Posts by andreas koch
411 posts • joined Saturday 14th June 2008 17:50 GMT
Why do they bother?
...it'll only get banned anyway.
If you photoshop the grey vertical (if you hold it landscape) lines away, and the Samsung logo on the front and the back, and present it portrait and add a 'square*' button and make it look just like an iPad then it looks just like an ipad to any jury that has been promised a free ipad after the 'right' verdict.
Round 4 (or is it 5, or 6?)
* I'm pretty sure I saw that on a Playstation controller before there were iPhones.
Cheeky Sony again, copying the gloriuos Apple design before it even gets out.
Shame on them.
@ ideas -
Just don't get caught with whatever it was that you smoked (shot up, snorted...); it just can't be legal.
Re: Dweeb's random casual statistics of the day
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I would post a Beer icon, but ...
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...Then why didn't you?
You know, I totally agree with your opinion regarding iPhones and forum posters.
Have a beer.
@ Aaron Em - Re: Huh?
*sigh*
@ marioaieie - Re: @ Daniel B. - Unless...
@ craigj - Re: Of course Android is on the decline!
Maybe I need to explain my post?
Seeing that nothing, N O T H I N G W H A T S O E V E R is written on this (or any other) forum will ever make any difference either to the fans of either side, the companies involved or the market altogether, I've taken to vent my amusement about the Apple 'Believers' in a more appropriate style.
That of a hormone-overpowered 13-year-old female 'Twilight' reader.
@ Daniel B. - Re: Unless...
Apple would never ban a company that they think of as a fair competition.
Has Apple ever said that Siemens copied the iPhone? No. Are they banned? No.
Has Apple ever said that Kenwood copied the iPhone? No. Are they banned? No.
Has Apple said that Samsung did? Yes. Are they banned? Yes.
There is the proof, Apple are not trolling. And they are fair.
Of course Android is on the decline!
Is there any Android for an iPhone (pbuh)? No. There.
iPhone! (pbuh) Yes! 5!!! Please, soon!!! Oh, Apple!!!!
Bah, humbug.
Posted in Who coined the term 'App'?
@Drewc - App store trade mark
I'm suitable embarrassed to not have read el Reg careefully...
No, really, That one escaped me. Thanks for the link!
Re: Prior art?
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Prior art?
I seem to recall a similar feature on the Windows Vista start menu where you could search both files and programs. Does it not seem like a logical step to be able to search phone content and internet content?
(And I also seem to recall that there was a Google thingie to do something similar, extending it to searching the internet too, but I'm less sure about this)
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Ban Microsoft and Google?
@ JibberJabberBadger - Re: Apple will have no problems
Sarcasm radar broken? yep.
I didn't think that figures like that would need an additional 'joke' marker to be seen as a joke.
Can you enjoy standup comedy without a laughter reel? Just kidding, mate...
The numbers are gained from a dream I had after I snorted the same powdered mushroom that most of the Apple fanbois snort. I think it just induces feelings of W O R L D D O M I N A T I O N!!!11! Arrrgh.
Time for more dried frog pills.
Thanks for your time.
Apple will have no problems
Projected iPhone5 sales of 8 billion units at a profit of about 125$ each and on top of that another 6 billion new iPad S sales at just under 100$ will make a revenue of more than 1.5 trillion $ in the 4th quarter. This will enable the company to buy into a significant amount of the US and provide the correct legislation for continued expansion, profit and well-being for all.
Re: @ Neil Greatorex - @ andreas koch
OKOKOK, Calm down. Forgot to take your dried frog pills?
Just because I drive a Renault 4 doesn't make it a good car.
@ Neil Greatorex - Re: @ andreas koch
...and Sharp's Zaurus. Yeah.
Never mind, all after the dynabook.
@AC 1933h
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I seriously doubt Apple have anything "revolutionary" left up their sleeves.
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This is were you are mistaken: Apple has an endless supply of revolutionary ideas! Have you heard of the flexible cord charger? Will be the innovation of the next season, and one more glorious addition to Apples wonderful patent portfolio. Automatic floor stop? Hm? Another revolutionary, patentable invention. The TATNSTF* -System? Will be the super news of the year 2013, and only from Apple!
The followers of the Jobsian Cult will believe what the High Priests tell them, even if it's ordinary as muck.
But I have to admit that Apple somehow does own the tablet, and here's the reasoning:
The first tablet-like organiser thingy was the Apple Newton MessagePad, which precedes Microsoft's effort by a good 10 years or so. There was prior art, though: Alan Kay's concept of the Dynabook. Now that nails it down, because although Alan Kay didn't invent the concept during his time at Apple R&D or later at Disney Imaging (Jobs was there, too, I believe...), he invented it at Xerox PARC. And Mr Jobs had somehow 'carte blanche' to call whatever he saw there his own invention.
There. No wonder Samsung (and everyone else) is now patenting the most ridiculous things, because if you're not in first, then Apple will do it!
*Turn Around To Not See The Front
@Confuciousmobil -
Cars? Furniture? Washbasins? Carpets?
The whole economy is full of failures(?) that offer choice and diversity; if they all catch on the Jobs/Apple idea, it'll look like a shopping mall in east Berlin in 1982: Choice of 1 fruit and 1TV. 1 fridge to be issued on 21 st September...
@ Neil Barnes - What puzzles me
Nope, you're not.
See my post above, you are a member of a dying out species.
Sorry.
@ lemmac
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Hmmm, sounds just like a pc... i'm sure they were quite successful. That was back in the days when software was called software though so i guess its only 'apps' that face the problem you mention?
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No, I think the problem is that some script kiddies that call themselves developers can't be bothered to make flexible software.
And they don't need to, either: I've come to the conclusion that the "walled garden" is what the majority of people really want. They don't want to adjust their screens, their memory, install GPS drivers or such. They want a thing that works.
Even better would be a thing that works by itself:
My proposal is the iLifeTunePodPad.
Here's what you have to do: After you buy it in the Apple store, your banking info will be stored with the AppleBank who easily and without need of your time will transfer all money movements to your new AppleCount. There is no need for new credit cards, as payments will mostly be to AppleFiliate companies anyway and anything else is not really needed. The rent for your ApplePartment will automatically be paid and adjusted as well as your Utts (these used to be utilities, like water, electricity, gas), which are now supplied through the UttStore.
The iLifeTunePodPad will wake you in the morning to go to work at the right time, will send the right messages at the right occasion to the right friends, and mark photos of the child that you will have with your iPartner correctly with the right name: Steve or Stephanie. With its built-in body monitor it will also inform the right people to start the correct recycling procedure at the end of your usefulness.
People would love it! As long as someone tells them to, that is...
Posted in Who coined the term 'App'?
Thanks, guys.
I really wondered about it, because i hadn't heard it all that much. But then, I never actually remember hearing it back in Germany, and I only moved to Britain a few years ago. Probably an Anglo-Americanism that escaped me before...
Is 'App Store' really trademarked? Wait, I used to work for Xerox, and they trademarked 'The Document Company'; so same thing there.
Oh well then, 'App' is a term. I'll survive it.
Just.
@ AC 0542h
But it is marketed as a lifestyle, and people who can't be bothered to develop their own lifestyle are tremendously grateful to be provided with one that comes bundled with the phone.
Badum-tish.
Posted in Who coined the term 'App'?
Who coined the term 'App'?
Ok,ok, so language evolves, but nevertheless: was it really necessary to abbreviate 'application'?
It seems that it was a great marketing move, because Joe and Jane Public seem* to think that App's** are better than programs and only available through iTunes.
So, does anyone know who coined the term? I've got the feeling it could have been Mr. Jobs...
*My own experience quite a few times, not a proper survey.
**Deliberate greengrocers apostrophe, fit's better with the target group.
@ Jonathan White
You are right. But a lot of people using iPhones have never done anything else than purchase on iTunes and will use Apple's 'cloud' storage to go from one phone to the other - - - iPhone.
As I keep saying: Apple's customer experience is not merited by the technology, it's the ' don't think* about it, we'll do it for you in the right way' service. And that says: Buy another iPhone (and Apple TV, and iPad and iToaster and iFridge).
I don't personally like it too much that someone 'knows' what i should want; I like to have it my way. I even dislike the way that media players impose a specific file structure to my music collection that may or may not tally with my preferences.
I like tinkering and choice; most people don't: they buy Apple (and besides, it's fashionable!).
This is, of course, not gospel; just my personal opinion. You are very welcome to disagree. ;-)
*Think different, hah, my foot.
Well, seems reasonable.
You own an iPhone, you will stick with it; of course. If you should change to something non-Apple, all your data (music, video, games, apps*) is history. And the peer pressure gets new first timers into this voluntary prison (or walled garden, if you prefer...).
Pity.
*Who the duck coined this abysmal abbreviation? Could we please hang this person by the whatevers to rot? It's bleeping programs. I've heard some Joe Public actually saying that he doesn't like Android phones because 'They have no apps, just programs and such'.
Posted in Cockfighting Reg hack cursed with cancer
@ Arthur the cat - Re: pish
You misspelled it.
Oh, wait, what's that? AAAAAAArrrrgghhhhh......
...find it handy.
I see what you did there...
Paris. Well, because.
Query: Re: alt-tab functionality
You guys seem to know more about this "application window viewer" issue; my question is: will this be the end of 'live' application and workspace switchers, as for example the ones that compiz provides on Linux?
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
@ratfox - Re: Now if they did this for browsers...
No, That'd be for Lynx.
@heyrick - Re: Not a big deal
I don't think that Mr Lee would make a good car (or anything else...) salesman, mainly because he fails to see that customers do not hate differentiation. Apple users specially love it and Apple promotes it: "Think Different" has been their motto for ages.
Apple's products are Veblen goods, they are used as status symbols and make the owner feel special.
The Orbitz website does them a favour by showing appropriate places first and the 'hoi polloi bunkers' last.
The only problem might be arising when you get to the hotel with your iPad and your iPhone and everyone there has one and you are not special any more; even worse if you arrive with your Subaru and the car park is full of Bentleys and Ferraris.
I guess
the website showed youth hostels and camping sites to Linux users.
And their own flat to users who visit the site from a BeOs machine, because they're not going anywhere...
Not 'blackmailable'
I don't think you can blackmail those people, it was not their data that was exposed, but their customers. And I don't think that they will give a (whatever) about that.
The people who fall for a loan shark company that charges you up to 1200% interest are usually not the ones that have top rate lawyers on standby to sue someone for breach of privacy, most of them might not even be aware that it happened. So people who have been hit (that's why they're on the database in the first place) will get hit again.
Sad, but true: Business as usual.
Twitter fail:
<expression of denial to provide sexual intercourse>
So what?
</expression of denial to provide sexual intercourse>
That's part of
Tim Cook's 'really exciting news later in the year': A complete world reorganisation to conform to iStandards. Some of these little alleged islands were approached and told that they couldn't have the 'i' in the front, for obvious reasons. You know how stubborn Brits are, and, after they declined to change names repeatedly, Apple's only defence was erasing them completely.
The Caymans and Bermuda are an exception: The latter are nice for conferences (coughcough), and the former need to be kept because that's where the money goes.
So. all in all, completely understandable. Except Gibraltar, it seems, but no: The Rocks original name was iabal tāriq (جبل طارق), and neither Steve nor Tim ever liked that.
iLife integration
The really great update will be that it gets fully integrated into iLife: It will be depending on sharing processor load with your iPhone and your iPad and with the iTunes iCloud through an AirPort supported by IOS6i and MacOS11.
This will make sure that you will purchase only the right iDevices to be able to use it at all. Your (coming soon...) iBankAccount will be debited accordingly.
Apple knows what's good for you!
@ toadwarrior - Re: I don't quite understand
<quote>You aren't forced to get a clubcard or nectar card and cctv isn't publically available. Where as what google is doing is done without permission on a massive scale and publically assessible.</quote>
You have a point there, although the questioned Wifi data is, as far as I know, not available.
Nevertheless, I think that the general public does not realise how much data is gathered through their 'rewards' card, just as they don't realise how much Google gleaned from their drive-by; which is, I would bet, on average much less.
Google did it without consent, Nectar does it by exploiting that most people do not see past the 'rewards' bit and willingly supply the companies with consumer data that would otherwise be expensive to gather.
Do you think that the same amount of people would sign up if Nectar's adverts would state that:
'We record your shopping behaviour on behalf of over 500 companies and sell the results to them so they can design their advertising campaigns easier and cheaper and present their goods in a way that reduces the risk of losing money by having to lower the prices of stuff you otherwise won't buy. In return we grant you a discount of up to 2%*' ?
I'm not sure...
Anyway, I don't need to get a card, as you said, and I'm fine with that. Let's drink to that.
*I just checked: You can pay a return flight from London to Barcelona on easyjet with Nectar points. To gain these, you have to spend around £23.000 at Sainsbury's. Wow.
@EvilGav 1 - Re: I don't quite understand
As far as I know, Nectar does not send out consent forms if a new company joins the scheme. You will, in that case, have your data going to a place that you don't know of.
I know, I constructed something like a worst-case-scenario there and that it isn't really all that bad. But it would only take a very few agreements that you have no control over, and we would have a situation where data mining could show more than you want to be shown.
And even that would not be so bad, if there wouldn't be the problem of data being misinterpreted.
Your health insurance suddenly goes up, because your brother thought that he'd do you a favour buying his paragliding equipment through your rewards card. Or worse, a claim gets turned down, because of the technicality that you didn't tell the truth about your activities (these weren't your activities, but the insurance lawyers might want you to prove that, and that might be a bother if you're desperate for a bone marrow transplant...)
The aggregation of data is not the bad thing. It's coming to the wrong conclusion after sifting through it. I think.
That scares me.
@turtle - Re: I don't quite understand
Tesco is a big supermarket chain here in the UK which runs their own 'reward scheme' points card. Nectar is a reward scheme that is spanning over scores of companies from retail (all kinds of, ebay and amazon e-retailers), services (including iTunes...), fuel, holidays even to health insurance and credit card services. Collected data is, as far as I know, shared between participants, so if a new company joins the scheme, they have access to your data, even if you not gave your permission to them specifically.
I don't quite understand
why people worry about Google's Street View so much when the same people use their iPhone or pad (in the near future with IOS6 inter-device-networking and pay-by-phone capabilities) and their Tesco/ Nectar cards. The data aggregated through those is much more comprehensive than anything that could be gleaned through a peep over the fence. You don't have any control over where the data from these goes; and it is a lot of data indeed. The stores can data-mine where you went, at what time and what you did there. Together with CCTV footage (which doesn't have to be blanked out), a participating company can tell that you left the house before 0900h [filled up at Shell at 0907h] in your second car [automatic number plate recognition at the fuel station, correlated to the Nectar card and your credit card], drove along the M4 [bought a coffee at the Motorway services at 0946h, including CCTV], went over the Severn bridge [paid toll by bump] and then met your 'Miss Secret' in Cardiff [Two Latte at Costa]. She has recently stopped buying Tampax and answered to a Mothercare leaflet. You were both on CCTV looking at cots and prams in Toys-R-Us. You bought a bracelet from H.Samuel online, and downloaded 'Relaxing songs for the mum to be' from itunes.
Conclusion: You are cheating on your wife, and a spli-up is imminent.
Consequence: You get divorce lawyer's advertising in your mail.
Compared to that, being on StreetView laying in your garden wanking naked is somewhat less compromising, I think.
@Khaptain - Re: Porn and the Pad
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The problem lay within the fact that it requires 2 hands to hold the damned thing...
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After a week's use in the hands of a practising pr0nophile that's probably not a problem any more.
It should be bluetack-like enough to just stick to any surface; et voila, handsfree!
Best viewed at a Paris Hilton-angle...
Re: @ Andreas
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BT is required to block TBP however has been given time to do some jiggery-pokery and doesnt have to comply until much later.
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So someone in the courts is making allowances for the UK's flagship communications company? With what reasoning? Are they a bit of a 'special needs' child?
Now seriously: Every company except VirginMedia and a few really minor networks only resells BT's service.
This is like the drug squad knowing where the meth lab is and who runs it, and then pulling a couple of little second tier dealers in.
Ha. Hahahaha. Splurt. Laughable.
My cupboard under the stairs
is clad with grounded, cold rolled electrical steel. How does that meter transmit it's information?
All big ISPs, well nearly...
Do I get this right, that BT wasn't sentenced to block TPB? What kind of market-skewing thing is going on there? Brown envelopes?
@ukaudiophile - omission?
No, sorry, no UK team for Europe, the mains plug didn't fit.
Re: @ GSV Slightly Perturbed - Obviously
[broadcast Eclear, sent 1518200135.9]
xAndreasKoch, aboard dROU 'Dinner Is Ready'
oGSV Slightly Perturbed; oWombling_Free c/o GSV Takes One To Know One
I'll sent a message when they manage to build a lazy gun; you might as well suspend (or hibernate in the case of Takes One To Know One's organic passenger) for a couple of millennia...
∞
@ GSV Slightly Perturbed - Re: Obviously
[broadcast Eclear, sent 1516790779.5]
xAndreasKoch, aboard d*ROU 'Dinner Is Ready'
oGSV Slightly Perturbed c/o The Register
Stop sounding off, Mind, would you? They'll catch on otherwise.
∞
*sort of....
@Kevin7 - Is there really...
Yes, there is.
Just like there is a likewise unsaturable market for similarly priced handbags. We're not talking about power tools here, not about fridges or roof tiles; I think we are talking fashion and jewellery: goods that the vast majority of the population doesn't really need and only buys because "that's what you gotta have nowadays" and "the Jones's have that and I got to keep up".
It's a combination, I think, of a not completely useless gizmo, peer pressure and the Veblen-Effect.
Respect to Apple for making their goods so well-selling in a market that was, in former times, almost impervious to this kind of sales pitch.
Will I buy one? No.
@ hplasm - Re: Wow.
Greed and lawyers.
Highly addictive stuff, that. The only working detox known is a stock crash.
Darn. The Milky Way is going to crash into Andromeda.
No point buying a new tablet then...
Are Americans that much more energetic than Brits?
I followed the link in the Article to the MIT 'crowd farm' thing (which I somehow missed at that time). There they state that 1 (one) step would generate 120Ws, The Stratford Mall Pedestrian Generator is believed capable of 7W per step. That would then mean that British pedestrians have to walk at a rate of ~900 steps per second to catch up with the left-lake-siders @60 steps per minute.
Or am I understanding something wrong here?
Re: All for the public good...
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...but you'd need a lot more evidence to satisfy a court that you had just cause to go prying...
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I'm not even afraid that someone publishes that I've done wrong. If I've done it, I'll have to live with the consequences.
What my concern is, is that some over-eager writer* gets the details not quite right and you end up making the front page for child abuse AND IT WASN'T YOU. Then a correction and apology gets published on page 17 three days later. No one will read it and your reputation is wrecked for ever.
*And yes, they are about; if they don't publish fast and waste too much time checking the facts, then someone else might beat them to the printing deadline. And northing's worse than being the second paper that publishes a gory story.
