* Posts by Gareth

14 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2008

World's first 'thought images' seen on screen

Gareth
Thumb Down

Entirely Subjective

Take person x's brain wave pattern when looking and thinking of the letter N.

Basically if a = b within reasonable parameters display the image n back to person x.

However, if we then take person y and get them to think of the letter N when viewing then same image, person y's brain wave pattern a = b? I seriously doubt it!

Less as useful and reliable than speech recognition.

Hmm lets just sit here and train the computer to recognise ure brain wave patterns for everything you think of!

Rubbish

DARPA inks $2m deal for vat-grown artificial blood tech

Gareth
Jobs Horns

True Blood

Yeah 2 bottles of 'O' and an "AB-", 38 degrees please

Azure, Windows 7 and it's OK for MS to hate Vista, too

Gareth
Thumb Down

Poor

Really, Windows 7 came before Vista?

Who edited this?

Don't even get me started on grammar and punctuation.

Doormen's database boss goes

Gareth
Thumb Down

Bad for business

As a security provider I'm all too aware of the shortcomings of the system.

I check each member potential staff ensuring that their SIA licence number is correct and belongs to them using this database. (There are some good fakes out there)

I still ended up employing someone who wasn't properly licenced because the f&£%ers gave someone a licence they shouldn't have.

Needless to say he doesn't work for me anymore but a security breach ina security firm is just embarassing to say the least.

Say hi to Haumea - our fifth dwarf planet

Gareth
Alien

Earth-Sun Distance

Why not use the correct terminology ie. 1 AU (Astronomical Unit)

Mozilla slots pr0n safe mode into Firefox 3.1

Gareth
Thumb Up

Guilty by absence

Finally something that doesn't scream guilty like the clearing history and / or private data. A sure sign I've been upto no good!

Anonymous fights Scientology in schools

Gareth
Flame

Books Recieved

Funny this story appearing here, We've only this week received the entire collection of Hubbards books as a "free gift" as long as we put them in our library in time for the new students.

The letter included in the box says it they must be filed under self help and happyness.

Now I hate all that is Nazi, but in this case...book burning anyone?

Acer Aspire 8920G 18.4in laptop

Gareth
Thumb Up

Purchased one, love it

Bought mine at respectable £899 from John Lewis in Liverpool.

The screen resolution is fantastic and it easily handles COD4 in full 1080p while running visual studio debugger in the background (I develop software for games)

Colour reproduction is very accurate and recommended for any digital artist handling both After Effects and Photoshop CS3 very comfortably.

There's no noticable ghosting and sound reproduction is crystal clear.

The microphone setup doesn't work for ingame chat (something I've experienced on all realtek based audio hardware)

However the dual mic-monitor provides excellent bg noise removal without the usual pops, clicks and distortion.

Not mentioned in the review is the Audio over HDMI feature, oft missing from hdmi equiped PCs/Laptops.

For HI-Def screens / Audio Hardware supporting this the sound reproduction is crystal clear with no noticable distortion or clipping.

That said the internal speaker setup is more than sufficient for an immersive music / movie experience, my only bug bear being the

speaker configuration while gaming.

The rear Channels are projected from the speakers on the back bottom of the laptop rather than the front which seems strange to me, I'd have been more comfortable with them the other way around.

Surround sound is a much under used defensive tool in the realms of Dolby compatable online gaming.

Nothing that can't be fixed with a little software jiggery pokery.

All in all a great piece of kit, especially at under a grand!

Gareth

Road Pricing 2.0 is two years away

Gareth
Go

GPS Tracking

I knew investing in all those car gps jammers would come in handy

See you in the fast lane :)

Apple preps patch for 'problematic 3G' iPhone?

Gareth
Thumb Down

Bought it, tried it, took it back

Don't get me wrong, loved the ipod touch but the iphone lacked 3g and gps both of which I use a lot.

The release of the iphone 3g with these features plus all those of my ipod touch seemed a dream come true. Coupled with the rumoured car nav app it would haev been a perfect device.

Yet I had it for 24 hours and it went back.

The GPS is highly inaccurate, performing fantastic feats putting me in my next door neighbours bedroom (no bad thing, she's a fox) but then deciding that in some superhuman feat I had escape her husbands wrath and was now cowering in some bush beside the A55.

Had that been the case I would have struggled to make a call with any reasonable hope of clear quaillty having bearly managed 1 bar signal with 3G switched on.

Turn 3G off and a full signal!

The bluetooth stack doesnt even allow you to transfer my contacts from the viewty.

Siganl on the viewty? Full 3G signal no problem.

Rang o2 on the iphone, kept dropping the call.

When I took it back the next day (people waiting in line tp buy) the nice chap behind the counter asked "wtf is wrong with it, we have people queung out the shop and you're bringing it back."

Why pay £35 a month for a crap deal on minutes and texts when you have something that doesn't do what it's supposed to?

G

Apple iPhone 3G

Gareth
Unhappy

2 Days and It's going back

I have and Ipod Touch 16GB so I had very high expectations of the iphone 3g.

I have to say after 2 day's its being returned.

The interface is laggy, wifi intermittent and gps less than accurate (moving 2 doors down, then 300 metres into a field while I sat in my garden)

The signal is seriously poor when 3G is enabled and I have yet to recieve an audible alert to keypresses, text messages or email despite restores and reconfigs.

The mail push is fantastic by 1.1.5 ipod touch gets email just fine and doesnt need charging every 5 hours.

Seriously nice looking phone, but pay £35 a month for something less than ready?

I'll come back in 12 Months for the inevitable iWorkPhone.

Mass SQL injection hits English language websites

Gareth
Unhappy

@Mike F

True, however that address is not resolving at all from here.

Anyone else get a look at exactly what sql its trying to inject via the .js?

Holes in London Mayor websites leave them open to 'e-gaffes'

Gareth
Thumb Down

Re: Limited defence

I'd agree if they actually applied the same logic elsewhere.

From here you could change any part of the page as javascript runs with no problem. The number of team members for instance. But for now another proof of concept

http://www.backboris.com/about/index.php?mtf_msg=%3Cimg%20src=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/VirtualContent/86950/20070806152444.jpg%3E

Gareth
Joke

Very very poor scripting

You don't even need an iframe you can directly insert an img tag or even a script tag.

Simon's joke here with an img tag is much b=more transparent

http://www.backboris.com/misc/register.php?msg=%3Cimg%20SRC=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/VirtualContent/86950/20070806152444.jpg%3E