Re: Proving once again you get what you pay for...

It's not great for young kids. Apps with that little RAM are going to be slow and frustrating.

I have a 2012 Sony Xperia phone with 512MB of RAM and dual core 1GHz processor. It feels slow. There is a hesitation before the keyboard appears. You need a task killer to keep things working in a useable way. And that's just for stuff like facebook or web browsing.

Kids apps are going to have animated graphics, even if they're basic, and they'll be playing sound - maybe video too.

If the other posts are true and you can get a 1GB machine on eBay for the same or less, I'd save your money and get something better suited.

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

You write that as if Google has no lawyers. The company has every right to enforce whatever the contract you agree with them says they can do. There are very few rights that cannot be freely contracted away. Don't like the terms, buy a different product from someone else.

Looking at the terms quoted in the article, Google don't claim it's illegal for to resell the device.

What Google do appear to say is that the buyer is entering into a contract with Google. As part of the buyer's obligations under the contract they agree they are not entitled to sell the device. They may still be legally able to sell the device, but would also be opening themselves up to a claim by Google for breach of contract.

They are also on notice that if they do sell it, Google may deactivate it.

Re: What about not having an account on FB?

I can see plenty of stuff on https://www.facebook.com/netflix without logging in.

Even if you did have to log in, would that really be any more restrictive than needing a subscription to some monitoring service? I mean, not so very long ago, company filings and press releases wouldn't be available to the average investor other than through some third party service monitoring such things or by reading about it the next day in the WSJ or FT.

Re: Right...

I think XBMC has a feature freeze for the next version, though it might be possible to do this as an add on that can be separately installed.

I'd think XBMC support would be an excellent Kickstarter project for anyone with both the time and the programming skills necessary.

Re: I want to go the other way...

if you want your TV signal to be on your tablet, wouldn't you be looking for HomeRunHD?

I presume you mean OTA/Cable since anything else that's local should already be playable on the mobile device.

Re: iPads already have USB

Not quite true. My iPad would happily recognize my Blue Yeti USB microphone, at least until iOS 5 which determined it used too much power so stopped it working. I understand they still work if connected via a powered USB hub.

My iPad also recognizes my Fender electric guitar when connected via the Rocksmith USB cable.

I'm guessing that's no coincidence, both likely presenting themselves as similar USB audio devices. Anyway, with a USB adapter, there are other devices that can work with an iPad.

Re: The only reason anyone is angry at Bob...

It seems pretty unlikely management haven't at least considered outsourcing. It's hardly a new concept.

Perhaps they didn't outsource to China because that's where there main competitor is based. Perhaps Bob has been outsourcing to staff at a competitor who are returning decent code but learning a ton of trade secrets at the same time. So while Bob rakes it in, he puts the jobs of all his co-workers in jeopardy.

If all the employer is willing to pay six figures for a US coder, there's a good chance there are reasons they don't want someone overseas doing the work.

Re: Chrome

It would actually be helpful if the article explained why this is different than when pdf.js was included about a year ago in Firefox 14?

http://www.ghacks.net/2012/03/23/firefox-14-gets-built-in-pdf-reader-pdf-js/

Is it just enabled by default now? It's certainly not new.

Re: It's a trifle expensive

I don't think 60 million X 1,000 is 60 trillion.

I'd expect there would also be truly massive economies of scale to be achieved if you were sequencing millions of patients.

Re: Colour temperature

Because it's totally impossible to put a CFL behind a lampshade and filter the color?

Besides there are plenty of less harsh CFL bulbs available now, indeed the light color from the ones in my hallway is hard to distinguish from an incandescent.

Re: The Bridge on the River Kwai

Why is that a big deal? If it's shot on film it should be possible to make a newscan of the 35mm film at a better resolution (to a point at least).

Re: Hplasm

What if the EKG was likely to have showed you had a heart abnormality that should have been easily caught and the subsequent eight years of non-treatment had resulted in permanent damage to your heart? Would you want a copy of the original now?

Doesn't matter - you'd have to pay ₤449 to get the version with GPS. As best I can gather, you can't hook up a bluetooth GPS adapter or even share the GPS from a phone (not even an iPhone) with your wifi only iPad.

But then, do apple maps even let you download maps for offline use like you can with Google maps on android?

Re: I'll be damned...

So why not do multicast with each program starting every, say, 30 seconds. A 30 minute program would only need 60 individual streams at the broadcaster's end. That's surely a lot easier to manage than a couple of million streams for a prime-time soap.

You could even make the number of streams demand driven. A soap with 5 million viewers could have start points every five seconds. A less popular programme might have start points every 30 seconds.

Buffering at the end point could still allow pausing or saving for later viewing. Unless you buffer prior to watching, you'd effectively be seeing a live stream, so adverts would still be mostly compulsory viewing - something that's likely to please commercial broadcasters.

Re: One Aircaft Is Too Many

The North American equivalent of Ryan Air? If you're talking about service levels and absolute contempt for passengers, that would be any US based carrier then.

The difference between US carriers and Ryan Air are that Ryan Air has a more modern fleet of aircraft, is better at running to schedule and actually makes a profit.

Don't you think Apps are content? There were 11 billion app downloads in the first three months of this year.

I doubt Amazon will be too bothered. They're likely to keep a decent share of the market with their Kindle Fire and their Kindle reader app will be on the Google Tablet.

Re: What about...

What about the 1st amendment? That would probably be the bit of the bill that excludes constitutionally protect rights.

Here's part of the Bill:

(b) Does not include constitutionally protected activity or other activity authorized by law, the other person, the other person's authorized representative or if the other person is a minor, the minor's parent or guardian.

In other words, the bill itself appears to exclude 1st amendment rights from being covered. But hey, why let that get in the way of a good scare story?

Apps

Does your tablet beat the iPad for Apps?

Let's face it, you can't win on technology alone. If Apple can make a lower specced device that still offers a better experience, Android will still fail to capture market share.

Re: Meh

Turn off bookmark sync under iCloud in settings. That was sufficient to stop most app crashes for me.

Why every 14-18 months?

Why would you budget to replace a drive every 18 months when it comes with a three year warranty?

To be fair, the $999 MacBook air has 2GB RAM, not enough by most estimations for a good user experience, only a 64GB SSD and an 11 inch screen.

A 13" screen with 4GB RAM and a more useful 128GB SSD will set you back $1,300.

If the big box manufacturers can churn out 13" ultrabooks with 4GB RAM and a decent size SSD priced at $900, the MacBook air will be carrying a $400 surcharge. I'd say that still looks quite expensive.

They give them away?

A gillette fusion razor retails at about 12 quid. I think they probably revel in the self perpetuating myth that it's a loss leader.

When you can buy giant tvs for a couple of hundred quid, razors at 12 quid a pop is a nice business to be in - even more so if the folk buying them think they're getting a bargain.

Non standard protocols?

One thing I'd say about iOS is that its protocol support in some areas is great.

If you use the free zimbra server for groupware, your iPod, iPhones and iPads can sync mail using IMAP, calendars using CalDav and contacts using CardDav.

That's mobile groupware with no licensing costs. Quite a boon for small businesses and non-profits.

What browser do you use?

If you use Firefox, they share revenue with you. That's where your free browser came from.

If you use Chrome, they share revenue with you. That's where your free browser came from.

Indeed, if you use Google, they share revenue with you. That's where your free search engine came from.

Do you expect ITV to send you a cheque because you watched four adverts during The Bill?

jingle.conf

Just edit /etc/asterisk/jingle.conf and /etc/asterisk/jabber.conf

It should take you about 2 minutes to have your asterisk box talking to and receiving calls from Google Talk.

Re: Huh?

I imagine they would access the non-existant app store in the same way they would access the Amazon App Store that's already been announced, using an Android device.

Or did you think only Apple's users buy and install applications from an online store?

Android?

Why do you need Android? My five year old Nokia E61 can act as a Wifi hotspot.

US v UK

Interestingly, in the US there seem to be far fewer calls answered by Indian operators, every firm has a 1800 number and call pickup times are typically very fast.

The UK seems a bit unusual with companies using premium 087x numbers for every service imaginable, and who believe it's okay to leave you on hold for thirty minutes before answering your call.

I'm not so bothered by the call pickup time if a) the call is free and b) there is a message that indicates both your current queue position and current estimated time until answer. That way you can head off and make a fresh mug of tea if you know the call will take ten or so minutes before being answered.

Dependent on search, not google

Mozilla is actually dependent on search revenue rather than google per se.

Mozilla could certainly switch search provider and probably generate a similar amount of revenue. Indeed, the way MS have thrown money at Bing, they could possibly increase their revenue stream by switching.