one thing. Forcing me to have a public profile and insisting that not only do I effectively publish my data but I have to do this under my own name (or a real-looking one anyway).

In fact if there really was no difference do you think google would persist with the "switch to g+" palaver instead of migrating every one to the new service? The only reason is that the T&C's are incompatible.

B0rked

So offline maps are off (at least in their previous form), ditto we lose custom maps and to top it off latitude is gone.

I use all of them professionally and they sure will be missed.

Custom maps to share business trip details to all team members who arrive from different locations.

Latitude for knowing in real time where all my team members (and family) are and offline maps for obvious reasons.

And no, no amount of nudging, cajoling or threatening will make me join +. I'm sick of the constant deprivation of features for non + members.

Why all the fuss about flash? Pin your ears back and find out

Re: Bring it on

I can positively answer three of your points but not others

- No drivers are needed

- You can indeed boot from them

- One PCIe slot from x4 upwards is more than enough for the enterprise SSD's I was referring to

Agreed on the cost and hot plugging; in fact I'm nearly certain you can't hot plug PCI cards and even the mechanics of it aren't too easy.

What I confess I wasn't aware was the lack of PCI slots on blades. The experience I have had was quite contrary in that PCI slots were freely available and not always taken. But then I haven't worked with blade servers so thanks for the tutorial.

Bring it on

Let's hope that, unlike the Reg's uniform coverage of flash until today, the panel will acknowledge and discuss the PCI variety of flash drives instead of completely disregarding it and focusing solely on SATA and SAS varieties.

I don't know why PCI mounted flash storage gets overlooked so consistently but it doesn't half deliver the goods!

Fitbit Flex wristband: What to wear out when wearing yourself out

Re: What a worthless toy. @Wayland

Well, if your target is sustainable lifestyle change as opposed to ultrafast, ultrahard dieting which will be reversed with a vengeance down the line then yes, it does take coordinated and long-term effort.

And no they're not on my case all the time. But they do coordinate with each other and devise programs depending on actual progress etc.

P.S. While the cut down on the junk is good advice I still think calling someone a fat bastard is offensive no matter how much good humour you want to dress it with.

Re: What a worthless toy.

When you are done congratulating yourself mr AC perhaps you may care to hear that the value of the thing is in the monitoring of activity and the opportunity to adjust very quickly to actual circumstances (think unplanned business dinner or some such).

The value is in the joining of actual calorie intake to activity done.

Re: What a worthless toy.

First of all your comment may sound humorous but it's really offensive. Being rude doesn't mean being smart.

I'll tell you exactly where fitbit is useful: I quit smoking 2 years ago and put on about 20kg (that's 44lbs for you, yanks).

I am working for the last 6 months with a team of people (my gp, a dietician and a physio) to get back to normal.

In the process I had to log all my foods for a month which was pretty easy using myfitnesspal. FitBit helps you keep on top of your goals. It also helps me make corrections in my regime early enough. Otherwise I would only notice any deviations on the scales by which time it would be too late.

And anyway what is wrong with a subtle motivational help when you are working hard to get to where you need to be?

(in those 6 months I've lost 15 of the 20 kilos so it does work so long as you are determined to use it properly)

Xobni! heads! to! Yahoo! elephant! graveyard!

Re: What's Wrong?

Simple really, on one hand Outlook's internal search improved a lot and (more importantly) the switch to a subscription model killed it off. It was a pure greed play that proved counter productive.

Tim Cook: Android version fragmentation is 'terrible for developers'

Fail...

The sheer fact that he now sees the need to actually sell iOS to the devs is evidence that it's in trouble...