Posts by Aaron Fothergill
24 posts • joined Wednesday 6th June 2007 16:40 GMT
Numerous examples?
You mean the Knight Ridder video mockup (not an actual tablet that could be used) or PC paving stones that totally failed to sell to anyone in any serious numbers?
How come Samsung etc. waited until after the iPad was launched to start doing their 'innovative' tablets rather than the laptop PC with the screen on the back attempts they'd been selling until then? Were they just saving their clever designs up until after Apple made them popular?
near enough
Ok, a more accurate picture for the iPad side would have simply have been a blank space before the iPad as there weren't any iPad clones (modern tablet computers as you call them) before the iPad. Just heavy, slow flattened PCs that consumers weren't interested in.
And yes, android was built from day one to use a touchscreen, because it's was built as a copy of iOS. even then, it wasn't designed for tablets and there are still iPad clones out there being released with non tablet versions of Android for unwary consumers to buy thinking they're getting a cheap iPad.
Nothing evil
There's nothing evil about protecting your work and designs. If it was some little outfit claiming the patent against Apple you'd be praising them as the new messiah.
When Apple released the first *good* laptop and got Sony to manufacture them, the first thing Sony did was to make their own clones and jump into bed with Windows, so in Apple's shoes I'd be doing everything possible to make sure competitors weren't profiting from my work.
And this picture says it all..
http://appleheadlines.com/2011/08/18/the-entire-industry-copied-the-ipad-design/
Plan B. Rubber of Fantastic Length..
Balloon has 10,000ft long bungie cord attached with Vulture 2 on the other end. When Balloon is at 30,000ft, launch team finally lets go of Vulture 2 and hey presto, perfectly vertical launch, no rocket boost required.
what about a Parabolic Missile Slingshot Launch
or PMSL? Vulture 2 is held *horizontal* under the balloon at the end of a 5 and a bit m long lightweight pole which is hinged at the balloon attachment and with the Vulture set to detach from it once it's vertical (a simple switch tripped by contact points on the pole and balloon at the hinge would be an easy way to trigger the relay).
If you want to really try and be clever, you could fix some extra booster rockets to the Vulture end of the arm to assist in the Slingshot so Vulture 2 is already doing a decent rate of knots by the time the pole gets to the horizontal.
One possible issue would be in high winds as you get higher, the pole could be flung around a bit, but having extra weight (or the main payload) suspended from it to be dropped away before launch could be a solution.
Posted in How LulzSec pwned The Sun
Buggers the investigation though?
Assuming the Met haven't already been in and grabbed copies of everything at News International as possible evidence in their hacking investigation doesn't this possibly risk tainting any email or server based evidence?
i.e "That file was obviously placed there by LulzSec m'lud"
Posted in Nokia gives up predicting sales
Any bets?
Any bets on exactly how long it takes Nokia to devalue itself enough to be bought by Microsoft then?
Posted in iPhone crashes car stereos, Toyota warns
Nice bit of blamecasting by Toyota
So really it's Toyota in-car stereos have a fatal bug, that just happens to occur when iPhones are plugged in, rather than it being the iPhone's fault that it crashes.
Millions of other iPhone accessories (including my 5 year old Mini) work perfectly fine with iOS 4.2.1, so it's just a case of Toyota coders making a mistake somewhere and needing to issue a patch.
What they're scared to say is, if you're an iPhone user, don't buy a Toyota.
Posted in Apple states tax take on UK iPod pricing
Easy answer
It's "Not having to live in the USA tax". Worth every penny ;)
Posted in Vulture 1: Plane plans planned
Record breaking
I suspect a bit of laziness on the part of the PARIS design team. It's guaranteed to fly 60,000ft at least, so should beat the 27 point something second record for paper aeroplane flight.
Posted in PARIS gets doped up
cold test
Might be worth a bit of freezer testing to make sure the doped covering won't crack up as it cools on its way to launch altitude.
following the odds
Given the probability of the Osprey having some sort of catastrophic failure the cameraman was probably just going with the best bet of a news story.
Posted in Queuing for an iPad? Why?
Keynote works on mine
They are. works fine on my iPad, at least connected via the component lead (vga lead is identical output). Slides go to the big(ger) screen, slide number and controls are on the iPad screen. Do your homework Reg!
in app purchase
You've been able to buy iPad apps via the UK app store since the US one went live (if you searched for them by name) but more importantly you can now use in-app purchases on a UK account.
Posted in Broadband tax scrapped in 'wash-up'
Morons
UK biz needed a national fibre network rollout 10 years ago. Giving BT even more time to try and sell ISDN lines and dialup to people just puts us further behind the developed world.
The broadband tax may or may not have been a fair tax but I don't think any of the whitehall mob get the idea that high speed internet across the UK is critical.
Atlantic + Mentos
How soon before we hear of our first liner/oil rig disaster caused by someone dropping a Mentos overboard and 'exploding' the ocean?
Parenting first
first and foremost parents should be responsible about what games (and films) they let their children play. Ultimately it's their decision and all the blame should rest on them if they bring their kids up to be ASBO wielding cop killers.
The PEGI ratings are a lot more practical as far as helping parents decide what to buy for their kids as they actually show the type of content, not just what age the censors think should be allowed to view it.
BBFC is a censorship board for non interactive content, so even if they hire lots of new censors with all the money they force out of what's left of the UK games industry they'll still not have the experience of rating games that PEGI does.
Forcing BBFC ratings on UK games doesn't hurt the big potentially 18 rated games as much as it could the children friendly casual games too. Casual games have to work to tight margins, so slapping extra charges on them for releasing in the UK (as well as UK VAT, overvalued Sterling and higher cost of production here) means publishers may have to consider whether or not it's worth releasing their game in the UK.
Take away the last little incentive of seeing the games you make on shelves in your own country could be the last straw for dev studios eyeing the huge tax breaks they could get for moving to the US, Canada, France or pretty much anywhere except the UK.
Posted in C&W closes in on Thus acquisition
Dear Thus Board
Dear Thus board members,
on behalf of your customers, please do not sell out to C&W at any price. Or at least don't make Demon part of the deal.
We like having a good broadband service with good customer support and don't want to have to put up with the far lower standard of service that Cable and Wireless provide.
Posted in Japanese whalers lash protesters to mast
actually..
"Sea Shepard is slightly more militant in it's approach to protesting than Greenpeace, and have been known to give Japanese whalers a friendly nudge with their own ship"
actually, last year it was the Japanese that rammed the Sea Shepherd ship.
Posted in 'First' iPhone Trojan rolls into town
only for Hijacked iPhones?
The article doesn't make it clear, but I'm assuming that if you have to install the package on an iPhone then this particular trojan is only for iPhones that people have hijacked, rather than an application that can get itself onto a normal iPhone that doesn't let you put malware onto it (that being Apple's point about locking down the phone)?
If so, isn't this a point in favour of Apple's policy of not letting iPhone users break their phones by putting unqualified software on them?
Disney model
the Beeb should adopt the Disney pay model. Disney's voice actors supposedly all get the same daily wage and sign over all character rights, no matter how big and famous they are, which (Robin Williams aside) reduces problems afterwards.
When you do a programme for the BBC, productions companies should have to automatically agree to a standard set of rights and marketing distribution which gives the BBC complete control of what way the programmes are distributed. The BBC logo is on the show so the production company is getting the kudos of being on the BBC and signing over these rights means that sensible options (like selling the shows on iTunes) become practical.
Will it..
Will it go on strike like the rest of the postal service?
Posted in iPhone variants on the way?
iPhone Shuffle
An iPhone shuffle would be great fun. Just one button that dials a random number each time you press it :)
Posted in So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?
.reg!
If it has to change, why not campaign for a new .reg top level domain name?
