Posts by Dave 126

Re: Built in Obsolescence

>Gordon861

There is no motive for Apple to hobble the lifespan of the NAND to promote sales... the finite lifespan of the battery already does that.

Re: Not really comparable

>"When you desolder the chip that holds all the memory of the device from the board, there is a huge risk that you damage the chip beyond repair"

>>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... You're not much into electronics, are you... wait, don't bother answering that.

@DropBear The researcher himself acknowledges the risk of damaging the chip when desoldering it. He mentions this under 'Future Work' in his PDF. The magnitude of 'risk' is a function of the consequences, as well as probability.

Re: Not really comparable

He wasn't an amateur. However, his own PDF does note that removing the NAND still carries a risk of data loss (Presumably a risk that can be made smaller by practice and refinement of technique):

"It would be beneficial to develop a safer way of removing the NAND Flash chip from the main board, or a

way of reading out the NAND Flash contents without the need to physically remove it."

>The drift of the article seems to be that the cost of developing the attack, which evidently took Skorobogatov quite a few man hours of what seems to be highly skilled analysis and electronic technician work should be ignored

Nah, the gist of the article wasn't that the cost be ignored, but that it wasn't $1,000,000. Four months of part time work by the skilled technician would be in the tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands.

Re: So probably known to TLA's within a week of it's launch?

Eh? Wouldn't the possible bug in the wear levelling algorithm be a reliability issue, not a security issue?

I know that it isn't in the nature of conspiracy-minded folk to read the source material closely, but still...

Re: What the?

@muddysteve

You are quite right! There is indeed confusion, but it appears to be on the part of the game's developers:

-He is the shortest character in the game, despite Oddjob as he appeared in the original film being about average height. It seems likely that he was confused with the actually diminutive Nick Nack from The Man with the Golden Gun.

-Due to his short height, he cannot be hit by the normal auto-aim gunfire (which simply shoots above his -head). Instead the other player must stop moving to use the precise aim crosshairs to aim downward and deliberately at him. Because of this, Oddjob gives his user an unfair advantage and his use is often looked down upon.

- http://goldeneye.wikia.com/wiki/Oddjob

Re: What the?

Well, Odd Job was the toughest playable character in GoldenEye multiplayer on the N64 (because he presented a smaller target).

Peter Dinklage has done plenty of womanising and drinking in Game of Thrones.

Re: No.

>The only reason he would get the role would be as a token gesture... ...to put a tick in some "diversity" checklist.

There are other check boxes, 007 traits, that Elba has ticks in:

- Very attractive to women

- Physically imposing

- Has driven a Bentley very fast

- British

So whilst I'm not saying that tokenism is completely absent, to say that it is the only factor is going a bit far.

Supporting links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQl2Ii0H-I (Pacfic Rim- Elba's character dressing down a subordinate)

http://www.bentleymotors.com/en/world-of-bentley/our-story/news/2015/idris-elba-breaks-historic-flying-mile-speed-record-.html

http://www.heart.co.uk/photos/celebrity-photos/top-25-sexiest-men/idris-elba-covers-maxim-magazine/

Re: Hiddleston and Swift Break-Up

>For those wishing to know what's really going on with Taylor Swift's love life,

... websites more suitable than TheRegister exist. :)

Re: Submarine tracker

If your roboats are small and use passive sonar, the submarine captain may have trouble distinguishing from harmless flotsam. Also, the act of taking out a small vessel is likely to draw the very attention he wishes to avoid.

Re: Submarine tracker

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/12/us_military_drone_submarine_hunter/

DARPA have gone with one 140 ton boat, instead of a herd of smaller ones. I don't know enough to know why... maybe one big powerful sonar system is better than several smaller ones. Maybe it just has a greater range (drag is proportional to cross section, a square power, whereas fuel capacity is proportional to volume, a cube power). Maybe they thought they'd build and test one prototype before making a few more.

My assumption would be that a team of several sensor platforms would offer greater performance than the sum of its elements, since having distance between the sensors allows for triangulation of signals. But hey, I'm not a weapon designer, dolphin or acoustic engineer. :)

Re: "ASV is working steadily towards true artificial intelligence (AI) on its boats"

It could be a limited AI, which is not the same as Strong AI, General AI or Artificial Sentience or Consciousness.

Intelligence is generally described as the ability to perceive information, and retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviours within an environment or context. Whilst there are other definitions of intelligence, there is no problem in using 'AI' to describe some existing problem solving machines.

>Pattern recognition and pathfinding is not AI for fuck's sake.

Not individually, but how the boat reacts to these inputs (along with weather forecasts, goals, local sensors etc) could be. The article is a bit scant on details, but it seems ASV's work parallels that of autonomous cars, which are classed as AI.

Re: Rsync

I dunno, but before I implemented such a scheme I would weigh up the power consumption costs.

You do raise a good point though - many new PCs have oodles of unused storage, and many folk never fill it up even after years (though the emergence of SSDs has made people rethink stuff... "Instead of a slow 500GB HDD of which I use very little, maybe a fast 128GB SSD would suit me better, especially if I'm using network storage and/or archive media")

Re: Hey, we still innovate!

HP do innovate, but that doesn't seem to get them many column inches in the press. Take the HP Sprout (yes, that really is its name) for example - a desktop PC incorporating a projector and 3D scanning and hand tracking gear:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-mac-desktops/hp-sprout-review-1284768/review

I'm not saying its a perfect machine, but it seems a step in the right direction, a direction in which we can only advance if stuff like this gets more coverage.

In the laptop space, it is Lenovo that have produced some of the more usefully innovative kit in recent years.

Re: Drone drivers?

I always raced around Nascar Racing tracks the wrong way round with the indestructibility option set to ON. Meaning, my car was indestructible, the computer controlled cars were very susceptible to damage! Happy days.... a null modem cable, a 486 and the 386DX it replaced...

Re: Mansfield bars

>took off via a "ramp" and landed nose first in a field after going up to about 25m high - http://bgr.com/2016/05/08/tesla-model-s-accident/ - they all survived.

Do you have another link? The link you posted only says "the car flew 25 meters (82 feet) in the air, and rolled over at least once after crashing in a field at full speed." That's distance, not height. The photos show the car to be about 25M away from the road, on flat terrain, with no ramp or bank to be seen.

The article is also suspect because is first says the occupants escaped unharmed, then goes on to quote a copper who said they had 'serious but non life-threatening injuries'.

Your point remains though: The front of the car is totalled smashed (no big lump of engine, naturally), the cabin is intact - which is what you would want if you crashed.

Re: In the absence of a poll…

>Why do people keep banging on about Idris Elba? It's like you all think he's the only black, british actor out there.

Elba has come top in quite a few "World's Sexiest Men" polls by various magazines - and being irresistible to women is a core Bond characteristic. Of the two gentlemen you cite, Gyasi looks too good natured - though does wear a suit well - and the other looks too youthfully cheerful.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is more eligible, though he himself has suggested an American of Mexican descent, Micheal Pena - though perhaps just to throw the journalist off the question (can't blame him). I'm not sure that a franchise character is Ejiofor's cup of tea, either.

There is an element of 007's character that suits his being non-white (or non-English): His feeling of never quite being a part of the establishment he serves.

Re: I don't get it...

>Do Apple believe that a phone is the only thing that people plug a pair of headphones into?

I use headphones at home with PC/tablet, and earbuds when out and about. Generally, the earbuds are dedicated to my Android phone.

The only forcing going on is that people won't be able to use the supplied Apple Lightning earbuds with other kit... no great loss because they are leaky and don't fit everybody well. (As opposed to the Apple In Ear Monitors, sold separately, which are actually considered good value for money for Balanced Armature-based earphones. )

High end 3rd party headphones already come with several cables - one Stereo Only, the other with Mic for iOS devices, another for Android devices if you are lucky. Good headphones in future will have a cable for Lightning, a cable for USB C (again, digital audio stream), and a cable for analogue audio pass-through. Or maybe that new Qualcomm chip for lossless audio over Bluetooth.

Re: Is that all?

>I've never heard of anyone actually buying the current Mac Pro at all,

I have, some professional video editors/compositors, but it was always a nice device. It's strengths aren't in particularly in raw CPU/GPU power, but in shunting data on and off the machine very quickly ( because the video data you care about is going to be redundantly stored off the machine anyhows). I suggest the people you know who are using Hackintoshes might not be focused on the tasks that the Mac Pro was designed for, at least not to the extent that they save money by doing those tasks quicker.

I agree though - the Mac and Macbook range really could do with a refresh.

As for earbuds - I lose thing and I break things. I usually break earbuds by catching the cable on something. I have no doubt that I would lose wireless earbuds, too. However, I am sure that a 3rd party will release a lanyard for them, much as people sell cords for spectacles. Or you could make your own from a piece of cord and a couple of those little tiny elastic bands that are sold to teenage girls for 'weaving' bracelets from. Total cost of solution less than £0.1

Re: So- nothing compelling........

>On a serious note, do they do FLAC or some equivalent lossless codec yet?

Yes, they have done for years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

FLAC support is available on iOS through 3rd party Apps.

Apple Lossless is as the name suggests. It supports sample rates of up to 384kHz and a sample depth of 32bit. (384 kHz is so much higher than the sample of rate of CD audio that it can, like the even higher max sample rate of FLAC, be thought as far more than good enough).

What iOS devices don't do is output analogue audio from a 24bit >192kHz DAC - though they have supported external DACs at higher sample depth/rate for years. A digital out connector (such as Lightning or, on Android, USB Audio) allows you to use an external DAC of your choice - either a discrete unit or integrated into your headphones or amplifier.

Apple Lossless has been reverse engineered, so there is no issue in converting to FLAC and vice versa (and if you want, back and forth with a loss in quality - they are both lossless!)

LG were the first to include a 24bit 192kHz DAC in their phones, the LG G2, and they contributed some code to the AOSP. LG's weird semi modular G5 phone has a B&0-branded DAC and amplifier module - though this module actually works with any Android device with USB C

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/lg-g5-h-fi-plus-module/

(The module is branded B&O, but inside are ES9028 SABRE Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) and SABRE 9602 Headphone Amplifier, both from ESS).

Quite a few external DAC / Amplifiers already exist for Lightning and USB C.

If you have high impedance headphones, then you'll find the amplifier in almost any phone, including an iPhone, unsuitable. Having an external powered amplifier - which might as well contain a DAC away from the electrical noise inside a phone anyway - fixes that. USB C or Lightning (or even USB 2.0 Audio or Apple Camera Connection Kit) allow this. It also allows headphone manufactures to adjust the digital signal to work better with the physical limitations of their drivers.... so let Sennheiser or whoever have full control of the audio pathway, rather than puick it up halfway through from Apple, Samsung, HP or whoever.

>I recently discovered the secret to Apple's minimalist designs.

No, no you haven't. There isn't space here to teach you enough about products design and CAD for you to realise how little you know.

Creating fancy 3D shapes in CAD is easy - but not very useful. It's akin to the horrors we saw when home users started using DTP software... fucking hideous clipart everywhere, and as many fonts as possible.

CAD is not about fancy shapes, it is about coordinating teams of engineers of various disciplines (mechanical, electronic, RF, manufacturing), creating designs, testing (both virtually and creating physical mockups), retaining the results of those tests (mechanical properties, manufacturing considerations such as mold flow, tolerances, yields) and much more. And for all that, Jony Ive is an old school product designer anyway, preferring to shape foam models by hand.

Re: It's a bloody single function legacy adapter.

>Maybe its a thing against Sony? (Honest question, easy on the downvotes)

No, Steve Jobs had a lot of respect for Sony, and vice versa, even though they have been rivals in AV editing software and hardware, portable music etc* (And now possibly mobile gaming with Nintendo's Mario coming to iOS - though no sign of an Apple reference physical controller. Not sure how much money Sony make from portable consoles like the Vita or PSP).

- Sony's design teams used Macs before OSX

- The original PlayStation was a homage to Esslinger's Mac design language. The PlayStation designer was a Mac fan, and later went on to push Sony to create the VAIO range. Esslinger had previouskly done work for Wega (before they were bought by Sony).

- Jobs would often pop into Sony Japan as a friend if their CEO. He suggested Sony put a GPS receiver in their compact cameras, and they did.

- Jobs wanted to make exception for Sony VAIOs when he announced the end of MacOS licensing.

- Intel OSX was always demonstrated internally on VAIO laptops.

It won't bother Sony.... shit, I've come across a Sony mini audio system at a friends that had an iPod dock on top, but no means of connecting an Aux cable (no 3.5mm or Phono).

*And now possibly mobile gaming with Nintendo's Mario coming to iOS - though no sign of an Apple reference physical controller. Not sure how much money Sony make from portable consoles like the Vita or PSP

Re: Stupid headphone adapter...

>Actually, active noise cancellation is built in to the new design, the wireless or powered connected earphones work together to counter environment nose.

Yep, it's like the Sony phones which have TRRRS ( Tip, 3 x Ring, Sleeve ) jacks - the extra Ring allows for *stereo* mic input at the same time as stereo output - this means that active noise cancellation can be done using the phone's existing DSP and battery. The upside is that the noise cancelling headphones don't their own battery or duplicate silicon, making them more convenient and cheaper.

Its also worth noting that whilst the common TRRS (2x Ring) adheres to a physical standard, there is no standard for the electrical implementations for the microphone and remote controls on headsets, even between different Android phones from the same vendor, let alone Apple kit. As a result, the myriad headsets 'designed for iPhone' from Sennheiser, Klipsh, B&W etc etc seldom work properly on Android kit. [ there is a useful Android app called Sound About that allows you to override overly fussy headset detection, and lets you use iPhone headsets without annoying warnings - though you still may not get full mic/remote functionality]

Generally, my headphones stay with my laptop, my earbuds stay with my phone. Earbuds get broken (always the cable) or lost, so I'm not 'invested' in the 3.5mm jack. If I were an iPhone user, the lack of a 3.5mm port really wouldn't put me off the new model. Heck, even on 3.5mm ports, I like to have a small Male > Female cable between the phone and earbuds, just to reduce the mechanical strain on the earbud cable. Ideally, I'd like a physical connector that can 'break away' - saving me money on damaged earbud cables and on damaged 3.5mm ports. (My Dell laptop has its 3.5mm port is damaged, meaning I'm using a USB speaker I had lying around).

> It will make no difference for most of your readers

Some past Apple decisions I have later seen in my kit from other brands:

No FDD

No optical drive

No removable battery

etc.

So their coverage on the Reg is a useful prompt for a discussion about which future paths would be good to avoid, and which are worth exploring.

Personally, if there was an audio connector that was physically robust enough to not damage the host device whilst supporting a thicker cable gland so that the cable lasts a decent time, I'd abandon 3.5mm in a shot - because it would save me money. I already get short 3.5mm M low profile 'L' > 3.5mm cables to protect my phones from overly large/awkward headphone jacks.

Non of my stuff lasts long enough for me to consider I have an 'investment'.

The iPhone 3.5mm TRRS is already not of a standard.

The Apple PlainTalk microphone jack used on some older Macintosh systems is designed to accept an extended 3.5 mm three-conductor phone connector; in this case, the tip carries power for a preamplifier inside the microphone. If a PlainTalk-compatible microphone is not available, the jack can accept a line-level sound input, though it cannot accept a standard microphone without a preamp.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)#Modern_connectors

Re: Water to 30 meters, but what about SALT water??

To compare to a long established product line, inexpensive digital Casio Watches. Their manuals used to suggest the following:

Water Resistant. 30M Splash Resistant. Fine in shower, but don't place directly in water jet. Okay for swimming, but don't use the buttons.

Water Proof: 50M. Fine in swimming pool and shower.

The only Casio I had in my youth that died from too much water was the calculator model, which my dad placed under a tap to wash some mud off.

Re: The finish is so beautiful, and so hard

>I do hope Apple won't actually build a car

Existing car manufacturers from Ford to BMW offer different paint colours and finishes, from gloss to matt. Some of these finishes show up bird shit, mud, dead insects and small scratches from hedgerows more than others. I'm not sure why Apple offering the same in phones precludes them from the automotive game in your opinion.

Nor do I see a problem with Apple - or any other company - making clear to potential customers the limitations of their products. It's an anodised finish that will scratch, even though it looks (when new) like a ceramic that won't scratch in normal circumstances.

Re: So shiny you have to hide it...

It depends upon whether your case is transparent. Otherwise, keep it in your jacket pocket away from your keys and loose change. This is true of most phones, regardless of colour or finish.

My cheap Huawei is made from ABS plastic, and bounces unhurt from concrete. It doesn't even eject its removable battery on impact, as Nokia 3210/3310 phones used to. Annoyingly, more expensive phones I've owned exhibited less will to live. If I had an iPhone, I'd have a large range of cases to choose from, including some fairly robust 'builder's spec' models.

Not after Destiny. Stephen Merchant in Portal 2 was much better.

(Or maybe Dinklage correctly saw that Destiny wasn't all it was cracked up to be?)

Dani Behr

Re: For some strange reason...

As Q: "Bond, have you tried turning her off and on again?"