Swiss shouted at for hiding stolen gold.

Now where have we seen that before?

Shareholder value

I do feel sorry for the people that work for O2, but it's the nature of corporate beast; reducing cost comes before granular growth because it's easier to accomplish and shows on the end of year statements before any increase due to clever marketing or a brilliant product.

Director's bonuses are usually based on profit and removing cost is the fastest way to getting that new Range Rover (or apartment in Florence) for many boardroom 'zeebs'.

Not to mention the pressure these people get from investors (such as pension funds etc) when they issue profit forecasts.

I'm not a socialist, but let's face it, capitalism is the guilty party here.

1979 technology... Phone makers take note.

11BN Miles away and is still working and it's still managing to poll home AND it takes better pictures.

*I do realize it also has a plutonium reactor thing strapped inside too, that could be problematic*

For 41p a day, I say, keep the tax.

Has anyone actually watched ITV recently?

Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The BBC isn't perfect (far from it), but compared to the alternative, it's premium content.

The differential cost for a well-run ISP.

A previous employer demanded I claimed for [only] the cheapest provider I could get.

Three outages later and one reoccurring problem; I managed to get them to pay slightly more for an ISP that knew their arse from their elbow.

Surprise surprise, never had another outage.

The cost differential?

£10 a month.

Paris because she knows that's it's not the size of the pipe, it's how you use it.

Now I'll have to spend hours deleting all the shite again.

Thanks a lot numpties!

Entertainment and technology?

It's a marriage made in...

*Orders handcart and map to hell*

Paris because she hardly ever gets an outing these days.

Now I'll need to spend ages *again* deleting all the shite off the EPG.

Sometimes I really miss the simplicity of four channels.

*Offers Spangles around*

Amazing..

It's very exciting to be alive when people can actually do this.

Is the atmosphere dense enough to support sound to a microphone?

"hey earthlings, enough with the autotune crap please..."

Yay, just heard Ian from The Reg's question

How bizarre, dropped onto the live stream of the press conference just in time.

Subscription TV

I used to pay the "evil Murdoch empire" a subscription to watch TV and then had to sit through yards of adverts. The economic reality is that someone has to pay for the programmes and I do feel some sympathy for the networks*, but following several trips to the states I can see why people need an add-skip.

U.S commercial TV is a powerful ecosystem and you'd expect Dish will get a good kicking in the courts.

Lawyers are (even now) ordering new yachts bought from the proceeds of this.

*except for the Fox network.

I got LoveFilm - which wouldn't be a problem if the content wasn't such a shoddy offering.

Saying that, all the online film offerings are pretty poor in the UK.

And they wonder why there's so much downloading...

Interesting comments, decent article.

Turning the encoder QAM up to squeeze as many channels as possible onto a mux made the picture quality and reception problematic too.

Content is king, but if you can't watch a programme without the "puppy drowning in mud" soundtrack, would you watch?

Business as usual.

Nice research grants for scientists funded by oil companies and "well meaning" ecologists.

The whole thing is a massive gravy train IMHO.

Humanity will change to deal with whatever is the reality, I'd be more worried about population growth in the short term.

Scare story?

Now far be it for me to call the writer on this, but it seems inconceivable that this kind of a 'blind' story can be taken seriously.

Which billionaire I.T mogul was spotted in a trendy West London club hooting charlie off a high-class call girl's boobs... see it's easy.

Dear Ofcom

haaa hee haaa hee.

Love

EE

x

Just tried Woz's test on my Android

... worked fine for me in a busy office.

I'm all for this.

The method of delivery has changed, but people still need paying.

Content owners need to be paid for their investment, just look at it as hiring a DVD or paying $ky for one of their movies on demand.

The BBC sells DVD box sets of DR Who and people buy them, what's the beef with charging a nominal fee for an episode of something made by Tiger Aspect or All 3 Media?

If The BBC get this one sorted out now, it could mean they become a fair alternative to other publisher's platforms.

If it means no commercials - sign me up doc!

Reason has left the building

If there is peer reviewed figures available to back-up either claims, I'd be happy to digest them.

In a world of media madness and funding-starved scientists...

As Danny Baker says: "If you're not scared, we're not doing our jobs".

"The more you tighten your grip, the more they will slip through your fingers..."

</geek quote>

*Admittedly slightly modified for the purposes of this post.

News story of the week.

Considering the huge number of posts on here, this has to be the most exciting thing to happen for a long time.

2099? Nice idea....

Gerry must be rubbing his hands in royalty glee.

Good

I'm glad they run the company well; as my pension (and most of yours) are in some way invested in their success.

Which company's PR department is running this campaign on RIM?

Devalue the company, buy the shares cheaply and then grab the patents.

It all seems too easy.....

Am I the unique customer?

I've had BT vision (*and I don't work for them or their marketing/PR team*) since it started.

Opting for this service because I refuse to pay for adverts on TV - and it's been fine.

The VOD is good (now) and the choice is good too.

I don't live in an urban area and the only problems with the network have been caused by faulty hardware (which BT replaced overnight).

I don't care what o.s drives the box (it could be BBC Basic for all I care) as long as it does the job.

Personally I think there's too much choice of channels.

Now if BT did a deal with Tivo...

And if you ever wondered what goes into a Chicken Mcnuggett

http://docakilah.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/can-you-guess-what-mcdonald%E2%80%99s-food-item-this-is/

Oh no - more of that dubstep stuff.

I thought LFO went out in the mid- 1990's

What about fan noise?

My 360 is so loud when it's hot it's a wonder they can call is a media extender.

Quieter fans perhaps eh MS?

Any chance you can make me even more depressed today?

Fucking hell, Apple, Google & Sky - the axis of evil.

Apple - The Catholic Church of the 'modern age'.

Seems the new religion of pious obedience and using governments and laws to further your aims and fill the accounts.

It's like the middle ages all over again.

* I realise i have stretched the metafor to almost snapping point *

Top stuff

Excellent stuff lads!

I especially like the authentic Heath-Robinson verification apparatus.

Much success to you in this project.

Next... commercial radio needs the same treatment

After the ear-bleedingly horrible 'loudness' of Heart and Capital, I wondered if there was any appetite to regulate the levels of compression used in radio too?

I realise this won't affect their appalling playlist/presenters/smug tone of voice etc.

Terrible idea and it doesn't work.

Oxford has it's own local TV service on UHF called Channel 6.

It was watched by the mothers of aspiring television presenters and the company existed to provide training for aspiring television presenters and news readers (on their way to 24 hour shopping network contracts).

You can imagine the number of viewers it got.

A local TV outfit making the news for (sh) ITV however, that could be interesting....

Nice PR coup

Can you imagine the Fox News out put on this?

"You gone taken a wrroooong turnin' there boy!"

In all honesty, the idea of the Iranians being able to crack a heavily ciphered command stream is very unlikely, but their propaganda department it genius.

As long as this stops at checks for specific scenarios.

I wonder when the law will change and we have a situation like in The U.S, where people get background checked for everything.

It's a good start.

The music industry, however, seems to be inhabited by people of limited foresight. This solution is exactly what they are screaming for, but the choose to just be.

I suppose time will tell, but if the UV tag only costs a few beans more, I'd be happy.

Yay for The BBC

The BBC were responsible for driving computer literacy in the UK and making it a real choice for people to attain the skills as a career.

Sure there was some insider dealing, but it was the right machine for the time and lit fires under many children's interest in computing.

I had a Dragon then an Electron and finally a BBC B before I got my first PS1.

Happy days.

Great article by the way - excellent!