Posts by Dave 126
2725 posts • joined Wednesday 21st July 2010 13:57 GMT
Page:
Re: Lets see now.......
15. The method of claim 14, the method further comprising: wirelessly powering the flexible accessory device, wherein the host device provides the power.
There's not necessarily a battery in this.
Re: Vista memories...
Sideshow it was called. But people were soon to get always-connected big-screen smartphones that could do more than anything they might want a 2.5" screen on a laptop's lid to do.
I'm liking the 'SONY' concept that looks like an iRiver SPINN
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/ApplevSamsung-1533ExF.pdf
Mmm... iRiver... makers of the finest MP3 players before someone else greedily snaffled up all those Toshiba 1.8" HDDs.
Peers
Yeah, the idea of being tried before a 'jury of your peers'. If I am accused of stealing your TV, my peers are the men and women on the street- fellow citizens or subjects. I feel this to be fair enough, when my reputation and liberty is at stake.
Who is the peer of a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company? Not me.
Posted in Lenovo: 'Us, buy Nokia? Surely you jest'
Re: "can't really give a good reason why"
@AC 10:57
I can't find that option of which you speak in the settings menu. Telling it not to report location turns off the GPS. Can you give us a bit more of a clue, because evidently I'm a moron too.
Ta!
Enough already!
- Future solution:
All R&D houses must submit a weekly overview of their week's work in sealed hard-copy to a bonded warehouse. These sealed envelopes are only retrieved in case of patent / design copyright disputes. It would settle the 'we thought of it first' arguments, thou alas not the subjective aspects of 'your X looks too much like our Y' or the meaning of 'non-obvious'.
Its got to be cheaper than paying these lawyers.
Re: I am not, to say the least of it, any fan of Intel but the following statement............
@Arctic Fox
The sentence "Intel is not having a lot of luck in the smartphone sector with its Atom line" is based on the vendor's reception of Intel's offerings, rather than consumer's reception (which as you point out, is too early to call since the bloke on the street hasn't yet been able to buy an Intel handset).
Tom's HW reckon it will take a while - and a few generations of chips- for Intel to build up relationships with device manufacturers who are currently happy enough working with ARM.
Re: Browser+Java
My Wintel laptop isn't a toy, and now doesn't run Java.
(I just got so fed up with those f^&*ing Java update prompts every bloody week that i figured I would do without the ability to run some 1990s educational planetary orbit simulator or whatever. So far, so good)
Re: It runs PC apps?
@Tom 35
Depends on the digitiser.
Re: "...similar to Microsoft's Xbox Kinect games controller."
@FatsBrannigan
Point taken. Different means. Apple just seem to be using the proximity sensor for the Z axis... I'm surprised that they have limited it to that. In CAD, you usually 'sketch' the rough shape and then define relations (tangent to, perpendicular to, etc) before adding dimensions- with some UIs using an ersatz jog dial. It is is this 'jog dial' that the proximity sensor could take the place of.
But I remain curious as to the CAD applications of a hand-scale Kinnect-like system.
Re: Very limited use
It does look a bit limited, a fuller gesture system for common 2d > cad operations would be better, kinnect style, eg rotate, extrude, loft, sweep etc.
Re: "...similar to Microsoft's Xbox Kinect games controller."
There already is a Kinect for PCs, tweaked to operate over smaller distances than its games-console brother. I have already posted in a Reg Kinect thread that I would like to see this existing device used for 3D CAD input. I'm not saying that I'm a genius, but rather the opposite: This is an obvious application.
Oh, regarding the headline: Apple Patent != forthcoming product.
Re: Toys
Supplementary, like a Wintel netbook is (was).
Re: Evidence
Yet the F700 design features in one of Apple's slides...
I do appreciate that there has to be formal processes in courts, for good reasons, but heck. Still, seems a bloody stupid move on Samsung's part to annoy the judge.
Re: Impressive
I for one welcome our sleepy ermine-clad overlords!
But seriously, I'm all for democracy and all- but the downside of the House of Commons is that there is no motivation for them to think much beyond a 4 to 8 year electoral cycle. Many issues, especially those concerning infrastructure, take place over a much longer time period, ideally benefiting voters who are not yet born.
Re: OK...
(off topic, sorry)
Re New Builds, why the hell do they not have Cat5 cable, or at least conduits, between rooms? Would be so cheap and easy to do at the construction stage.
The idea is that you will by then have a better than 2Mb/s connection, by virtue of using the freed spectrum- though yes, it does suggest there could be an awkward transitional period.
>How about download caps? Will ISPs be forced to lift those to cover streaming?
Probably- Virgin Media already do. They have a list of upload and download caps for different times of day for their different tarifs, but it states these do not affect BBC iPlayer or Virgin's catch up service.
Re: IMAP?
Frank has posted advice/opinion and been voted down, but there is no explanation as to why. That's not very helpful.
Is the service not good? Is is not reliable? Is it not good value for money? Did it supplant what might have been a better service? What, FFS? Merely downvoting Frank has left me completely in the dark.
For those who haven't seen it yet...
BBC's Horizon special, with interviews of the humans involved, currently on iPlayer. Being Horizon, it features too much footage of the team members going about their day (surfing, driving through desert, etc) and not too much in the way of diagrams, illustrations or renderings.
If anyone else here has seen it - Why are the wheels on the Earthbound-clone so torn and mashed up? The camera keeps falling on them, but no explanation is offered... Is the damage purely down to the thing weighing more here than on its intended operational environment, or what?
I've never heard of this company before today... now I have (but have since forgotten,. between reading the article and writing an Alan Moore-related post above). It might be that they haven't yet got around to buying any computers and are just after the publicity.
Re: Errrrr....
I was under the impression that Alan Moore had passed up on any royalties for the film version of V for Vendetta. His three-volume book about the sexual fantasies of Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), Alice (out of Wonderland) and Wendy (who knew Peter Pan) was delayed in its UK publication because of issues surrounding the copyright of Peter Pan arising from association with a charity.
Fuzzy drunk.
Posted in Freeview EPG revamp set for September
Re: Good...
Re Sony UI...
If you watch, say, channel 57, and then re-enter the guide, you start back at the beginning- BBC1, 2 etc. Grr. Curiously the EPG rarely gives 'what's on next' for BBC 1,2,3 and 4, but does for every other channel.
I'm generally unimpressed by TV UIs, and am not surprised that Steve Jobs thought there was room for improvement. Any one who makes TV UIs usable does deserve to gain financially. However, i hope they don't try and wrap their solution up in so many patents that all the other manufacturers can't take the hint and sort their UIs out too.
Posted in Nintendo 3DS XL review
Re: @ LarsG
ByeLaw101
Use a PS3 Bluetooth controller- it will connect by Bluetooth or by USB OTG. I'm repeating the essence of my above post because native support of hardware controls only needs to be implemented in one piece of software, the emulator, for it to be usable with hundreds of games.
If this approach, or one better tuned for mobile devices, becomes more widely adopted remains to be seen, though.
Posted in Nintendo 3DS XL review
Re: RE: Smart phone gaming is making this design redundant..
@Stike Vomit
Agreed, many games are horrible without physical controls...
However, a Bluetooth (or USB OTG) joystick solution already exist... it is just that would need to be supported by more games natively (or just a small handful of 'killer apps' like GoldenEye, Tekken or WipEout). The buy-in cost is in the region of £25, if one already has a suitable Android phone. I don't see this as an insurmountable barrier... but rather one of the fuzzy hurdles that requires a 'critial mass' of software support. So, I wouldn't yet call 'bullshit' on the possibility of smartphone gaming supplanting dedicated pocket consoles...
Wacom...
If Samsung can dial up the resolution of the digitiser, it might end up competing with some of Wacom's pricey products.
Posted in Jackson’s Hobbit becomes a trilogy
Re: I wonder why...
Or Tom Bombadil... but maybe Jackson will work him in to this series of films.
I always loved Bad Taste, and was thrilled when I heard it was PJ who was to be directing LOTR. I think he did a very good job.
Re: This is going to get interesting soon...
Lets go with Selective Laser Sintering and get the end use parts directly, parts that can have 'property gradients' (example, a beam made to be stiffer at one end than the other) and can often be superior to parts made by other processes. I don't want to know how much these cost, though!
Hmm, lost wax... are there any 3D printers than can use wax in place of ABS?
Re: more to the point...
If he didn't get his hands on original plans, the part could have been reverse-engineered, either by a man with ruler and mouse (working for your choice of foreign powers or just for fun), optically (laser scanner or MS Kinnect), or by a touch-probe as made by Renishaws.
It does not appear to be the most complicated of parts, so I would image it is the former case.
Re: My tuppence...
>all manfacturers should put a micro USB and headphone socket at the bottom
Is a nice thought, but i can't see it happening- there is no motive for Apple, whose products are already supported, dock-wise.
The closest we can hope for is for Android manufacturers to knock their heads together, or maybe more support for 'USB Audio' - I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it is featured in Android Jelly Bean. Seems to require an external DAC though.
(A silly situation I encountered the other day was a Sony stereo system with an integrated iPod dock on top, and no means of connecting a Sony audio player with a 3.5mm > phono 'Y' cable. Still, it worked well in the iPod-owing household in which it sat)
If you think that the article might bore you, don't read it. That is what the sub heading is for, to give you an idea of what the article is about.
On occasions when 8/10 articles might be about a specific product, some blog websites (such as Engadget) give you the option to read their site with all 'new Apple product' stories hidden.
And though I've never played with it, I believe there is something called RSS that allows to you only read the stories you are interested in. But don't quote me on this.
I hope the above helps you.
Re: Vote with your Pounds - Nonsense
Does anyone remember that eighties movie where someone tries to employ the guests of a mental institution to design advertisements for Sony?
- Found it! 'Crazy People' with Dudly Moore ( and 'Burke' out of 'Aliens' as a company toadie, again)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fIIqFpZdy0
Worth watching for the advertising slogans: "SONY: because Caucasians are just too damn tall" and "FRNXT GHRT SONY GURM"
D'oh! I almost wish I had waited before upgrading, now. Though I'm happy with my new Xperia P, I am a clumsy bugger and its aluminium body is quite slippery against the fingers (nothing that a silicone case won't fix though, when I can find one that fits). Also, I do often find it running low on battery... It seems that I might have been better served by this new Xperia Go model.
As the Xperia P is my first smartphone I am far from an expert on these things.
Re ICS, the general vibe on the internets is that Sony are generally good at releasing Android updates for their older phones, even if the 'when' can be a bit vague.
Re: The IOC can piss right off
>> They have absolutely NO right to ask anyone not to use it.
Surely they have the right to ask nicely? That is what they did.
A minor's Minor confusion
As a child I read the sleeve-notes to a Chuck Berry CD and was always confused by the reference to him being 'arrested for transporting a minor across State lines', imaging a Morris car. It was also within the same notes that I first heard of Mary Whitehouse- it appears she didn't want to play with his Ding-a-Ling.
Re: When is a copy not a copy?
Don't forget that the designer of the original Sony Playstation was proud to say it is a homage to the Apple Mac (which was designed for Apple by Frog Design). His thoughts were "What would a games console look like if it were designed for Apple?", and he deliberately and openly insisted on horizonatal lines in the case.
It seems strange that Sony started the 21st centuary on the back foot- they had many MP3 player concepts and UIs- not to mention myriad Walkmen models- long before the iPod. They made so many different walkmen models that to produce a pocket-sized electronic device that doesn't look like a prior Sony device seems almost impossible. Like the characters in South Park spending all episode saying "Simpson's done it"
Tearing down your competitors models is such common practice that companies will usually send each other examples of their latest production models (along with an invoice) as a matter of course.
Re: Dystopian
>"having a nice tech-reset where all the worlds knowledge is wiped and they have to reinvent most things by reverse engineering"
Precendents:
-Asimov's Foundation.
-Herbert's Dune (okay, not all knowledge wiped out, but Herbert saves himself having to get into thinking about Artificial Intelligence too much by having all AI wiped out by pogroms in his universe's history. A theme revisited in Ian M. Bank's The Alchemist.
-Plato's Atlantis... it seems that the 'wisdom of the ancients' is a theme that resonates with us.
-Probably many, many more that I don't know of or can't remember.
I haven't read any WH40K since about 1995, though it did capture my adolescent imagination, and seemed fairly rich... no doubt aided because it was issues of White Dwarf with its pages of art (both professional and fan-drawn) that I read, not the novels.
Iain M. Bank's The Culture is his idea of a humanist utopia, though he often features characters who can't be happy living in it- any conceivable utopia would have limits and not suit everyone.
Not so much the suicide bombers... they aren't the smartest, being manipulated by those who don't blow themselves up. If there were very smart, stable and motivated suicide bombers, they would be able to coordinate their actions and blow up a plane, rather than set fire to their shoes or pants- but such people prefer to pull the strings of others from a safe distance. It would take several individuals per plane, though- combining their fluids etc.
Re: Oi Gabe...
there have been a few systems that have tried to use optical>electrical systems to create a workable 'obstacle avoiding' (or better) system for blind people... the question is, how do you rely this information to their brain? Some sysetms have used sound, akin to a bat. Some have used actuators on a chair, to press into the user's back... I seem to recall that some have used the tongue- evidently some of the engineers responsible have at one time placed their tongue across the contacts of a PP9 (the oblong 9v battery you stick in smoke alarms)
Pierson's Puppeteers
there was a very good unabridged audio book of Ringworld... sadly they didn't keep the same voice actor for the sequels. I'm of the Iain M. Banks generations, though.
Re: In light of this...
In light of what, exactly?
""I don’t think tongue input is in our futures..." said Mr Newell.
I.e. his company tried it and decided it wasn't worthwhile. Seems a fairly sane process to me. Did you even read the article?
A small-screened, long battery phone with 3G to WiFi hotspot + 7" tablet would be a good combination for many people, and would work out around the same price as a 'mid range' 4" Android phone. Jackets, handbags, glove-boxes.
Especially considering the trend for people to have a second 'drunk' phone for those evenings (or afternoons!) where having £300-400 device in your pocket is just daft.
Side note:
Please Reg, can you do an article on phones for older people? Emphasis on ease of use rather than strange esoteric features... calls, maps, video chat with grand-children etc. Using a keyboard (virtual, swpey, or bluetooth physical)... I have a retired teacher in my local who is after such a thing, and he worries his fingers are too big.
Re: Mine is ok
Where do you find these fanboys? Do the plague your street corners like bored teenagers, or picket the gates of your workplace? And why do you enter into conversation when you do stumble across them?
Will a single core cut it though?
Depends on which emulators you want to use. Speccy, NES, GameBoy and C64 stand a good chance! XBOX 360 less so.
this and that, maturing Android
Like many here, I suspect the lull in sales is due to many iPhone users waiting for the iPhone5. Some may feel that Android is maturing, too.
I take no sides here - I've only recently got my first smartphone, ICS update promised next month- but I had noticed that far more music-creation applications are available for iDevices. Looking into this* it turns out that that iOS has minimal latency compared to current Android versions (reminiscent of how PowerPC macs were better suited to music creation than Pentium PCs were at the time), but that it is something Google says is fixed for Jelly Bean. Obviously most people won't be using their phone or pad for musical knob-twiddling, but it seems representative of the polishing Google are giving Jelly Bean.
*source was a digital audio creation news site, interviewing developers and asking when they might make stuff for Android... the other reason they gave (besides latency) was that android tablets came in too great a variety of hardware.
Re: "Innocent" Samsung
Anyone here remember Samsung ten years ago? They were around, but not making much of an impact. In fairness to them, they adopted (not 'invented') the glossy black 'piano' finish (looks like black plastic with a shellac varnish) around 2003, before it was it was so widely used by everyone else, including Apple in their iPhone and later Macbook bezels. Consistent Samsung haven't been, with some fugly and some good looking products along the way.
I'm not saying that Samsung did or didn't copy Apple in this particular case, just that Samsung have been using some industrial design elements for years, some of which have been adopted by Apple and many others- so share and share alike. IIRC it was around 2002 that they were placing advertisements for Seoul-based design jobs in the British design press (Design Week, Creative Review).
shiny object
The 'shiny object's Covet model with Corning glass makes sense for showing ideas to clients - many of them have a habit of poking the screen with their fingers when discussing an idea.
Well spotted... a dinosaur head in profile, wearing sunglasses. On the wall on the left of the first photo.
Posted in HTC disses Dr Dre by diluting Beats deal
On a similar note...
A quick Google search for "Samsung ICEpower" doesn't return any results from the last few years... Samsung had announced around 2008 with some fanfare their collaboration with Bang and Olufsen subsiduary ICEpower, to provide Class D amps for their phones. I'm not clear on what 'Beats technology" is; I suspect that there is no such thing.
I think ASUS have more recently released laptops with Bang and Olufsen printed on them- just as Apple used to with Harmon Kardon... it just seems the easiest way to communicate to consumers that 'our laptop sounds less tinny than your existing laptop', because it is hard to communicate that message with figures, as you would say CPU performance.
Personally, I tend to lose earphones, so don't pay silly money for them. The ones that came with my Sony phone are good enough.
Re: Not particularly jaw dropping
Yeah, I was getting fed up with a Upgrade Java prompt every two days...
So I uninstalled it.
I don't visit science education sites as much as I maybe should (gravity simulators, and similar applets), so don't really miss it.
The average user is right: "Why is the bloody computer pestering me to so stuff? That is its job FFS! What the ^& does this mean? I just want to write a letter like I did on every computer since 1989!"
I can't say that they are wrong.
What more do people want from a pocket device?
When mobile phones first became ubiquitous, the features were much the same between the cheap and cheerful and the fancy- the distinguishing factor was size... the 8210 was tiny compared to a 3210, the 6210 merely offered better ergonomics, a bigger phone book, compatibly with the cradle you already had in yourJaguar and the possibility of upgrading to Bluetooth with a new battery.
That a mobile device should be able to fetch you such info as train timetables and weather in a non-fiddly manner is a no brainer- such services already existed in a ring-up-a-person-and-ask-them way.
But... now what else could be wanted from a phone? I asked my mate why he stuck his Galaxy SII on eBay just to get a SIII and he wouldn't / couldn't tell me.
