Posts by Skyeman

AI firms propose 'personhood credentials' … to fight AI

Follow the money

The discussion about technology and morals is moot to some degree. A simpler reading is: you are going to have to pay to prove you exist.

Obviously, only petty criminals would object to this.

Magna Carta mayhem: Protesters lay siege to Edinburgh Castle, citing obscure Latin text that has never applied in Scotland

Quality writing

What stands out for me is the quality of journalism - head and shoulders above the mainstream press, who always have an angle (i.e. a "readership" to indulge). Journalists elsewhere should feel embarrassed that an IT industry title covers stories better than they do. If The Register covered general news, I would read it in favour of any other paper.

ASUS baffles customer by telling them thermal pad thickness is proprietary

Where did "Right to Repair activism" come from? Have I turned into Swampy because I think it's better to fix things that are broken? How did this become a "rights" issue? We should switch this negative labelling around and call the companies who block repairing "Anti-repair Activists" instead.

We see this happening on the large scale as well. It was apparently "cheaper" to build a whole new bridge across the Firth of Forth than to maintain the old one. Which is still in use.

Facebook admits: Apps were given users' permission to go into their inboxes

@ Paul 195

We are not leaving behind the protection that GDPR affords. GDPR is embedded in the Data Protection Bill which will become the Data Protection Act 2018 next month and is independent of Brexit. It has some other unpleasant stuff in there but it does at least adopt GDPR. Post-Brexit, the UK still needs to be a trusted place to share and process data, unlike the paper-thin self-assessed so-called "Privacy Shield" in the US. Facebook state compliance with the Privacy Shield, which helps us to understand how robust it is.

Crap broadband holds back HALF of rural small biz types

Inevitable...

The replication of a market-led approach via Government intervention is an inevitable consequence of privatising a natural monopoly. I think BT won all the bids in the current BDUK programme, so it is not surprising that a programme that was meant to be an intervention in areas of market failure is actually only doing what is cost-effective for BT. Yes, you can argue that priority is given to higher population densities, and that the have-nots are too small to fret over - they can move house if they feel strongly enough. But don't forget they are taxpayers too, and find themselves subsidising Netflix for the suburbs while being excluded from what the Government say is an essential part of modern life - not to mention the irony of Government services for farmers and crofters that are being moved online. Rural communities get electricity (usually), water (mostly) and post, due to national pricing models and universal service commitments. It is too late to impose a USC on BT now that they are a private company with shareholders. And since the providers assume that most people get a decent service, the amount of data pushed out for even basic services rises every year. Marginal broadband steadily becomes unusable broadband over time. Welcome to the digital divide.