Posts by blamblamblam

A nice man on quora defines VR/MR/AR as follows:

"Virtual reality replaces your world with a virtual one.

Augmented reality supplements your world with digital objects of any sort.

Mixed reality seamlessly integrates digital objects into your world making it look as if they are really there."

...soooo...if none of these headset have cameras, then surely they are VR not MR?

Or is the nice man on Quora mistaken?

Or is it that VR now seems old fashioned so MS wants a new word?

Enlightenment much appreciated...

How long before someone's beheaded specifically for Facebook? Has it already happened?

How long before someone's beheaded specifically for Facebook? Has it already happened?

"Since the 1990s, (violent) crime in the United States has declined steeply."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Violent_crime

This presumably reflects declining temperatures then?

No but seriously, where is Lewis Page when we need him?

Please Lewis, save us from another reg-shaming article by Rik Myslewski.

Can anyone explain what ES thinks he might be saying here:

Dear Reg readers,

Can anyone explain what ES thinks he might be saying here:

"We empower literally billions of pounds of start-ups through our advertising network and so forth,"

?

It's a line quoted in the BC and Reg versions of the interview, but I honestly don't have a clue what it means... "We empower start-ups through our advertising network" by letting them pay us to advertise? Does google give free ad space to start ups? Start ups make billions of pounds by advettising on Google? Any help much appreciated...

Jony Ive?

Pity that Jony Ive is not amongst the top four: given the huge impact his vision had on the success of Apple and the existence of the iphone and ipad, he is surely far more deserving of a ridiculous payout than a bunch of lawyers and managers. Still it's always the way - lawyers and managers reward their own.

I vote this best-written article in el reg this year

I vote this best-written article in el reg this year - funny , balanced re: two big providers, lovely stuff, bravo.

terrible crisis for digital freedom

Great piece. It's a terrible crisis for digital freedom. For the first time ever, one company owns an entire category of internet access device, controlling both hardware and software. It was bad enough before, this judgement make things worse. It's as if IBM had a patent on the PC, preventing anyone else from making one, and also made the software. Tragically the journalists and pundits who ought to be shouting right now about digital freedom remain convinced that Apple = liberty, therefore everything's fine.

key mistake = brand name: Hipsters don't like being called "Hipsters"

IMHO one of the key mistakes of Hipstamatic was the brand name: Hipsters generally don't like being called "Hipsters": they like being called artists, rebels, mavericks, etc. Instagram sounds vaguely retro and analogue which is of course achingly cool. Using Hipstamatic makes you sound like you're a slave of fashion who can't actually take photos, so just colours his iPhone captures in a trendy way to hide the fact.

How can you be so naive?

How can you be so naive? These JEDI guys clearly *want* the world to be taken over by giant jellyfish! That's why they're trying to lull us into a false sense of security... they'll keep on saying "situation normal" till we've got giant jellyfish climbing out of the Thames! Think, sheeple, think!

(yes, I'm joking)

The most innovative airliner "since the Comet"? Yikes...

Well said -- Flight International last week printed a "Free Magazine" which was a puff piece for the 787. One of their breathless statements about the 787 was that it was the most innovative airliner "since the Comet". Given the fate of the Comet, I regard that as a rather worrying parallel.

IMHO four Tornados were part of the BoB flypast on Sunday

I was walking past the London eye on Sunday and was delighted to see the Spitfire and Hurricane fly past. Shortly after, a formation of four Tornados roared overhead. (They looked like Tornados to me anyway). A man standing near me said "It must be for the Pope's Visit". I thought he was an idiot -- but, after reading this piece claiming that the RAF was grounded perhaps they were the Vatican Air Force?

And another thing -- couldn't we have the option of a Spitfire icon for comments?

Some good news about Flash at last

Yes, it's great news, and great timing - hopefully will undercut the iPad slightly.

Please El Reg, don't obey Steve's Fatwah against Flash

Please, El Reg, don't become the slave of Apple fanbois vying to do the will of Steve in the wake of his Flash Fatwah.

One poster asked "Why is this news?" Well, it only is if you're itching to kill Flash.

Kudos to the guy from Virgin for saying ""Flash provides beautiful interactivity... We wanted to bring a smoother application experience and modularity and be able to build up an interactive experience for the kiosk user - Flash is all these... Flash is really, really good,"

...yes, thank you. Having built websites for ten years and won multiple awards for them I heartily agree. Text and jpegs is great - look at El Reg itself for example - but there needs to be more to the web than that.

Love open source? So do I. But I love good, universal technology more. Flash works on 95%+ of browsers - HTML 5.0 works on 0% of browsers, because it isn't approved yet.

Even once it is, there isn't an open source video codec they all agree on. (Apple doesn't like Ogg Vobis, and insists on H.264 which isn't open source).

Even once that's fixed, how long will it take to get the world to upgrade their browers to HTML 5.0? Remember - 20% of users are still on IE6. To upgrade Flash, you don't need to change your browser, so people do it happily and often. To change your browser is a big deal, lots don't bother - lots of people at work aren't allowed to upgrade their browsers.

Still love HTML 5.0 because it's oh so pure? Rember that it has two lead editors: "The HTML5 editors are Ian Hickson of Google, Inc. and David Hyatt of Apple, Inc.[3]" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5.0 ) So one works for Apple, the other works for Google - no conflict of interest there, then.

Believe Flash crashes Macs? We've never found that to be the case, in years of user testing.

So what's wrong with Flash? Steve hates it, and it's not on the iPhone or Newton, I mean iPad. When hardware manufacturers start trying to dictate what websites we can go to and how we build them, by definition the problem is the hardware manufacturer. If I pay for your gadget it should let me go to the sites I want, not the ones its CEO wants me to go to.

El Reg has the foresight to avoid following the crowd on so many issues - it should do so here too.