* Posts by David Evans

345 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Aug 2007

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Sony unwraps Android 3.0 tablet pair

David Evans

nice, but...

My first instinct when looking at the folding one was "ooh..."; it looks like a lovely, covetable bit of design, but I'm not sure its actually of much practical use unfortunately, as the screens are too small. If it was two 7" screens it would be lovely e-reader. I bet the battery life running two screens will suck as well.

Watchdog sniffs Rihanna's 'gently thrusting buttocks'

David Evans

See?

I told you we need a Think Of The Children icon

Calling all readers: Want some new icons?

David Evans
Jobs Horns

If the stories I'm reading elsewhere are true..

...it looks like you need a combined evil Jobs/Big Brother icon. And to set fire to your iPhone.

David Evans

I've said it before...

...and I'll say it again; we need a "(Won't Somebody Please) Think of The Children?" icon (Maude Flanders subject to copyright).

Also need an "evil google" icon to go with the Apple and MS ones (you can't get rid of Saint Steve while you're at it).

Finally, a Freetard Alert icon.

Kindle beats Apple's closed book on choice

David Evans

@Uncle Slacky

Unfortunately that will be where your problems start. Thanks to the ridiculous rights landscape, if I buy a US edition Kindle, I can't put US edition books on it without a US credit card.

David Evans

@Jeff 11

From Amazon's perspective availability of .azw on other physical ebooks is a non-issue. It might piss YOU off as a user of one of those devices, but the game has already moved on; the Kindle reader is kicking every physical ebook's arse, and Amazon have wisely realised that the game isn't going to be in that market anyway, which is why they've launched apps. I have an ereader that can read amazon files and epub and every other file you care to throw at it; its called a smartphone.

The best sci-fi film never made: Also-rans take a bow

David Evans

@Phage

The Forever War is in development already with Ridley Scott attached to it, but he's doing the, "is it an Alien prequel or not?" - Prometheus, first.

David Evans

Ooh, Kiln People.

I'd forgotten about that. Would actually make a great movie, very "high concept" in a way that Hollywood types love. Wouldn't be surprised if this is optioned somewhere.

David Evans

And you would be correct.

Geek fail on somebody's part.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

David Evans

Not the right Niven

I'm surprised at all the Ringworld love tbh. Once you get past the Ringworld itself I don't think it would make a great movie at all. Protector or even World of Ptaavs would make better stand alone movies if Known Space is what you want, and all of the early Niven/Pournelle books are very cinematic (Lucifer's Hammer is what Deep Impact should have been).

Ooh, thought of others on a completely different tangent; The Anubis Gates or Declare. Maybe now Pirates of The Caribbean are giving Tim Powers a name check some of his other stuff will come to Hollywood's attention.

David Evans

Easy

Sci-Fi: Cryptonomicon (I nearly said Snow Crash but it could suffer from an attack of the Johnny Mnemonics quite easily).

Fantasy: Stormbringer (I'm amazed this has never been made tbh).

HTC Incredible S Android smartphone

David Evans

@Loyal Commenter

Shame the Skype Android App doesn't support video...

Amazon is best hope of a viable alternative to iPad

David Evans

Will Amazon be just as bad?

I kind of agree that Amazon are the only company with the weight to piss on Apple's subscription chips, and since they are prepping an Android app store and have the example of B&N's Nook to see how a tablet could work out for them, it seems very, very likely Amazon will step into the tablet market. Question is, will they try to close the ecosystem to rivals, or leave things open? Amazon have form in both directions so its difficult to tell, but one of the main reasons I like my Galaxy Tab more than a Kindle is that I can easily use it for Kindle books AND ePub titles from elsewhere as it suits me (I actually prefer the Kobo reader to Kindle truth be told, but Kindle has far more titles), without any jumping through hoops breaking drm or reformatting.

So, will Amazon tolerate other bookstores on their tablet? (or video and music?)

Black Ops is the best selling videogame EVER

David Evans

without getting all fanboi

CoD/MW is now firmly for console types. Battlefield games blow the doors off MW on PC. BC2 is already a much better online game than MW2 and I expect BF3 to continue that trend.

Neighbourhood watchers in Reading get speedguns

David Evans
Big Brother

@Alister

In theory you're absolutely correct, speeding in villages should be discouraged. The problem is that the kind of people who would be most attracted to involvement in these schemes are the last people you'd actually want to do it. A bit like politicians in fact.

Sony wins subpoenas revealing visitors to PS3 jailbreaker site

David Evans

Hardly

An IP address won't give Sony anything unless they also subpoena the ISP to identify the user, since 99% of broadband users have dynamic IP addresses. So if Sony block an IP address on its own they're a. incredibly stupid, b. incredibly stupid, but then with this case I think we've established that already.

Death by 30% cut: Apple app tax must change

David Evans
Jobs Horns

You're not listening

Under Apple's Ts&Cs you can't differential price, so there's no "price+30% for iOS", "price+10% for Android" etc. This is the crux of the problem, Apple is relying on its current dominant position amongst content providers to introduce the 30% fee, and they're also betting that most will try to absorb the 30% rather than raising prices across the board (in reality content owners will probably have to do a bit of both). As others have said already, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with Apple wanting a fee (whether 30% is appropriate is a separate issue - I think not, because they don't do as much to justify their margin as retail does), but there IS something intrinsically wrong with Apple trying to force price parity across the market; this is profoundly anti-competitive.

The cynic in me says this is simply a pre-emptive strike by Apple to force ebook and streaming music services off iOS so users are left with Apple-branded alternatives only. NB. Does this mean Rovio will be forced to make the ad-only version of Angry Birds into a paid app on Android? I think it does.

Rhapsody bristles at Apple subscription grab

David Evans

Its not the commission model that's the problem...

...its the "you have to price the same on iTunes as other channels" bit. Think of SRP in retail, there's a reason why the S stands for "suggested". Prices should be able to be set freely at the point of sale by the retailer; in this model, the content owner has to fix the end price to the consumer IN ALL CHANNELS if they want to stay on iTunes.

David Evans
Jobs Horns

"Only themselves to blame"

That's twice you've made that statement, but I don't understand how that would have given publishers any leverage against Apple, because the problem here isn't the fact that Apple are changing a toll (30% is taking the piss but you could make a business case for it; Amazon paid out affiliate fees higher than their gross margins for years), its the part where Apple state that you MUST offer the same or better pricing in the App Store as anywhere else. Apple are effectively price fixing if you want to use iTunes, which is not only untenable, its probably illegal (certainly in the EU).

And for those who say "well you don't have to distribute via Apple", I say "don't be so naive". Apple is the de facto market for Apps right now; yes you can ignore them and go to Android, Blackberry etc. but Apple are betting customer pressure from all those iPhone owners will keep the likes of Amazon on the platform, and certainly Amazon can probably take the hit for now. However, Spotify etc. are screwed, and that suits Apple as well; Spotify and Rdio etc. have whetted iPhone owners' appetites for streaming, and guess what happens when they disappear off the App Store? Remember LaLa?

Acer shows laptop lid look tablet

David Evans

It IS actually useful

I use the rear camera on my Galaxy Tab for taking pics of whiteboards etc and putting them into Evernote.

Ten... wireless keyboards

David Evans

well, most of us do

...I've had the odd leftie colleague in the past who insists on using the mouse with their left hand and the keys the other way around; hideous. I'm a "normal" leftie who gets on fine with the mouse in my right hand.

To be honest, most of the keyboards reviewed here are pretty underwhelming. Why no Microsoft Arc? And the Logitech DiNovo Edge should be in there, along with the DiNovo Mini instead of that cacky Expansys thing.

MP: Googlepoly hurts British business

David Evans

@I'm sorry

"Not really - Search Engine robots, including Googlebot, pretty much read web pages in the same way that screen readers like Jaws do - a well designed website written/coded with the WAI in mind will, by default, be Google friendly. Any modern website should be written in this manner anyway."

That's fine for SEO, but that's only half the story. Ask any e-commerce company in the US or UK how much of their online marketing budget and effort they have to dedicate to SEO AND PPC (clue, for most people these days its north of 60%). Now there is a perfectly reasonable argument to say other providers should pull their finger out and offer a better service, and that's fine, but they haven't and Google is now like a black hole; it has a kind of gravitational pull that means it can't be avoided if you want to sell anything online. And even that would be fine, if all Google was doing was selling ad space as a search engine. But when it can control the ad market in whole categories of service where it offers competitive services of its own, that's just dangerous and wrong.

Its very difficult to make this kind of argument on The Reg because the audience is typically of the "I'm not influenced by ads" type (usually inordinately proud of all the steps they take to block ads), but the reality is most people ARE influenced by ads (otherwise Google wouldn't be so powerful), so if you control 60%+ of the ad market, it doesn't really matter if your products are good, bad or indifferent, that gives you an edge that no competitor, even if they had a technically better product, can match. This is why Google are under investigation by the EU, and why there should definitely be a debate to about whether Google's core search business should be separated from its other services.

Gamers raid medical server to host Call of Duty

David Evans

Feeble

Hacking a medical server to save the $20 or so a month it costs to have your own CODBLOPS server (the largest you can have is 24 player anyway)? Really? What a set of cheap, cheap bastards.

Amazon preps Kindleware for Android, Windows tablets

David Evans

erm,

I'm already using Kindle on my Galaxy Tab. Works just fine.

Senior Guardian hacks turn on Assange

David Evans

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

As far as I'm aware "coming over as creepy" isn't an arrestable offence (yet). He just came over as softly spoken and extremely careful with his words to me.

Tech firms warn Ireland on bailout

David Evans

@Paul Johnston

"competitiveness", in terms of exports and manufacturing has very little to do with the situation Ireland is in right now (in fact its one of the few bright spots in the economy); this main issue is bad debt caused by a massively overhyped property market, and loads of people defaulting on their loans (and not "sub-prime" types either).

Low corporate tax does bring in investment and jobs and it makes sense to protect it; it makes far more sense to tax other areas of the economy; this is a country with no property tax (council tax/rates) no water rates and 50% of the working population pays no income tax at all! Sadly, and I say that as someone who lives here, that kind of model was never going to be sustainable, and I expect all of these areas to be addressed this week. Unfortunately, the cost of living here is still really high, and although its gotten a little cheaper over the last couple of years, prices still outstrip the devaluation in net incomes and its going to get a lot worse. Disposable income is going to become a fond memory for most of us for the foreseeable future.

Google leaves sites in dark over October demotions

David Evans
FAIL

D'Oh!

That's the sound of site managers all over the world banging their heads and saying"of course, its all so simple, why didn't we think to update our content regularly and semantically mark it up? We could have saved ourselves all this unneccesary effort!"

Elon Musk vs NASA and the US rocket industry - ding ding!

David Evans

The current NASA has to go.

So long as the American space program is about job protection and pork for the aerospace sector, a serious manned program has no chance. NASA has failed, and failed consistently, for nearly 40 years, would any private sector organisation get away with that? And the stupid thing is, that in order to protect existing jobs, they are strangling the potentially MUCH larger job opportunities that a real program with proper competition would provide. I actually the only way NASA will finally get pushed aside is if the Chinese actually park some Taikonauts on the Moon. If common sense won't reignite the American space program, maybe pride will.

Times celebrates disappearing readers

David Evans

Not so sure

Not sure you're right actually, admittedly taking a lot of guesses about average CPMs, unsolds and the number of page impressions those 22.9M visitors actually saw, even using low CPM figs and high unsolds (50% in my quick back of a fag packet calc), they could have been doing more than 100K a week in advertising. Now they will retain some ads, and probably at a much higher CPM (because they can target better with registered users), but I really doubt subs has made them better off (in fact I'm certain of it because if it had they'd be crowing about it), plus they're spending a shitload on marketing to get those subscribers, and most of them are at a discount; how many are going to pay the full £8 a week?

There are too many failures of this model and very, very few successes (literally countable on the fingers of one hand) to make me believe NewsCorp have cracked it.

Multi-network iPhone SIM rumours at Apple

David Evans

Would be great

I've been desperate for a decent phone with multi-sim support for ages as I have an Irish and a UK number; there are a few winmo phones that do it (its a popular option in Asia) but nothing from the "quality" smartphone market. The other problem is that smartphones are generally battery hogs, and dual SIM would make that even worse.

I'd guess Apple would be just about the last manufacturer to consider this option as they'd rather there were no external ports, plugs or slots at all.

BA slams stupid security checks

David Evans

And there you find the flaw...

Most duty free is bought after check in, but if you transit through Heathrow for instance (as I was from Jo'burg to Dublin) the only way you'll be able to keep your booze is if you go ground side and come back through security. The annoying thing was, I actually asked if this was going to be an issue when I was in Jo'Burg and they said it wouldn't be.

Its great to see the likes of BA and BAA calling shenanigans on all this shit; even if they do have a vested interest in doing so.

Jobs savages 7-inch tablet competition

David Evans
Jobs Horns

Once again SJ takes us all for idiots

The contempt he has for his audience is really breathtaking isn't it? Of course he'll do an iPad Mini, but this is all part of the positioning to make the rivals who got ahead of him in the market "not count".

And FYI, I've directly compared an iPad and a Galaxy Tab. The Tab is the one I want, but it needs to drop in price to about £350 before I can justify it.

Ryanair wins ihateryanair.co.uk because of £322 ad revenue

David Evans

It doesn't matter

The "offence" is earning revenue from someone else's trademark, not making a profit. It doesn't matter whether he earned a penny or a million quid. Nominet were perfectly correct in their judgement tbh, but it hardly matters in the long run.

Spycam school to pay damages for kiddie snaps

David Evans

well...

...if you bothered to look into the case a little you'd know the kids were photographed at home and there certainly wasn't a signed contract with parents to let them do so! The "criminal intent" was the deliberate invasion of privacy in the first place, never mind what was or wasn't done with the images, but hey, they're kids so the don't have any rights. That's why the school was sued, because of the failure of the police to make a case, when in reality the local DA should have been over this like a rash, but then who knows what other skeletons these 'public servants' have in their closet that could have come out in court?

Sony Reader PRS-350 Pocket Edition

David Evans

so...

...get a Kindle then?

LG UK blog lets slip Windows Phone 7 details

David Evans

Vodafone are advertising it already

I've just seen a poster site in Dublin for Voda and the LG was the main part of the ad. Caught my eye because of the XBox Live icon on the home screen otherwise I probably wouldn't have realised it was a Phone 7 device. *update* Its on the Voda Ireland site: http://www.vodafone.ie/phones-plans/smartphones/phones/windows/

Men suffer most in recession

David Evans

I smell a rat

I would very much doubt an employer would make a decision like that explicit to the young single guy, because frankly he could take them to the cleaners for unfair dismissal (it would be discrimination, pure and simple). Does that kind of discrimination happen though? Probably, although I doubt its a significant trend (if anything, the more ruthless employers would bin the family guy who needs to do annoying things like take their kids to the doctors or watch the school play now and then).

Google TV mimics Android's closed openness

David Evans
Thumb Down

erm,

$300 for a web browser on your telly? No thanks. I'm also struggling to see what this does apart from stick a Google layer between you and stuff your TV already has available. If there was a unique content play in here it would start to make sense, although even then devices like Boxee or a games console offer a lot more value. Not feeling the love right now.

Man vindicated for videotaping his own traffic stop

David Evans

@JaitcH

The arrest was hardly "wrongful" was it? (Although some of the Brits on here should remember undertaking is OK in the US, however the wheelie was definitely out of order). The cop behaved like a testosterone-fuelled dickhead (but that seems to be in the job description for coppers everywhere), but he wasn't wrong to stop him. The subsequent seizure is the real story and I'm glad to see the judge giving the cops a good kicking about it. We could do with some judges like that over this side of the pond.

Philips 32PFL9705 Ambilight 32in LED backlit TV

David Evans

Lovely, but too expensive

I owned one of the early Ambilight LCDs and it really does enhance the experience; unfortunately it was broken during a house move, and despite the insurance money, its simply impossible to justify the price premium; you can get an excellent 1080p Bravia for half that money.

Sussex police try new tactic to relieve snappers of pics

David Evans

@BenR

If its so important for the cops to have the right to access your pics for evidence, issue them with media storage devices. Then they can take a copy on the spot, without all of this nonsense. Of course that would take away the ability to do what they like with the images when there's only a single copy...

Happiness: Yours for £50k a year

David Evans

Maybe in America...

I can see the logic, but I'd guess the number required would be higher in the UK because net earnings against that number would be rather less than the US. I also have a sneaking suspicion based on recent experience that having children moves that number towards infinity...

Boffins build lie detector for crooked CEOs

David Evans

"This is very perceptive, and really useful conceptually"

...except it isn't is it? 50-65% success rate makes it basically a guess. I'd also suggest the patterns its trying to measure aren't culturally fixed; British bosses are way more likely to swear than Americans for instance. Load of psychobabble bullshit basically - and that's the truth.

Facebook Places - why, and why not

David Evans

Kind of happens already

...if someone tags you in a photo, and the photo is tagged with the location/event. This is just more of the same, and I've no idea if FB has a "don't tag me in photos" function.

EC consults on low take-up of e-commerce

David Evans
Thumb Down

Double edged sword

While Ireland has the advantage of UK e-commerce right next door, this also means that many UK retailers don't treat the Irish online market seriously; no euro pricing, no support for local cards (Laser), and of course they usually can't handle Irish addresses (although this is more due to Ireland's willful refusal to join the 21st century and introduce proper postcodes). Amazingly there are a number of UK retailers that have .ie web sites that aren't transactional!

More annoying is that despite the so-called free movement of goods and services, some online retailers won't deliver some of their products "overseas" (try ordering any Logitech product from Amazon for example), and its here that pan-EU e-commerce falls down; the routine segregation of markets by manufacturers, that supposed to be against EU rules.

US starts charging for online visa-waiver

David Evans

Big Deal

Australia has been doing this for years. It should hardly be a surprise that the Septics have followed suit. Still way cheaper than some of the Visa fees I've had to stump up for former Soviet states and African countries in the past (and with a lot less hoop-jumping). So long as the EU reciprocates, I'm fine with it.

Apple as a religion: How the iPhone became divine

David Evans
Jobs Horns

Actually I think I'll jump straight in with the name calling

I avoid Apple products precisely because of the "cult" behaviours surrounding them. Anyone who gets some kind of shared group affiliation out of a lump of silicon, glass and plastic (and demonises those who don't) is clearly a twat. I avoid overtly religious types as rule and Mac cultists definitely fall into that category, and I wouldn't want to be identified as one by mistake.

HMV takes on mighty iTunes with 40p promo

David Evans

Because...

...the music industry won't licence lossless formats.

Bidding for rivals' AdWords can be infringement, sometimes

David Evans
Thumb Down

Nice and grey

Thereby creating more work for the lawyers. Nice one.

iPhone 4 Day: pre-orders and pregnancy cut no ice with 02

David Evans

Loser

Seriously. Queuing up for a phone.

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