Posts by Radium

IBM axes nearly THREE THOUSAND staffers in North America - union

Remind me...

... what does IBM do? I've forgotten....

Interview: Steve Jackson, role-playing game titan

IF a$ = "W" THEN GOTO 210

I remember being hooked on these books back when I had sodastream fuelled acne.

I spent the best part of a day transcribing one of the books into BBC Basic before giving up the idea as my fingers gave out.

Then I "borrowed" a copy of "The Quill" for my Spectrum and then invested in actually buying a copy of PAW (Professional Adventure Writer). I remember telling my mother that it was important that I'd do this and that I'd make money with it.

Who should play the next Doctor? Nominations needed!

Gyles Brandreth

Would be rather spiffing

Or Ardal O'Hanlon

Microsoft offers free keyboard covers for Surface RT

Re: Is the Touch cover

No, it doesn't squish as you type on it.

It's a bit like typing on felty warts.

Paul Allen buys lovingly restored vintage V-2 Nazi ballistic missile

I remember reading somewhere that fighter pilots, when out of ammo, would fly up close to a V1 and tip it over by tapping it with their wings.

That's what I call gutsy flying.

New York cop in alleged love-polyhedron email hack spree

Didn't occur to him to simply put a watch on his ex?

Herschel Space Observatory spots galaxies merging

The Universe is Awesome

I just find it amazing that:-

1) This happened at Big Bang + 6 billion years

2) We're at Big Bang + 14 billion years

3) Right now, those galaxies have got married, had kids, got divorced and quite possibly died.

4) We're watching their first date

Happy 23rd birthday, Windows 3.0

This brings to me a misty-eyed remembrance of holding a mouse for the first time. Prior to that, my life was filled with DOS, CP/M, Wang WP, DisplayWriter. and other things with small monitors and massive floppy disks.

What really kicked off the success of Windows was MS Office. MS Word 1.0 wasn't too good, but I remember being wowed by Word 2.0c. Like garlic bread, it was the taste of the future.

I still miss Norton Editor though, using EDLIN was such a pain in the arse.

More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7

The really odd thing I find about the survey is this:-

There's no mention at all of Internet Explorer, which surely must be the most used Metro app out there. Did Soluto simply not give people the option of choosing it?

Personally, it's the app I use more than anything else on Windows 8, so the numbers I can't really see the use of these numbers.

BMW offers in-car streaming music for cross-Europe road trips

The French...

... will of course enforce the streaming of at least 70% French language songs. The other 30% will be a mixture of early Elvis, Buddy Holly, Englebert Humperdink and Nana Moussaka records with a sprinkling of Ricky Martin cover songs dubbed into French.

Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat

Re: Rest of the world?

I'm sure you're being ironic here, but for the norks who actually believe that you'd need to control the new Xbox via the gamepad, there's bound to be a "proper" remote produced for the new console.

Re: hax

For disconnected use, not long - but then, what's the point....

When you're connected back to the net, XBL will compare your save games against those held on the cloud and remotely brick the console if any shenanegans have been detected.

I'd hate to think how much money that hackers have wasted buying consoles only to have them trashed by Microsoft. For some, it's a way of life.

Old Git Says "Yes"

I'm in my mid forties, and old and cursty enough not to get bent out of shape over details that don't mean that much to me.

It's probably against Reg forum regulations to be positive about something, but what the hell.

My Nexus 7 has an app where I can control my Sky HD box on the fly and can view channel list/planner etc (most of the time, the app won't connect to the box, but that's another issue). So if there's an API set that allows this kind of functionality, there's no reason at all why the Xbox One can't be the front-man for my Sky box.

Honestly, I'd love that. Being able to swap between TV/Games/Streaming/Smart TV stuff without having to swap HDMI inputs and pick up whatever remote control really appeals to me.

If Xbox One can deliver all that, I'd be bloody chuffed to bits.

If it can't, I'll still buy one.

Microsoft unwraps sysadmin-friendly Office 365 for biz update

Existing Biz Subscribers Somewhat Stiffed

It might be worth pointing out that existing Office 356 subscribers won't be upgraged immediately to Office 2013. We'll get upgraded "throughout" 2013 at a timescale determined by Microsoft.

I signed up for Office 365 a couple of months ago. I expect to see my system upgrade happen sometime before Christmas.