Posts by Joseph Lord

Re: Fanboi Mania - difficult to understand, from either camp

More devices sold means more developer attention and therefore more apps for the platform. So there is some benefit to customers in being on a popular platform. Also the sustainability and long term life of the platform (and linked app and content purchases) also depends on ongoing sales of devices although this isn't really an issue for iOS or Android at the moment it is a question mark over Blackberry and Microsoft still (and Meego, FirefoxOS, Tizen etc. to an even greater degree).

Re: @Joseph Lord

Agree that current law is too complex and also divorced from current practice and reasonable expectations.

Did you know that TV recording is specifically exempted for temporary short term private copies? If you are recording stuff to keep more than a week or two you are infringing copyright. In a way this makes the iPlayer's limited window logical although it probably puts most homes with a PVR or VCR outside the law.

I think if the current law was understood and enforced it would have less support than it currently does. Most people think their actions are reasonable and many don't realise they are infringing.

Re: Comparing apples to pears?

The Samsung IM division made a profit of 4.18 Trillion Korean Won for the quarter (according to Google that is about $3.6 Billion or less than half of the quarterly profit Apple declared ($9.5 Billion). The IM profit was the bulk of that for whole Electronics division.

On sales value they are just over half Apple (in the IM category alone) Apple posting $43.6 Billion and Samsung 22.47 Trillion Won ($20.2 billion). Samsung Electronics* total revenue for the quarter was 45.4 Trillion Won ($40.7 billion) pretty close to Apple's revenue.

Note the Samsung figures are for the IM division only unless otherwise stated as suggested above is a suitable comparison and subject to me missing a zero somewhere in the conversions (but I think it is right).

*Samsung has more than just the electronics division and I haven't looked at how that all adds up or even whether washing machines are in the Electronics division or not. I know the ships and construction equipment aren't.

Re: £250,000 fine for losing 77 million credit card numbers

There was a failure in security but credit card numbers were encrypted and they lost out big time on sales, PR and addition expense plus the value of games given away and PSN+ credits.

That combined with the fact the fine was for the UK data lost means it isn't unreasonably small. I would prefer the biggest fines saved for sale of data, malicious use etc. rather than cases like this.

Re: @Paul

Fair enough, I'm lucky enough never to have had to mess around with them myself (although I have found attenuators necessary at times). Do the "shitty diy ones plugged in at the tv end" help at all with digital transmissions? I thought it was more often the signal quality than the strength that was a problem on digital although maybe it depends on the TV/STB.

Re: The press have brought this on themselves.

You are right that allowing full trust in the government without oversight would be a massive mistake but the post you are responding to is right to the extent that the press* has brought it on themselves.

Neither government power nor press power should be completely unchecked and appropriate legislation ensuring regulation of powerful bodies is not in principle wrong.

I definitely wouldn't want anything stopping Private Eye, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph or any other paper, website or blog that seriously investigates government and holds them to account for their behaviour but major publishers have significant power and influence and ensuring that isn't abused is also important.

* I think the majority of the problems really came from News International and Associated Press although there may have been some problems at the Mirror and others too.

Mass broadcast is efficient

Broadcast is massively efficient if you look at the bits delivered rather than those transmitted. 3 million people watching the same 4Mbps stream is 12Tbps. Admittedly broadcasting QVC to twenty people nationwide is a lot less efficient.

Maybe channels that could show public service benefit (including entertainment of sufficient numbers or of otherwise under served communities) could be given exemptions.

> "It's much too complex and risky a design, in their rush to produce more efficient lighter planes they've thrown away too many tried and tested things."

> Not really. Most of the aircraft is fine, the only big issue seems to be the battery. That *could* be fixed by switching battery chemistry (albeit at the expense of some weight and some space).

That only one thing didn't work doesn't refute the grandparent comment's point. They pushed the boundaries in lots of areas and of course most succeeded, this was a commercial project not a research one but at some point lots of small risks add up. A 1% risk of a battery problem sounds manageable but if there is also a 1% risk of an engine fan blade issue, a wing strength issue and dozens, hundrends or even thousands of other issues then sooner or later you might be talking real possibilities or even probabilities of something going wrong although you don't know which.

You take small risks in 100 different areas of design and lets say 99% succeed, the one that doesn't happens to be the batteries but it could have been something else. The cost will depend on the time to get an airworthy approved solution, lost sales and any damages to the grounded airlines (I've no idea what sort of warranty or SLA a new passenger jet comes with). Until that is known and the aircraft is in service long enough to shake out any other issues including major component lifespans we won't know if the post you responded to was correct that it was "much too complex and risky a design".

@Lee Dowling

There is a saying about the bandwidth of a station wagon of tapes and I have a similar one for broadcast. "Don't underestimate the delivered bandwidth of 5 million homes all receiving the same broadcast signal." At 5Mbps that would be 25Tbps sustained.

Now those numbers only happen at mass live events - Olympics 100m, World Cup Finals etc. but for anything that gets 1 million viewers (live or recording) is very efficiently served by broadcast. Over time it would make sense to have less but higher quality channels broadcast and using the internet for more niche content (all the crap on Freeview) but broadcast still has life in it for a good while.

And as others say *most* people don't actually use/want on demand. They like having things just there to choose from and not too much choice either. You and I like our On Demand content but to an extent I can sympathize with the majority having spent 30 minutes picking what to watch on Netflix on occasions. You may be right about the next generation, my son barely understands the concept of TV channels and schedules as we just keep a stockpile of things recorded and use Netflix/Lovefilm so it will be interesting but I am not yet convinced that model will die.

Re: Politician's logic

I need to add to my post above that I believe homosexuality and homosexual acts should be legal and it is a stain (one of many) on my nation's history that they were ever criminal. I hope no one read into my comment any belief that there was anything remotely acceptable about it. I only believe that this case may not be much better and that comparisons need not be inappropriate.

Re: Verified by VISA is horrible

That sounds like a good feature although almost as effective would be SMS messages sent out after any cardholder not present transaction that you could respond "FRAUD" to if they aren't genuine with no VBV.

I would mind VBV much less if the password setting/resetting process was better (although I have avoided it for the past few years so it may have improved) and that it was hosted if not at your own bank then at least at visa.com so at least it was visibly at a company that people know that they have a business relationship with and are more likely to notice if it is a fraudulent misspelled domain than whatever it is that I normally get redirected to and asked for my date of birth.

Re: Outsourcing

@frank ly

Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, Asus and any other Android vendor.

Any Windows tablet vendors.

Any web startup using Google.

Apple where they rely on Samsung components.

Even major players sometimes decide the risk is worth taking (or don't properly consider it).

@ac 23:11

I'm really not a Google fan as you'll see if you look at my other comments but I think you are being really unfair. Chrome did advance the state of browser security with automatic updates and not relying on Adobe for Flash fixes. This seems to be reducing a threat that occurs when software has already run as the local user on the PC.

Re: Moderation gone mad?

@diodesign

Thanks for the feedback. One of my posts was removed. I don't suppose you could indicate where I went wrong especially if you consider it legally unsafe. Not trying to have a go but if you really think there was a potential issue with it I would like to know in case I post something similar where it isn't removed.

I challenged Andrew O's view that "linking" constitutes criminal copyright infringement in the UK and commented that I thought Dwyer's decision to accept the fine in the US was a good one. I would normally paste or quote the post but repeating it doesn't seem like a good idea in this case.

Merry Christmas,

J

Re: Hurry up Google - switch off H.264 on YouTube.

@Charles9

MPEG-LA doesn't infringe anyone's patents because they don't make or sell anything except licenses. I believe that they don't even sue people for infringement as that is left to the patent owners. Of course Google may have patents from On2 on H.264 in addition to those from Motorola (already being asserted against MS) but it may be there are limits on what they can demand as H.264 licensees (see ongoing lawsuit coverage).

There is then the question whether Google has a strong enough patent range OR other commercial incentives (such as "you can make the next Nexus and have early access to the next Android version" or just here is some cash) to prevent lawsuits from anyone with sufficiently strong patents.

I'm also not sure if an H.264 licensee gets the rights to implement the technology in non-H.264 codecs. It might be that many of the tempting targets are already licensed through the H.264 license although I haven't looked into it.

Re: Arris Group?

They probably still don't. Motorola sell most of their STB's to cable companies so most people never really notice the manufacturer name.