Am I missing something in these comments?

Company fleeces 2.5 billion from UK businesses and pays 3.5 million tax? And that seems fair and equitable? or is this comment section just inhabited by self-interested contractors and French ministers?

Sure seems to be the I-would-if-I-could brigade.

I'd annoy NK a bit more

I'd insult the NK's a bit more, get them to use up ALL their stockpile of weapons grade fissile material in ever bigger underground tests. That would leave them with nothing to threaten anyone with.

its not exactly very usable

Thats quite an involved hack that requires you to hold the sleep button the whole time the device is cracked. Its not like the device is unlocked or 'day-to-day usable. I'd not get the SW team working the weekend on it if I was Tim Cook.

If ppl want to sweat about security, the majority of front door locks in the EU are easily bypassed by crims, but I don't see Yale coming rounf my house with an urgent patch for snappable barrel locks.

I'm just curious how the jailbreak kids found the 'unlock sequence' (if you can call it that).

if you cant tell the difference between SD and HD...

You need either a guide dog or a decent telly. Ok, maybe you just watch Mrs Browns Boys.

As a lover of sport, movies and gaming, I will form an orderly queue for a 4K telly / PJ as soon as they retail for less than 25% of a decent salary.

Sure is likely to spur a bump in display sales that 3d was never, ever going to achieve.

Tried Netflix...cancelled netflix

Netflix - has some odd "cult" movies, rest of it was a real "meh". XBOX app was an awful way to try and find content I wanted to watch.

I guess I kinda like discs and browsing in video stores - the sound and image quality from full-fat BluRay is wonderful. Until they come up with a great way to find content and can provide it in high bit rate..

Content it key though. BlinkBox has got HBO stuff, which makes up for me not having Sky Atlantic. Good for them.

I just dont get it..

I've got a unique ID already... my national insurance number. Isn't that managed by the govt? Don't we employ a doughnut full of security experts that could implement some uncrackable authentication mechanism?

I'm assuming we'd have to pay someone to knock this up, why not pay our own civil servants to do it?

Or is it going to be a legal requirement to have a valid, genuine, your-name-here facebook account?

b-o-n-k-e-r-s

The only truth..

is that hydrocarbon resources are scarce enough to continually increase in cost to a point where most people cannot readily afford them. This should limit CO2 commissions nicely, regardless of the eco politik.

The main beneficiaries of high fuel prices seem to be footballers; the most successful clubs being the ones owned by the hydrocarbon barons.

Icon a penguin, cos they will notice little difference to their daily life for the next millennia...

.err..

..why do I want to interact with my console using a touch screen in my hands? I have a mahossiff HD screen for the game or movies, played mainly in a dark cinema room, why do I want to be fiddling about with a titchy hand-held screen?

Maybe Microsoft has it right - release an app for people who feel the need to have that connectivity. I've got the "bluPlay" app for BluRay playback on my PS3 and I never use it. Glad it was free :)

Border control

I arrived at Gatwick a few weeks back, I was put in the "automated facial recognition" kit queue, my g/f went to the human recognition unit.

She was through in seconds, I had to wait five minutes to get to a station where it took a good minute to check my passport and another 4 minutes to scan my shiny, suntanned old face and work out if I was the same pasty-faced youngster from 6 years ago that's in my passport.

If the tech is slower than a human, it's rubbish tech. If it's slower AND MORE EXPENSIVE, I am one very p*ssed off taxpayer.

A generation of linux driver writers

Yeah, that's what we need. A Generation of linux driver writers. I'd suggest a better approach would be coaching them in writing Android or iOS apps; at least they'd probably be able to monitise their endeavors a bit quicker than writing a mouse driver.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a R Pi, and I too caught the coding bug from TRS80s and BBC B's.

Technically great

but practically? What market is it aiming at? SMART TV owners with no PS3 or XBOX or Wii? I just can't see it succeeding, unless Cable or Satellite networks build it in to the STB's and productise it. Does it do voice comms? It just looks like a solution for a non-existent problem right now.

£12bn??

I bought a smart leccy monitor, hoping it would help me shave ££ off my bill.

Then I found out that I use b**ger all anyway.

Switching off a TV that was in standby? Sod all difference.

Switching of a STB or PVR in standby? Sod all difference.

Unplugging a unused phone charger? Sod all difference. £ per year? What, 2 quid?

Heating via Electricity is where the cost is. I don't need a smart meter to tell me that and the country could sorely do with £1B a year spent on more useful efforts, such as social housing.

TiVo is great but...

It's great BUT

* for gawds sake rework the remote - it's bog-awful

* Update the UI...

Why does series link require 4 clicks and take me to a blank-out-video screen telling me to click OK to continue? fkin stupid.

If it had bought NXP....

The TV chip manufacturers had been making TV devices with networking since *at*least* 2000, but the rapid fall of TV prices from glorious pieces of kit to cheap commodity items just ate into margins.

Maybe if Intel had bought NXP (ex Philips Semis) they could have bought IP,market share and got somewhere, but the price was way too high.

Shame.

phone maps??

Free mapping via smartphones are great if you've got perfect reception to download the maps on the move, and aren't roaming to a different country where you have to pay a million pounds for a K of data.

I must be the only person with no problems with the TT's I've used, whereas I find the UI and performance of the Garmin units to be pretty poor IMHO.

I really like the local BestBuy!

The one near me in Southampton is a really decent store! Prices are on a par with Amazon and the delivery is instant. Not only that, but if I have a problem, I can take it back easily.

The staff are super helpful, knowledgeable and not pushy. Sure, they don't get many iPads in but I have my local apple store for that.

"Computer fair"? {Shudder} Jeez, the thought of rubbing shoulders with *that* sort of consumer, or that kinda retailer.

Boy Goeorge is asking...

The (ex?)) Chairman of Tesco how to reform employment law. Should get good, well balanced input from him, I'm sure.

No risk of Clegg finding any balls either, that twat is full on for NHS reform despite his posturing,

WABOC.

A lot of fun...

The tech works, the games are fun, job done I say.

Kinect Adventures was more engaging than I was expecting though, like all motion/getsure party games, I'm not going to invest Fallout3 levels of game-time in it.

Dance Central though... brilliant.

Kinect is here and it works well. Not all games will be worth buying, but that's the case whatever control method is used, but Dance Central... awesome.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Bring on the fanbois.

Sitting/standing... I thought all this gesture stuff was about standing and waving about anyhow? playing tennis sitting down? Playing bowling sitting down? Why is sitting down and gesturing apparently the killer app all of a sudden?

Kinect will win where the others fail - in analysing your movement without having to hold on to a remote control. Dance Central will shift a shed load of units, no question; other games will follow.

It's too late to the party to usurp the Wii's dominance, but I really can't see the Playstation Move control being anymore than a me-too copy of the Wii.

Kinect is genuinely doing something different to the Wii & Move.

Kinect Adevnture?

Can't we choose Dance Central as the bundled game intead? Or Kin'animals?

But £130 for Kinect + game doesn't put me off in the slightest.

Better than B3TA

Thanks so much for that website - it's a complete laugh!

But is is set up by the government? Seriously? If so, this country is in serious trouble; we are being run by retards.

Based on a falicy

Based on two fallicies

1) That public feedback is useful

2) The idea that choosing a hospital is like deciding which hotel to stay in

For option 1) , see the memorial site for Psycho killer Roaul Moat, with 2K plus fans. Do you want people like this helping you decide which hospital to go to?

As for option 2), do you get to check an NHS app on your iPhone whiel you dial 999? "Yes, I'd like to go to Bolton Royal Infirmary" as you bleed all over the pavement in Plymouth?

3D a non feature

I'm not gonna rush down to buy a 3d set, nor am I going to pay a premium for a 3d set when my current panel comes to end-of-life, nor will I pay for "glasses" etc. So that's a FAIL.

Holograms..remember them? They were cool back in 1983. how many have you got on your wall?

3D is not good enough, content is not good enough, content will not be significant enough to justfiy it.

I could almost see hardcore gaming being worthy of it, but the future of gaming is non-hardcore... think Wiii, think Kinect, think 3/4+ people playing gesture games, can you really see that many people wearing expensive glasses to watch the main telly in a home? Only if you're a marketing dreamer working for Sony.

industrial design

Make the strip break in the middle of the top and bottom and no one would hold it wrong...

As for cases, FFS, I pay for a beautifully designed phone, not to ruin it's look by putting it in a thick silicone condom making me out to be Mr Clumsy..

..do you do the same with your car incase it gets scratched in the car park??

Did I miss something?

Is this a pitch for why people need satellite broadband??

This article just don't make sense... unless I'm mistaken all ISP's have a top limit for downloading, 20gb for instance with my account from Zen.

Easy to max out if you're downloading movie ISOs or show torrents, or nowadays by "renting" movies from XBOX Live or PSN. It's cheaper to get that content from Sky using their flakey HD box.

Everyone knows that IPTV can't arrive before the whole infrastructure is upgraded; Don't they?

I went permie in 2000

..like the posters above, but the reality about contracting is that India came on stream at the same time. Fat, lazy, self-important, tax avoiding job hoppers found the contract market disappear, with companies blaming "IR35" but in reality outsource agents were the ones that came knocking. Why put "an expert" on the job for 70K when you could have three people offshore?

Don't get me wrong, I loved contracting for the 8 years I did it, but permies have got a chip on their shoulder about them, managers typically dislike them and you're just expensive compared to India, Russia, Turkey or any of the outsource hotspots.

IR35 won't go, and even if it did, the good times ain't coming back.. ever.

paranoia versus ignorance

What a strange world we now live in - 90% of users care little about publicity due to ignorance and openly have spats on FACEBOOK or tweet their GPS location willy-nilly.

The other 10% fear anyone that looks at them, like JohnG... why fear street view as a burglar tool? It's hardly likely to reveal if you have a dog or a burglar alarm or a gun under your pillow.

Of course, if your car is snapped parked outside your mistresses house, you have problems that aren't caused by Google but by your own peccadilloes...

I'm really surprised that Streetview causes more issues that the sat photos we already accept.