* Posts by Craigness

1498 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Mar 2010

Google cripples Chromecast third party replay

Craigness
FAIL

Re: Crippleware

None of the marketed feature have been crippled.

Craigness
Facepalm

Re: Hanlon's razor

#3 they made some changes which did not affect advertised features and everyone got their knickers in a twist over nothing.

Craigness

"I, and a few other developers, managed to reverse engineer the Chromecast tab protocol to piggy back this to deliver local content."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1l2hez/google_blocks_chromecast_app_that_let_you_stream/cbv8u0s

They never advertised it as being able to stream local content other than through Chrome.

Craigness

Re: Idiots.

You don't need an Android device.

I get better quality through streaming and it's a lot less hassle.

Craigness

SDK

They weren't using the SDK, they reverse engineered the device. They are allowed to use the SDK.

Craigness
Facepalm

Some people think it's acceptable to use undocumented features and the manufacturer should subsequently be compelled to support those features.

Craigness
WTF?

Re: Remember the good old days?

Google ads are still unobtrusive! They don't put ads in Netflix on Chromecast, so do you think that will also get the chop? In fact, the only thing to get the chop is an undocumented API which delivered unadvertised functionality. There was nothing stopping them playing an advert before any locally stored video if they really wanted to, but that's not what Chromecast is about.

Craigness
Facepalm

Inject

They were not prevented from injecting ads into any content which passes through Chromecast. This move actually gives them fewer opportunities to make money or track you!

Your hatred is invalid. Have anther go.

Craigness

Re: Ah...

You don't have to use Chrome, you can use the IOS or Android app instead.

Craigness

Re: Would you buy...

Chromecast was advertised as being able to stream from providers such as Pandora and Netflix, or from Chrome. After "the wheel was removed" it can stream from providers such as Pandora and Netflix, or from Chrome. The functionality you can no longer do was provided by 3rd party developers after Chromecast was reverse engineered.

So a better analogy would be...

Buying Google Chromecast is like buying a new car, where after the first 100 km it does exactly what it says on the tin, but the seat cover you bought doesn't fit.

That's the truth, but it doesn't mean you have to stop hating Google (so no rabid downvoting please).

Hacktivists boast of English Defence League KO after website downed

Craigness

Re: @moiety

That's not what I meant. If people think it's wrong to marry gay people, eat pork or drink alcohol then they should not marry gay people, eat pork or drink alcohol. But if they think murder is ok they should leave or comply. If they want to live under Sharia we shouldn't stop them, but we should stop them making laws based on religions and forcing them on other people. That's the only sense in which Sharia should be opposed.

Craigness

Re: @moiety

Have you tried saying No to English law?

If people want to operate under whatever laws they think a deity has given them they should be allowed to do that. Basically we need secularism, but Baroness Warsi, Eric Pickles, various newspapers etc think secularism is a threat. They are no different essentially from people wanting to establish Sharia.

Marissa Mayer in Vogue fashion shoot

Craigness

Re: Stop it

"We do not need to analyse everything a female CEO does in terms of gender issues"

Can you let Sheryl Sandberg know? For some women their whole career is a feminist campaign.

Microsoft shoehorns Skype into Outlook.com - we quickly kick the tyres

Craigness

No support for Android either, but tablets generally don't do browser plugins and have better ways of achieving this functionality. I don't see people complaining about Hangouts not being supported this way on tablets.

Google follows Amazon with auto-encryption of cloud data

Craigness
Facepalm

Re: Encryption needs to be on the client side to be secure

They don't provide NSA access to the data. The NSA gets it by splitting the traffic going to Google, which is out of Google's control.

Google: Cloud users have 'no legitimate expectation of privacy'

Craigness
FAIL

The stance is "Google is doing what they said they would do and what users agreed to". Feel sorry for all the haters, having to hate no matter what innocent things Google does.

Craigness

Re: Shock and horror

The government would be a 4th party. This is about people letting a 3rd party process their data and getting pissy that it's...processing their data in accordance with the T&C.

Does Gmail's tarted-up tab makeover bust anti-spam laws?

Craigness

Re: Mail protocol not used

From a comment in the link on the Reg article:

"Per 15 USC 7702 sec.(3)(6), “[t]he term ‘electronic mail message’ means a message sent to a unique electronic mail address.” Pretty vague definition."

I expect the ads are being sent to a Google Account rather than a Gmail address, which would make them no different to ads you see on other websites. Having them look and function like an email is interesting (I've not enabled the new style tabs myself to experience this) but unless they're permanent I don't see a problem. If the same advert is there when you log out and log in again, then I'd call it an email and suggest the law needs updating. The same goes for if they get downloaded to mail clients.

Craigness
FAIL

Re: Optional... for now

The action bar used to take up more space than the search bar does now, so you've actually got more area dedicated to the map in this version than in previous versions, and especially so on tablets.

Leaked photos of iPhone 5C parts portend ugly Google legal battle

Craigness

I bet you'd not be able to tell the difference if a judge held them up at the other end of a court room.

Google to snub Samsung, hand Nexus 10 to Asus – report

Craigness

Re: Ugh

I ignore the reactionaries and their newfangled religions. What's wrong with Saturnalia?

PEAK iPAD: Slab looking a bit peaky, needs big biz to take more tablets

Craigness
WTF?

Re: MS Office Missing?

Hatred of MS always stems from ignorance: the Office license on RT is for home use only! Surface is a consumer product, so you'd be working at your home desk on wifi, and you don't need to buy 2 devices.

Craigness

Re: MS Office Missing?

If you're going to write a document you'll be at your desk rather than on the couch. All you need is a USB keyboard and mouse (£15?) permanently in place on the desk and you're good to go.

Craigness

Re: Left Hand & Right Hand of El Reg?

"People are slowly learning that whilst a flat slab of glass is fine for watching stuff and poking around the web a bit it's actually pretty cr** when coffee break is over and it's time to do some work."

Read the comments on any Surface-related story and you'll be told that a tablet which gives people Office, USB ports, filesystem access etc and the ability to do real work is exactly NOT what people want.

Cameron demands Brits BOYCOTT angry-troll-infested websites

Craigness
Childcatcher

Re: next

Yep. Last week it was porn now it's "stop access to certain sites such as those involved in self harm or pornography."

#missioncreep

Hey, you know Android apps can 'access ALL' of your Google account?

Craigness

Re: sometimes....

The walled garden didn't help Mat Honan.

Oi, trolls, BEHAVE! Twitter tweaks rules to tackle abusive twits

Craigness

Filter

Why doesn't the government require the ISPs to filter out all the abuse and rid us of this terror for good?

Craigness

Re: One Direction and Black Ops Fans are as bad

Men have always been disposable. Note that Twitter's apology specifically EXCLUDED male victims. #sexism

Craigness

Re: Yes, but

Some will see the "abuse" button as a noun not a verb.

USA reverses iPhone, iPad sales ban

Craigness

Re: "Standards-Essential Patents"

The SEP creator has to license the technology instead of using it to enforce a monopoly. And they have to do so at a reasonable price. So a few options have been removed from the inventor's side. On the assembler's side, there is no requirement to use the technology. They can adopt a competing standard (CDMA v GSM for example) or they can invent something of their own.

Craigness

Re: @aj87

"it is neither fair nor non-discriminatory for the holder of the FRAND-encumbered patent to require licenses to non-FRAND-encumberd patents as a condition for licensing its patent" (emphasis his)."

...unless those are the same terms offered to other parties. Privileging Apple violates the Non-Discriminatory part of FRAND.

Craigness

Re: Correct descision, even if the taint lingers @Monty Burns

Real People did the R+D which Apple uses, and they should get paid.

You mean it's not perfect? Google to ship first Chromecast software fix

Craigness

Re: How does the user experience stack-up versus plain old HDMI / VGA cables?

All the stuff on my TV is streamed and there's almost never a problem, but it might depend on your broadband provider. My wifi router was £15 off ebay.

Craigness

Re: Logitech Revue

But was it via Chromecast? Chromecast-like functionality has been available in the youtube app on phones and smart TVs for quite a while now.

Microsoft Surface sales numbers revealed as SHOCKINGLY HIDEOUS

Craigness
Thumb Up

Re: Nice bit of engineering...

I used RT in John Lewis. Apart from some janking in the Bing app (and the fact there is a Bing app) I was impressed. When you understand what they're doing it makes a lot of sense, but that's where the marketing department should do its job.

Craigness
Stop

Re: Have you actually used a surface RT?

Reported for abuse. El Reg forum rules clearly state that any comment on a Microsoft product should be "criticism from a position of ignorance".

Craigness
WTF?

Re: Where have all the visionaries gone?

Surface RT is much cheaper than an Ultrabook (even before the discounts) and is not a laptop replacement; Surface Pro is not mediocre. What are you talking about?

Craigness

Apple is rumoured to be working on a 13" ipad. My suspicion is that this will combine tablet and desktop modes, at which point everyone will say that having a tablet and desktop on the same hardware is the ideal form factor.

It's already an ideal when it comes to Ubuntu - a phone which you can dock and use as a full pc is a wet dream for many people. But a tablet which you can dock and use as a full pc, like Asus's successful Transformer range? Oh no, that's a Microsoft FAIL!

Let's face it, people just don't like Microsoft even when they make what are essentially decent products, and a distant 3rd-place platform struggling to get decent apps is a hard option to choose.

Craigness
Facepalm

Re: Too bad

The Start screen is not the problem, and nor is not being able to run Windows software. This is a TABLET so should be compared to the ipad, which doesn't have a desktop mode and can't run mac software.

People don't expect to run legacy stuff on Windows phone so why should they expect to do so on a Windows tablet? Maybe it's because there is a sort-of-desktop mode on Surface RT for MS Office. Instead of the Start screen being the problem, the desktop mode is the problem - remove that and even the most ignorant commentard would understand what this product is.

Banknote campaigner's Twitter rape threats ordeal: Bloke, 21, cuffed

Craigness
Facepalm

Re: Rape threats?!

A cooking appliance reference is a rape threat.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W7N1nuQAmkQ/UfLmLAzWj4I/AAAAAAAAAEM/qM4-wGi5xP0/s640/blogger-image--1251756416.jpg

Why do people not take this stuff seriously?

Craigness
Stop

Anonymous,

Don't blame the victim.

Craigness
WTF?

The nasty women are proposing that there should be a place for women instead of for more notable men - they want men removed because of their gender. In the BBC's 100 greatest britons, the public selected 12 women in the top 100. So with 4 bank notes and a democratic selection system it's fair to assume there would be no women on the bank notes 50% of the time. Do you think the misandrists would accept that as equality? It's not equality when people are promoted because of their gender! If the women on the BBC list are evenly distributed then you'd have to go to number 208 to get the 25th woman, who would be treated as being equal to the 75th placed man, who is 86th on the list.

I'm no misogynist and why does my spellcheck not think misandry is a word? Smash the feminarchy!

that's more than 160 characters, but I didn't need to rage.

Craigness
WTF?

Anonymous,

What rape stuff? I looked for it and didn't find any. Even on the blog posts with screenshots of the abuse there was no "rape stuff".

We should have scientists on the money to encourage people to respect scientists, farmers on the money to encourage people to respect farmers, transsexuals on the money to highlight their contribution to society, etc. But there is a limited number of places and if we deselect notable people simply because they weren't transsexual, that's not equality.

Craigness
Facepalm

Anonymous,

It's not about equality though, it's about ensuring women take up 25% of the places even though fewer than 25% of qualified people may be women. It doesn't matter that 51% of the population is female or that 6% is muslim or 10% is black or gay, in an EQUAL society we should select people based on their characters rather than their characteristics. Feminazi because they select for characteristics rather than for virtues alone.

There are some men less worthy of contention than other men, and some women less worthy than men. When there is a rule discriminating in favour of women, men will be overlooked. Your refusal to acknowledge this fact sums up everything we need to know about you.

Typical! Google's wonder-dongle is a solution looking for a problem

Craigness

Re: DRM

Chromecast does tap into the Play Store! You can own or rent movies (and TV in the States) and you can upload your own music collection to play via Chromecast. Being able to upload DVDs in the same way would be great (they'd use their matching service rather than upload 4Gb I hope).

Craigness

Dongles all round

If everything is a dongle then the remote control is a dongle. Most are awful but Chromecast doesn't have one, so Chromecast wins.

Why should the Premier League have to go through broadcasters to get to users? (Broadcasters are just another dongle!) With Chromecast it doesn't - it could stream direct to the consumer. So for a £20 (or so) up-front cost and a payment per game we could get all the football we want. For consumers to get the same thing via Sky, BT and whatever other rights buyers there are, what's the up-front investment, is there a subscription, what do they pay per game and what would their TV stands look like with all those boxes? A service which lets content creators cut out the middle man would give us a wider selection at a lower cost, would it not? And it would be a dongle.

Google menaces Apple's 3-year-old toddler with its cheap stream tech

Craigness

Some things work well on a tablet and others work well on a TV. So instead of looking at specs and functionality you should consider what people actually want to do with each device. For an app with a UI of any level of complexity (eg it requires text input or button presses) a TV interface is bad enough that people would choose a tablet instead. But for watching movies a TV is best, and if the button pressing can be moved to a more suitable device then all the better.

So you can get an Android dongle and install a note-taking app from the play store, but what's the point? The netflix app is more suitable to the form factor but you'd have to type your login details, scroll through menus and select your content with the TV remote control. That's no better than current smart TVs. Using the netflix app on your tablet and watching the content on your TV is pretty much ideal.

Craigness
Happy

Re: Ads

Watch an ad-free service (eg netflix, youtube* or google play movies) if you don't want to see ads in the stream. In fact, that's exactly what you can do with chromecast!

*I've never seen an ad when streaming youtube to my tv. Not sure why that's the case and I don't expect it to last. They have big plans for content on youtube, with rumours of subscription-based services but there might be ad-supported ones too.

Craigness

Re: Meh

Kubla,

You can't have read very much about this if you think it streams the videos from your phone! It streams from the internet, the phone just tells it what to stream.

I've connected computers to the TV too; had them open on the floor plugged in to the TV's serial port and my amp. It's a really bad solution compared with a wireless stream which actually allows you to use your laptop for something else or turn it off completely...for the cost of a decent HDMI cable.

Craigness

Re: DLNA

Vector,

The screen mirroring (it handles both tabs and full desktop) is the beta product whereas the casting of youtube, netflix etc is the main selling point (and is not in beta, contrary to the article). Mirroring is proper mirroring, the URL flinging is for the youtube/netflix functionality.