re: The Real Story

I agree - sounds suspiciously convenient for Google that this story suggests the Latitude service actually can be useful. more like a dogey advertising scam to my mind

Re Mac Owned / Re Shock and Awe

so there's one botnet exploit on OS X

ONE

how many are there on windows? even if those 20,000 macs are infected and spamming DOS attacks, that's a drop in the ocean compared to the damage being done by infected windows machines

@John

killer apps on the Wii? which ones, exactly?

i don't know any serious games players that carry on using their Wii after 2 months of owning it. they all switch back to the real games on their 360 or ps3

re re 8e6?

and microsoft - micro implies small, soft implies flexible - and how many gigabytes does it take to install windows?

or maybe the OP is a penguin abuser - because Linux (or SuSE or Fedora etc etc) are perfectly reasonable names aren't they?

it's a good job we're not all so xenophobic about strange sounding names, eh Mr Ettel?

new zune?

rumours are that there'll be a new Zune coming soon, aimed at competing against the iPod Touch - big hd screen and.... that's about it

maybe they'll make it so you can run windows mobile apps on it as a way of compensating for the AppStore.

somehow, i can't really see it doing much to dent the Touch's marketshare either. but i'm sure M$ have a cunning plan, they'll probably roll out their ingenious Apple Tax theories (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/11/microsoft_flames_macs/) to convince people to get a Zune

but....

how pretty does EvE Online look and does it play the native client without crashing?

but....

i thought the Android platform was going to be such a utopia where phone users were able to use their phones in just the way they wanted, free from the shakles of zealous app store management and network demands?

it seems like as more time passes, the more and more like the iPhone (in the restrictions) Android gets

what's that i hear? the drawing in of breath from all the Pre-lovers about to tell us how much better it will be when/if their beloved device ever actually appears in the shops?

noticable themed clothing

like a suit, shirt and tie theme?

there's hundreds like that on my train everyday! they must be some kind of sect - who do i report them too?

that's damn sexy

obvious photoshop is obvious

why would they move the mute switch, that'd make the interior design and also assembly much more complex, wouldn't it?

if this is an actual apple product, it's much more likely to be the next ipod touch than iphone

i'd still vote for him...

...to be prime minister though

space curry

Dave Lister's time has come

but, 2x1tb is cheaper

I've got 4 of the MyBook Essentials now. they're on amazon for about 80quid each

so if the EU price for a 2tb is any more than 160 quid, it becomes a really expensive way to free up a usb slot

shadow of the colossus

one of the most incredible games of all time, the sheer scale (ha!) of the idea - such awesome graphics. no one knows much about what Team Ico are doing with their 3rd game, but with it being a PS3 title, it's going to be incredible. and judging on their graphics work on Ico and SotC, you'll be able to pause it, take a photo of your telly, and hang it on the wall

can recommend this

i've not done any Objective-C before, and though this book recommends that you should be a bit familiar with the language, i decided to dive right in and pick it up as i went along. and so far, it's going well. the book provides a nice learning curve and is quick to point out the differences between OS X coding and iPhone coding alongside the similarities. The writing style is very relaxed and easy to read - it reads more like being in a lecture than reading the textbook, if that makes sense?

strange

2.2.1 has been out for ages though - you'd have thought the problem would have been more widely reported if it was the heat issue. it can't just be such a tiny proportion of the units were somehow built less heat-efficient than all the others, can it?

trouble is

the amount that they'll settle for is chump change to people like HP and Apple

but these patent trolls get more and more vauge and ridiculous. sooner or later someone is going to start suing all companies because they have a patent for "some thing, that does stuff"

"Please turn left....

...when you have a great idea Charlie"

@ac re: I'd like to know who's making all these MP4 players

i think perhaps the point rather: who is making mp3 players now that are not also mp4s?

yes, i know you can get cheap players that don't do video, but if ipods carry such a large percentage of the market in portable digital music devices, and the only the shuffle being non-mp4, then it's fair to say the majority of people are buying mp4 players, even if they're only using them to listen to .mp3s

a shame

thing is, if the iPhone wasn't around, i think they'd be alright

but in these economic times, i'm not sure the market is there to support both the iphone and the pre - and if Palm don't have the cash reserves to push the pre after launch, then i fear it'll be short lived. unfortuantely Apple are sitting on bags of money and will be able to out-market Palm without trouble. the only chance they have is if the Pre is absolutely flawless

re: @Yes, but

but how long did they take to dilute the ipod brand? there were many years were the only ipod was the form factor that we now refer as the "classic" model

and it's still only really 3 models - the Touch if anything is part of the iPhone brand, just with the pesky battery-draining phone options removed

multiple iphones

I also can't see Apple producing multiple iphone models

they said they were only looking to get 1% of the market within 2008

they've done that, they're probably looking at getting 5% next, but not looking for total market control yet

and anyway - they're computer and ipod ranges aren't diversified. Apple don't like to be mediocre in all ranges, they prefer to be good in just one or two.

re: And the question is.....

what money is left?

they ripped off 4.6m

but only 4.2m was recovered

2.8m of that is paying their disgorgement and prejudgement interest (whatever that is, i doubt it's going back to the victims)

and 1m is going straight into the SECs pocket

leaving only 0.4m usd

where we're going, we don't need roads.....

i'll wait for the deloren hover-craft, thanks

re: Crap software on overpriced crap hardware

keep telling yourself that if it helps you to sleep at night

of all the requested features...

....is tethering the only one they haven't delivered with OS3 ?

nope, they hit that as well

just read, tethering has also been done, there's just issue with getting the phone operators to support the increased data usage

she sells seashsells.....

can't but help thing they missed a marketing trick by not having the lass in a bikini by the sea shore :-)

i like the inviisble trackpad - just wonder why they couldn't also vanish the buttons, that would be even cooler

(although, i wonder if the invisible trackpad will be more hinderance as you'll forget it is there)

re: There's a chance that .....

>> but these two issues simply rule it out for me as a phone.

you mean, they rule it out for you as a PDA

phones are for talking to people and you can't really use turn-by-turn navigation while you're talking to someone. get a printout from googlemaps instead

um... 3G?

not sure this guy has a clue

of all of us who rushed out and bought the gen1 iphone 18 months ago, how many of us also then queued up last summer to get the 3G? how many more 3Gs have been sold than gen1 iPhones and who's contracts won't be ending in July??

and also, what are the odds that there'll be a 3rd iPhone out this summer that all us "fanbois" will pick up instead of the Pre?

invalid swifts?

swifts aren't really that complicated - they're a bit odd to someone who's never dealt with them before, perhaps, but not rocket science

if you've gone to all the effort of planning this kind of caper, how could you possibly let such a fundamental part of the plan go wrong?

actually i like this idea

i'm usually against holywood rem(ist)akes but i think this one might be alright

the original film was an absolute classic, yes, but the f/x look soooo dated these days

it'd be nice to see the story told with modern f/x

that said, the cgi f/x will probably end up looking worse than the old animatronics

still - if this does well then maybe they'll get the idea to remake the Running Man and this time might stick even vaugely close to the original book

using recent market data?

did the analyst use recent sales as part of the prediction? because that might be mis-leading because i'm sure most of this years blu-ray sales were from Zavvi as they were selling them at a reasonbale price during their closing down sales

i'm sure

Mickey Bricks is behind it

re: @AC - 04:30

i quite agree

i assume this "life" that the OP was referring to involves lots of sitting in front of a computer posting anonymous comments on El Reg

different screw lengths OMGZnoes!!!

so there are different screw lengths - if you're the sort of person that is going to upgrade your ram/hd yourself, surely it's not beyond your mental capability to work out how to keep them seperate and identified as to which goes where

but if it is, then here's a tip - get a piece of A4 paper, draw a rectangle to represent the underside of the laptop. draw circles on the paper in the approximate places where the screws are - then when you take the screws out, selotape them to the paper in the correct location

homebrew

annoyingly, after all the effort involved in jailbreaking the iphone, there's stuff all non-official apps that are worth installing or that are stable enough

good grief !!

yes, he was brilliant as the Joker, yes he brought the more evil and psychotic side of the Joker to life

but before him, i'd have said that Jack Nicholson's version was perfect.

i don't see why the character should be made to suffer just because the actor kicked the bucket

if you're going to retire the Joker from the screen, then retire Batman too - the whole point is that they need each other to define themselves, it's the way the characters evolved in the comics. as the previous movie franchise proved, if you kill the Joker off, the series is going to do downhill.

IF there is a 3rd and maybe 4th Nolan film, then yes, they shouldn't use the Joker as the main villian, but maybe a cameo at the start perhaps.

and then, in the 5th film, do the Joker/Scarecrow team-up from Knightfall, by which time all the fanatical fans will be fixated on some other poor actor and have forgotten all about Heath Ledger

warming planet?

there's still an inch of snow outside my home this morning!

if the planet is warming then it's going to have to be a friggen hot summer in the UK this year to compensate for the past week

re: Mac mini as alternative

it is a lot easier just to use a mac mini

but it's more expensive than an AppleTV too

i've got both a mac mini and an appletv hooked up to my telly, and i use the mac mini far far more (but then i am using it as a pvr)

180 degrees?

not really 180 degrees is it?

Apple have said that the current battery technology is insufficient and that providing user-changable cells is too inefficient (in terms of space etc).

all they are doing here is putting forward patents to possible answers to that problem, based on their new battery tech they've employed in the macbook pro 17

i'm not sure how the first 2 patents are part of this "180 degree about face" though - they just seem like extensions on the way that iTunes displays the capacity of your ipod/iphone when it's connected - now it'll also have a battery bar on the summary tab

yes but...

...will it blend?

re: Re: RIP Herr Playmobil

hear hear!

tis a sad day indeed and there's no need for Mr Williams' flippancy.

while i was always a fan of Lego as a child, i like to think that El Reg's diorama's have given me a new found respect and even fondness for the Playmobil toys

and this is why

you can't ever let one organisation become the be all and end all of their field

always need a backup search provider for when they screw up