Ahh....

Another battery technology story. All very good.

Wake me up when someone gets to consumerisation of one of these techs.

Suggestions

Callum Blue - He seems fairly versatile, can do the moody look that the Doctor needs sometimes, and can be hilarious (as proven by Dead Like Me).

Hugh Laurie. His House delivery after his epic comedy career showed his capabilities. He'd likely draw in more Americans as well.

Amanda Tapping would make an interesting female doctor.

This isn't just number manipulation...

This is like saying 'The Pirate Bay was blocked by Virgin so piracy is at an all time low'.

It's just plain bollocks!

Facebook?

So what is the betting that they 'forget' to put an option to not have it post your purchases onto your Facebook profile, or put the option at the very bottom of the page under one of those little arrows that opens up more of a paragraph - the place where nobody scrolls or looks to, and then makes sure that the page on phones looks like it's complete so that you don't need to scroll down to find the options that might protect your privacy...

Well...

...at least this might get rid of the creepy Google staff that have been hanging around Currys PCWorlds of late.

I wandered in to buy a Lenovo laptop (yeh, I was in a desperate rush to have it ready so I had to go to one of THOSE shops) and was immediately set upon by this smug, creepy guy (in a blue t-shirt, which confused me) appearing out of nowhere and invading my personal space whilst twattering on 'so you're going to use Google Docs on there, right?'. 'Your company would benefit from hangouts', and really getting in my face.

I was two seconds away from just chucking the box on the floor and walking out when the sales rep suddenly realised how p*ssed off I was and told the guy to go to the other half of the store. F*cking wanker.

Anonymous...

...would, despite the opinions of some people, probably be the ones to appeal to here. They have a history of semi-ethical-driven behaviour. It'd be an applaudable act if they tracked these scum down and made their names and addresses known to the public and legal authorities, along with pictures of them, if possible, and their social networking addresses....

Hmm?

Not really much of a post, this one. It doesn't really say much more than 'I don't like wearing irritating stuff'.

Personally, I agree, but then I don't think Glass is intended to be worn around all day. It would seem pretty daft for that to be the idea behind it.

As someone else noted, I'd imagine that it's real use would be in situations. Medical personnel needing scans, pictures (which could be advanced to A&E ahead of them) or access to assistance on-the-spot whilst keeping hands free. Of course, this only works if it is capable of bringing up suitable amounts of information on the display without obscuring your view.

I agree I couldn't envision putting on anything like this all day. In the same way I don't hold up my Lumia 920 all day and walk around with Nokia City Lens on. I don't need it.

However, I'm a weirdo, I never feel a need to jump and pull out my phone the moment a text message or email arrives, and I don't always feel I HAVE to answer a ringing phone. The amount of friends and acquaintances over the years who've looked at me in absolute horror because I saw a message arrive and didn't respond to it, or didn't answer the phone because I was in the middle of a conversation, is pretty high. Imagine this thing being on all day and the expectation to leap to action every time someone sent you a message... It'd drive me nuts.

Anyway, I digress...the one question I have is - other than making me into a jump-to-it slave-boy, what is this thing actually for?

Timing...

IF they have certain insider knowledge, and IF Microsoft are considering presenting the next XBox come E3, then Sony would be smart to present the PS4 now, if it's ready.

Since the PS3 came out quite a bit after the XBox 360 came out, everyone would expect the same thing to happen, ie that Microsoft present the XBox then there's a waiting period for the PS....so a lot of people who don't want to wait/can't wait will go pick up an XBox since it's available, and by the time the PS has come out the XBox will have dropped in price.

It'd be a good timing move by Sony. I just know I won't be interested until they a) stop using proprietary Sony everything, and b) make it a networked media center. The same way that I'll be in two very distinct minds about the XBox if it doesn't improve it's array of media codecs and capabilities. If they stick with apps like XBox Music on Windows 8 - they can screw themselves. It's horrible.

That, and the entire gaming side needs to be beyond awesome. I'd like a modular box, allowing me to upgrade to better hardware as time goes on, like a PC - but with only approved parts that are guaranteed to work.

Loaded story...

Although there's news in it this time, I still think this is likely to be the special Friday Favourite - the story written to make sure there's a slew of rabid fanbois, haters, likers and appeasers spouting out on the forums.

It's an unusual one, but Linux failing will usually do it, along with any story containing Apple suing, Microsoft succeeding or failing, Google being evil, or the US and the UK having a disagreement over language.

Birds...

Have a watch of some of the documentaries about birds in Africa. There's a species that flies around in groups of millions wiping out entire crops and slaughtering anything in their path, and they don't migrate regularly, but only move to where the food is.

Sod cats, horrible little self-adoring, vicious little allergen spreaders. Birds are the real threat.

Not a great time for consoles anyway...

At the moment we're all in that post-Christmas depression where spending is down and games aren't really coming out.

Having said that, since the Wii U came out I don't think I've actually really seen one in the flesh, so to speak. I've had absolutely no interest in some small-screen controller thing, and I'm not even sure if that's the console or if that's an addon to the console...

....so the very fact that I don't have a clue is telling, to me, that it really hasn't made any impact. I've historically always made a point of keeping up to date and I keep an eye out daily for the PS and XBox updates and info, but Wii-U? Meh...

But could someone actually tell me, is this small-screen like a PSP or is it just a controller, or what? I suppose I could look it up, but it's more effort than whining about it in a negative way on a comments page.

Who gives a donkeys...

.....just admit it! Go on, ADMIT IT! You'd work for FREE just to work in a place called 'Cyber Command'.

I know all you commentards all felt that little knot twist in your gut when you read it.

Isn't the second largest party called....

....those who do the same, think the same, act the same as all the others, but since they're all good chaps they've let the other group have a swing of the bat for a few years...have to maintain the illusion, don' t y'know.

Well..

'Corporate giants and accountancy firms hold too much sway over UK's tax law, according to the chairwoman of an influential parliamentary panel.'.

'Well, durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..........', said a significant segment of the educated population, notably among them The Register's commentards...

Failure Standards

Why, oh why, have people STILL not just written in standards of failure into contracts? Is it illegal, or something?

You outsource a task, project or task at a price for a product and/or service. So why can't people just write into contracts the terms by which people have failed to deliver?

Rather than wasting your time and money, money and time, pissing about trying to catch out your contractor on one of the many social networks (and remember there are some favoured social networks in other countries that we barely touch or hear about here) why not just pay for a job and not pay for a failed job?

I just had an epiphany...

I just realised....all this time people had called me a skeptic, a naysayer, or just a negative-nancy about things like logging in using a Twitter or Facebook account - or effectively using any sort of system or product that wants you to log in or connect with an account from another place....

......it turns out that what to me was a blindingly obvious 'duh!' in that the only reason I could see for them to want me to sign in with a social network login was so they could access all of my data and post their own little threads and invites on my profile, and to my friends - is actually a newsworthy story. I genuinely thought everyone else assumed this was what it was for. It's like the Google toolbar, watching and sending off everything you do to Google's own little collected-data pond.

Wow, maybe people are dumber than I thought.

Two stages...

My first thought was 'hah! that'd be funny'.

Then I realised....if you tax data collection - particularly the way data collection is currently done these days - then you legitimise it. You are effectively saying 'yes, it's perfectly OK to shit on people and use any sort of scummy trick and tactic to eke out their personal info, as long as you leave the brown-bag on my desk and leave without a word'.

One of these days...

Microsoft, like so many US companies, will learn that the whole release-it-later-everywhere-not-the-US approach just means less sales. People don't like to feel that they're buying what everyone else had (or at least what all their foreign friends have been blogging, chatting, txting, tweeting and talking about) months ago. We'll go off and buy an alternative make, if we bother at all.

It's the biggest mistake the TV/Movie industries made as well. Release things later and people will download it...then it'll be much harder to sell it to them when you eventually come around to giving a damn as to whether the product reaches them or not.

Excellent Piece

I have to say that out of all the opinion pieces I've ever read on The Register, this has to be the most clear, concise, well argued and downright spot-on.

Personally, I don't think Windows 8 will bomb - it's actually surprisingly good to use once you've gotten used to it - the same thing happened with all of the other Windows versions. After all, the changes to the Control Panel that came along with Vista->7 were really f-ing annoying. I STILL REALLY *HATE* that it keeps reverting back to Category View...

Windows RT will collapse into the realms of nothingness, but the opinions around the City (London) are steadily drifting away from Apple, as it's lost it's lustre, and people are now starting to ask about new laptops and PCs, and I've told them all to hold on until the new array of proper WIndows 8 tablet/laptops come out. I have a Lenovo Yoga 13 (core i7 - I was shocked!) and it's a wonderful device to use and to carry around. Granted, I removed the build of Windows that came with it and installed Enterprise instead, for various technical reasons, but just generally it's been a delight to use - not the least of which is because I can work on it from home, using Mouse Without Borders, and DirectAccess, then take it into work and carry on after plugging in my monitor, mouse and keyboard - since I like a big desktop setup.

I also love watching TV series and movies on the train to and from London every day - makes the time rocket by. Lots of envious glances, but really I'm just happy to see my carefully ripped and lossless VOBs (all neatly named by TheRenamer) playing perfectly smoothly.

Then in work, the Yoga turns into my Management Console for the network, where System Center is keeping track of everything for me.

Anyway, sorry, I digress - and I started to sound like an MS shill - which I'm truly not - I'm just extremely pleased with the device I bought (and all the work I put into getting a really good network put together within a two month timeframe from planning to production), and it was well worth putting the extra money into the Yoga 13 rather than just falling into the Apple ecosystem when I have just so much Windows software...and Apple's software would've been a nightmare to integrate into my network needs. (Android would have been as much of a pain as well).

It even plays MWO pretty well, as well as GW2 and a good few others...

p.s. I must emphasise that I actually think that Android and Apple devices have their place as well, but as the Head of IT for a global organisation, I've been truly impressed with how MS have managed to put together all of their server suites and get them interoperating properly with each other (thank you, Powershell). This is the one area where MS still wins - their servers are just so damn good, and rather than needing a few days to figure out or find the specialist knowledge on how to get something working, there's tons of assistance from across the web, from resellers, service providers, and even an IT temp you can hire for a week, just to suck out his brain, muwahahah. I built in three weeks what would've taken me months on any other platform, and I didn't need to pay any reseller/IT service company to do it.

And Azure is surprisingly cheap, I used their calculator for server provisioning and it came up at under half the price I was going to get charged by other resellers or providers of hosting services. Crikey - I'm sounding like a real fanboi - I apologise, I'm just riding high at the moment from being flush with some very good successes in the last few weeks.

I am very tired today...

...so I'll admit that I'm feeling thick....but, I just don't understand the woohoo about this.

We've had real-time updating for ages, and live feeds....what am I missing here?

Wish I'd got more sleep last night...

Another option?

Couldn't they just come up with another option, instead of a stinking, brown liquid that makes me turn blotchy, rash-covered and praying to the porcelain god?

Yeh, I'm allergic to the vile stuff. I wish people'd stop trying to make my workplace reek of it. If you want a 'good morning' smell, make it bacon...

Goes both ways...

I don't see a problem with the requirement to fix the pricing for the length of the contract - that IS, after all, why you're buying said contract, because of the price for the device and service.

However, the relative remaining cost of the device should be payable on the exit of the consumer from the contract - unless the device is returned fully boxed and ready for refurbishment and resell.

What they really need is a depreciation clause on the front page of the contract (in big writing) that states how much of the device is paid off each month, thus allowing the signer the option of paying off the rest of the device cost.

It wasn't such a wondrous year...

There were only a few awesome releases last year, and there were a couple of steady disappointments, like Mass Effect 3 and Assassin's Creed 3's endings.

What really didn't help sales of games was that people knew they could spend money buying the game new, and STILL not get the DLC included without spending £70+ Thus, it became more cost effective to wait until the game price had dropped down, since it was going to cost you another £10-£20 or more to get the rest of the game, just so you could feel like you'd actually completed everything.

2012 was the year MMOs became just that bit too boring to play any more. Single player games became more repetitive, the RTS genre heard about the upcoming C&C game....and promptly cried out in terror once they heard it's becoming free-to-play.

But above all, 2012 was the turn-around year where years of lies and over-exaggeration finally sank into the consumer mindset - and we all became suspicious and wary of games thanks to historically awful releases like C&C4 and the lies of Peter Molyneux. Thus we bought less, because we started wising up and checking a lot of reviews before buying...and then not buying blindly.

Yay!

At least there's a certain level of sense in the decision. I was actually worried that the government would start placing opt-out-by-effort internet laws into place...and once that was done it would've opened the legal door to free-reign controls over who-what-where-when-why-and-how.

I pay for internet access, not for internet blocking.

Ahahah...

'in spite of currency headwinds and hard up UK consumers'....

....or perhaps their steady failure has been down to excessive overpricing, non-stop and impossible to opt-out-of spamming, constant expectation-creation and then letting people down, shoddy after-sales service and mistakes in deliveries.

Hmm....

I'm assuming that this article is referring to the Windows ReTarded version of Surface...

....in which case it can shove off. I'll save an extra few hundred and get me a decent core-i7 with proper Windows on it. None of that locked-in shite.

This article...

A brief rundown of this article produces this image....

HERE'S AN ANDROID DEVICE!

HERE'S ANOTHER ANDROID DEVICE!!

oh, here's the iphone, yeh...

andheresthewindowsphone8OSwithbriefmentionofacoupleofdevicesletsgetthisoverwith

HERE'S AN ANDROID DEVICE!!!

From the title I thought this article was about good Christmas pressie devices, not about OS battles. Bad article.

CONSPIRACY!!!

Is that actually a leaf.....or is it the EYE OF A GRAY ALIEN!?!?!!!!

Is THAT why they're building that spaceship in Cupertino!?!!

Experiment

I reckon this was more an experiment in testing not only what could be done, but what could be gotten away with as regards to online news services.

Much of the team involved are likely heading to put their experiences and skills, the sort that can only be earned through experience, back into the other online services the Murdochs run.