Posts by Ian Ferguson

Hmm

Am I the only one that doesn't particularly want the police to be able to trace my IP address to my physical location?

Not posting as AC as I follow the I've-got-nothing-to-hide-I-just-think-reasonable-privacy-is-important-especially-from-the-government philosophy.

More importantly

Can it shape-shift?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT7AH4JyuNs

Handy

Cool, thanks for the tip. And to everyone whining 'I could do this on my Palm/Newton/etc ten years ago' - yes, maybe, but that doesn't mean that everyone NOW will rush out and buy an Apple Newton instead of an iPhone.

The National Rail app is also handy; it would be nice if the two services were combined, or even a full public transport / cycling / walking / driving planning app like Transport Direct. (www.transportdirect.info - possibly the most useful website in the history of Britain)

A roundup review of UK TV guide apps would be useful, as it's hard to find the perfect one. My current favourite is TVGuide.

Maybe a review of Twitter clients too. *ducks*

Markets

Most of the commentards seem to be missing the point - this is obviously aimed at certain sunny, electricity-rare countries, possibly with high Muslim populations.

The mobile grid is advancing faster than the wired grid in most African countries - and in many places faster than the power grid.

And one thing we learnt from the (pitiful) spread of the One Laptop Per Child thingy was that many homes used it as a makeshift light source at night - as they didn't have electric lights to spare. I can quite understand this - when camping I often use my iPhone as a torch to find socks.

All things considered this seems like a highly innovative, useful gadget. I just hope the price is low.

To be fair

Using Twitter takes absolutely minimal costs - less than email. (No mailing list to maintain, no server or ISP capacity to worry about, very time-effective, far less manpower) So in terms of publicity, it's very cheap, if not entirely effective. (They can punt cheap and discounted deals easily enough, but normal sales would be hard for most brands)

What we want to know from Dell now is: How much revenue have they generated from Second Life?

No removable battery?

What a pain, having to dismantle the laptop to swap the battery. I'm guessing buying a spare for long trips is now out of the question.

(To be fair, I rarely find a train or plane that doesn't provide power now - but that's assuming you travel in the West)

RIP PCW

I remember fondly the 80s/90s issues. But saying that 'PCW did nothing for the British computing industry' is a bit like saying Financial Times has done nothing for the London Stock Exchange. Sure, PCW didn't directly influence, but it kept a whole generation of up-and-coming technophiles informed and on the cutting edge.

And the 'new-box-on-the-cover' thing is a no-brainer (retrospectively). I'm a sucker for motorcycle magazines - and what do you think sells those? You won't see a single one without the latest, shiniest bike on the front.

PCW has had it's day - no surprise that it's died - but thanks for the memories :)

Hmm

I don't quite understand what the advantage is of having this on the iPhone, rather than simply on their website. Other than a novelty press release, of course, which you appear to have fallen for hook, line and sinker.

It's crap like this that is filling up the Apple app store and making it impossible to find the actual useful stuff. :(

The gang is called

Blazin' Squad, right?

To be fair

It's useful (and good) to know that on the whole, these people don't have broadband because they don't want it, not because they can't get it (but do want it). A vast improvement over the last few years.

Who is behind this?

There's got to be some pretty serious and well-respected people behind Phorm if they can raise capital this easily, considering their shitty business plan. And seeing how easily they got into bed with the government and BT, I really do smell a rat.

I do hope

There is only one amanfromMars.

Perhaps you should also charge for 'verified' accounts to avoid celebrity impersonation :D

Screwed on maps

The unfortunate thing about the whole iPhone mapping thing is map licenses. Because Google won't play nicely, there won't be any decent satnav applications that use the free Google live maps; TomTom will supply their own downloadable maps.

The poisoned barb with TomTom maps is that if you want them up to date, you have to buy new ones every few months.

I know nothing is free, but I always find it a shame seeing technology with great potential that isn't being used for legal reasons :(

Erm

So, not content with littering our own skies, our space agencies are chucking rubbish at the moon? :(

I'm not clear what research benefit this gives over watching a natural meteor crash into the moon.

Upgrading

I have the original (ie. not 3G) iPhone on a £35/month contract from O2. I'm out of the initial 18 month contract period, so O2 offered me an upgrade to the 3G iPhone. I did not do so, as I wanted to wait and upgrade to the newer iPhone once it was out.

Now it's out, I'm wondering if O2 will let me upgrade to the 3GS for free, or whether I'll have to shell out the £184.98 charge? (Obviously, I'm going to ask them, I'm not just being lazy - but if anyone has any negotiation tips I'd be glad to hear them!)

Obvious question:

Why the fuck does the NYPD allow cops to run around with guns out of uniform?

No amount of technology is going to overcome the plain fact that guns have one purpose, to kill, and therefore should only be handled by government employees who have been ordered to kill.

Meh ha ha ha

Remotely disable vehicles? Great, I expect that they'll be politely asking all terrorists bound for London in 2012 to sign up their vehicles to have bugs fitted.

Meh heh heh

Google Squared is pure entertainment - just search for random data sets and see what laughable results turn up.

I can kind of understand what they are doing, and even though the data is shit, it's from the internet, which is 99.999% shit. They're doing it better than Wolfram, because that uses it's own small data set, which may be correct but is the size of a gerbil.

Google's approach is more realistic; now we just need to tell the machines that not everything they read on the internets is true. Now I worry that the machines will rise and kill all the fleshy liars as part of a data cleaning and deduplication drive.

Excellent article as always though :)

Sorry to piss on the fanboy's parade...

"a Linux-derived system that provides core netbook functionality within 15 seconds of pressing the On key"

My Dell Mini 9 can do that with Windows XP. Well, OK, 17 seconds. Admittedly from hibernate, but that's what I always do - shut the lid to hibernate, open lid and whack button to resume. I'd be quite happy if they took the button out of the equation too :)

Seeing as DOS loaded in about five seconds flat, I don't see why a basic functionality OS would take so long. Windows XP is hardly sprightly.

Because rape is worse than murder?

I'm not condoning these rape games, but I do find it interesting that society deems killing games acceptable.

In the meantime

Hard-working Indian immigrants pass much-needed money to their families, improving the standard of life back in India.

How is this a bad thing? Demanding wealth stays within our little first-world circle is what causes poverty. Redistribution of wealth and equality across the world is the only way forward.

Face it - to improve everybody's standard of living, we might have to give up a few luxuries. Above-average pay may be one of them.

Aw

If anyone should take a lesson from this, it should be Phil Spector. Or anybody else of dubious morality. If it had been the real Phil Spector, it would have been fantastic PR for him - he appeared incredibly human and personable, if a little nutty.

I would suggest twitter feeds in this vein for Michael Jackson, Phorm, OJ Simpson, et al...

Citrix

Funny how things turn out. Sun's dreams have been quietly booted aside by Citrix and possibly even the up-and-coming improved Windows Terminal Services.

If Sun want to make a Java-based OS-come-Citrix-like client, fine. But I don't see any compelling reason behind it, unlike say, Android combined with other Google goodies such as Gears, running Chrome which would give handy access to Citrix and other web-based client services.

Awesome

So once customers are logged in on my website, I will be able to use this tool to harvest a whole host of information about them and their interests, and store it without their knowledge in my own customer database :) Thanks Phorm!

(we need a sarcasm smiley)

Shame

I have a Mini 9 and it's the mutt's nuts. Favourite hack so far, enabling receiving of GPS timing on the 3G card with a bit of driver juggling, and logging it in Google Maps with Earth Bridge. It's such a handy netbook, almost small enough to be pocket sized.

These manufacturers still haven't got the message that size isn't everything :)

(The moderatrix is welcome to disagree if she wishes)

You'll find this of interest

The excellent Andy Stanford-Clark has written about unlocking the 3 3G dongle and getting it working on Ubuntu here:

http://stanford-clark.com/3dongle.html

He's a very helpful chap and I'm sure can give you any further advice you need.

(Plus the Reg should write about his twittering automated house sometime)

So, the queen honours random nutters

but Stephen Fry is still not knighted :(

I can see their point.

I can't see a major American (or Japanese) manufacturer publishing a game where you control Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha.

Or, if that doesn't seem shocking enough, a game where you control Princess Diana, Jade Goody or Susan Boyle.

I'm sure this has been tested before

"the threats vision is temporarily impaired, their balance is effected, and they become affected by nausea"

I'm pretty sure I was an unwilling test subject at 2am, the 1st of January 2009, in central London :(

Liberal media scum

You shouldn't be publishing this kind of information on the construction of critical American military headquarters, you are giving information directly to terrorists! As we all know, file-sharers and scum of that kind frequent this site.

Hurrah

An electric car concept that won't look like a tissue box :D

Ugh

Am I the only person who thinks the recent Dr Who series are kiddie programmes, and fairly dull at that? I'm sure the beeb are more than capable of doing proper grown-up sci-fi, but are too nervous to try it :(

Ook!

Was literally about to place an order for one for my parents. Will wait a few days :)

I do like the fact that Apple continuously tweaks, but it's a bit nervewracking when you're placing an order and don't know if it's a good time or bad!

Man, Twitter are useless

As a quick fix can't they just block all links to tVVitter.com? TinyURL and similar services are easy to query to see the forwarded URL.

Twitter

And for up to date news from the Vatican on Twitter, just search for the hashtag #popefacts

Best illustration ever

More like this please :)

Confusing

It's looks are bearable, and has some useful features. Have Microsoft outsourced their research and design departments to a Japanese electronics company?

Easy solution

Everybody defending PHP, by their own arguments, are responsible enough to handle it.

Let's equip these responsible people with handguns, and lock them in a basement together :D

Brilliant

A good thing that it was sent to a British customer... if it had arrived on an American's doorstep, there'd be lawsuits flying left right and centre.

Is there an index of decent apps anywhere?

It would be nice to browse a list of decent (or at least vaguely acceptable) apps, like this top ten but more emcompassing. If only Apple would filter out the crap... and no, the 'featured list' does not do this job sufficiently.

Just to counter all the other opinions

I like what the BBC produces and hope that the licence fee system continues forever. I don't want to put up with the dross and advertising of other channels, thank you. I can appreciate that some people don't like what the BBC produces, but being a publicly funded corporation not answering to shareholders, at least they can push the barrel and try to please everyone, rather than only broadcasting what is guaranteed to make a profit.

Long live the BBC. And stuff your advertising up your arse :-)

Too general

I have signed the petition but it will probably be ignored. The wording is also too general for my liking. It implies that protection against extradition should be provided for any accused person with autism or Asperger syndrome, regardless of alleged crime or circumstance.

It would be more relevant if it proposed that extradition would be discounted if the alleged criminal action was a direct result of mental illness (of any kind, not just autism). In the case of Gary McKinnon, I do not believe he would have undertaken his hacking spree if he did not have Asperger syndrome. His single-minded focus and paranoid suspicion (about a US government UFO conspiracy) is purely a product of his mental illness.

On the other hand, if an autistic British citizen raped and murdered a schoolgirl in France, and fled back to Britain, do you really think he should be protected against extradition?

Er

so they must not use the email again? FFS, the ASA needs some teeth. Regardless of the merits of this particular email.

The Asylum is awesome

Check out their other films. They're so hilariously bad they're great. Most of their films are cunningly titled to coincide with mainstream Hollywood films coming out at the same time... eg.

'The Terminators' (released recently as Terminator Salvation comes out)

'Sunday School Musical' (released at the same time as High School Musical 2)

'Snakes on a Train' (I'll give you one guess)

Seriously, download one of these, and make sure you have LOTS of beer and a good sense of humour handy.

Ideal!

Google, please do this for me:

X row: Top 100 female porn stars by hits

Y row: Breast size

Field contents: Image

Ah yes

His figures and logic may be entirely true and accurate, but they're not going to get a half page in the Daily Mail, are they. Or a carbon copy article in all other newspapers and the BBC.

Great article

Thank you. This helps explain why my MacBook battery only lasts ten minutes - I thought I was taking care of it by almost exclusively using it plugged in for the past couple of years.

I'm surprised the manufacturers (or operating system designers) haven't created better software management that takes battery care in mind. If I could tell OSX or Windows that I won't need the battery charged ALL the time, the laptop could manage a regular drain cycle itself without me ever unplugging it; and then I could turn this feature off when I go travelling. Or is that too sensible...?