Posts by Stephen Clifford

Windows Store nixed Google Chrome 'app' hours after it went live

"The real barrier to choice is the requirement to be a wrapper around Edge. This isn't a technical constraint, but a commercial one. Do you want to associate your brand with the capabilities and performance or otherwise of the Edge rendering engine? Whilst it is an OK browser in my view (and certainly the best they have managed to produce to date), there already exists a perfectly acceptable Edge browser for those who want to experience that rendering engine. There is no need for a second one with a different logo."

As I said though, people reading The Reg are more likely 'Pro' users at least. The vast majority of people on the street really don't care about rendering engines within web browsers. What they want is a web browser that syncs between their mobile, their tablet and their computer with a reassuring icon between all device types. If I bookmark something on my tablet, I want it to be there on my PC when I load up the browser. There are ALSO a lot of users who see the 'Chrome' icon now as 'The Internet'. I remember trying to explain to my step mother a few years back when she got an iPad that she had to tap the Safari icon to browse the web and in the end just gave up and installed Chrome because she could never see the icon.

A 'wrapper' for Edge that skins it to look like Chrome and syncs with your Google account would be EXACTLY what a lot of users would want.

Nope - because it wasn't Chrome anyway.

It was a link to the Chrome installer - which you then had to run to install Chrome itself.

So, it still wouldn't have been installable on Windows 10 S.

And, this isn't exactly Microsoft's fault - Google have shown they're willing to play by the rules to get Chrome into iOS, so they can do the same for Windows 10.

People always complain about Windows and how on older PC's it runs slow - Windows 10 S is Microsoft's answer to that by trying to ensure that applications installed do pass basic quality assurance. And then people complain because Microsoft is stopping them doing what they used to do previously (which cause the problems in the first place).

Oh - and let's not forget, anyone reading, and commenting in, The Reg are almost definitely going to consider themselves more of a 'Power User' than the majority of the population so lets take comments here with a pinch of salt on how they'd affect 'everyday users'.

Toothless Ofcom: C'mon consumers, show your teeth on broadband speeds

This also doesn't actually solve the issue. So, your broadband is running slow. This is more than likely due to the phone line and not any particular ISP issue. You leave that ISP and sign up with another one - with the same phone number.

So, unless Ofcom are actually saying it's fine for people to have very slow connections - as long as you tell them that's what they're going to get (and presumably charge them the same for someone on a 20mb+ connection), it's fairly pointless making it easier to swap.

They should be forcing BT to upgrade the phone network to guarantee a proper minimum speed.

So tablets, if you want to get anything done travelling get a ... yes, a laptop

Wrong Tablet

Although I suspect that as soon as I mention this, there's going to be legions of anti-MS posts, but if you want a tablet that works just like a laptop - just get a Windows 8 tablet.

Surface (Pro) 3 being the obvious candidate. But even the cheap Windows 8 tablets now just run full-fat Windows 8.1 and not Windows 8.1 RT.

Acer enters Windows Phone fray with cheap Liquid M220 mobe

Re: Backing the underdog

And look at how well Sony and HTC are doing with Android phones. They may be selling them - but they're not making any money. The only company doing well with Android is Samsung.

Even Google themselves couldn't make money from Android hardware - they flogged Motorola again to Lenovo.

'Hello? Hello? Yes, I'm calling you on my WEB BROWSER'

So, this would be a competing video call service to both Skype and Facetime? That'll pretty much guarantee that neither Apple or Microsoft will rush to support this.

The bank that likes to say... crash: TSB's online banking goes titsup on launch day

tsb.com

Ok - the comment about the new bank 'allowing' someone else to register tsb.com first is pretty stupid.

A quick check shows that tsb.com was registered as a domain name in 1994. So, maybe the comment should be able how it outrageous that the old TSB bank allowed someone else to get tsb.com before they did.

Verizon joins T-Mobile, AT&T with early phone upgrade plan

O2 Refresh

Just for comparison though, how do these US plans compare the O2 Refresh in the UK? On that you can get a new phone whenever you want - they just split your bill to show your 'Phone Plan' and 'Airtime Plan' and if you want a new phone, you pay off just the 'Phone Plan' contract.

Nokia tears wrapper off Lumia 1020 monster imaging mobe

Re: No memory card, fixed battery

You can buy in additional 'Camera Grip' for the phone which makes it more 'Camera-like' and includes a jack for a tripod stand.

The Camera holder though also doubles up as a spare battery for it. http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/accessories/accessory/pd-95g/

Instagram

It does have Instagram - just not the official client but still a very good unofficial one with 'Instance'.

Smartwatch face off: Pebble, MetaWatch and new hi-tech timepieces

It's all being done backwards...

I just feel that 'Smartwatches' are actually a 'backwards' way of doing this. What I want is some personal network connected doo-dah (like a watch, or to get all 'Star Trek:TNG' - a badge) that'll be my own hotspot. It'll handle the network and it knows who I am so when another device is near it it works with it'll automatically configure that device with my own setup.

So, you have your 'watch' which is also the mobile network connected doo-dah. You pick up a tablet and the watch tells the tablet 'Hey - this is Fred. His email address is '[e-mail]' and, and he uses GDrive for cloud storage and these are all the account settings'. Then when I'm using the tablet everything is automatically setup for me. 'Handset' mobile phones will just become a pocket tablet as the watch doo-dah does the actual mobile networking stuff (if you have a hands-free headset you can talk without a 'phone' at all - or you can pretend to be a secret agent by talking directly into the watch).

And taking it further, you can use the doo-dah to walk into a '21st Century' version of a phone box (without the dodgy smells) and the doo-dah tells the phone box who you are and that you're a Skype, or Facetime, or Gtalk user and it sets itself up to access your details on that service. It could even have billing details.

And for businesses it'll make hotdesking far more flexible.

That's actually probably all not too far off - with mobile-wifi hotspots, NFC, bluetooth and cloud based services now. However, it would probably involve the co-operation of the big companies to work together on some sort of standard or else you'll just end up with the Google, Apple, MS watch which refuses to work with the other services.

Office for Android, iOS pushed back to late 2014?

I'm still amazed that people still don't get that Microsoft isn't really going for the pure 'Tablet' market anyway. They're going for the (for want of a better description) the 'Convertible' market. They want businesses to have a Windows 8 device that plugs into a docking station and provides a full windows experience but that you can also undock and use as a tablet when needed.

Office on a tablet using the virtual keyboard doesn't work. iPads and tablets in the office are still more to do with status in the company rather than productivity.

Why I love Microsoft’s vapourware tablet

Announcments vs release dates?

Ok, so you criticise MS because they're announcing it this week with a (probably) actual launch date of Oct.

However, the first iPhone was announced in Jan 2007 - released in July that year.

The first iPad was announced Jan 2010 - released April 2010.

So, it's ok for Apple to announce things well in advance because they're, like, trendy, but oh no! Microsoft have to announce and release at the same time!

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo bow to Apple sales edict

Be interesting..

Be interesting to see if any other companies follows the example of the Financial Times and just drop their app completely and just develop an Iphone/Ipad optimised 'webapp'.

Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums

And, that'll be the backtrack

Yep - they've now changed their mind and realised that this would probably be breaking a whole host of data protection/privacy laws and opening them up to various law suits.

So, yesterday Blizzard announced that they're dropping this idea.

A quote from the CEO of Blizzard:

"Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums."

Everything Everywhere now something somewhere

EE?

Please tell me that 'Everything Everywhere' wont eventually be the consumer brand name of their mobile network?

BBC upgrades iPlayer to allow 'social propositions'

Series linking

Something that's been missed in pretty much all the right-ups about the changes is that, it would seem, the BBC have snuck in a sort of Series Link option for downloading future episodes.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck at trying to install the updated iPlayer Desktop so I can't see how it works, but from the sound of the option on screen 'Download Future Episodes' it seems that you can set it automatically download episodes when they're released.

That's sure to annoy Sky.

World of Warcraft: 'The crack cocaine of the computer world'

Addiction?

Now, if only Blizzard had bothered to include parental controls into the game. Maybe set it up so that the parents can specify exactly when they can play (not during school hours, not late at night) and for how long and make it account based so that it doesn't actually matter if you play it on your own computer, on your friends computer or at a cybercafe. Maybe make it password protected with a separate password to the account so that little Jonny can't just go back in and reset it. Oh, actually that's exactly what they did.

This is exactly the same problem with the hysteria over the prying Paedo's in little Susie's 'I love High School Music' chat rooms. If you're concerned, put the computer somewhere communal in the house and not in their own bedrooms.

Virgin Media trashes patent infringement accusations

Has Sky paid up?

"Has SKY paid up I wonder....." someone asks.

At the moment, Gemstar is, I believe, 40% owned by News Corporation (although News Corp are in the process of selling up to Macrovision).

I'm sure you can make your own conclusions to that, and your own conspiracy theories,

Only Sky can save digital TV

Just to pick more holes in a frankly stupid article anyway...

1) To include the UKTV channels as PSB ones because they're part owned by BBC Worldwide (the commercial and entirely seperately funded and independently run bit of the BBC) is wrong. These are not PSB channels and they wouldn't be on the platform if there wasn't a commerical reason for them.

2) Get rid of the shopping channels and give 3 to Sky and 3 to Virgin? You might want to check who owns those shopping channels. Oh look, the owners of BidTV and Pricedrop TV, that'll be Virgin then. Again, if these channels were not making money for Virgin, they would be taken off and replaced with something else. But the fact is that although they're not everyone's cup of tea, they're obviously making enough money for there owners or else they'd have left by now.

3) If Sky was to be the saviour of DTT, Sky Three would be the best channel on there. It's not.

4) Oh, and lookout for 'Dave' - joining Freeview next week.

Blogging: made in England?

Re: Monochrome

Yep - I remember Monochrome and the diaries they had. Must've been in 1995 when they launched because I was still at Uni and I graduated in 1996.

Monochrome is still around though - and I suspect the diaries are still there.