Good grief

"Bitcoinica has remained closed to trading whilst "the transitional process" for upgrading the exchange "to a professional level of security" is completed."

Head spinning. What did they have before if not "a professional level of security"? And how on earth did they think they'd operate without it?

Er...

...nothing in that announcement about withdrawing Picasa for Mac, unless I've missed it?

It's been withdrawn for Linux, and the Picasa Web Albums Uploader withdrawn, but nothing about the main app (not that its loss would be a great worry).

Zero sympathy

Maybe there was some libel there, maybe there wasn't. But I have zero sympathy for the owner given that he published personal data and demanded money to take it down, then tried to sell it to someone overseas,

Normally I can't be bothered quibbling with review ratings (they're subjective and as a reader I'll take what I need from the actual text of the review) but this one fairly leapt out.

For a suggested price of £399 (per the review):

"A feature of the design that really gets my goat is the positioning of the micro USB and mini HDMI ports"

"the extra speed has little if any discernible impact"

"the Xoom 2 doesn’t really feel any faster and still struggles to play 1080p video in any other format than MP4"

"the Xoom 2 doesn’t even have a slot so you are stuck with the built-in 16GB, or 12 and a bit after the system's taken its share"

"File transfer is handled solely through the MTP protocol so anyone with a Mac or Linux box is up a gumtree"

"without a stylus writing a note is far very from easy and you can’t use the keyboard"

"the 5Mp main cameras has been yanked from the old Xoom parts bin because it’s equally mediocre"

"the Xoom 2 isn’t certified to make Skype video calls but I was still rather surprised to find that the 1.3Mp webcam couldn’t manage them anyway"

"[the price] is a lot extra for a machine that albeit lighter and slimmer is only faster on paper and lacks storage expansion"

"it’s no major leap forward from the original Xoom"

"The extra 200KHz of chip speed has little measurable impact on performance"

So a device with little improvement in speed, a poor camera, no Skype, doesn't play nicely with Linux or Macs, and has no expandable or swappable storage...

And this gets 75%? I'd hate to see what a bad tablet gets...

Hmm...

Not sure I buy the first premise of this article. Is it really so wrong using fax machines?

Depends on what you're sending and receiving, of course (do you need assurance around guaranteed delivery, security, authenticity, etc, etc), but with that caveat I'm not sure I buy the outright assumption that old technology = bad technology.

Isn't spending unnecessarily on technology which may or may not turn out to be any more secure or reliable (hello, "cloud") even worse?

The whole article has a sales spin: it's bad for the country that small businesses aren't hurling cash at their IT infrastructure - regardless of whether that's actually wise.

Trying to find any information at all about RIM's resilience/contingency arrangements/promises on uptime is proving difficult. Anyone know anything about what they claim to have/promise to deliver?

Music now in the UK?

Music seems to be downloadable now. Last night it was just apps and books, but there's music showing up this morning.

Does anyone have a decent breakdown of the differences between OpenOffice and LibreOffice? I tried hunting one down a few months ago and found very little that gave any clue to an end user why they should switch. I'd be happy to consider it, but am not sure why I should or shouldn't (other than if I wanted to support a particular side in the dispute).

Spotlight — hmm

I don't like Spotlight deciding what files I want to include in my searches. I'd quite like to have my Library files - particularly things like my Firefox userchrome.css - come up in searches, but Spotlight stubbornly refuses to index it, even if I try to force it to include the target directories. A search engine that thinks it knows better than me where I want to look, and won't let me change that, ain't on to a winner.

Not just US export control..

...I'd guess for many readers on this site "the most prominent and common reason" for concern will be European data protection regulations and local financial regulations. For example, and I'm a bit hazy on the wording, the FSA's SYSC handbook generally says that you can't outsource your responsibility for systems and controls.

Final version is out now

...and I don't even remember downloading it. My Firefox install seems to have switched from RC2 to 4.0 at some point today.

The only thing that doesn't work for me, frustratingly, is embedded PDF viewing. A known bug using FF4 on 64-bit OSX machines, apparently.

Hmm

"Alvarez [...] joins a long list of disgruntled employees who sought revenge by breaching their employees' computer systems."

And an equally long list of incompetent employers who are incapable of securing their systems against breaches by former employees.

Sometimes not the candidates' fault

I've seen more than a few CVs that were clearly hacked about by a recruitment consultant with no clue. And once or twice I've seen CVs where their job titles had clearly been rewritten to meet the job spec, despite the actual experience being for different jobs. Ended up with one very angry candidate when we pointed out what his recruitment consultant had done...

Probably just as well...

...they didn't go with "Sperm" or "Killer" as the company name, really.

Paradroid!

Ah, thanks for reminding me of that one. I used to love Paradroid 90 (the remake) on my Atari ST.

How did he get his co-worker's credentials?

Either their security is so poor that staff can access (or guess) each other's credentials, or there's a co-worker who shouldn't be writing passwords down on Post-Its.

What I don't get is...

...if Apple are trying to sell this as "improving the user experience by removing spam apps" (whether anyone believes that or not), why not start with the genuine dross? (The fart apps, the sexual positions apps, the mirror apps, the apps that clog up the new app feeds day-in, day-out, and that you can tell instantly are just low quality junk.)

Apple's sales figures have bred an arrogance that may not cripple them in the near future, but surely only the most naive business would deliberately bite the hands that feed it.

I have an iPhone and like it, but I'm not blind to the ridiculous actions Apple take, and I'm gobsmacked as to why a company seemingly goes out of its way to make people dislike it for little or no reason. Particularly when it would be relatively easy for them to make some good, sensible decisions that don't alienate customers or developers. Isn't this basic business sense?

A few more to add to the list...

Gauntlet II - I can still hear "warrior needs food badly" echoing in my head.

Rampage - giant gorilla for the win.

Operation Thunderbolt - me and a friend once spent £13 on a school day trip to Brighton completing this in the arcade rather than checking out the talent on the beaches. We never spoke again after the whole "who shot the hostage?" debacle at the end.

So...

A made-for-Channel-Five version of Species, then?

First thoughts...

...after a day or two's play this weekend. I don't know how quick Obsidian were off the mark to address the complaints of bugs (the Gamespot review is particularly scathing) but an update downloaded when I started playing on Saturday night and I've had only one glitch in about nine hours' play (character got stuck 'falling' through rock and I had to reload the last save).

It's definitely a game to take your time on or you'll blink-and-miss important points or end up having made a game-changing decision without thinking about it (like siding with the NCR over the Legion, betraying the NCR or the Powder Gangers, or in my case accidentally siding with the loony spacefaring ghoul cult and having to exterminate the folks in their basement who I could otherwise have sided with).

The reviewer's comments on graphics are spot-on. Fallout 3 had that brilliant moment where you emerged from the vault into a blasted world, and while Washington's ruins did feel a bit mundane and linear the overall scenery felt more varied. So far NV is a bit more pleasant, a bit less varied, and the insides of buildings are identical to Fallout 3 (wander round a few houses and you'll know what to expect).

Weapon modding is a nice touch, although mods are few and far between. The companions haven't thrilled me so far - there's no sense of Dragon Age-style interaction, they just become your silent shooting buddies (although they're a damn sight more useful and able to look after themselves than in Fallout 3). The quests have a nice variety and the plot is very, very dark in places (without spoiling it, Boone's back story and the quest for him, and the story of what happened to Nipton).

Er...

"creating hundreds of thousands of spam message in the process"

Isn't that business as usual for Twitter?

Hmm...

"even where there's good 3G coverage Wi-Fi is still the preferred connection option. That's particularly interesting given that 3G should be able to offer a comparable experience"

No, er, surprise, Sherlock. 3G counts towards data allowances on most devices I can think of. Wireless doesn't. And you can factor in cellular data roaming charges for people away from their home networks too.

Location whores

Another quality subhead - although now I have a very short snippet of that song stuck in my head.

So how much will ActiveSync kill my battery?

I wasn't particularly impressed with the Google Mobile App approach to notifications (which means launching Safari to read anything, rather than downloading it to the mail app, which is no good if I only notice the notification once I've got on the tube).

So I switched from the standard Gmail setup on my iPhone to the Exchange ActiveSync version. How much will this cripple my battery? Does it work the same way as the learned posters above describe for push notifications? Ta.

Really?

"3D will finally see off gaming and collaboration on the multi-touch iPad and iPhone"

Of course it will. Because what everyone wants is an overhyped, buzzword-laden "look at me" technology rather than, say, the ability to play a quick game of Scrabble or Angry Birds on the tube.

"Twenty four researchers will work during the next three years to build and release projects and code under an open-source license, Intel and Nokia said Monday."

So not something for Android, Microsoft or Apple developers to worry about yet, then. Do Nokia and Intel expect that their competitors won't also be trying to innovate over the next three years?

I used to love my old Nokia candybar phones - simple, usable designs - but this just sounds like a company desperately clawing for attention by throwing buzzwords at the wall and seeing what sticks.

"Internet access is a basic human right"

Eq - sadly some seem to think it is (based on a poll the BBC conducted in March).

Me, I think we've still got some way to go on the others - y'know, life, liberty and security of person, equal protection of the law, freedom of movement, etc.

To be fair to Apple...

(and there's a phrase I didn't think I'd ever use)

...they don't describe iOS 4.0.2 as a patch. Suspect it's just easy shorthand for others to report given it fixes one or two things and adds no new features.

I won't be updating. No intention of spending an hour or two downloading a file that size, resetting my phone, then restoring from a backup, just to fix a problem I can likely avoid with some common sense (don't open PDFs).

MeeePCGo?

Looks like a slightly swisher version of the "Easy Mode" interface you got on the original EeePCs. At least that you could disable.

So...

...does this mean that, initially at least, the multitude of BT white-label resellers will be exempt providing they're under the 400,000 cap? (i.e. the restrictions apply at the business level, not depending on who owns or provides the infrastructure)

HandBrake

Free, open-source video transcoder. It just works and has some reasonable default template settings for the non-technically literate (like me).

Have I missed something?

Er...you all know the guy hasn't actually been found guilty of anything, right? And may not be?

He was claiming he shouldn't have to answer a case as he's just a publisher and didn't vet the libellous content.

The judge's view is that he may just be a publisher but he clearly vets some of his content. So, while he may be innocent of the specific charge (because he never vetted the particular post in question) he can't claim a blanket exemption to avoid a trial.

I'm sure there are many, many things wrong with libel laws, and there may be some very stupid things in the way moderation is treated, but I'm finding it hard to get riled that this is some terrible miscarriage of justice.

(And I'm happy to be corrected on this stuff if I've missed some obvious point.)

Thanks Ben & all

...so it is probably as stupid an idea as I'd imagined. If it's not tied to the phone (just stuck on) then it really doesn't add more than existing cashless payment systems, and if it is, you'll either be out of luck when your battery goes, muggers will be after your phone even more, and you'll have to rely on O2 (et al) for the integrity of your statements, micro-billing, etc...

(I think that last one worries me as much as the others.)

Erm...

I'll admit to being fairly new to this topic, but on what basis do they assume this will be popular with consumers?

If my ability to pay depends in any way on my phone working, I'm not interested. (Can't guarantee battery life, and if it offers features requiring a data connection I wouldn't rely on those either - not going to work underground, in many areas outside cities, etc.)

If it doesn't depend on the phone, what exactly does this add over other cashless payment methods? Why would I be interested in this rather than, say, an Oyster-style payment card?

Can anyone shed any light on these fairly noddy questions?

Call Tom Sellect and Gene Simmons

...this sounds remarkably like the guided bullets from the 1984 film Runaway (written and directed by Michael Crichton). Always worth a laugh to see how well it's aged...

£3 barrier?

Haha. I don't remember the last time I saw Guinness priced under £3. Got to love London prices.

"Q. Are we crocked, then? A. We are Vevo!"

Best subhead ever.

Hmm

So... it's a monochrome battery-powered unreliable user-generated encyclopedia for $99? Phew, just what the market's been crying out for!

Deja vu?

Unless it's just me, it seems to be happening again. Can't get data access at all despite having a strong signal.