* Posts by jamesrhamilton

23 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2010

Samsung chucks 'free' Galaxy S III at dragon sketcher

jamesrhamilton

Small people?

Some large people work for organisations, too.

Bonkers MacBook Air shipment route revealed

jamesrhamilton
Go

Yep

Mine basically followed that route via Korea, Kazakhstan and then Germany.

Huawei to gift underground coverage to London

jamesrhamilton
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I truly don't believe...

... the Chinese govt have anything to do with Huawei. The Chinese have found their way - communism with capitalism that profits from other states. It's genius, and they know that this is only about profit.

Anyway, is the plan for this still to be a 'roaming' network? Or will I still be on my actual carrier when I'm down in the choob?

T-Mobile touts US teen tracker

jamesrhamilton
WTF?

Hmm

I hope Europe would block anything like this, noting that even teenagers have the right to privacy. (It's probably also a good parenting idea to give them some, and it's the silliest parents who'll never realise that.)

Yours,

Bitter Former Teenager

IPTV UK: failure to launch?

jamesrhamilton

Hmm

"The BBC Trust, the Corporation's governing body, recently said it believes syndicated BBC material should go solely through iPlayer, which appears to mean the web, YouView and nothing else."

That's clearly not quite true - it's goes via Virgin Media's VoD service, which was, when I had it, not branded as having iPlayer content... it's just BBC content.

BBC iPlayer in 'hugely popular at Xmas' shock

jamesrhamilton
Stop

The internet? For radio?

.. here's why it's not such a good idea: http://james.cridland.net/blog/what-a-500mb-fair-use-policy-means-for-radio/

To reiterate, it's not a good platform for radio.

Who are the biggest electric car liars - the BBC, or Tesla Motors?

jamesrhamilton
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Hmm

Disruptive technology? Battery technology is anything but disruptive, unless you're the user.

Three cops spanking in mobile user ranking

jamesrhamilton
Boffin

Hmm

O2's network is pants, customer service is ok. Three's network is good, customer service is offshore. Need I say more?

First tube station to get Wi-Fi next week

jamesrhamilton
FAIL

Free wi-fi at airports and metros

The great thing, as someone noted, about free wi-fi at foreign airports is that I get an instantly nice impression of a country when they don't rip me off to start with.

The thing about free wi-fi on buses in Madrid is that I can get my e-mail for free - the locals won't really care as they have a data allowance, but for tourists...

And what do we do for tourists in our city? Hmmmmmmmmm.

Three is voted the best UK network

jamesrhamilton
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The best for 3G in London

I got my iPhone 3G with O2 when they were the only game in town for the iPhone. They got progressively worse as their traffic increased without the matched increase in capacity.

I've now got an iPhone 4 on Three and it's been a massive change. When you get a 3G signal, you actually get some backhaul bandwidth - instead of the complete lack of throughput so often experienced with Three.

Sure, Three's customer service is a bunch of people who frankly aren't worth the breath you'd take in talking to them, but who needs to when the network just works?

Yahoo! hit! by! hour-long! downtime! blues!

jamesrhamilton
Alert

Hmm

But when was the last time anyone actually went into Yahoo?

3 bigs self up as biggest 3G network

jamesrhamilton
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Pretty good

I can't really say anything bad about Three's network. O2's is awful and I've heard some bad tails about Orange, but the key with Three is that when you have good 3G you get decent throughput.

Compared to O2 on even the best day, Three is superfast!

No takers on digital Olympic radio station

jamesrhamilton
FAIL

Erm

OK - DAB is frequency modulated. It's just bits that are frequency modulated.

Secondly, the article makes reference to a "station" when what was advertised was the opportunity to run a multiplex.

Clearly, the author doesn't understand it along with the applicants.

Vodafone announces 4G roll-out for Germany

jamesrhamilton

Band?

Anyone know what frequency range they're using for it in Germany? I assume we'll have it in the 900MHz space when O2 and Vodafone move out of the way?

Fennec squeezes into Android users' pockets

jamesrhamilton
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Fair play

It's a fair old idea. I'd use Opera Mini on my iPhone all the time if it'd sync in real time to my netbook browser.

London Tube app adds Augmented Reality

jamesrhamilton
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Bikes n stuff

I've got a key for the Boris bikes - £45 for a year's access with 30 mins free on each journey. I've never gone over 25 mins.

They are undergeared, but they're not THAT heavy and they're good enough for getting around London. They're very well built - sturdy would be the word.

This Layar thing is useful - the layar for it even tells you how many dock spaces/bikes each station has.

3D films fall flat

jamesrhamilton
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I wouldn't have...

... seen Toy Story 3 in anything other than 3D. I thought it looked great as it was in native 3D.

It depends what your opinion is. And that's all it is. Whether or not enough people will have the same opinion as me as to make enough money for Hollywood, who knows.

Daily Mail promotes 'the new Betamax'

jamesrhamilton
Grenade

Self fulfilling...

When all the readers have their DAB radios and start complaining about all the ethnic stations (at least here in London where we have a few stations), the Mail can then start harping on about that...

iPhone customers lay into Apple after iOS 4.0.1 update fails to install

jamesrhamilton
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50% success

Fine updating my 3G to 4.0.1 on my Windows XP netbook. Updating my girlfriend's 3G on her Vista machine was a while different story - exactly the problem described, compounded by iTunes then losing the last good back-up and me almost getting my nuts torn off (metaphorically speaking).

Anyone had problems with this on a Mac or XP? Something tells me it's got something to do with Vista and Win 7...

Is that a Wi-Fi media server in your pocket?

jamesrhamilton
Alert

One of the MiFis...

... already has an SD card. Although I'm not sure if it's active...

Skype to start charging for iPhone VoIP

jamesrhamilton
FAIL

Bloody roaming

I can't see why Skype has any reason to be in the domestic market. Calls are now so cheap or virtually unlimited on many pay monthly packages, which all heavy talkers would use, that their whole USP is dead. Also, data on the move isn't exactly as reliable as native voice.

The only thing I've used VOIP for in years (apart from as my home phone service - Vonage) is getting folk to ring my Sipgate number which comes through to Fring over WiFi when I'm abroad.

Unfortunately, I think Skype over 3G is a bit of a non-starter until they at least start offering very cheap data overseas, and the mobile telcos have made it very clear that they will not back down on offering better roaming rates - even in the EU.

O2 gets legal on Ofcom

jamesrhamilton

Erm...

... the arguable reason why Orange, T-Mobile and Three aren't crap indoors is because they're using highers powers than Voda and O2 and more base stations. Other reasoning available on request.

The fact of the matter is that the EU has ruled in favour of the consumer in knowledge of the merits of good 3G coverage for both businesses and consumers alike.

The UK operators have to play ball with it. Anything else is bad for the consumer.

Three In-Car Wi-Fi

jamesrhamilton

Not mass-market

Not exactly a mass-market product in the way they're marketing it - most things that need to be connected to the internet already are via their data networks, although I can see why they've launched it now with the possibility of one person wanting to use their wi-fi only laptop (no dedicated data access) and someone else wanting to use their iPad (possibly wi-fi) only.