* Posts by Paul

64 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007

Page:

Acer: Android netbook to come with... Windows

Paul

Sounds sensible to me.

Most people (who are not reg readers) have spoken with their wallets and gone for Windows netbooks (argue as much as you like by you can't ignore peoples familiarity with windows being a if not the major selling point for most people) if you want to get into the market then dual booting sounds a good way in. Surprised really that those pushing Linux on netbooks have not pushed for the same situation. Here have your windows but you can try this linux OS as well if you like?

Analyst forecasts Apple Kindle-killer for 2010

Paul

Double sided?

If I was a clever design person I would produce a table that has an oled display on one side, an e-ink display on the other and sleeve for it to fit in so you could swap round which side you used so that it automatically turned off the side hidden in the sleeve.

European 'standard' e-car power connector details emerge

Paul

American standard

will be two large round pins I assume....

Sony takes on iPod Touch with Walkman X

Paul

What do most people use the ipod touch for?

I guess the question is what do most people use the ipod touch for? Are they as app happy as the iphoners or do they mainly use it to listen to music and watch video's. If the latter then this might do well. If the former then not. I would suspect the readership of the reg is not a representative sample of the majority of ipod touch users out there.

As to the format the question is why would you want to put a lot less tracks on in FLAC when its easy to keeps the FLAC copies as your master versions but produce high rate MP3 versions that would be so close to the original on this equipment that you would have to be a pendent to be affected by any difference.

Virgin Media to add 500k homes to cable network

Paul
Alert

Phorm overreaction as usual

I do find it silly that this 'phorm' thing has been blown up into this big boggy man.

If it gets implemented then fine use it as an excuse to cancel your VM contract but to use something that 'might happen in the future' as a reason not to do something is plain stupid.

I'm not going to cross the road any more because I might get run down.

I'm going to stop breathing in case I inhale some asbestos.

As a VM customer for many years I can say the service has not been perfect but generally its okay and I think lots of people who can't get it at the moment will appreciate the advantages of cable (and remember you could just sign up for the TV without the internet if you are phormophobic) such as the higher speeds and the ever more useful VOD.

France says 'Oui!' to three strikes for music pirates

Paul

Enforcibility is not the point, its the threat

Whether the law is enforcible or not is not as relevant as the fact that once this law is in place your average joe (or pierre) is going to download less. Look at the example of Sweden:

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/85935/new-swedish-copyright-law-cuts-internet-usage-in-half/

"Swedish Internet traffic measurement firm says it fell from almost 200Gbs to 110Gbs on the day the new law came into effect.

Swedes are apparently scaling back their Internet usage after that country’s controversial new copyright law went into effect last Wednesday.

The new law, if you recall, allows copyright holders to seek a court order requiring ISPs to divulge the names of accused file-sharers.

After going into effect, Netnod Internet Exchange, an Internet traffic measurement firm, reported that Internet traffic in that country by almost one half, dropping from almost 200Gbps to 110Gbps on the day the new law came into effect."

Obviously thousands of people stopped using p2p at the time. Would they all have been caught and taken through the legal system. Almost certainly not but it still was enough of a deterrent to put them off. Any success of the french law should be measured not by how many people get warned etc but what effect it will have on the general level of p2p traffic in france.

Tesco tills go titsup

Paul

Duh!

"suppose it hasn't occurred to them that they would risk losing less business if they rolled them out on a Saturday night. Not that I want them to lose less business..."

Possibly something to so with Sunday being a much much busier shopping day at Tesco's than Monday??

US govt hydrogen highway runs out of road

Paul

I see

People are still spouting the "What's the point of an electric car as it takes 6 to 8 hours to recharge" line.

As I understand it using a suitable charging point many of the newer batteries can be charged to 80 or 90% in a few minutes. Yes with a normal wall socket it will take longer buts its going to be a hell of a lot easier to modify current filling stations to provide electric charging points than it is to add hydrogen pumps.

Paul

Top Gear repeats

so remember to laugh heartily during repeats of the Top Gear episode when they claim hydrogen is the fuel of the future and electric cars are a dead end....

HTC Vodafone Magic

Paul

AC @ 8:55

So it has a crap camera and not the best battery life, thus falling in with 99% of all smart phones. I don't think you can claim its a turkey just on those points. I see you did not feel the need to pick out any of the positive parts of the review either.

ARIN heads off IP address land grab

Paul

Do MIT?

Need all of 18.*.*.*?

US lawmakers to de-silence electric cars

Paul
Thumb Up

More for the transition period

I can see peoples points if we immediately went from all internal combustion engined cars to electric ones but that's not going happen and I can understand the trepidation of blind people trying to cross the road when 50% of the cars are loud and 50% are a lot quieter. As these sound systems will probably use loudspeakers and so be adjustable it should be possible to come up with a system that reduces the volume as the proportion of electric vehicles increases.

Also how many people here have started to cross the road without really looking but have stopped because they heard a car coming? Silent electric cars will increase the number of 'I didn't see it coming' incidents.

So I'm in favour just as long as the sound is similar for all cars, such as artificial engine noise, and that people are not allowed to replace it with the crazy frog.

Facebook in Pirate Bay block Fail

Paul
Alert

@Mecron

Please tell me how what they are doing is illegal? I am sure their terms and conditions that people sign up to allow them to do this sort of thing. Its not a democracy, it bleedin facebook...

Bucks village repels Street View spycar

Paul

Crying wolf

Now what we need are lots of people with similar black cars willing to have a box on a pole attached to their car to drive into this place.

Brussels: Old-school lightbulbs to be gone by 2012

Paul

microscopic

If 80 terawatt hours is microscopic I would hate to think what you think is large!

Superfast-charging batteries? Whoa there, MIT

Paul

Quick charge == filling station?

Those commenting about the wiring required at home for this sort of charging are surely barking up the wrong tree. How many people drive to their house, wait 2 minutes and then want to drive away again? How many people what to top up their fuel on the road when otherwise they would run out and don't want to wait 4 hours for the top up? Just because it could (possibly) charge quick does not mean it has to be quick charged in all situations and electric cars become much more usable if you can charge them up over a few hours at home but top them up in a few seconds when on the road.

Apple preps netbook 10-inch touch screen thingy

Paul

Why is the netbook sector growing?

Because the vast majority of the ones sold are. by comparison, cheap.

Will the apple machine fall into that category, probably not.

Concerted Linux-netbook effort needed to beat Microsoft

Paul

Not lazy just want what they are used to

I would counter the argument that people buy XP on netbooks because they are stupid and/or lazy. They buy it on netbooks because it is what they are used to on a computer and it it what they have learnt to use. To try and get someone to use a new interface to what they are used to you that theyt will have to take time to get used to you have to provide a compelling argument and I can't see what that is in this case. Being 20 quid cheaper is not a compelling argument.

Apple overhauls MobileMe

Paul
Jobs Horns

Best MobileMe thing apple could provide

Is a one click remove option given that I never asked to have it installed on my PC in the first place. Then not having asked for it it keeps on bugging about having to be upgraded.

Conficker call-backs threaten to swamp legit domains

Paul

Outside the US/UK

Surely Obama or one of his minions could give immunity to prosecution to some security professionals to do this? After all in this case there is no perfect way of stopping this infection so its a case of someone with clout deciding which is worse 9 million infected machines around the world or some of those falling over when they are remotely cleaned?

Pranksters infiltrate live Macworld feed

Paul

Not very creative

They could have tried to be a bit more creative couldn't they? If it was me I would have announced something like the new iphone shuffle for when you need to phone someone but are not bothered who.

Or that the new macbook is so thin its almost invisible.

Or the iGetALife package for those who spend all their free time defending how using a mac gives them so much free time.

BBC: Top Gear Tesla didn't run out of juice

Paul

Next supercar review on Top Gear

Will, I assume,. show the supercar being pushed back to the garage as if it has run out of petrol?!

Tesla takes Top Gear test to task

Paul

Petrol heads try to undermine electric car shock, not

Hardly a surprise. Going along with all there other comments about charging times for cars. No mention of the new battery tech upcoming that will allow 80% odd charge in a few minutes.

Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

Paul

@richard

Where does it say they charge different amounts for high VOLUME users?

Paul
Gates Halo

Over reaction

Some people do over react. Its not like they are going to stop all p2p traffic just prioritise the packets. Anyone would think they were inspecting the packets so they can come round and beat the p2perp with baseball bats!

Paul
Coat

Good

As one of the many who do not use P2P but have my service affected by those that do I think this is fine.

Mine is the one with the earplugs in preparation for all the whining that will appear in these comments.

Amazon intros early VAT cut

Paul

Refund if price goes down

I believe Amazon have a, somewhat hidden, policy that if the price of something you have bought from them goes down within a specific period you can claim a refund to take you to the lower price. I wonder if that would also apply in the case of items bought before the VAT is reduced compared to prices after?

Formula One kinetic energy recovery rigs debut

Paul

Fully combine the two storage options?

"Of more interest is the Bosch system – also unveiled at PMSW - which comes in a mix-and-match form with both battery and flywheel energy- storage options – the latter spinning in a vacuum at speeds of up to 160,000rpm."

Battery's weigh quite a bit, weight is precious on F1 cars. I wonder if they considered using the batteries as part of the fly wheel?

Also good job they decided to use a world beginning with W as the last one for their acronym rather than one beginning with L

Open source fanciers finger Beeb's Win 7 'sales presentation'

Paul

No visits to trade shows now then??

So any visit to a trade show by any BBC tech reporters is out of the question because as soon as any marketdroid opens their mouth on camera it is automatically 'advertising'?

Blu-ray Disc a 'bag of hurt', says Jobs

Paul

Prefer a middle non-optical method for HD?

With the price of flash coming down and the size of the flash cards with it I would be far more interested in a system that allowed me to 'own' films in HD on small cartridges (say a similar size to DS cartridges, not too big, not too small). The idea of downloading and renting films does not appeal but being able to have the films in a more robust and compact digital form does.

I would also like to see such a system where by default the case you bought included the HD card with all the extra's, bonus features etc on it AND a vanilla DVD so I can watch the film on other players until I could upgrade all the players.

You could also imagine 'home hubs' that contained an expandable number of slots into which you could place your cartridges, each being instantly available on your home network once it has been inserted.

Germans give peeking Google one in the eye

Paul
Coat

reducing global warming the only advantage of street view?

Can someone explain what these BAD people can do using street view that they cannot do from their own cars?

Mine is the one with the paranoia leaflet in the pocket, but you know that already don't you??

Blockbuster: DVD to Blu-ray shift slower than VHS to DVD

Paul

Multiplicity of DVD players

One of the main things stopping us moving to blueray is that we have multiple DVD players and baulk at the prospect of getting a disk that will then only be playable on one device. IMO if they want to increase the take up of blueray they should include a vanilla (i.e. just the film or whatever) DVD copy of in with each blueray so can people buy them knowing they can still watch the film on their other DVD players (or rip to their portable media device).

Miracle airship tech sustained by DARPA pork trickle

Paul
Coat

First order by Cybus Industries

Get rather worried if lots of airships start appearing over London. Next thing you know the streets will be full of cybermen!

Mine's the one with the sonic screwdriver in the pocket.

Obama: McCain can't email, remembers Rubik's Cubes

Paul

Saving on archive costs

Well at least it would save on the cost of archiving his emails in case of later investigations.

Sony PRS-505 Reader e-book

Paul
Alert

Password protected PDF's

I have several password protected PDF's, does anyone know how this thing will work with these as there is no keyboard?

Ubuntu zoo preps for new arrival

Paul

K

I assume it will have to begin with K so I would guess...

Kinky Koala

Comcast files FCC impotence suit

Paul

@darkwolf

If you normally eat a reasonable meal at a restaurant and then one day they offer you an all you can eat deal do you stay there eating constantly till, ala Mr Creosote, you explode?

On VM I went from 2mbps to 20mbps (and yes I do get 20mbps) but has it increased the amount I download? Possibly a little bit, maybe 20%, but in general the speed is more useful because of its raw speed than because of the maximum amount you can download in a 24 hour period.

How to stop worrying and enjoy paying for incoming calls

Paul

What are the disadvantages of removing termination fees?

If all carriers were told: You must accept all incoming calls without charging but in return all your outgoing calls would be treated the same way?

Vodafone says termination rate clampdown would hit the poor

Paul

Equal in/out = no payment

Surely if you have two networks of difference sizes if the users usages are average in all cases then each network will receive as many calls from the other as are sent to it? In that case why should any payment between the networks be required? In cases where there is a large difference they may have to be some rule about extra payment?

Three-alarm fire bakes Apple facility

Paul

Fan problem again?

If only they had remembered to update the firmware on their air conditioning units so the fans were on at the right time this might never have happened.

Cable broadband shines in Virgin Media Q2

Paul

Not leaving in droves and 19.307

Firstly the figures show that against the most rabid of phorm posters opinions the number of BB subscribers on VM is going up not down. 19.307 is the speed test on my 20mb VM line at 8.15pm and that's throught the router and the cable modem.

US court liberates Cablevision 'remote DVR'

Paul

User selected VOD

Interesting. So we are basically talking something like the VOD (video on demand) system that VM have but the user selects what is on the VOD list. This would open up all the channels rather than the selected programs currently available and I guess the cable company would only, in reality, need to store one copy of each program. Would be interesting to see if it was then possible to retroactively add something to your online VCR. "Please 'record' yesterdays episode of x"?

Apple confesses MobileMe vanishing contact bug

Paul
Thumb Down

Mobileme preferences appeared in Control Panel

Have Apple been up to their old tricks of putting extra things into their software updates as my laptop now shows a mobileme icon in Control Panel and I sure as hell did not go out of my way to install it.

Operation Sprogwatch: Keeping tabs on the kids

Paul

999 out of 1000

times that a child gets separated from their parent its because they have wandered off and not been abducted. This does not however reduce the anxiety of the parent at the time and its the reduction in the fear of that happening that this would reduce.

US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers

Paul

Promoted up the order

One assumes the S is for scheme that has been promoted up the abbreviation batting order.

Sky plays the victim over Ofcom pay TV rights probe

Paul

Original split in football down to europe not ofcom

Those people blaming ofcom for having to pay extra to get the games on setanta are barking up the wrong tree as it was the european commission competition bods that finally forced the FA to have a 'not completely rigged in skys favour' auction.

As to sky one its interesting to note that people say 'Lost and stuff' as it appears that Lost has just about become sky ones only selling point. We are on VM but with only 1 show worth watching on sky one we have a relative with sky record it to DVD so don't really miss sky one at all.

BBC iPlayer continues platform sluttiness with Virgin Media launch

Paul
Happy

feasibility

Sky subscribers are going to turn rather blue if they hold their breath for the full iplayer as the technology is not there in terms of both the bandwidth to individual users and the return path to do anything like what is possible on Cable.

It will be interesting to see what is in HD for those of us with HD boxes. Will it just be those programs broadcast on BBC HD or will it be others where the source may be in HD but has been broadcast on an normal non HD channel?

Whitehats tackle The Great Botnet Dilemma

Paul

inform the authorities?

Surely they should talk to the FBI etc who have people investigating these botnets. If they say 'yes we think you should remove them from peoples PC' then it would remove their liability for anything going wrong I should think?

BBC defends iPlayer against Murdoch Jr's 'anti-competitive' claims

Paul

Can someone explain

How the iplayer making just BBC programs available to view online is crowding out competition???

BBC to launch iPlayer for Wii

Paul

Quality

Does anyone know what quality this video is going to be on the Wii. Is it flash player quality or the slightly better iwhatever quality? Still as on VM I will only be of use for about a week or so before the full iplayer comes to VM (hopefully!).

Page: