Posts by quattroprorocked

US lawmakers want to put NSO Group, 3 other spyware makers out of business with fresh severe sanctions

Candiru?

They actually named their company after a fish that swims up your john thomas and sticks spines into you?

I'm going with "guilty as sin".

AI-enhanced frog stem cells start to replicate in entirely new ways

Is it time to dust off my copy of The Andromeda Strain?

Or any Jeff Vandermeer, or the Kefahuchi Trilogy?

Australia will force social networks to identify trolls, so they can be sued for defamation

Basically, our own, much ignored Internet Defamation Act 2013

All sites are required to get the poster to supply info to permit legal action.

If poster doesn't, post must be deleted, OR site/platform becomes liable.

Privacy activists prep legal challenge against UK plan to keep coronavirus contact-tracing data for two decades

Optimists

They think they'll actually have any data?

I'm not getting the app.

I'm assuming all texts and calls are frauds. (Statistically it's almost a slam dunk that people will get far more fake texts and calls than real ones).

And the people they really need, tend to be elderly, no mobiles and landlines that reject calls from unknown numbers.

We really doing this again? Rumour has it that Apple is nearly finished developing augmented-reality glasses

Blind people?

Would LIDAR glasses that fed a haptic or ear device provide effective navigation for blind people?

Tesla sued over Tokyo biker's death in 'dozing driver' Autopilot crash

Basic human factors

The human brain is simply crap at paying attention to stuff, unless it is DOING the stuff.

We've known this for decades. Why do car companies have to learn it all over again?

IMO Tesla is probably good enough for platooning on motorways if the lead vehicle is being actually driven. And that's it.

Signal sends smoke, er, signal: If Congress cripples anonymous speech with EARN IT Act, we'll shut US ops

EARN IT

Would be a huge foot self shoot by the American Gvt.

So, it'll probably happen :-)

Hi, Google Duplex here, trying to book a haircut for a socially inept human. Sorry, 'COVID-19'?... DOES NOT COMPUTE

I asked it for a haircut

While I was waiting in the queue at the bank.

My investments instantly lost 20%

Yeah, that Zoom app you're trusting with work chatter? It lives with 'vampires feeding on the blood of human data'

Isn't Zoom what our glorious Government is using?

ALSO

Russians buy Zoom data....

Clearview said to be chasing every mugshot taken in the US over the last 15 years to paste into its facial-recog system

Real time false positives and trigger happy policemen with guns

What could possibly go wrong?

I actually think that UK style trials (limited number of suspects, public places) are sensible to do and involve no more than a few minutes of time and an apology.

Not so sure that it will be so benign in the US.

"Shot because computer said he was someone he wasn't".

BAE Systems tosses its contractors a blanket... ban on off-payroll working under upcoming IR35 tax reforms

Remote Regions? And yes, most of you really are employees

Such as the Isle of Wight?

I was at least expecting Thule or Afghanistan.

As to hotels etc, the company would now expect to pay such costs directly, exactly as they do for their own employees.

Companies should be willing to take contractors on as employees, though this transition may take a while.

I am not a contractor, but I have run payroll and have friends who contracted going back to the 80's. I always told them that they were living on borrowed time, because the ones I knew, spending years with the same client, were clearly really employees. I'm amazed it lasted this long.

In the Film and TV industries you can treat people as self employed or contractors for ONE PROJECT, e.g. a series, but if you get recommissioned and call them back, you are expected to class them as employees. Contractors should really push for something like that - real contractors solve a problem for a project then go and solve problems for someone else.

Social media notifications of the future: Ranger tagged you in a photo with Tessadora, Wrenlow, Faelina and Graylen

Obligatory XKCD - Little Bobby Tables

https://xkcd.com/327/

Accounting expert told judge Autonomy was wrong not to disclose hardware sales

Peter Holgate is correct

Hardware sales should have been broken out.

OTOH, HPE should have asked for this as soon as they realised that hardware sales were even a thing, which should have happened during due diligence.

I guess the judge will be deciding whether stupidity or sharp practice is the bigger sin.

What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears

"Regret the content", I'll bet they do.

Sir John Redwood backs IR35 campaign, notes review would have to start 'immediately' before new off-payroll working rules kick in

Wait until they hear about California

The rules have basically outlawed even actual real very short term contracting.

Beware the trainee with time on his hands and an Acorn manual on his desk

£25pw? LUXURY!

Your modern spotty oik is expected to work for free on a series of "internships" and "work trials".

And back then beer was about 64p a pint, so 25 quid was well worth having :-)

Taxi for Uber: Ride-hailing app giant stripped of licence to operate in London

Most operators

Simply require that drivers visit their office with all their papers, and log them accordingly. Driver docs as USC? Seriously?

Of course UBER really don't want to have to get drivers to come to the office. Tough.

Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

How about

All objects are types of Initial Object.

So, capture the info about initial object - movement etc - and while you try and make up your mind about what it is / threat level etc you can at least react to it if it looks like collision is possible. At least that way you always have the fill data for the system to play with.

But me, I think real life, safe, autonomous cars are ten years away, and will be for some time to come. (Maybe "sleep while it takes you up the motorway in formation" could be ready sooner, but "urban", long way off).

A stranger's TV went on spending spree with my Amazon account – and web giant did nothing about it for months

ICO and GDPR anyone?

Clearly not taking their duty of care seriously.

ALL devices MUST be visible to users and first line support.

How did they ever design such a system in the first place?

Come on, you can't be serious: Now Australia mulls face-recog tech for p0rno site age checks

National database of dick pics

Just women to send in any they get for the next six months. Sorted.

How do we stop filling the oceans with Lego? By being a BaaS-tard, toy maker suggests

Lego is heirloom material

As a boy in the early 70's I would spend my pocket money on Lego (and Airfix, natch), and also inherited a load of Lego that was quite a lot older than me.

My boys then loved lego and inherited the lot. (This involved a Journey To The Loft. Something you don't get in modern homes).

As they grew, it went to a small friend :-)

It lives still :-)

Calling all the Visual Basic snitches: Keep quiet about it and so will he...

The 90's

I remember chatting to my neighbour about his job. He was basically doing IT for a financial institution, and could be called 24/7. If shit happened at the weekend, he logged in from home, some 100 miles away from the office.

I had also, coincidentally, been to a presentation by the same company the previous week. Part of which was about their IT security, and "there are no external lines with access to the system".

I'm fairly sure that the authors of the presentation thought they were telling the truth :-)

How an ace-hole AI bot built by Facebook, CMU boffins whipped a table of human poker pros

They might not be releasing the code, but

They have just told everyone it is a soluble problem, and indicated the path.

So yes, other people will develop it and won't announce...

Question - how much rent can bots extract from humans before the humans stop playing?

Biz Op - develop the software and use it to monitor play to seek out and ban the bots. Online poker rooms have a serious incentive to NOT let these bots go live, and the money to pay.

If only I wrote code...

Drone fliers are either 'clueless, careless or criminal' says air traffic gros fromage

Drone Community?

Am I the only one who thinks "Bertie Wooster" every time I read it?

Bad news. Asteroid 1999 KW4 flew by, did not hit Earth killing us all. Good news: Another one, Didymos, is on the way

Have these people never played Asteroids? You always die in the end!

Uncle Sam wants to read your tweets, check out your Instagram, log your email addresses before you enter the Land of the Free on a visa

I love the idea that they think people even know their own passwords.

Why telcos 'handed over' people's GPS coords to a bounty hunter: He just had to ask nicely

Re: Capitalism baby

20 seconds?

Recent videos suggest you'll be lucky to get even 1!

Swedish prosecutors request Assange detention: First step to European arrest warrant

If the Swedes want him, they should have him.

It was they that he was trying to avoid in the first place, (yes, because he thought they might extradite him to USA) but if he was an American who ran to Sweden to avoid trail for raping a Brit because he thought we might extradite to Oz, we'd expect the Swedes to hand him to us.

Clarifai job cuts, Lyft and Waymo love-in and OpenAI's scary GPT-2 goes live – well, sort of

This AI thing, needs work :-)

My text "Gloucester is on the river..."

It's response...

the river of life's breath, like the river from one's heart, flows along your spine, into our body...but you do not like our breath." -Cullen B. Mullan

"As I've learned, being in a spiritual life, and as I've learned to work with all of these spirits that have come from the dead, is actually very healing. The way things have broken down between our inner circle of spirits, so the whole system has broken down with their own bodies, we can take control of that." -Stephen Sondheim, in an interview and on film

"It takes more than your head to open a door. But it's your heart to open one. And if the heart is true, if your heart is willing, your mind is willing, your will is willing." -Jesus of Nazareth

"Life is not a dance. You know, you can't just pick and choose what you do with life. But there are moments in life, especially when you're sick, when you

US minister invokes Maggie Thatcher, says she would have halted Huawei 5G rollout

Ministry of Culture.

How is El Reg not calling it the Ministry of Fun :-)

Apple, Samsung feel the pain as smartphone market slumps to lowest shipments in 5 YEARS

Mid market phone.

Top end phone.

And the difference is....

Buggered if I can tell.

Let 15 July forever be known as P-Day: When UK's smut fans started being asked for their age

Next up "Harms"

Once they get this sorted "for the kids", you'll have noticed them muttering about protecting us all from "harms" online and not wanting SM to enable some features for kids, but how will SM know they are kids (or not kids), and be able to show that they did their best to know?

Yep, AV for all soon enough UNLESS you want the child only version of the Net.

Is Google's new cloud gaming service scalable? Yes but it may not be affordable, warns edge-computing CEO

Is this what shared VR spaces are waiting for?

Eom

Apple heading for Supreme Court showdown over iOS App Store 'monopoly' gripe

Simples.

Apple should allow other app stores to work with iphones, albeit with a warning that "this app you are about to install has not been through the Apple QA process, and, if it is malicious or badly designed, may break your phone."

Users can then decide to get the App from Apple instead, if they wish.

My prediction - most users will stick with Apple.

I want to buy a coffee with an app – how hard can it be?

Retro does it better

Not only does cash mean you get to tip more easily, but the actual card, with stamps, loyalty cards meant you bought MORE coffee - "oh, one coffee to my free one? Wasn't planning to, but why not". Now I have plastic card and it's "oh, my coffee is free today. Nice". The difference is maybe a cup a month. £20 a year. Per customer. That's a serious bottom line blunder.

No, I don't have time to monitor my coffee loyalty app. Look at your logs. ZERO accesses since I got it. You chain managing muppets.

That said, if you have a Coffee #1 or Bill's (yes, restaurant but, secret info, you can get a take out coffee) they do top coffee.

Somerset boozer prepares to declare its inn-dependence from UK

an o-lager-chy

sry guys, I must get more, possibly to Somerset :-)

BlackBerry unveils bold new strategy: Suing the c**p out of Facebook

Obvious

I rest my case, in most of these cases.

$10,000 bucks if you want to use it :-)

US watchdog just gave up trying to get Google to explain YouTube's huge financial figures

SEC have them where they want them

They now have a paper trail in which Larry denies getting specific info that they, you me and anyone else running a business would expect him to get.

Larry is one law suit discovery process away from internal documents showing just how accurate these statements have been. And the SEC will be waiting to read them as well.

He's a CEO in the USA, how far away is that lawsuit?

Bitcoin price soars amid technical troubles for exchanges

Today I went looking to see if I could buy a retail PUT on bitcoin. Sadly I can't. Def would have been worth a punt.

MPs draft bill to close loopholes used by 'sharing economy' employers

I run a business that competes

with these "gig economy/zero hours" types.

They are shafting cowboys. It makes it very difficult for us more ethical types to treat people properly.

Any competently managed organisation should be able to plan and schedule their staff and pay them properly. End of.

Bitcoin Foundation wants US Department of Justice investigated

If it looks like a duck....

Money is anything that enough people agree to use as money to make it usable as money.

For Governments, money is anything that enough people use as money where the numbers are such that it's worth sticking their legal/tax beak in.

My unlaunched DodgyCoin isn't money.

Your small scale e-money is money, but if it isn't widely enough used for the government to care, it's like a Local Currency.

BitCoin wasn't money, then it was but unimportant, and now folks, it's got enough traction to be money.

Virgin Media's profanity warning triggered by chief exec's name

My surname name comprises in part a diminutive for Richard

Many years ago it was rejected as obscene when I wanted to use it as a forum handle.

My alternate suggestion of NaziOverlord was deemed absolutely fine :-)

Reg reader turns Geek's Guides to Britain into Geek's Map of Britain

Brockworth.

Near Gloucester. We built the first jet aircraft - Gloster Meteor.

OK, First Allied jet aircraft.

If you visit on the right day in spring, you can also go to Coopers Hill and watch people trying to fly down a hill in pursuit of cheese. And also Witcombe Roman Villa, for anyone who thinks "location, location, location" is a new thing when it comes to siting quality digs.

Virtual reality audiences stare straight ahead 75% of the time

It's called story telling

I am shooting VR, and have shot community video for years.

Rule one - treat it as real life. People face front UNLESS they know they need to look elsewhere.

If you want someone to turn round just in time to see the axe swinging down on their head, give them a hint, e.g. have the killer (who is behind them) let out a yell as he lifts the axe. So the viewer spins round just in time to see it come down on them....

But in general, yes, put the action in front of people most of the time.

And, FWIW, we're still a few years away from "proper" and widespread VR. But if you are interested in making it, now is the time to learn.

Facebook loves virtual reality so much it just axed its VR film studio

I'm actually shooting VR

The know nothings did all the usual PR crap - hanging cameras from drones and flying over Iceland, putting you on stage in Blue Man group etc, which is a 1 minute wow, but not a long term connect.

VR phone goggle shows the potential but simply isn't good enough until screen resolutions go up 5fold from current top end.

VR will hit either via games (which I don't do) or when film makers (and actors) work out how to tell stories in VR, a system that kills all the usual tricks based on shot and camera placement.

AND

It's a modestly priced add on to your existing PC, NOT something that needs a high end machine that you don't own yet.

I'm playing with VR filming not because there is a market today, but because it's interesting. No one knows anything, and that's always fun.

FB are probably right to bail from production because they have enabled the WOW and now they need to wait for makers to develop the craft, and that can't be hurried. They should focus on next gen kit - trying to hit that quality/price.

If I was FB I'd even see some commercial logic in doing "A Container" - invest in the work and make available to all mfrs, on the grounds that successful VR equals more, better, eyeballs. Much like the guy who invented container shipping.

Unpaid tech contractor: 'I have to support my family. I have no money for medicines'

Bankrupt them?

Got a "can pay won't pay" thing going on, and they owe enough, for long enough, to make bankruptcy and option? Write in explaining that "yes, it IS personal" and then the steps required to make them bankrupt and the costs and that you will spend the money.

If they can pay, in my experience, they then do, IF they think you are serious. Because, for example, it's a point of principle not to get done over.

The extra twist in the old days was to send this to a main office fax, so the staff knew before the bosses.

And when ignored, follow all the steps, in order.

HOWEVER, if they can't pay then this all a waste of money, so choose wisely.

FWIW I always make sure I bill clients direct.

My fortnight eating Blighty's own human fart-powder

It use the COOL model (Cook Once Eat Lots) tm Me:-)

Buy meat, bottle red, various veg. Stock cube.

Big pot.

Brown the meat. Bung everything else in.

Heat to boiling.

Bung in oven for a few hours medium.

Allow to cool.

Eat one portion, divvy the remainder into 8-12 portions, freeze.

Masterful malvertisers pwn Channel 9, Sky, MSN in stealth attacks

The News sites ARE at fault

If they choose not to care about how their space is used, then they are responsible.

The solution is simple - they should sell their own ad space and control what ads they accept.

And still they wonder why people like adblockers

Eugene Kaspersky is now personally defending your feet

Just what I need

For my kids Christmas Sock Puppet Show :-)

Internet of Things security? Start with who owns the data

Ah, accounting

A bug that costs 5K to fix in dev and 30K in the wild is actually a bug with an upfront cost of 5k and a later cost of "we won't fix it. Buy another Thing", which isn't zero but is in fact added profit. Or just zero (for products that tanked and so aren't very many Things anyway).

I suggest IOT Bug Tax. Mandate product liability insurance far anything that includes any code. Make insurers liable to pay out LARGE bug bountys. Say 100K for a 30k fix.

Watch in amazement as those dev budgets suddenly expand to catch more 5K bugs.