Posts by Mobile Mole

UK ponders USB-C as common charging standard

Taking back control

So pleased we now have the power to set our own rules rather than meekly following the EU oppressors. Hopefully they'll reject USB-C in favour of something more British with Imperial measurement units and a Union Flag hand carved into every connector.

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it as a tax write-off

Mobile OS proliferation

If you thought all this was painful, spare a thought for the teams at Motorola who had to deal with a schizophrenic strategy that insisted we ride all horses and ended up utilising Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, JUIX (Linux) and good old P2K (and more) as well as collaborating (ahem) with Apple on a couple of iTunes projects.

Ruggedized phone group takes the Bullitt, calls in PWC as administrative receiver

Re: Alternatively ...

More important than software updates are the regular security updates that reputable manufacturers provide. I wouldn't touch a device by a manufacturer that doesn't do this.

Call of duty, modem warfare: Taiwanese Qualcomm rival MediaTek teams up with Intel for first stab at 5G laptop chipset

Re: Cue intervention from Uncle Sam…

MTK are Taiwanese, not Chinese

Realme's 5G handset is a bargain at €599 – but it's only for cool young people. Sorry

Re: Oy!

I studied Software Engineering at Teesside Polytechnic. The 'boro has definitely improved since then, but I still don't go back there unless I have to

It's not your imagination: Ticket scalper bots are flooding the internet according this 'ere study

Twickets

Surely the best way to fix this is to mandate that reselling tickets above face value is illegal? Many bands are partnering with the excellent Twickets as the only authorised reseller to fix this.

It all hinges on this: Huawei goes after Samsung with its own foldable hybrid Mate X

Re: and here's me wondering why there are so few smaller phones..

It's all about the bill of materials I'm afraid. Prices are lower for 5" plus screen than for lower volume smaller screens, so counter intuitively small screen phones (if they still existed) would be more expensive than larger ones due to economies of scale. The Chinese domestic market has driven this to a large extent. Look at the price of the recently launched Palm as an example.

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

Firmware upgrade?

I've been looking at the impact of this issue for some time. Unfortunately the devices most likely to need a firmware update are those most likely to be out of support by the manufacturer.

The Palm Palm: The Derringer of smartphones

Pricing

People complaining about the price of this thing need to think a little bit about economies of scale. This is the reason that even the cheapest smartphones are now 5" plus and use many common components. Making something this far outside of "normal" costs more. It's simple economics - smaller does not mean cheaper.

BTW - I used one of these briefly a few weeks ago and it's cute but a bit of a gimmick in my view.

Voda boss claims 'turning point' as infra investment kicks in

Global company

As usual a lot of discussion on here around UK coverage issues. You need to remember that Vodafone is massively multinational and that network investment is across the globe so there are obviously going to be priority calls on where to spend the money.

Nokia blasts Ericsson out of water, demos 600Mbps data speeds

Whining

I am becoming increasingly reluctant to click through to the Comments section on any story related to mobile technology as it is invariably cluttered with moaning about individual local coverage problems that add nothing to the technology discussion.

Can I suggest that people afflicted with local connectivity issues take it up with their telco/MP/local newspaper/therapist as appropriate rather than whining in public?

Re: What about the backhall

A very good point, but I think that you meant.... "What about the BACKHAUL"

Re: So, all that is for

You won't get the antennas needed for 4x4 MIMO into a device with a small screen. For the short term this is only going to be in fixed devices such as wireless broadband routers or large tablets.