Posts by Jess

Sony sucker-punches Xbox on price, specs, DRM-free gaming

you could STILL turn it off (switch on the wall).

Assuming they hadn't thought to put a battery in the unit.

Re: Are these links accurate?

I suspect not, but I also suspect there is a disconcerting amount of truth, and a frightening amount of potential for the future.

If you have the hardware and total control (perhaps by an always on internet connection), then it's just a matter of software to do the rest.

If the camera is IR, then it is likely that clever algorithms could be used to guess emotions and heart-rate from body language and heat distribution.

You could do most of the same with current consoles too, but it is the always online always needs a camera thing that would be a serious worry.

Crusading lawmen want more details on Apple's iOS 7 'Activation Lock'

Re: Violent and dangerous cell phone thefts

Not if the SIM were locked and there was a two complete working day delay between asking for an unlock and it happening.

Re: I'd love to know how they disable the phone if it is powered off.

I think they mean they don't want the phone to be able to be unprotected even if it is switched off until it is worked on by the thief's engineering team.

An 'I'm not stolen' flag when it registers to the mobile network.

Of course this would lock it to the sim, so there would need to be a procedure for releasing it with the carrier, with a time delay to allow for theft to be reported.

And hopefully rules to prevent them abusing this, i.e once out of contract they would have to allow this procedure.

Done correctly it could actually also provide a fair solution to carrier locking.

Asus FonePad: You may feel a bit of a spanner

I was very interested, until I saw the processor.

This with an ARM processor, decent camera, gps (if it hasn't already) and dual sims would be ideal.

MYSTERY Nokia image-mangling mobe spotted in public

Why should the OS matter?

If it's a smart phone, of course it does.

And I want one without a pedigree of dumped platforms, with no upgrade path.

My biggest problem with it is the UI

What the hell is wrong with Belle's UI? It's nicer than android (quite similar though)

The problem with Symbian is a lack of smoothness in certain situations, The difference between S60 and Belle was at least 75% of the way to getting it right. If it hadn't been canned, it would have got there, and pretty soon, I think.

Q10 India: Another last-chance saloon guzzle for BlackBerry

BIS reduces the roaming charge to some extent, but it's still not free...

£40 pounds a year on my PAYG bold 9700. Never had any extra charges. It doesn't allow streaming though.

BIS and the decent keyboard are the reasons I still keep my 9700 as a second phone. It has such poor memory management, it would have been dumped years ago otherwise.

Seven all-in-ones that aren't the Apple iMac - and one that is

All fugly except the mac

The only ones that look halfway decent are stylistic ripoffs.

Can't anyone come up with a decent original look? These things go on your desk, not out of sight.

(Then again, maybe they figure if anyone will put up with Windows 8 they'll buy anything)

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

the market for real "power users" is how big compared to the masses

If we eliminate those who can fulfill their needs with an iPad or similar, pretty significant, I'd say. (Especially since those have actually started to wise up to the fact, in their purchasing decisions.)

PayPal denies stiffing bug-hunting teen on bounty

Re: It isnt like ebay users have much choice.

Actually they do.

I just closed my eBay account and transferred my Paypal balance to my bank.

I intend to close the Paypal account too.

This article reminded was what spurred me into actually doing it (it has been on my to do list for a while, due to the way they let people rip you off if they can fob you off for long enough.)

Living with a 41-megapixel 808 PureView: Symbian's heroic last stand

And why are Samsung setting up a Finnish R&D centre?

Probably to hire the expertise of any ex-Nokia employees who had a hand in this (or the N8 or 9 for that matter.)

The whole NoWin fiasco is a demonstration of how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The N8 was (and still is, to a reasonable extent) a very popular phone. The 808 could easily have carried this on. All the N8 was lacking was polish on the OS.

The N8 is a fantastic phone, and there is nothing that temps me to replace it yet (other than this phone) maybe Samsung will come up with something by the time it is knackered.

Stop the Microsoft, Skype wedding, screams enraged Cisco in court

Microsoft have already broken backwards compatibility.

Anything later than 6.1 will not do video to older versions, such a 2.8 (the latest version for PPC Macs).

Fortunately 6.1 is still available, from this slightly misleading page: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12252/why-can-t-i-make-video-calls-on-the-latest-version-of-skype-for-windows-desktop

PC market facing worst-ever slump in 2013

Re: Obvious

Spot on, though you missed explicitly pointing out that general consumers would equate a PC/laptop with windows and a tablet with something that just works.

I don't think there's any perception that a cheap no-hassle laptop or PC is possible. (If you want that you pay £1000 for a mac).

I think Windows is dead in the water, unless Microsoft bring out a replacement for Windows 8 which looks and works like 95 - 7 on the PCs that are already out there, and doesn't cost too much to upgrade to. Otherwise people will stick to the systems they have (with the lucky ones being upgraded to Linux Mint by friends in the know.)

However at $10 a unit royalties, they won't be totally heart broken at Android taking their market. (Just like the bulk of Nokia's smartphone market going to Android in stead of WinPho wouldn't bother their accountants.)

Peak Facebook: British users lose their Liking for Zuck's ad empire

> 1 in 20 people clicked on an ad, which is 5%.

Is that the proportion of those who have left? Which could be a significant difference.

Re: @gazthejourno

I use either a browser with noscript or netsurf to read most of the web, I totally agree that html adverts are fine. What happens (on the reg) when I view on a browser with scripts enabled normally prompts me to install noscript or similar immediately.

(I find that viewtube solves the similar problem on youtube.)

> clicking on ads

Noscript solves that one.

Dell's PC-on-a-stick landing in July: report

better than ... Windows 3.1 or even 95... well short of Windows 98. ME, XP, NT, 7,8,9

Better that 3.1 I'll give you. But since Windows 3.1 was a better user experience than windows 8, and 9 doesn't exist yet, I'll take issue with this statement.

95 was a better experience than ME and 98 too.

I have an MK808, and it's certainly much more pleasant to use than Windows 8, (and Windows CE) a little better than 3.x, but a decent Windows 9x - 7 device is nicer to use. But it cost £30 is silent, tiny and takes far less power.

MYSTERY Nokia Lumia with gazillion-pixel camera 'spotted'

Nokia's Symbian phone sales were being eroded by the (then rising) Android phones

They had been eroded by producing some unreliable flagship phones.

The N8 is a brilliant phone and was very popular. Far more so than any Lumia. Maybe even than all of them together.

Had they upgraded the processor and carried on improving the OS, they wouldn't have lost the huge chunk of market that happened on the move to WInPho

the Belle OS puts me off making such an investment

But the plug was already pulled on Symbian at that point.

I will invest in a mid-range lumia!

Because you really do want to buy a phone from a company with a history of dropping operating systems like hot potatoes, which has a an operating system from a company with past form for dropping operating system and replacing them with incompatible systems.

Android device? Ooohhhh, you mean a Samsung phone

Re: Nokia was right

I disagree.

Less wrong than moving to Android, probably.

Less wrong than continuing to clean up Symbian, no.

Less wrong than continuing to transition to Meego, also no.

> No money to be made with Android if you are not Samsung.

Ask Microsoft that one. I think you need the word "Hardware" added.

Windows 8 'sales' barely half as good as Microsoft claims

I only know one person using windows 8

But then I can't think of anyone else who has bought a new computer recently, that hasn't been a Mac.

Microsoft honcho pleads with media: 'Stop picking on us!'

Name 3 things that make it unusable, a travestry

Why do you need 3 things?

The user interface alone is a show stopper.

Apart from the lack of DVD replay, there was nothing to indicate the rest of the system isn't fine, as it is reputed to be.

Were Microsoft to put the windows shell (like win 2k, i.e nice and lean) on it and make it place nicely with existing XP domains (just like Windows 7 doesn't), it would be flying off the shelves, as opposed to providing a big boost to alternative systems.

Re: 95% of commentards haven't even used Windows 8

I tried, it installed fine. However the user interface is the worst desktop GUI, I have seen on any system I can think of, on a non touch screen device. (Including Windows 2 - 7, Gem, RISC OS, various Linuxes, OS/2, Android 86, mac 6 - X, Symbian, BB OS 4-6.)

This was a big disappointment, because I had planned to take up the cheap upgrade offer, but it was so bad I am going to move my PC over to Linux by the time support ends (undecided between Debian, Ubuntu-Mint and Debian-Mint), with an XP VM to run the odd bits of legacy software.

Re: Bullies

> 2) You introduced DOCX as the default save in Word so we had to buy a new copy of Office (not just Word as you used to be able to buy) or be cut off from other users

They have just done similar with Skype. the latest version won't do video chat with earlier versions (such as the latest version for PowerPC)

https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12252/why-can-t-i-make-video-calls-on-the-latest-version-of-skype-for-windows-desktop

They still have a version that works.

The Metro experiment is dead: Time to unleash Windows Phone+

Too many abandoned non intel platforms from Microsoft.

Microsoft have abandoned many non Intel platforms. And by abandoned I mean leaving the software unable to be run on a new system and the hardware unable to be upgraded. (whereas other systems usually have a progression where the same software can be used on different versions of a system, and often the devices can be upgraded to the new OS.)

This suggestion would add Windows RT to the list.

Who would risk this again and buy a new Microsoft tablet system?

And I think the reason MS don't mind being in 4th place is because they are competing with iOS rather than Android. (Locked down to an app store.) They have taken down Symbian, and given most of its market share to Android.

They earn money from Android.

Windows Blue preview to land at end of June

they really need to get something corporates want out of the door before XP expires.

Windows 8 would never ever be taken up.

Windows 7, well it's dated and cheesy isn't it? Why would corporates who are still on XP migrate from something that is old to something else that is old? It's not like migrating from 2000 to XP, where everything was pretty easy.

And what is the benefit? (apart from a little longer support.)

The improved windows 8 core, with a familiar shell (hopefully a lean one.) especially if it integrates well with existing XP infrastructure would be a likely seller.

Otherwise, I suspect many corporates will just stick to XP, and rely on controlled internet access and security software.

Coke? Windows 8 is Microsoft's 'Vista moment'. Again

Re: Alternating Succuess

Win 95 was good, providing you did a fresh install, not an upgrade and stuck rigidly to 32 bit programs (and DOS programs). Any win 16 stuff messed it up, badly. (And avoiding early pentium machines was also needed.)

You missed out Windows 2000 which was good.

XP was the most hideous pile of crap for the first few years (as were windows 3.x and 98) After lots of fixes they became usable, then reliable. (You could argue that the same happened to vista, but the renamed it and sold it again.)

Good news: Debian 7 is rock solid. Bad news: It's called Wheezy

It was a pig to install.

I installed it on an old toughbook, that had previously been running an older debian happily.

It refused to connect to my wifi. (The old version and everything else I try are fine.) It did recognize an old usb-ethernet adapter that I bought a couple of years ago and had never had any success with, however, so I used that.

The grub install failed, so I repeated the install and let it do the partitioning, rather than re-use the old layout. I told grub to install on the first partition, (hoping it would leave the bootmanager I need for CD boot, it didn't.)

However it now boots successfully, and I found that disabling dual wpa/wpa2 support in favour of wpa2 only allowed it to connect.

The media player dies in a heap. (Perhaps it needs a P3?), but apart from that it looks like it runs OK.

I burnt a CDROM successfully.

Given the hardware, it works quite well.

Monitor-makers ponder Android-powered touch screens

Too expensive, but otherwise interesting.

It should be about £30 over the price of an otherwise similar monitor.

I think it should have the following features.

media player

good range of terminal/thin client apps pre-installed

the ability to run as a second screen for a PC or Mac

ability to boot from external media

a simple method of disabling features and managing upgrades in a corporate environment

It would also be important that system stayed compatible across the range and trough the years.

BlackBerry: THE TRUTH about that 5.1 per cent UK market figure

don't get this actual 'anger' that people express towards other platforms

For me and No-Win it is because they pulled the plug on the platform I liked.

I hope the Lumias flop badly. Don't give a damn about the other Win Phones.

Microsoft carves out 'niche' in tablets, says numbers chap

Why was windows RT included with windows 8 x86?

It's not like they run the same software.

When a company has incompatible platforms why should they be grouped together in system statistics?

Nokia: OK, Q1 has been weak, but there's 'underlying' profit

In western Europe, Nokia smartphones were already rare

Total crap. N8s were everywhere. They are still reasonably common. (Though anyone I know who has upgraded from one, has moved to an S3)

All Nokia needed to do was smooth the rough edges on the OS.

(when was the last time you saw anyone with one??)

I'm pretty sure I've seen a few. But far less than N8s. (even though they've not been sold new for a couple of years). And I see far far more BlackBerrys than WinPhones, far far more that the quoted figures suggest.

Magic mystery malware menaces many UK machines - new claim

doesn't prevent us from being attacked by Javascript related vulnerabilities

Don't you run noscripts?

Applicants sought for one-way trip to Martian Big Brother house

Sad thing is

this is probably the most likely way of funding such a mission I've heard.

Foxconn must pay Microsoft for EVERY Android thing it makes

it seems to me that Microsoft probably has a couple of solid patents that a manufacturer would find inconvenient to work around. (Quite possibly to do with connectivity to windows, as has been pointed out.)

It also appear that may have a load of shaky patents that would be likely to fail in court.

So I think it likely that they would have licensed the portfolio for what the value of the solid patents.

It would be interesting to know what royalties Microsoft receive from the former Symbian share of the market. It appears that something like 10% of the smartphone market moved to Android when Symbian was executed. (And that is ignoring what might have happened had Nokia continued to clean up Symbian so the N8 became as smooth as an iPhone.)

If 100 million phones were Android and paying a $10 royalty as opposed to Symbian, then the price on Symbian's head is covered. From a quick scan of the figures this looks like it will only take a few years.

It would be nice if the 'offending' features were able to be removed from android and then sold as a separate app. (If it is just connectivity with windows then a connectivity pack could be sold, which would be bundled with high end phones.) However, whether this would be possible is a secret.

Inside Secure snatches BBC iPlayer downloads from Adobe

Re: Where does this leave get_iplayer?

No that was ipdl but they plugged that hole in 2010

Facebook Home gets SMACKDOWN from irate users

It looked like a third liked it.

Suppose that follows through, they only have to get 10% of android users to use it to be a bigger platform than Windows Phone.

Foot-long slab too big? Microsoft 'has a 7-incher' to stroke

Windows tablets seem to be a total loser to me.

RT tablets.

These are locked down and Microsoft have a very bad history of pulling the plugs on systems for anything other than x86/x64 processors. So when they do, there isn't even an option for enthusiasts to keep the platform viable. (Like in the desktop world the PowerPC Mac, dropped ages ago, but still, up to date Thunderbird and Firefox ports are available.)

Apple in the tablet world have a proven record of providing new OSes to existing kit and have reasonable software compatibility between OSes. Why would anyone who doesn't mind a locked down system choose RT over an iPad, unless it were very significantly cheaper?

x86 Win 8 tablets.

These seem to be a ridiculous idea, why would you want a more power hungry and heat producing device in a tablet? Plus do users want all the ongoing maintenance that goes with x86 windows, in a tablet? I think not.

Added to that the unsuitability of Windows 8 for non touchscreen devices, this means the only sensible use for Windows 8 is for Chimera devices that switch between a tablet and a laptop. However I would think the appeal of such devices is limited, because when using it for tablet functions, it will be heavier and have a poorer battery life that a simple ARM tablet. It would appear to me that an ARM tablet plus a (possibly several years old) desktop system would be a better option for many users. Especially since supplementing an existing PC with an ARM tablet is likely to cost half what replacing it with a Chimera would.

Virgin on London Underground Wi-Fi: O2's company, Three's a crowd

The connection is awful.

All down to the registration screen. Crashed the browsers on half the phones I tried.

I managed to make it work by installing opera mobile before a second attempt for the free trial.

I have had no success since it ended (I have EE phones.) But then I've not been bothered enough to try *really* hard. (A few seconds' connection at some stops, isn't worth fighting with their system for.)

The train always arrives before I get anywhere with registration.

Why do they not have the sense to make a simple low graphics plain HTML registration screen?

It is so bad, I won't be looking at Virgin to replace my broadband.

A shame, because the actual wifi worked nicely.

Windows XP support ends a year from … now!

Linux Mint

The interface in Linux Mint is far more like XP that Windows 7 is, (And more like Windows 7 than Windows 8 is).

It also works very well.

Microsoft: 'Facebook Home just copies Windows Phone'

And fourthly

Microsoft have a very bad record on pulling the plugs on phones.

New OS and Old OS run different software. And upgrade of OS isn't possible.

Gartner: RIP PCs - tablets will CRUSH you this year

makes sense

A tablet for general use, plus a desktop computer (which could be 7 years old) for occasional use provides what the majority of people need, and people have woken up to this.

BlackBerry results not as bad as they possibly could have been

Z10 - Baby out with the bathwater.

The Z10 looks like a nice phone, but the reasons I have kept my Bold 9700 (despite it's horrible freezes) alongside my N8 are the keyboard and BIS. So they won't get a sale to me.

A lot of my El Reg posts have come from a PB.

Hi

A few questions.

Does it do video skype?

Can you connect a bluetooth keyboard?

Does it run android apps (or do they have to be converted by the author)?

Cheers

1 in 7 WinXP-using biz bods DON'T KNOW Microsoft is pulling the plug

Re: Windows XP Upgrade

> Improved performance?

Supposedly, but I'm unconvinced.

> Increases security?

Obviously, but the question was what else?

> USB 3 support?

Odd, I have USB 3 on my XP system and it works fine.

> GPT support (needed for drives larger than 2TB)?

Fair point, but if you are still on XP, the likelihood of needing local support for over 2TB isn't that great.

> The ability to have more than 4GB of RAM?

You can make use of a little more than 4GB, but the situation is the same for vista, 7 and 8.

You need a 64 bit version of the OS, and the 64 bit version of XP also supports GPT (apparently)

Dramatically improved support for large scale deployment and management?

Study: Megaupload closure boosted Hollywood sales 10%

Re: Perhaps the movies produced in 2011/12 were less shit

My immediate thought. 2012 was a particularly good year for movies. The Avengers, Dark Knight, Skyfall, and there were lots of other popular movies. There was a definite improvement in the quality of movies after mega upload closed.

(Did they chose the time to gt it closed it carefully, to produce these results?)

Here's the $4.99 utility that might just have saved Windows 8

Has the cheap upgrade to W8 expired now?

Because it actually sounds like an interesting combination.

(But not for full price, I'll stick to XP)