* Posts by Dick Emery

841 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Feb 2008

Earth escapes obliteration by comet

Dick Emery
Trollface

It was just a practice run for next year.

Google indoor Streetview images go live

Dick Emery
Thumb Down

How long before the first mistakes creep in and we get a view into peoples homes?

Disk drive crisis: Economists are terrible weathermen

Dick Emery
Coat

I would hope this is taken as a lesson learned by the manufacturers not to put all their eggs in one basket so to speak. I don't mind paying a little extra in order to ensure supply meets demand. This shortage malarkey is just silly. I feel like there are leaves on the train lines again.

There is possibly an issue with getting the goods from the factory to the cargo ships and not flooding of the factories or lack of workers due to the floods.

Anyhow as soon as I heard I ordered a new Seagate 2TB HDD off Ebay where prices can't go up as quickly.

Apple's iPod: ten years old

Dick Emery

I have a iRiver H140 which I rarely power up with Rockbox on it. Too bulky and heavy. I also have a first generation iPod nano which is still my main workhorse. Also running Rockbox on it. I have a cheap Chinese iPod Nana v2 knockoff I use in bed for distraction from chronic tinnitus (a side effect for the iPod generation).

Samsung Galaxy Nexus comes up short on sub-pixels

Dick Emery
FAIL

reg(red). I think you missed the gag.

Thai floods flush storage channel clean

Dick Emery
Coat

Check the prices at Ebuyer etc. A 50% rise in prices across the board. I got scared and grabbed a 2tb Seagate off Ebay for £59 before it gets too costly.

World+Dog goes bonkers for iPhone 4S

Dick Emery
Trollface

Why? Two words. Penis envy.

Samsung, Google to out Ice Cream Sarnie next week

Dick Emery
IT Angle

What's the betting that they delay making it open source for many months after...possibly indefinitely (or at least until the next release)?

I want to see some hardcore mods for my Transformer past the small firmware tweaks currently available..

Sixth of Britain's cellphones have traces of poo on them

Dick Emery
Facepalm

Most germs get into your body from touching around your eyes like rubbing sleep bits from the corners. It's one of the most common way colds and flu viruses spread.

Belkin Conserve

Dick Emery
Thumb Up

I have one too. cost about a tenner on fleabay. Top bit of kit.

Ten... earphones for mobiles

Dick Emery
Megaphone

Bluetooth

Bluetooth uses compression and degrades the sound. This test is about best sound quality and that requires a wire (unless you use Creatives propietary wireless system that few others support). Also it's for phones and for phones it requires and inbuilt microphone.

'Ten... earphones for mobiles'

Don't you guys bloody read?

Spotify 'sold soul' to boy king Zuckerberg

Dick Emery
Facepalm

You pay £20 a CD? You are shopping in the wromg places mate. But it's still not a bad deal considering.

RIM: 'Faulty switch took out faulty-switch-proof network'

Dick Emery
Trollface

Hey at least they put their hands up to it. Hadit been Microsft it would be a 'feature' or if Apple 'the customers are t blame' or if it was Sony 'let's stick our heads i a hole and pretend it's not happening for a month'.

Old Napster guy’s fan letter to Spotify upstart

Dick Emery
Stop

If you want new music discovery use Soundcloud (albeit is a bit geared towards electronic music).

Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S

Dick Emery

Yeah that's like saying oranges from different regions are selling more than Granny Smiths (if there was only one type of apple).

Dick Emery
Coat

The sensation has a price. About £470-500

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=htc%20beats%20xe&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=shop&source=og&sa=N&tab=wf

Five... great iPhone racers

Dick Emery

Meanwhile on Android....err...nada.

Anonymous hacktivists turn rapper on YouTube, iTunes

Dick Emery
Thumb Down

One word. cRap.

Amazon revamps E Ink Kindle line

Dick Emery
Coat

infra red touch screen? will have to see how it responds before buying. even so you can bet $130=£130 when it gets to the UK. £50 for a Kindle keypad sounds good though. I have no need for such niceties as a keypad anyhow.

Apple loses bid to trademark 'multi-touch'

Dick Emery
Trollface

Well...you do have companies like Go Compare and Money Supermarket as trademarks. Just put two words together and there you go.

Brits not keen on 3D, reveals poll

Dick Emery
Megaphone

what's worse is the number of movies retro-fitted with fake 3D. such a cheat. they don't tell you openly which they are either. i have to visit the real or fake 3D website to find out. then i opt for the 2d version where i can.

New flash RAM tech promises 99% energy drop

Dick Emery

but it's not isolinear :P

Apple staff in UK told to cancel holiday in early October

Dick Emery
Trollface

tell that to the police

Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server

Dick Emery
Trollface

Shitty server gone in a flush!

Acid3 browser test drops DOM tripper-upper

Dick Emery

Bizarrely although I get 100/100 in Firefox 6.0.2 I get a message in the top left hand corner in red saying 'you should not be able to see this' or words to that effect.

Lancs shale to yield '15 years' of gas for UK

Dick Emery
Megaphone

If fuel prices continue rising like they are doing the greenies will hopefully get shouted down by the majority. The problem has always been that minority groups have too much sway in what gubberment does. They are usually the noisiest too. It's also hard to know whether fuel providers will buy from a local provider and sell it on cheaper than they currently do. Mores the likely they will carry on profiteering claiming they must invest in infrastructure to meet the demands and any savings get passed along to their shareholders instead. Call me pessimistic but that's how I see it panning out. The gubberment needs to put the boot in but they won't.

OnLive pushes game stream service to UK punters

Dick Emery
Thumb Up

if they can get this working smoothly on Android I can see a lot of potential. The problem has always been the hardware being underspecced for games. I wish there was a decent video streaming service in the UK for the latest movies and TV shows. No Netflix equivalent over here yet. On a sidenote I noticed Disney are now offering a stream anywhere service for anyone who has purchased one of their movies and provides a unique unlock code from the disc.

Samsung may try to block next iPhone in Europe too

Dick Emery

http://myphonedeals.co.uk/images/a/9%20Best%20Smartphones%20Compared%20-%20Sep%202011.jpg

EU recording copyright extension 'will cost €1bn'

Dick Emery

The job of every company is to keep the money flowing into 'their' pockets and not into anybody elses whether it be for the greater good or not. That's capitalism for you. The copyrite should ALWAYS remain with the creator until their death and even then may be passed on to their relatives. The problem comes from the shitty contracts artists are required to sign in order to get their material out there. The record companies take away the artists right to take their wares to another company for a very very long time indeed. Really the shoe should be on the other foot. The companies should only own the right to reproduce such works for a limited period where they can reasonably expect some profit to be made. If a work does not make any profit during that period the right to take it elsewhere where it may make a profit should fall back to the artist. See why some artists have taken the record companies to court over this very issue.

Samsung preps anti-iPhone 5 lawsuit before it's even out

Dick Emery

An iPod for an iPod. A bluetooth for a bluetooth. Arrrrrrr me hearties (Speak like a pirate day is almost up)!

Hackers break SSL encryption used by millions of sites

Dick Emery

Firefox needs to fix this now!

Netflix: How to completely screw up

Dick Emery

Netflix want to dump dvd rentals and go streaming only it's so obvious. It costs them far less to stream than mail a dvd out.

Dyson spouts hot air

Dick Emery
Stop

New York stylee ftw!

Let's heat everything by steam!

Deep inside Intel's 'Ivy Bridge' chip

Dick Emery
Coffee/keyboard

Intel fail because their chip can't crossfire like AMD can. Unless they buy Nvidia of course.

Malware burrows deep into computer BIOS to escape AV

Dick Emery
Coffee/keyboard

Ah! This brings back memories of the Compaq BIOS virus.

Ten years after the Twin Towers: What's the Reg angle?

Dick Emery

Conflict always drives technology. Don't you remember the old analogy about the Swiss and their watches?

Seagate GoFlex Satellite 500GB wireless hard drive

Dick Emery
Happy

needs inbuilt router

problem solved.

Seagate pulls out the biggest hard one in the industry

Dick Emery
Coat

moving parts are so yesteryear

I'm growing weary of spinning platters. They cost more to run, have heat and reliability issues and occupy too much space.

SSD's are the future and for files that change infrequently are ideal. I wish they would me 1TB SSD's with low read/write speeds for the price of a 1TB platter disk rather than concentrate on speed and keeping the price artificially high.

CERN: 'Climate models will need to be substantially revised'

Dick Emery
Trollface

CERN are evil

TU-TU-RU!

Hey, Music Industry. You're suing the wrong people

Dick Emery
Paris Hilton

Devaluation in a capitalist world

What I see here is only what is the tip of a very large iceberg. In the 'good ol' days' the main driving factor for technological advancement were wars. These days however technology is driven by consumerism (cAKA capitalism). It's a keeping up with the Jones's society. This has led us all towards the brink of world financial bankruptcy. Everybody has been living beyond their means on loans they could never really afford to repay. Including the banks themselves.

The iWants and iHaves have forced a burden onto the iNeeds and iCan't afford's of this world. Market forces are showing that the type of capitalism pushed by the greedy few does not work. At least not anymore.

Everyone dreams of a better and prosperous future but we are now forced by circumstances built into the very fabric of society to work towards ever higher goals. That nice place to live (A house/flat which is the biggest fininancial drain on our incomes), our childrens upbringing, a car (usually at least two or more because our transport infrastructure is crap), the big screen TV, games consoles, computer and all the other technology pushed upon us. We are now told we must all have an internet connection in order to do things we did not need to do when it did not exist. Many high street chains are closing and only exist souly in the iWorld. Physical objects are beginning to become less tangible as they get converted to bits and bytes in the virtual world.

Now we hit an economic pothole because of all that has gone before and right at the point when physical media such as CD/DVD's etc are really not needed anymore and the companies that existed purely on sales of said physcial media don't understand how to scale it to a digitally connected world. It's a case of futureshock in it's purist form.

Now we have the 'Can't affords rioting and pillaging on the streets and everyone moaning about how the 'yoof' of today has no respect blah blah etc. Well guess what. We all bought this upon ourselves.

I don't entirely blame the media industry. The real blame lies with us. For wanting more than our fair share and for allowing those in power to lead us on with false promises of a better life if you tick this box on the balot paper.

Paris for obvious reasons.

Paris because she knows all about consumerism.

Scientists devise 260GB CD-size glass disc storage tech

Dick Emery
Thumb Down

I don't get it

We already have flash memory smaller and able to hold data of equal (if not more so) density. We don't need more spinning media k thx bye.

Mozilla strokes coders with Firefox 6

Dick Emery
Trollface

Forced addons

I edited all my addons to 100.* because I am fedup of the continuous update cycle. They all work fine too.

HP confirms faster, paler TouchPad tablet

Dick Emery
Coat

But...

...wouldn't it make more sense to install iOS?

Snap said to show iPhone 5s being stacked by bunnies

Dick Emery
Devil

No an iPhone

It's Samsungs next phone. The iTabby.

Google SHOCK! Snaps up Motorola phone biz for $12.5bn

Dick Emery
Trollface

Bad Apples

They are all as bad as each other. But at least Motorola now have Goliath in their court to fight off the blatent patent trolling of Apple. 17,000 patents vs Apples measly 3000 or so. I'll just be happy if Jobs gets told good and proper like.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

Dick Emery
Headmaster

Android is the problem

I have an Asus Transformer with bundled dock. Despite some quality problems (I've had to RMA it twice) it's an OK peice of kit. However the biggest problem is Android itself. Honeycomb was a rush job and it shows. Google even know this which is why there is no source code provided for Honeycomb. They have promised to open the source code for Icecream Sandwich when it arrives later this year. If and when they do that then perhaps we will see some movement as there is a thriving community of developers eager to get their mits on the source and by way of a rooted device this will allow for some interesting developments. Perhaps even innovative ideas will appear.

Google need to get ICS out ther and open the source code.

The other reason the iPad sells so well is because of *ACCESSORIES*

No other manufacturer has as many iThingies as Apple. Asus tried to pull an Apple with their own propietary (and very short) power + USB connector. This has left a bitter taste in many of their customers mouths as they have withheld the charger and connector from being purcahsed seperately (Possibly in order to try and shift more docking keyboards). In fact you still cannot buy the cable seperately and instead have to buy another charger in order to obtain a spare cable.

The sheer dearth of accessories for the Asus Transformer which is one the the better selling Android tablets is mind numbing. Compared to what Apple's third party sellers have out there it's a drop in the ocean.

You buy an iThingie for the whole ecosystem that goes with it. Not just for the item itself.

Until someone comes out with a Android tablet that is universally compatible with a wealth of iPad accessories (which will most likely result in being sued like the Tab) or is good enough to generate a multitude of third party addons of their own they will continue to fail.

Galaxy Tab still legal in the Netherlands

Dick Emery
Stop

A title etc

The Tab is still openly being sold down my local PC World and Currys.

Googorola versus the Android ecosystem

Dick Emery
Trollface

Open Sauce

Yeah like how open sauce Honeycomb is....no wait.

Apple patent disputes Xoom towards Motorola

Dick Emery
FAIL

I patent this title. Now pay up.

The patent system has been broken of r veeeery loooong tiiiiiiime. Just one more reason it needs overhauling. Apple are not entirely to blame. The idiotic patent system is (and greedy legal types).

GE brings holographic storage back from the dead

Dick Emery
IT Angle

Optical media heading for the scrapheap

Spinning media is good in one way. It requires no power to store. However if you have a large archive it takes a bit more effort to keep it organised and then you have to go digging for it. HDD's are good and RAID arrays are better. However it takes power to keep it up and running and drive failures are a fact of life. Also we are now having to swtich from IDE to SATA as the interface gets phased out on modern motherboards.

I am looking forward to SSD's becoming larger and cheaper. They take less power, cause less heat and should be much more durable than spinning media. Also RAID should be needed less. Since SSD's being used for storage requires few writes, they should theoretically last a lifetime (assuming there is hardware to read them).

Eventually though we will have a small matchbox sized unit for local storage and everything else stored in the 'cloud'.