Re: "Android is a virii dream"

Bullshit.

The so-called "malware" on Android are not viruses. Most of them are perfectly legitimate in-app advertising components that certain self-interested "security" companies have sensationalised as "malware", and the rest are phishing scams, both of which must be deliberately installed and run by the user.

At best that's simply legitimate ad-ware, and at worst it's social engineering, both of which are totally beyond the scope of software security, and have nothing whatsoever to do with "viruses".

An actual virus, OTOH, infects the user's system without his knowledge or consent, is self-propagating and typically delivers a destructive payload, and nearly every one of the millions of in-the-wild viruses exist only on the Windows platform.

That is an example of poor software security, not Android.

Re: "it's incredible how little he understands"

Not just the Internet, but law, sovereign jurisdictions and personal liberty.

If there were a One World Government to which every citizen on Earth were accountable...

And if every single device that could display archived data on the Internet could be physically and legally controlled by that government...

Then it might have a slim chance of censoring the Internet.

Maybe.

But with so many governments and so many sovereign jurisdictions and so many citizens free to defy the arrogant yet futile demands of some foreign tin-pot dictator, frankly the chances of totally eradicating any given data from the Internet are less than zero.

"Erasure" might be the kindest thing, in some circumstances, but ultimately the right thing is the truth, not censorship.

And in any case it's a moot point, because no one can control every single person on Earth, which is what you'd need to do in order to completely stop the dissemination of any given information.

Just thought I'd spell that out for you, Eric.

(Oh, and P.S., that's also the reason all anti-"piracy" measures are doomed to failure.)

Re: the "advantage"

The one and only reason for "online only" is DRM, which is clearly never an advantage to anyone, not even the vendor, because it serves no purpose but to drive potential customers away, usually right into the welcoming arms of "piracy".

It's incredible that vendors haven't worked that out yet.

Assuming that memo is genuine, you'll note that it doesn't preclude the possibility of DRM, just that it shouldn't be used for single-player games. But that assumes there will in fact be any single-player games in the future, which given the direction games developers are headed (e.g. SimCity) is becoming less likely all the time - unless they finally work out that DRM is futile.

The only other "advantage" to "online only", that I can think of, is the opportunity for Microsoft (and anyone it sells the data to) to spam the user with targeted advertising, based on the content they watch and games they play. But, like DRM, spam is not really an "advantage" to anyone, for exactly the same reason as above.

Sooner or later these desperately greedy vendors are going to work out that you can't squeeze blood from a stone, and you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Hopefully they'll work it out sometime before they "protect" themselves into oblivion with DRM and other draconian restrictions.

A more balanced review

I'd give the Acer Iconia W700 7/10 for hardware design, dropping a point for using plastic instead of aluminium on the cradle, another for the big black bar around the screen, and one for the fact that the keyboard is too small, even if it is a very nice design.

I'd also give it 3/10 for the hardware (not design), mainly for using an Intel CPU, which is power-hungry compared to the alternatives on the one hand, but ironically not really powerful enough to cope with "desktop" Windows on the other. Intel HD4000 graphics is also suboptimal compared to the alternatives. The lack of a gigabit ethernet port is also a problem, for me at least, and probably also in the workplace.

By far its biggest problem is the OS, closely followed by the price. At half the price with more suitable components and a better OS, I might consider it.

The other machines in this roundup are little better than "meh", barely even worth awarding any points to.

Sod that...

Right, let's fire up the Quatro!

Re: "he turned Apple into a rather successful business"

Yes, and Al Capone had a rather successful business too, no doubt by making similarly violent, sinister and unwarranted threats in pursuit of that "success".

The mere fact of making lots of money is not praiseworthy, not least of which because the means used to make that money might be highly unethical if not blatantly criminal. Moreover, others' financial success, whether or not it's achieved legitimately, is of no particular benefit to anyone else, and therefore it's highly irrational to fawn over it.

So this is the totality of Jobs' achievements: he was a belligerent but effective carpetbagger for a company that "shamelessly stole" everyone else's ideas, then repackaged and sold them at an extortionate price, whilst hypocritically litigating against anyone else who did likewise.

What award should that qualify him for, exactly?

"Gangster of the Year", maybe?

Re: "Jobs did marketing and branding"

Or in other words ... nothing.

Re: What a good idea

I'm fairly sure Xerox PARC beat Apple by about four decades:

"The concept of developing a flexible displays was first put forth by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Company). In the(sic) 1974, Nicholas K. Sheridon, a PARC employee, made a major breakthrough in flexible display technology and produced the first flexible e-paper display. Dubbed Gyricon, this new display technology was designed to mimic the properties of paper, but married with the capacity to display dynamic digital images. "

Re: "Risk Needs Analysis"

Nah, droning on about bureaucracy is too much conversation. Kill it dead with one word: money.

Once people clearly understand that you refuse to provide unpaid voluntary work on behalf of multi-billion dollar global corporations, they'll give up and move on to their next victim.

Re: Moving target

"Driving key milestones forward"

That's the problem with buzzword bingo, making sense is largely a matter of luck.

Re: Bonkers? Yes... Overpriced? Most definitely

The cost isn't even the most "bonkers" thing about this rig, it's the fact that, having wasted all that money, you now have something that's only good for about five minutes, before the Content® racket industry hits the planned obsolescence button, and forces you to ditch it for this week's hardware.

And then you have to deal with DLL Hell, and the "wrong trousers drivers", and the "wrong version of Windows", and the "wrong version of DirectX", and the "wrong service pack level", and viruses, and BSODs, and a broken Registry, and DRM bullshit, and "online-only" bullshit, ad nauseam.

What a nightmare.

No wonder the video game industry (and the PC industry in general) is in crisis. It's amazing it even lasted this long.

"Amigas ... didn't let me stick any old CPU on or other commodity hardware"

Wrong.

Not only did they allow such things, but indeed the market for them was booming.

I personally had two CSA Derringers, a GVP A530 Turbo and a CyberStorm PPC, not to mention a room full of other bits of very commonly available, third-party, after-market Amiga hardware.

"fugly ball of meat"

Yes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/15/heather-hayes-pantless-arrest_n_2877913.html

At this point the specifics of the game are moot. I'd rather play Atari's ET, widely recognised as the worst video game of all time, than even be in the same room with her.

--

Paris, because she's not Heather Hayes.

Not enough information

The details on both sides are too vague to draw any firm conclusions, but I'd guess the complainant got stiffed by PCW's constantly rotating terms of service and care package names, and had been led to believe he was entitled to something that ultimately he wasn't.

I think it just boils down to PCW (perhaps deliberately) confusing customers, hence the ASA's involvement.

Re: This is an outrage

+1 for Atari Centipede, my all-time favourite game.

Also: Missile Command; Mach 3; Pac-Man; Gorf; Qix; Gradius; Battlezone and Final Fight, to name a few.

Re: MS are trying a little harder to push the Surface than the Zune

@RyokuMas

"Android had a worldwide market share of only 3.9%"

Except Google has only been punting Android for 4 years, and it already has 3/4 of the market, whereas Microsoft has been desperately trying to peddle its mobile platform, in one form or another, since the days of the aptly named "Wince" 16 years ago, and it's still languishing in single figures. So the possibly that Microsoft will magically succeed now, after perpetually failing for nearly two decades, seems unlikely in the extreme, especially when the only thing it has to play with is something as pig ugly and dysfunctional as Tiles®.

Re: Browser Choice

@Richard Morris

"Personally I'm sick to death of seeing the browser choice being forced onto PC's."

How can you characterise being given a choice as "force", as opposed to being denied that choice, and therefore being forced to take the only option?

This "anti-choice" mantra is self-defeating and therefore highly irrational. Worse still, if that choice were removed to appease the anti-choice fraternity, you'd not only be denying yourself that choice, but everybody else as well, which is an extremely selfish attitude.

Re: EU lost the plot

@Erroneous Howard

'I don't see a "Browser Choice" screen on either Apple or Android devices either.'

Android is Free Software, not a commercial product restricted by proprietary licensing, so there's no antitrust issue to consider, since there's nothing to stop any of Google's competitors (including Microsoft) from using it without incurring any financial obligations (or ceding any market advantage) to Google. Indeed several vendors have already done so, including Amazon.

Apple "bundles" its *own* OS on its *own* hardware, so that can't be a "conspiracy in restraint of trade", because one can't be engaged in a conspiracy with *oneself*. Obviously.

Windows, OTOH, is a proprietary, commercial product that's "bundled" without option on hardware that has nothing to do with Microsoft, to the near-total exclusion of all competitors in that (albeit rapidly declining) market segment called the "desktop". That's what makes this an antitrust issue, because it's "tying", collusion, or IOW a "conspiracy in restraint of trade". The universal "bundling" of any third-party software on that system is therefore a significant antitrust issue. That includes the OS itself and any applications, by Microsoft or otherwise.

The only problem I have with the EU's sanctions against Microsoft is that they keep targeting relative trivia like browsers and media players, when they should be targeting the root of the problem, Windows itself. I assume that's because Opera raised a complaint specific to browser competition, and no one (in the EU at least) has done likewise for OS competition. It does seem like they're pussy-footing around the problem, however.

What the EU needs to do is unbundle Windows from PCs, then they can stop wasting their time with a company as recalcitrant as Microsoft, as the Windows Tax problem will be solved once and for all.

Re: Symptomatic of a bigger problem

The "serious work" mantra assumes ARM devices will always be 32-bit, low-clock-speed, low memory machines running purely consumer-centric applications and games on a touch-oriented OS, but all of those factors have already improved, and will only continue to do so. There are already ARM servers in data centres, for example, and "desktop" ARM devices (ChromeOS and Ubuntu).

Moreover, no matter how you personally regard the suitability of ARM devices for certain tasks, which you prioritise higher than others, the fact remains that the market has spoken, and it wants ARM + Android, whether or not you agree with them. Apparently they don't share your priorities, which is why the "desktop" PC market (a euphemism for Windows on x86) is in decline, like it or not.

And even in the interim, while ARM technology is still maturing, it's already more than good enough for the majority of use cases, both at home and at work, which again is exactly why the market has shifted in that direction. If it weren't already good enough, then nobody would be buying it, obviously, so arguing about whether or not you personally think it's good enough is moot.

Eventually ARM (or something similar) will entirely replace the current de facto standard, which will then be relegated to legacy status (if it hasn't done so already). Cling to that if you want to, but personally I'd rather embrace the future.

Re: I wish!

Consider yourself blessed, my smooth-noggined comrade. Baldies are manly men with testosterone fuelled, manly shaped appendages. Not at all like them fluffy-haired quasi-male-oriented fakers.

The mops on those so-called socialist, OTOH, look decidedly conservative to me, in a Hilary Clinton sort of a way. Although, arguably, Hilary Clinton is also a testosterone-fuelled manly man with a manly shaped appendage, so maybe it's a wig.

I mean just look at Ms. Big Hair at No6! That has to be the most conservative hairdo I ever saw. And Mr. Top Centre looks like a Faux News anchor, for Goat's sake. Heck, they all look like they're lined up for inspection at a Tea Party rally (lapsang souchong, naturally).

This won't do at all.

Everyone knows that socialists have greasy, perfectly straight, long hair all the way down to their arse. This was enacted into law in the 1970s, and ratified by 57 countries under the International Treaty of Socialist Haircuts (although North Korea abstained on the grounds that they weren't invited to the signing ceremony).

Pfft.

"UI certainly blew away all the competition"

Only an Apple fanboy could be blown away by "a grid of icons".

Re: WFT El Reg?!?

Rolls etc. are also bread.

However a bacon sarnie simply isn't a bacon sarnie unless it only contains bacon. That automatically disqualifies much of the list.

Also any "bread" made from what looks and tastes like chicken-feed (i.e. "health" crap) should be disqualified on the grounds of obscenity. That disqualifies most of the rest of the list.

According to the results so far, it looks like "The Precision Engineer" is going to win, but that's a toastie, not a sarnie, so it should also be disqualified.

An actual bacon sarnie is ... bacon fried only in its own fat, then placed between two slices of white bread (as in real white bread, not that not-really-white bread with chicken-feed bits) which has been quickly fried on one side in the remaining bacon fat (thus absorbing it all), with the fried-side toward the inside.

That's exactly what "The Gourmet Toasted" is (no, that's not "toasted"), and thus it should be the winner.

Anyone who disagrees with this assessment must be burned as a witch, by order of The Knights of The Grand High Lodge of Bacon Sarnie Defenders.

"Trick or Treat" Posties

Yes, I get that a lot. Postie uses my letterbox as a door knocker (despite the big red arrow and sign that reads "This is a doorbell you're looking for, please use it, and stop destroying my letterbox --->", waits all of minus 0.3 seconds (as though people live directly behind their front door, just waiting for that moment when someone might knock on it), then sprints down the street at high speed, leaving me gawping and clutching onto a "Sorry we couldn't be arsed" note.

Now I suppose I'll be clutching onto a "Sorry we left your haemorrhoid ointment, sex catalogue and court summons with your busybody neighbour" note instead.

Oh joy.

Re: NINE BILLION POUNDS

"I'd bet there's another 3 in there somewhere."

Pounds or digits?