2.5" HDDs today are at 500GB per platter:

7mm 1 platter

9.5mm 2 platter - standard laptop drive, 1TB

12.5mm 3 platter

15mm 4 platter, 2TB

Ripoff price?

The price of Volt/Ampera in US (after $7.5K tax rebate) is $32.000, in UK it is $50.000 (after £5000 e-car grant)! 60% mor for the same car?!?!?

Why? Because GM can! In US, they calculated the payback time for the hybrid (compared to standard GM Cruze) is 14 years.

With much higher fuel prices in UK, they can mark up the price 60% and the payback period is still about the same...

That £12,000 premium over a diesel Focus gets you enough diesel for about 90.000 miles!

And even if Volt was only driven in the e-mode for 90k miles, it would consume about 25MWh of leccy, costing about £2-3k. Not to mention the petrol price in a more realistic scenario, where you do not drive the 90k miles on electricity alone...

If the Ampera cost the same as in US ( about £20K), they'd quickly outsell all other car models combined!

Similar calculation is also true for Renault Zoe - marketed as costing EUR 15k on the continent (after 5k rebate), but they fail to mention the battery lease price of EUR 10k over 10 year period (+ leccy cost)...

Total cost, again, is higher than a comparable diesel Clio IV will be.

I'd been dreaming of owning an e-car for more than 10 years, but not at that clearly ripoff prices, thank you manufacturers!

Hommage to vintage B&O Beolit portable radios

Article failed to mention

- naming: 12 for 2012 - homage to Beolit 39, 40, 41, 42,..

- Beolit stands for B&O Bakelite

- design: homage to Beolit 500, 600,... series

Not a fan boi of either, but what's fair is fair:

Apple mimics B&O not the other way around - they've done this since the Steves were in diapers.

Only they have remained vastly more exclusive than apple...

B&O used "unibody" aluminum housing on their Beosound 9000 back in 1996 (they even offer their machining expertize to other companies)

Bettery - They use 74Wh of Li-po batteries

Don't know if the flight is real or not, but batteries are adequate.

Their 3d sketch lists 4x5000mAh batteries

This battery has same specs:

http://www.stefansliposhop.de/liposhop/sls-apl/sls-apl-45c/sls-apl-5000mah-4s1p-148-v-45c-90c::748.html

Has a mass of 571g, 4x 5000mAh cells, can output up to 6 kW (12V x 500A) of power (for 30s or so) - quite adequate methinks

What were you expecting el reg? Several car batteries? As any RC modeller knows Li-pos are quite powerful...

New iPad heat issues

How come no one is commenting on the new iPad increased battery & increased heat dissipation?

Battery capacity increased from 25Wh in iPad2 to 42.5Wh in new iPad - that's a 17.5Wh or 70% increase.

With today's Li-po technology the weight of extra 17.5Wh is ~100g, so they must have shaved off 50g elsewhere. I bet the new screen is thinner & lighter (using thinner glass?) than old one, since the thickness increase of 0.6mm is alone not enough to cram in the 70% larger battery (even if the battery technology is maybe 5% better than last year's).

Perhaps the housing is thinner too? Cant wait for a tear down...

The real problem, however will be heat. At claimed 9h battery life of 3G (4G) surfing, the iPad2 has an average power consumption of 2.8W, the new iPad 4.7W.

And trust me, those extra almost 2W of heat will be noticeable. Almost 5W of heat to dissipate passively is quite a lot. Not to mention the heat generated when running some CPU / GPU intensive tasks...

Tesla did several major fails

Suing BBC? Typical US way! Rather invest $$$ in improvement!

@JeffyPooh: spot on!

Tesla did some major fails over the years (some facts may be different, but I am sure I'm pretty close)

1. Battery cost: for cost & dependability they use ~5600 standard laptop cells (18650 type), produced in billions per year. Those cells cost from ~$3 for state of the art cells (currently >3Ah per cell) down to ~$2 for older designs with ~2-2.4Ah per cell. Tesla said several years ago they use 2Ah cells (when state of the art was 2.6Ah) due to their maturity & resilience (to extreme temps, currents, etc.). At $2, the cells cost Tesla ~$12,000. Let's say total battery pack cost $15,000 with protection circuits & packaging (they have several patents for this). Charging $40,000 for the battery is absurd! And even in worst case, only the cells need replacement, not the box & electronics! As for battery protection: At 5% charge remaining battery should go in "deep sleep" as JeffyPooh suggested, with additional primary battery charge backup if needed. Also Tesla could monitor all cars & contact users if such condition is registered.

2. They took a lovely compact & light Lotus chassis & turned it into a fat guys car: it took them (&Lotus) several years to do structural mods (like lowering door sills) so fatter Americans can cram themselves in (hint for "big" guys: buy a Continental GT instead).

3. Instead of using 2 direct drive motors (one for each rear wheel), they used a single motor + transmission + differential... Mayor fail, which adds complexity & mass and reduces efficiency due to transmission losses

4. They should not sell a car made for US in EU: Cars are not pushed to the limits in US while in EU they are and top Gear simply did legally on a race track what a lot of owners would do. Considering all, I think the Tesla did not do so bad... Most US production cars would fail when driven flat out - and that's gasoline cars, produced in billions with 100+years of development

You forgot to mention SmartCard Reader

You mentioned all other ports & options, but not the Smart Card Reader.

AFAIK ALL Dell Latitude machines since at least the D series (from 2003 onwards) have Smart Card Readers and this machine is no exception...

True, not everybody needs this but for those of us who do, this is important, since almost no other company puts SmartCard Readers on their laptops. True, Lenovo does, but on 15"+ machines (I think HP also on some models).

I do not use the Smart Card for login, but for banking.

Currently, I use 4 personal & business bank accounts with 3 different banks and - surprise! All of them use SmartCard based security certificates for access. Only one of those banks allows the certificate to be exported to the computer, but only for personal accounts, not for business accounts.

I've been using an external Smart Card reader for the last year and it's a pain compared to an embedded reader...

When Dell adds at least 1440x900 resolution on their 12-13" models I'll consider buying one again...

Typical FUD startegy

This fire thing is old news.

Apparently, after the crash test(s) the car was left "as is" in some corner & caught fire months later...

NHTSA did not follow the GM procedures = the battery should be inspected after severe crash (& removed/neutralized if needed)...

I bet they do not leave the other test cars just sitting there after the crash with tanks full of petrol and possibly damaged...

Current MacBook Pro 15 screen res goes up to 1680x1050

"Current MacBook screen resolutions max out at 1440 x 900 on the 15in model and 1920 x 1200 on the 17-incher. Both have non-glossy alternatives, BTW."

Unless it's been discontinued, the last time I checked (a minute ago) MacBook Pro 15 had an option for

1680x1050 (gloss or non gloss) screen (and has had this option since 2010).

So your MacBook list should read :-)

11in 1366x768

13in 1440x900

15in 1680x1050

17in 1920x1200

This is from Apple:

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-compare.html

15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy or optional antiglare widescreen display

1440 by 900 pixels

High-resolution 1680-by-1050 glossy or antiglare option available

LEDs still 4 times less efficient than CCFL

A 15,000h lifetime 20W Osram Dulux EL CCFL gives out 1200 lumens of light, a 75W LED only 1100, so the CCFL is still 4 times more efficient than LED.

15,000h lifetime translates to ~15 years at 3h a day...

Nothing (significantly) new on the LED front...

And the Dulux EL costs only ~$10.

A history of incidents since 2005?

According to Wiki, they were already under increased surveillance due to history of incidents... And still this happened?

Google translate:

"Radiation Safety Authority decides to impose Ringhals AB on specificvarious investigative procedures and conditions for the operation of the reactors at Ringhals 1-4. Agency and its predecessors have since 2005 complained of shortcomings that can be linked to the safety culture at nuclear power plant. But despite the Ringhals made efforts remain problems."

£170m in 7 months is about £800k per day in lost revenue alone! And I took them SEVEN MONTHS to repair? I assume the cost of repair is several times the £170m. Why is this number not published? Too huge and too embarrassing?

Dear Swedes, please, please decommission all your nuclear plants before you nuke us all - you obviously do not know how to use them safely...

Samsung - Apple contract due for renewal?

I think this legal battle is a charade. They will officially finish it with an "agreement".

Doesn't Apple have a contract to buy "all" of Samsung's Flash chip production for several years? And isn't Apple also using Samsung as a foundry to build their SoC's (A4, A5, etc?). Buying flash elsewhere is possible but not without issues and moving chip production to another foundry's process is costly to say the least.

I think Apple is either trying to bully Samsung into negotiating a better deal for the future or they are both in this together - lots and lots of free publicity anyone?

Besides, if something is "banned", people get the urge to try to get it at any price. I didn't even know Galaxy Tab 10.1 existed before I read it was banned in Germany. The news made me want to buy a couple before they are banned across EU...

Patent business = an insult to all inventive minds

This patent business has become a total sh*t and disgrace. The ones with loads of money can patent literally ANYTHING.

I always say the penultimate patent is the one for letter "E". When someone succeeds in patenting the most common English letter (only a matter of time it seems, with all the "one click shopping" and "unlock gesture" and similarly obvious patents granted) and then we'll have to stop using "E" and delete it from all books (or better yet - burn them all), remove from keyboards, alphabet, etc.

The ultimate patent is the one for "procedure for inhaling & exhaling" (=breathing). Then Homo Sapiens becomes extinct and there will be no more such stupid & embarrassing patent grants.

Actually, steam was (is?) allowed at WSC

Not sure about 2011, but in the early WSC races there was no rule about using solar electric (photovoltaic) power - any solar power could be used, including Stirling engine or steam engine/turbine (with steam generated by solar power, of course).

In fact, I am pretty sure at least one team used a Stirling engine in the early 90s. It's efficiency was obviously no match for the then emerging GaAs PV cells...

Need to find my "Speed of Light: The 1996 World Solar Challenge" book and check this.

Yes, yes, I know I'm a (WSC) geek, no need to remind me :-)

Crosswinds for Nuna

Looks like the Nuna 6 crosswind optimization (a feature of all Nunas - 1-6) is paying off - they are now less than 20km behind Tokai.

"Barring a miracle or something equally spectacular the final results will be a repeat of 2009"

With such a small difference the race might be a bit early to call... After all, it ain't over till the sun sets down...

What about HP28C and HP48S/SX?

Being El Reg is supposed to be a tech journal, I am surprised there is no mention of HP28C and HP48S/SX calculators with graphs and solver, turning 25 this year...

WORLD'S BIGGEST - that's still SATURN V

The title of world's biggest still goes to von Braun's Saturn V with 119t payload capacity to lower Earth orbit.

Saturn V has had the title for almost 45 years...

Should not this be Episode 1?

Again, a great one!

But, sadly, we had to wait 1.5 months...

In line with previous seasons numbering, I think this should not be episode 20 but rather episode 1 of 2011.

Largest Single Platter 1.8" HDD

Yes. Chris did not research this well enough. With Tosh, xxxxxxL are single platter 5 mm high drives while xxxxxxH are dual platter 8 mm high drives. Article failed to mention this is the largest single platter drive. This implies a 440 GB dual platter xxxxxxH device might be aroumd the corner. Now THAT would indeed be the largest 1.8" HDD.

FAIL - Still no iFrame scrolling

Several years, Android 2.x, Firefox 4.x and still

No in frame scrolling possible!

Even Google's own pages use iFrames that need to be scrolled, but you can not do that on (Google) Android device (you can on iPhone using two fingers)...

This is a defect known for a long time (2 years or so) and nobody fixed it yet - why is beyond me.

They keep on adding (mostly useless) bells & whistles, but can not solve a simple issue of scrolling through embedded frames.

All Android browsers (including Opera) to my knowledge fail on this one and Firefox 4.x is no exception...

iFrame scrolling? Not!

Yes, a shiny "new" Android browser (Beta versions have been out long ago), but still can't scroll frames within the main browser frame (iframe).

WebKit (default browser), Firefox (Fennec), Opera, Dolphin, Skyfire,... none of those browsers can scroll frames within main frame.

Lots of pages can not be used due to this issue - even Google's own: for instance, in AdSense reports, you can not scroll through channels list.

iPhone scrolls frames using two fingers - why the multitouch Android phones can not do the same is beyond me.

Even more so for Opera Mini - since it works through page-recoding proxy, this could be dealt with...

And this is a well known defect (yes, defect, not bug) but still has not been dealt with.

Please give us a browser that scrolls frames!

303ppi

Actually, if you do the math, the display density is 303ppi, not 302ppi :)

Impressive for 85 quid!

Actually 84.95 or 72.30 without VAT. Assuming a 20% reseller commission, what's left is 60 quid to pay for all the parts, manufacturing, shipping, engineering,...

True, components are a bit aged (almost nobody uses 400MHz ARM for new products; 16Gb Flash chips must be quite cheap too), but there's still the Wifi chip (without 802.11n but nevertheless), 7" LCD (no OLED for this price), touchscreen + controller, 1Gb DRAM, battery, camera, speaker, etc.

Would like to see the innards of this baby. For this price, must be a generic reference design from VIA with relatively simple & large PCB (in contrast to that fruit company's high density designs with multiple silicon dies in single package). If that's the case, expect more of the same design under different branding / slightly different case design - similar to consumer SSDs, where at least 5 companies are using exactly the same PCB (=reference design from Indilinx).

In fact, those designs are similarly specced; might even share the innards with this product (except for the touchscreen instead of keyboard):

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/279019650/7_inch_laptop_VIA_8505_with.html

Jippee-a-eh, another BOFH!

Eagerly awaiting next episode about robot wars...

Please, please get back to at least 2 episodes per month schedule; we want more BOFH!

Ah, the Friday BOFH fix...

...sadly not every Friday...

Free economy?

Lets see:

1. the resellers do not mind getting a (fat?) commission from selling Apple products

2. they do mind being unsatisfied with Apple's policies

Well, they can stop bitching and stop selling Apple products. Oh wait, this is against point 1above. Bummer.

iFan - I am not an Apple fan (quite the contrary, mostly due to their closed platforms and tight grip on users), but Steve does have the right to sell his products the way he wants...

After all, he is not forcing anybody to be a reseller, or is he?

"Unlimited" data plans

"Unlimited" data plans are the culprit (smart) phones nowadays lack DUN (Dial Up Networking - I wonder who invented the term "Tethering" - it is stupid!).

The reason is unlimited plans are not really unlimited and a small percentage of DUN users will abuse their data plans to download movies, Linux distros, run p2p, etc on their PCs.

The problem lies with operators - who lie when calling their plans unlimited. This is a matter for FTC, EU Comission & other regulators - operators need to put a monthly cap on their plans (and make it clear to their customers), then DUN will be no more a problem - the 1% who abuse their plans will simply hit the limit and face the consequences as they should (=pay more). The other 99% will happily be able to use DUN.

No DUN is mostly the case with phones "originating" from US or with US based operators (I use "originating", because virtually ALL phones are designed in Taiwan and built in China by companies like HTC, Foxconn, Quanta, Compal,...). To list a few:

Handspring/Palm Treo: Out of the box DUN only works from (Unlocked) Treo 650 onward; older Treos "officially" could not do it - it was however possible to do DUN on Treo180/270/600 wia IR and 650 via BT (Bluetooth) with SW like PdaNet and WModem. I'we got through a lot of pains to make DUN work on Treos 180s, 270, 600 and 650s I we had.

iPhone: no DUN (either USB or Bluetooth)

Android: no "real" DUN (=modem over USB or BT) - only USB DUN works with SW on PC on Unlocked phones

PdaNet (www.junefabrics.com) enables BT DUN profile (no SW needed on PC side )& USB DUN (again with SW on PC side) - I think also for locked phones

But PdaNet is annoying: it costs $20 to enable a basic feature all "normal" GSM phones have had since dawn of time (=DUN profile) and the annoying part is you need to run the PdaNet application on Android phone (I tested on HTC Desire) for the BT DUN profile to work.

AFAIK, all "non US" based phones (SE, Nokia, LG, Samsung) with Bluetooth support the BT DUN profile by default.

I was quite shocked to learn that Android platform, not even in it's latest incarnation (2.1) supports one of the most basic Bluetooth profiles - the BT DUN. This is simply inexcusable!

Lack of out-of-the-box BT DUN was a showstopper for me buying the HTC Desire (which after testing it I, well, desire)!

And to think I used to dream Android (being open) will also support the BT FAX profile (not many phones do, AFAIK) so I could (finally) send faxes from my PC via GSM through BT connection...

I simply hate when progress is not only stopped but goes backwards.

I remember my first GSM (Ericsson GA628 - "the brick" in 1998 - a simple, cheap and wonderful phone) - it had a modem feature by simply connecting it to a PC (or other terminal device) via RS232 and could dial data (or voice) calls through AT commands.

Review of a 6+ months old machine?

Sorry, but epic fail:

You did not mention Lenovo X301 as an alternative - it does have smaller screen, but not much smaller screen real estate (1440x900), plus a DVD-RW drive & weighs 30% less.

Why you chose to review a laptop released in Sep 09 (and reviewed in Oct 09) only now I do not understand. You did not even test the one innovative feature - induction charging.

Why not rather review the new Latitude E6510 or E6410?

Or perhaps get some info from Dell:

- The E6510 at least has a Full-HD 1920x1080 screen option @15.6"; is this coming to z600 too?

- will there be a Z lineup = 14" z400, 15" z500?

- when will backlit keyboards be available with with Exx10 series in EU?

PS: sorry for this, looks like I have a bad day :)

TGIF!

Palm OS emulator for iPhone

"Palm OS obsessives StyleTap have created an iPhone emulator"

Shouldn't the sentence read:

"Palm OS obsessives StyleTap have created an emulator for iPhone"

Since this is not an iPhone emulator but an emulator which runs on iPhone

What is INERNIC ?

"100% interest in the internet domain name and related INERNIC registration"

What is INERNIC? Did they mean INTERNIC by any chance?

C'mon, this is supposed to be a $1M+ auction and they misspelled it (twice)...

Data only?

Apple.com specs for iPad 3G clearly list "Data only" under 3G version specs, so does it even support voice?

VoIP only over 3G? what about VoIP over 2.5G (GPRS/EDGE) when 3G network is unavailable?

@Reg: Tested on 2009-12-16?

If your machine's date is right, you've been sitting on this test for exactly 4 weeks before releasing it?

Request from the vendor?

Care to explain?

Sound on Mars? Yeah, right!

Since Mars's atmosphere is 96% CO2 and atmospheric pressure is about 150 times lower than Earth's, I'm pretty sure all those (seemingly hundreds of) actuator motors can not be heard as in the video...

Instead of those stupid sci-fi like sounds, NASA (as a scientific rather than sci-fi org) should add a narrative to explain the complicated procedures seen on video...

Plus judging by the partially shielded cylinder with cooling fins on the front part of the "tank", the "nuclear" seems to be a standard RTG, but "nuclear powered" sure sounds more sensational than "radioisotope thermoelectric generator powered".

Slippery? Not really!

I think Cd of 0.237 is not really considered slippery in 2009 (less still in 2011), when Opel/Vauxhall Calibra achieved Cd of 0.26 in 1989, Honda Insight and Audi A2 0.25 in 1999 and Merceds Boxfish supposedly has Cd of 0.19.

http://www.carshopguide.com/mercedes-benz-bionic-car-daimler-ag/

The rear end shape does not look very aerodynamical (anybody seen a flat rear on an airplane lately?)

Mind the lack of external rear view mirrors (replaced by small camera pods) - a Calibra without RWM, with flat hubcaps & some streamlining could well get below Cd of 0.24 and A2 from 1999 even lower IMHO.

Sorry, but below 0.19 would be slippery, not ~0.24. Plus Cd is just a coefficient which needs to be multiplied by frontal area to get the (speed dependent) drag force - the VW looks to be considerably higher than Calibra and thus has larger frontal area.

Just in time

for coffee...

another great BOFH :-)

flavour-of-the-month LED technology?

Do check digitimes, will you?

According to estimates, LED back lighting is here to stay and will gain significant market share in TV LCD panels in 2010 (dominant already in new designs for net/notebooks)

30% compared to What?

"Memory footprint was reduced by up to 30 per cent"

Compared to what? Vista, XP, windows 3.1, DOS?

30% is relative; in itself it tells nothing if not stated compared to what.

Don't get me wrong; I think Mark ruleZ! Microsoft was lucky to snatch him from his Wininternals/Sysinternals. I am sure he mentioned what he was comparing and the statement is just taken out of context.