Posts by Dave 126 10672 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010
What if your 'real work' is inspecting bridge structures against last known survey results? Are you seriously suggesting someone pushes a multi-monitored desktop around in a wheelbarrow?
Or are you suggesting that the people who stop our infrastructure from falling down aren't doing 'real work'?
Whether you like it not, software for professionals is developed for ARM tablets and rolled out into industry. It might not be your industry, but that doesn't mean it isn't 'real work'.
>Panasonic FZ1000
I wasn't aware of that one, and just read up on it.
Not to be confused with FZ-45 and their ilk, the FZ1000 is Panny's answer to the Sony RX10. Think of them both as being the long zoom versions of their respective LX-100 (again, a leap beyond the LX-3, 5 and 7) and RX-100 cameras.
When the RX10 was released, it was in a category of its own. One big tech site journo proclaimed it to be an 'Everything Camera', and his go-to tool when he didn't know what he would be shooting.
>Now if you think I'm going to even attempt to take half decent pictures of a Female Grizzly and her Cubs (in Yellostone) with an iPhone 6+ camera, you are more than welsome to try.
The discussion is about tech blogging, and a photographer is unlikely to meet anything at a tech conference as dangerous as an enraged grizzly bear.... not now that Steve Balmer has retired, that is. New gadgets don't bite!
The right tool for the right job... too many of the trendy, shiny tech sites take photographs with too shallow a depth of field, so half the gadget in question is out of focus. They are evidently using premium-compact, mirrorless or full-blown DSLRs, but they seem fixated on presentation and not illustration.
Hmmm, you might get some interesting bear shots if you hung an iPhone from a tree, covered it in dog food, and then got an app to fire its camera when its gyros detect an ursine mauling... of course you'd need the photos to be sent off-phone in real time, but it seems doable!
>As long as you can manage with 1 (one) USB port and no hardwired Ethernet.
For the scenario in this article - mobile blogging- those aren't big problems. The Surface Pro 3 does have a microSD card slot, but it appears designed to be left in, as swapping it in and out to transfer photos is a bit fiddly. Still, if you do a lot of photoblogging, an Eye-Fi card might work for you (seek out the experiences of existing users first,to see if the reality matches the promise). If you use a USB cable to connect a camera already, it can live with all the camera accessories - cleaning cloths, lens caps, spare cards etc.
However, the Surface Pro is just a laptop, so has plenty of competition if its removable keyboard doesn't bring you any great benefits.
A discreet nVidia card is a bit overkill for blogging photos! Heck, even for basic 3D CAD the Intel graphics solutions are fast enough these days, certainly faster than the nVidia card in my ageing but still adequate laptop.
You can buy a sub 1Kg x86 laptop with tablet level (8 hours ish) battery life... but you'll be charged lots of money for it!
From another vendor, you can buy a ruggedised mobile workstation with enough grunt to perform geophysical simulations.... but again, it won't be cheap.
There is the Eye-Fi SD card with WiFi:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/04/review_eyefi_mobi_pro_wireless_memory_card/?page=2
People know their own workflows, and choose their kit accordingly. Obviously we seek out reviews before making an investment, and we seek out the experiences of existing users on forums too.
If the situation that prompted this article was "I want something as light as a tablet but with a proper OS file manager and a keyboard!" then it would seem that Apple has heard you and produced the new Macbook. And all they want in return is loads of money!
No downvotes from me, but it your post does ask us to define terms - what s a laptop, what is a tablet?
The variables - external ports, OS, keyboard, CPU architecture - have been lumped together through historical accidents. There is no inherent reason why an ARM device couldn't be given more ports and a OS that is happy to do work. There just isn't much of a reason to do so, though.
The people who want to write and deal with photos on an SD card already have an x86 laptop, so it means that there is little incentive for software devs to make ARM tablets do the same.
The Surface Pro 3 is an interesting device. However, when travelling one still has to pack its keyboard, so there is no weight/bulk saving there. I've looked at CAD forums to see how the Surface Pro behaves as a Solidworks machine... "not too badly but bring your proper mouse" was the view!
Paranormal activity....
A friend had a misbehaving PC, and I tried al the usual things but the symptoms persisted. I then changed the HDD, memory, CPU... no dice. Eventually I swapped the PSU and the motherboard over... still, the same odd behaviour. By this point I think the only original component left was the case.
I'd read the book of Tinker Tailer before seeing the recent film version. The film has some merits, but I couldn't work out who it was for... there was too much plot squeezed into too short a running time. People who didn't already know the story told me they found the plot of the film confusing. For people who had read the book or watched the Alex Guinness version, the film had a couple of changes that were confusing. The production design and acting were very good though.
All of that holds for a recent Le Carre adaptation, starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, A Most Wanted Man. The plot, motives and twists seemed clearer in the book. Perhaps 'mini-series' are a more natural format for Le Carre.
Le Carre's book A Most Delicate Truth is ripe for an adaptation, an angry portrayal of Blair-era worldwide private security contractors milking politicians. The market for mercenaries is a big business these days ( http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/the-market-for-mercenaries/6368296 )
At the insistence of my housemate, I once read a thriller by a Spooks writer. It was no John le Carre. A bit that was annoying was the hero was given a two-part GPS co-ordinate, 54321, 12345 or whatever on a scrap of paper that takes him to an office block. The narrator then tells us that because he is a spy, he has a special GPS receiver that can give him altitude information, so he know which floor his target is on. WTF? He didn't have a Z-axis co-ordinate to work with!
Rubbish In, Rubbish Out. There is a reason I've watched the Wire, and Alec Guinness in Tinker Tailor, but not Spooks.
Absolutely a small market - that is why they currently pay a lot of money to anyone catering to them, and why Apple haven't bothered selling 'artist's tablets' to them. It is a smaller subset of the small market that kept Apple alive during the '90s.
Adobe are actively working in this area, though, promoting a stylus and ruler combination for vanilla iPads.
Still, SoC and screen prices fall year on year - even if digitiser tech doesn't - so it might get to the point where a digitiser becomes a good way of differentiating a product for not too much extra cost.
>That's a bit rich considering what OS (iOS) was running on what machines (iPads) in the recent grounding of lotsa aircraft.
Seriously? Logically: we know that it was either the OS or the app. Devices running the same OS but without the app did not exhibit this issue. Devices with the app did exhibit the issue. From this we conclude that it was probably the app that was responsible.
Jobs also once said that the next iPod will also make toast, when asked if it would play video. Jobs would say what he needed to say at the time. Don't think of it as any more than that.
A stylus on a phone is unnecessary for phone and text functions. Tablets and phablets - which people often use with two hands - change things. Apparently the Galaxy Note stylus is good for entering mathematical notation. Cintiq and Modbook make big digitiser tablets for artists. The decline in tablet sales suggests the low hanging fruit of the mass market has already been plucked.
A lot of time will have been spent by Apple, and by Microsoft and others, filming and analysing focus groups using prototype devices in different ways. The potential returns are too high to be amateurish and and unscientific about it.
Practical, commercial nuclear fusion power is 50 years and always will be.
This will be the year of the Linux desktop.
The paperless office is nearly here.
It's 2015 and where's my hoverboard, Mattel? At least Nike are promising Marty McFly's Hyperdunk trainers with Power Laces before the year's end.
The Hobbit movies I didn't enjoy. I got the impression that everybody involved in making them was bored of doing so. A shame, but LOTR was so well done, especially in making the landscapes so central.
Cloverfield I enjoyed. I'd held off watching it for some time due to some prejudice on my part, but its found-footage conceit was well executed and it zips along at a good pace. I hadn't watched a found-footage film since Man Bites Dog, so maybe it was that I wasn't bored of the style.
>our fundamentally broken electoral system,
The purpose of the system is not to arrive at the best solutions, or even to choose the right decision makers. The purpose of the system is to be considered a bit unfair by everybody equally, on the reasonable grounds that grumbling is preferable to civil war, gulags, cultural revolutions and the like.
In this respect, it is fairly successful. Other countries have PR or AV or other versions of democracy... but are any of them utopias? Nah, they might be better on some respect or other for some people, but none are many miles ahead of us.
There is plenty of room for improvement, but don't think that bringing in a new voting system is any form of panacea.
>What in buggery do we do with a country that naturally produces Daily Mail readers? Nuke it from orbit?
Well, if you are going to take that option, then you have nothing to lose by trying some slightly less drastic ideas first. Um.... widespread dispersion of LSD and MDMA? If this experiemht fails, then drop the bomb and sterilise the Petri dish.
But serioulsy, compare the attitude of the Red Tops in the 1980s to today.... they no longer pick on homosexuals, trade unionists, commies, blacks or whoever in the way they did then. Its true that anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise - in pubs, just as it is mirrored in the papers - but that appears linked to people not feeling well off.
Basically, if people feel happy and hopeful they are nicer to each other. If people feel naffed off and oppressed, they want someone to blame.
Self driving cars would be a threat to auto manufacturers because not as many cars would be built- after a car has dropped you off, it would then go pick somebody else up. More people would travel in one car, because lift-sharing would be easier - unless of course you pay extra to avoid the fellow plebs. Fewer cars would be damaged in accidents. Cars would require less maintenance because they would have fewer cold starts, their engines would spend longer at their optimum rpm, and traffic control systems would eliminate start-stopping at traffic lights.
I'm an Android user, as I said. However, experience has taught me that the users of a platform are the best critics of it.
I don't use a Windows phone, but the little of it I've seen I've liked. I don't know how I'd find if I used it or longer.
I have iOS-using friends who have 'jailbreaked' their devices because they havewanted more than the stock UI/OS offered.
I've never had enough incentive to 'root' my Android phone.
>How galling it must be to be an Android ODM and cram in interesting new features
Interesting, yes. Useful? Not always.
- Waterproofing (Samsung, Sony). Useful
-Stylus input (Samsung Note). Useful
- Eyeball Tracking (Samsung). Interesting. Potentially useful accessibility applications for users with impaired motor function.
-Heart Rate Sensor (Samsung Galaxy). Umm...
The trouble for the Android OEMs is that if they do introduce an interesting new feature and it becomes popular with consumers, there is little to stop other Android OEMs from doing exactly the same. Product differentiation is short lived. Example: Samsung first making 'phablet' phones. Everyone else soon does the same.
> Stone Age UI
"The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones"
UI schmueye... I'm an Android user, but even though a Lollipop update has been waiting for me to install it for a few weeks, I haven't yet bothered - the current KitKat UI is just fine so I'll let good people on the internet test the update for me first. "If it ain't broke..."
OSX hasn't drastically changed for an even longer period of time.... and given the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Windows 8's UI changes (I'm still on 7), Apple must feel a little vindicated.
I'll leave it to iOS users here to comment on whether iOS has any major annoyances that need fixing.
>Can you actually buy any other laptop (with a £1000 start price) with just a VGA resolution webcam?
How many buyers of this Macbook don't already have an iPhone? If I had to guess, I'd hazard that most Macbook users will already own an iPhone and use its camera instead.
Anyway, who wants to see me in HD? I've only ever seen Tommy Cooper, Charlie Chaplin and Peter Cook in SD, yet their facial expressions came through.
Now, in an ideal world we world have the best and biggest of everything. Unfortunately, engineering is about priorities and compromises.
>It's an iPad with a keyboard. Credit where it's due: Apple know their market.
A good fraction of it, yes. "Yeah, it's like the iPad you're used to with its 8hr battery and high res screen, but it's got a keyboard" is a pretty clear and simple way to communicate this machine's strengths (and compromises) to potential buyers. Some of them might think to themselves: "Well, the only time I pick up my laptop instead of my iPad is when I want to type something, and this thing isn't much heavier, so.... hmmm maybe".
It is only for a good fraction of Apple's market though - they do still make Macbook Pros and Airs.
The use/charge patterns of tablets has provided data about the way *some* people will use this Macbook. If my phone is charging and I decide I want to use it, I unplug it, do what I want to do, and then plug it back in again. It is not expected that people will not often use this laptop whilst it is plugged in - indeed, with its battery life, it will be rare that they have to - so the clear benefits of the MagSafe connector would rarely come into play anyway
In the future, more people will use USB-C monitors and port extenders (remember, everyone is moving to this standard). Unlike power bricks, these live on the desk not on the floor, so a tugged cable won't drag the laptop off the desk.
Many people are used to phones and tablets that don't need ports.
[I have an Android phone with microSD and USB OTG - both of which I have only used once. If I got my arse in gear and finally sorted out my home storage system and network, I wouldn't even have plugged my phone into my laptop.]
It is intended to show intent, just as the original Air (no ethernet!!) and the Bondi Blue iMac (no floppy disk drive!!) were in their time - one got another USB socket for MK 2, the other became more sensible looking. In time, it will be given a faster CPU, and the rest of the world will have adopted USB C.
Just think of it as an iPad that is good for emails - for some people that is just fine. Others can buy a Macbook Pro, Alienware or whatever best fits their own personal needs.
"Anything invented before you were born is just the way of the world. Anything invented before you have reached the age of thirty is new and exciting, and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you are thirty is new-fangled rubbish and you should have nothing to with it. "
- Douglas Adams
Yep, the physical key can still be used as backup - just as with most cars.
Curious observation: US tech blogs often occasionally feature stories about high-end physical locks being defeated by Biro-lids or paper clips... or how the physical key can be recreated from a photograph of it.
No lock is perfect - I've seen combination locks on doors with what is widely knows as Shiny Button Syndrome, the buttons used to enter the code having become shiny through use. SBS makes it clear to an intruder that they only have to try 16 combinations instead of 1000 (given the code is four digits long)
>using remote locking systems in their cars - How many of the newer ones are garbage security?
The newer ones attempt to do more, and are poorly implemented. However, the Rolling Codes remote locking system has been near-standard in cars for over a decade.
> Surely the smartlock would require access by nfc token/phone or by a command prompt from a phone - requiring a command to be input by the screen?... so hands free is still not an option.
An NFC tag doesn't require the user to insert it into a lock, just have it in proximity - this is demonstrably an easier action to perform. Think of users with arthritis, for example.
Yeah, for *some* car owners. However, remote locking has been a near-standard feature on vehicles for over a decade, and so I stand by my statement that consumers are used to it, and appreciate its benefits.
A poor implementation doesn't discredit the concept, especially when there is a history of it being implemented successfully.
A key is fine if you have a free hand. Place yourself in the position of someone with hands full of shopping and a small child in tow....
A lot of people are used to using remote locking systems in their cars. The peace of mind that would come from locking your house door and knowing that the gas hobs are off and the iron is off is not to underestimated.
The concept is sound. The devil, as always, is in the details of the implementation.
>If only the hands free devices didn't have the same "look at me, I'm a dork" effect.
Well, there is this Sony device, the size of a USB dongle - it is a Bluetooth handset can be held to the ear like a small phone, or have a wired headset plugged into it:
http://www.sonymobile.com/gb/products/accessories/smart-bluetooth-handset-sbh52/
Exactly. Under this proposed system, the user is in possession of their digitised DNA data and can choose to send it on to any researcher *if* they wish.
People are right not to trust the NSA / insurance companies etc, and people who warn about the dangers and the slippery slopes are correct to do so. However, a lot of public good can come from sharing data. It is shame that people's data has been abused by governments and companies, since it makes people reluctant to contribute their data when it might be appropriate.
Having freedom over your data means the freedom to share it if you choose.
Apple's business model is charging money upfront for hardware, content and software. Whilst no organisation can be completely trusted, at least they have an incentive to not share their users' data. I also prefer the influence they attempt to exert on the US giovernment in this regard, compared to Google or Facebook's ad-based data-hoovering.
I'm sorry to hear of her accident too. I was going to write exactly what 1980s_coder did.
All we really know is that it is hard to guess the rate of technology. It might be the case, in a few years time, that this technology is improved in every way, and can be usefully deployed in in people who still have the use of one eye. It could be used to display a zoomed image, or an infra-red image, for example.
As prosthetics, glass eyes have been with us for centuries. A prosthetic eye would be the ideal housing for the auxillary parts of this system, namely the optics, IR transmitter and battery. Cosmetically, this would be better than any existing glass eye, because by necessity a system would have to be developed to keep it aligned with the user's other eye.
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