Posts by Christopher Rogers

HD DVD player sales share slumps

what the f***?

There's some right bullshit comments on here now:

Sony formats have a strong history of failing in the long run. Memorystick? CD? S/PDF? Trinitron Television sets/computer monitors anyone? The original walkman range? Betamax lost the home consumer and instead became Betacam - a primary format for professional recording... Oh, and lets not forget the 3.5" floppy.

Lower machine sales make the disc attach rate look better -? 1 major studio is still backing HD-DVD. More than that are not.

£179.95 + 7 movies. Thats fair enough. Once you have watched the 7 films and are looking for new ones, how useful will your player be if the films are made by non-HD-DVD supporting studios?

Microsoft backed the wrong horse. They can make mistakes, they have the money to do so. Look at vista, WimME and MSBoB.

"HD-DVD capacity and bandwidth are lower making it more compatible with the inherent limitations of the human sensory system. Any more sharpness and your senses would overload, possibly causing epilepsy or brain tumor. Besides you can't tell the difference between e.g. 720p and 1080p on a 5-inch screen when you're standing more than 10 meters away from it and looking the other way so who cares about bandwidth" - utter utter bullshit. If i buy a high def TV i want my movies/players/consoles to pull out all the stops to maximise the usage of the technology. Even if my eyesight is too poor to appreciate it.

With mass production, prices drop. Always has done always will (unless its oil or houses or something...)

The beginning of the end?

Surely its time for the HD-DVD camp to start wrapping up the technology? Sales are through the floor relative to the Blue-ray opposition and with the majority of studios not supporting the format; its time to move on.

In terms of stand alone players, the question is easy - which one will i be able to watch the majority of films on? The answer will be a Blue-ray player (unless the studios have a change of heart).

As for consoles - Microsoft have invested a lot in a technology that seems to be coming in second in a 2 horse race.

Much as the PS3 hasn't quite got the numbers of the xbox 360, a large part of the target consumers for games consoles (wii apart) are going to want to use the console to watch movies. So essentially the PS3 becomes a budget blue-ray player too. Divx is also there (ok so its not as good as xbox on this front, but its there all the same).

If MS jump HD-DVD ship now, they can start to build Blue-ray into the consoles and get Hollywood onside, removing this advantage from the PS3. Ok a few people get burned after buying the external HD-DVD drive, but thats the risk you take when you enter a format war.

As for Apple's Jobs saying that the format war is pointless because downloads will win out, 3 things - 1. try downloading a movie to watch immediately in the UK 2. People like having the physical copy of their purchase in their hand (with cover art and notes etc) and 3. Many people like apple and their products. Many more don't.

Rant over. Its lunch time:)

IBM ignores foundering economy with top notch Q4

@aman - You using encryption software to write?

That complete gibberish from aman was nearly making sense at the start, but fell into the usual stream of something resembling projectile vomit as per...

Optimism may be foolish in the current economic climate, however IBM have had a good year and much as Mr Loughridge isn't pretending all is right with the world, IBM have delivered the goods in their key areas and plan to redouble their efforts in the new year with new hardware etc.

As for virtualisation, "Loughridge said that new low-end Power6-based servers will arrive by the end of the quarter along with new Unix virtualization software."

Thom Yorke dismisses net-only album paradigm

not fans huh?

The top 2 comments appear to be by people who do not like Radiohead as opposed to people who give a damn about what Radiohead tried to do. What i see has happened here is instead of completely rethinking their album format, they have experimented with digital music, thus testing the water in this field. There is no denying however, that an MP3 by your favorite artist is not as impressive as having the physical album, released as intended by the artist. I want to have my disk to have the artist name or artwork or both printed on it on it and come in a box with artwork etc. Not say Tesco (or some other supplier of cheap burnable disks) and have the artist name scribbled on in black marker.

I too can burn disks. But they look shite in comparison to official releases on CD.

Dell spills its Guts over Ubuntu gear

Support this idea

Why do the hardcore fanboi type geeks have to knock every little attempt to push Linux into the mainstream? Ok Dell's recent record isn't one of overachieving, but they deserve some credit for this attempt. Maybe when XP is properly killed off and Vista and Ubuntu are the only options available on Dell hardware, Linux might spark the imagination of the masses. The pressure is on Dell to get the pricing right and if they do, Linux becomes more plausible. Push the abilities of programs like wine to allow the punter to run MS office and Linux becomes a threat. Even the fact that its only punted on lower spec hardware shouldn't be an issue as Linux doesn't need your super-dooper-nuclear spec powerful machine to run as well as required by the great unwashed for checking their email and surfing their interwebs.

And anyways, Who told apple they could have runaway success with Unix based OSX?

MoD trumpets 'Innovation Strategy' for buying kit

Sad but true

We do lean on everyone else for our defence now and its because our own industry is incapable of building something worthwhile.

But, the government will always squeeze our soldiers. And some day it will result in a British Army disaster.

Sad.

P.S. amanfrommars - whataloadofshite.

AdultFriendFinder rapped for X-rated pop-ups

its about time

firstly - Annon for the first comment, you deserve the flack you get you prat.

secondly - its about time adult friend finder was brought to book. It is without doubt the most advertised site i have seen and some of its less decent ads have appeared on sites i would not have expected to see such things (not that I'm complaining of course.... but you know what i mean.*)

*Public access to anyone online including kids.

Nokia N95 update speeds apps with virtual memory

@darren

good answer. Why should nokia give a feck about mac users?!

what about Linux?

Virgin Mary appears in Google's Iowa data center

that damn book

I'm with the others on this one. Ok Google may not be bringers of life and may have a large amount of smoke blown up their ass, but in a country where corporation is king, where jobs are thin on the ground and money has all but evaporated for many people, any news of jobs etc is wonderful. In pimping his fuckin new book (which i desire to read less and less the more its pimped at me) Ashlee Vance has basically used the Walmart effect to shit upon the efforts of Google. Google is a business and is in it for the money, lets not beat about the bush on that one. But lets face it, instead of bogging themselves down in some non-profit activities like cleaning lakes and sitting on chambers of commerce, they could have just bought a site, built a data centre and brought in their own experienced people.

No need to piss on the fire Vance.

Toshiba to sell trees with laptops

Tree-mendous...

...but seriously, as mentioned above this really is pissing in the wind. And as for the theory of the world repairing itself, i wouldn't be so sure, i mean look at the sheer scale of what humans have done. This morning i sat in traffic on the M1 in belfast for 1hour. Thats only belfast, not exactly a metropolis on the world scale and yet the quantity of cars belching out shit was unreal.

I'm not some eco-warrior, i just see that we are doing proper environmental damage and that schemes like this really are just fucking useless PR, harnessing the green bandwagon.

Maybe skynet's terminators are eco-warriors. Human cull anyone?

Second jellyfish pack moves on UK

Prescient ?

A good analogy....

Anyhoo, can no one think of some way to kill these things? Get a few into a lab and develop a disease for them.

Darling admits Revenue loss of 25 million personal records

a fucking disaster

Really. There is no way the government could get out of this one - 25million people. In a country of 60 million, 25 million is a hell of a lot.

Bollox to Brown's Labour, this better be the end of this government. I bet he wished he called an election now...

...and ID cards have got to be toast. Hopefully the public will stand up against the enforcement of this scheme to record all of our personal details.

BBC HD channel gets green light

Combined rant

HD TV - bring it on, it'll be worth every penny and frankly it'll get here come hell or high water. The real issue with it at the mo is cost. That and having to pay firms like Sky more money for the pleasure of watching it on the 1400quid telly you just bought. You guys can talk bandwidth till the cows come home, but the business plan accepted by the industry appears to be content first, and lots of it (even if it does result in some absolute shite) hence umpteen digital radio stations and the bucketloads of crap spread all over Sky.

@Vulpes Vulpes - i see what you did there with the red hat joke. Don't be so condesending, its bloody rude.

And finally, just to join the completely unrelated rant about 1xtra - i completely agree that in the relentless promotion of "black" music/culture, BBC radio is effectively enforcing some kind of apartheid. Whats wrong with sticking to the common genres like dance, classical, rock, pop, drum n bass etc for music, Storytelling, political, current affairs etc for talky type stations?

Europe eyes six Martian landing sites

Expense

Why don't they all go and get memory implants and save the expense of going....

on the other hand, they should speed up the process and get a prison built on mars to help ease the overflow developing in the UK.

Aussie-Irish boozer ejects 'terrorist' drinker

Aussie Pooftas

So instead of being kicked from a bar because he's reading (not drinking) he's kicked for what he's reading....

The whole country is turning into The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert....

Queues start a day ahead of UK iPhone arrival

Leave it out

Fair play, if thats what they wanna do then let them! I can think of many better ways of wasting money/time but if these guys wanna do this then fine. Doesn't require boys like Darren Coleman to write an essay about it.....

Six-month hangover for 60-pint Scotsman

You lot are annoying

The location of Scotland in relation to the Mississippi is of no importance here. The guy got very drunk and ruined hmself. There's the story. 15 pints a day for 4 days isn't enough to class him as an alco, but is still impressive, as is the nature of the damage caused!

Maybe the Mississippi reference means to go west, i.e. covering the entire world....

Who the fuck cares?

Babbling net software sparks international incident

Idiots

You would have thought they would have checked their questions before sending, or at least informing the Dutch minister that they cannot get the language correct and could he provide someone.....egg on faces.

In another language based moment of hilarity, I was looking to learn some Welsh as i was heading over with my GF (she's from north Wales, I'm in NI). The only phrase i managed to get was "my hovercraft is full of eels" as seen above.

I laughed. I'd imagine others would too.*

Please note the tongue in cheek nature of this comment. some people on elReg comments pages seem to have humour bypasses.

Camelot pulls scratchcard amid numerical anarchy

Don't fear for the future

These people are the strands of the population that will either die off (only the strong will prevail) or will become the underclass human as we evolve into a superior and inferior race, the superior being tall strong and intelligent where the rest become short ugly stupid and pointless, until they evolve out of existence.

Roll on the next 4000 years.

iPhone to solve UK unemployment

@kam

brilliant.

Biologist 'discovers' scentless giant peccary

ummm

So basically as the rest of us find out about this species, the locals could tell ya what it tastes like? Talk about being one step ahead....they have the right to be more smug than Mac fanboys...

Congestion charge dodgers register Bentleys as minicabs

so they screwed up

and to save face, the people who caught TfL out on their on rules are going to be punished?

What should happen here is somone should get a slap ane the rules change for all applications from here on in.

Scapegoat: People who are smarter than the government.

Irish man rescued after falling for 419 scam

idiot

Good thing he survived - now he can be a shining example to all other computer users as to WHY the world says NO to 419ers. In the process of standing on a stage and shouting about why its a good idea to bin these emails directly, he will be eating humble pie, punishment for putting his family and colleagues through hell, along side punishment for being an idiot in the first place.

Its frightening that in this day and age of technology, people are still falling for these scams. As long as there are idiots like these guys, there will always be 419ers making money.

VoIP is Dead. It's just another feature, now

@Anonymous Coward RE: future OF VoIP

I have never stated "the future is VoIP". I'm simply saying the people who control the main landline communications networks are going to be the only salvation of VoIP hence "Skype is in tatters and the future of VOIP (at least in the UK) is BT's 21CN and VirginMedia's fibre optic network."

Do some of you people actually read these comments or just glance over them before throwing in your 2d?

@ Luther Blissett

your an idiot. You also appear to be a geek who is focused on speed. Rem VHS v Betamax? it was the end user who decided that one. Wifi isnt dead because it has demand. It may not win out in the end, but can you be sure HSPA, HSDPA, HSUPA, I-HSPA, HSOPA... will?

Was this about skype or the thinking power of 3?

""here in the UK we've five competing cellular networks."

That is a temporary situation."

So the government can trace every member of the population via their centrally controlled network??

I smell the paranoia of black helicopters.

As for Skype - it was a lemon from the start, a function that is more beneficial attached to MS Messenger and Yahoo chat as opposed to being a standalone product that doesn't make money.

Skype is in tatters and the future of VOIP (at least in the UK) is BT's 21CN and VirginMedia's fibre optic network.

Once 3 proves how awful Skype is for the masses, the mobile networks will be able to continue like nothing happened.

I don't believe we have seen the death of the WiFi hotspot, with the increase in sales of laptops, all wifi needs is another advancement in speed and stability.

TV-Links man: 'I'm no master criminal'

tough

luck. If he had have been a 60+ old man or woman whose life rotates around gardening and the the internet became a side hobby, then "i didn't know" would have more impact. a 26 year old working in the IT sector would be much more savvy, either that or a great bullshitter to get his job...,..

Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K850i camera phone

compared to the K810...

...there doesn't seem to be much of interest about this phone. There are 3 things about my K810 that the K850 addresses and that is the battery cover (everytime i slide my phone into my pocket the battery cover comes off), the flash-as-a-torch (i had this on a w550 and it came in useful soo damn often i was gutted when i upgraded to the k810 and had already given away my W550) and the sliding camera lens cover has been removed (opens at every opportunity on my handset). Any joystick jams i have had on the K810 have been fixed with a spray of air. The next phone i go for will have wi-fi and a torch function.

eBay employee 'torpedos' fraud trial

@ Neil Weller

Read your own passport. it says "The United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland." NI is therefore part of the UK, but is not Britain. So Neil "Actually you are incorrect."

eBAY

Its been generally a good experience for me bar one thing when i bought a stereo for 150quid, didn't receive it, opened a dispute thing in pay pal and got 50quid back. Ebay is going to have to pull its socks up before the general public decides that it is too much of a risk and goes elsewhere (unlike the brilliant minds who read elReg who already know this...se above).

Can I just say to the twat who came out with "Nah, the PSNI wouldn't pick him up. They are too busy harrassing teachers who talk in the "leprachaun language"." You are an idiot. You and your type deserve to be on the wrong end of a baton round for such biggotry.

Enraged reader savages iPhone fanboys

humm?

a reg reader, not an reg reader