Could be useful

I've seen a few pub loo's where this sort of "catching" tech could be useful...

Nice that they're finishing it -

But without the maps fiasco, would they still care? Or would this be getting shovelled out the door in the knowledge that iFans will say how magical it is anyway?

Considering what a massive part of the "walled garden" iTunes constitutes, it's amazing that it remains one of the worst things they're produced.

How long before

Disney decides a "reboot" is needed- featuring a younger, more sensitive Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca is now a "werewolf" with a six pack and Han Solo is (still) played by a geriatric Harrison Ford with a carefully camouflaged zimmerframe.

"Out of its banks it devastated villages with very old men and herds, it even destroyed many holy places with their priests"

The tsunami managed to destroy a village using only old men and herds? And it convinced priests to destroy their own holy places?! Must've been some sort of brain wave.

Let's be honest -

If Siri was giving directions via Apple Maps, the authorities had little to worry about...

One day old, a generation ahead...

I can't help but feel the iPhone 5 has aged massively in the past 24 hours, particularly in the area that it used to hold most dear - user interface. Where android was only just keeping up with iPhone a few years ago, it feels almost an entire release ahead now.

Jelly Bean has really made big advances in UI, and Google Now seems like a lot of great ideas brought together in one area - plus widgets have reached a point where they feel like an important part of the interface, rather than an add-on. Android finally integrates all of Google's services in a smooth way.

Windows Phone 8, for all its flaws, has a UI that brings a lot of information to the front page, without clutter - live tiles make getting information easy, is very customisable, and feels intuitive (based on experiences with WP7.5, from all reports, things are even better with WP8).

iPhone5 has..... an extra row of icons. The UI hasn't really changed for generations, and simply can't convey information in the same way that the competition does.

Ironically, a lot of the new UI features that WP8 and JB4.2 have were probably a side-effect of Apple's litigious nature - they've searched for vastly different approaches to UI, and both come up with something better than what Apple has so vicously protected for the last 6 years.

I'll be getting a 16GB Nexus 4 on release (upgrading from an old Dual core LG 3D phone, can't remember what its called), the lack of an SD card slot irks me, but for $400 I'm willing to deal with it.

Vodaphone Deckchair Rearranging Co.

“We need to prioritise every dollar and internal action to count toward an improved customer experience and these changes are designed to deliver just this,” Morrow said.

translation:

We're bleeding money, so we have to start firing people to make up for the fact that we can no longer treat our customers like shit."

178000 customers in 6 months... considering what lengths companies usually go to in order to hold onto a customer for another 24 months, I'm guessing it'll be many, many years before they even get back to where they were.

How nice of them

To treat us like pawns in their massive dummy spit.

It's ironic that part of NSW Liberal party's election campaign was telling the electorate that having a different government at both state and federal level would be *better* for the people, and that having the same party at both levels would give them too much power to do things - now we're left in a situation where things take longer, and cost more to do due to political point scoring and fear mongering. Was there actually a time when politicians actually did anything useful? or am I just being naiive?

Dear Tim Cook,

Please do fuck off.

"7" = crap, 8" with lower res screen = best idea ever"? After the massive wank-fest over "retina" screens and how nothing is as good as a high pixel density screen, to try and dismiss the competition due to a 1" difference (despite a higher pixel density) comes off as desperate and complacent.

I have a feeling that very soon people are going to start wondering why the emperor isn't wearing any clothes after all...

Wonderful news!

It's also great to see that manufacturers have shown a desire to make life easier for people, first by adopting micro USB for phones, maintaining existing SIM form-factors for phones to make life easier for consumers , not updating proprietary connectors with *more* proprietary connectors, borking all the previous ones in the process, supporting updates to USB, whilst retaining backwards compatibility, and not requiring consumers to fork out more money for overpriced adaptors, thus eventually creating more crap that ends up in landfill.

I'm sure this trend of adopting universal connectors will continue with modular, universal PSU's being provided by all electronics manufacturers.

Happily, I can't think of a *single* electronics company that might even *consider* coming up with it's own proprietary connector in the face of the adoption of new modular PSU's, because *EVERY* major player in the laptop/mobile device arena has *ALWAYS* put the customer first.

And I definately don't think

A Particular Publicly Listed Entity

will even *try* to find a way of screwing even more money out of its customers.

I feel sorry for the operator

The first SWAT robot operator with a negative K/D ratio...

Digital downloads are even worse

I've had instances on Steam where the US price of a game is almost half that of the Australian store - absolutely ridiculous mark-ups that have put me off purchasing many games. I remember when Borderlands came out a few years ago the Australian price was about $89.99 USD - in the US store it was $49.99 USD. There are no distribution channels to blame, to shipping, and tax is a fraction of the markup. Absolute BS.

More recently I considered purchasing Cyberlink PowerDirector - unfortunately navigating to the US site game me a price some 30-40 dollars lower than the Australian site (but I couldn't buy from there, I'd keep getting redirected - even using hotspot). Again, no explanation, no justification, just "This is what we can get away with charging Aussies now".

Ultimately, if IP spoofing/use of VPNs and other workarounds are made "illegal" I foresee people turning to bittorrent to fulfil their needs - afterall, in the eyes of the consumer, if both methods are illegal, but one of them is free, many will see that as reason enough to choose the free option.

Just send out a message

I'm sure Hactar will get back to us shortly.

< Beer is for washing down the peanuts - have to keep those sodium levels up.

Two sides to every surface...

Quite a few people have mentioned that Microsoft couldn't build a touchscreen interface. Part of the issue is that back in 2001 - they didn't have to. If you wanted a computer, you bought windows. Mac's were still like a special child - you didn't really say bad things about them, but you didn't really want one either. So Microsoft could make a half-arsed attempt at a touch interface, safe in the knowledge that no-one else had the market share to be able to pull customers if they did it better.

Now, Microsoft *has* to build a decent touch interface - apple are clawing back market share hand over fist, and the portable computing, storefront fashion is a "tablet" that co-workers and clients can see and use.

Microsoft made a big deal about that hinge on the back - and it's ridiculous that a little piece of plastic is given so much time - but in a way, it's that hinge that determines a lot of the success or failure. Part of the reason previous tablets failed was because they had the physical clumsiness of a laptop and the difficulty of manipulating a half-arsed touch interface. The simple stand puts the surface safely in the "it really is a tablet" camp, the keyboard skin reinforces that fact. It no longer looks like a tablet with a laptop hanging off it, which goes along way to eliminating the form-factor issues of older tablet PC's.

Having said that.... Every time I look at it I alternate between "those are some good new ideas, I can see it working" and "why bother? any compromise will still be seen as a compromise, it won't work".

At the very least they seem to show a better understanding of the market than they have previously, but ironically the Apple iPad is now commonly perceived to be the "safe" option (your company will either be perceived as "cool" or "keeping up with everyone else" - but there probably won't be much negative reaction*), whereas the (usually tried and trusted) Microsoft product is more of an alternative risk-taker in the segment...

*At the moment - the problem with being the flavour of the month is that eventually the month ends...

I'm curious

He neglects to mention *how* it's confusing, or what's been compromised, or even what it's trying to do...

Sounds like FUD 101 from the chapter "How to diss your opponents product when you don't even know what it is".

As for flying and floating - I believe seaplanes manage that pretty well (although the "car" bit is obviously lacking).

Also, how many more quotes are we going to have to put up with from CEO's and product leads about how "fabulous", "groundbreaking" and "amazing" their own products are?! They're hardly going to come out and say "I wish we'd made the surface tablet, they've done a much better job at rounding off the corners than we have".

"narrowed the gap from 16 million to 6 million years"

I'm sure some creationist zealot will come out and tell us that this disproves evolution because where there was previously only one gap in the fossil record, there now exists two...

Obviously insignificant

Why is this even an issue?! I mean a bespoke piece of machinery, developed over 15 years after 100 million is invested into it is hardly a cause for a patent dispute.

If, on the other hand, we were dealing with a slide-to-unlock hose unplugging mechanism "on a mobile device"(cos it's got wheels, natch), then I'd fully understand vast amounts of money being spent to ban everyone else who used anything that seemed even remotely similar, despite how brain-numbingly obvious such a system is.

Didn't Volvo try this on a few years ago?

And Fiat? If I recall, every "designed by females, for females" publicity stunt invariably comes off as a patronising, money grabbing demonstration of just how out-of-touch the company in question is.

All of its drivers crash constantly...

But you should see it multitask!

Giving away seized money-

That'll help the share price!

In other news

A stereo system plays louder than a jackhammer; Reg Hack says "quieter is better... right?"

"floral Kiss"

I gave my girlfriend one of those on her birthday...

"Australian" volcano

Seemingly in the same was that Russell Crowe is "Australian"... I'm sure we would have been happy for Africa to have it right up until it started doing something interesting, then it's "Aussie".

Although the eruption seems somewhat less violent than one of Russell's.

"we’ll have to see if she can deliver"

But she doesn't want to deliver - she wants to "execute".

Management-speak for "attempting to do something without the consequences of fscking it up". If she claims she's going to "deliver", people will blame her when it all turns to shit. By promising to "execute", she can lay the blame on "unforseen external pressures" and "negative-growth incitement factors".

Presumably this will be followed by a "re-evaluation" of management, in order to create a "stronger internal focus".

Reverse tactics

Shirley it wouldn't be too hard to compile a list of "contributors" to the page? not necessarily to track them down, but if their name comes during an RBT check I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to throw the book at them.

Not all criminals are morons, but many contributors to these pages are - I've looked at a couple of the NSW equivalents, and the number of people who slag off cops whilst leaving their personal accounts on "public" is alarming - particuarly when their profiles show pictures of burnouts, boasts of what top speed they've hit, etc.

The page itself I don't have an issue with (despite being kind of useless - unless you memorise every plate on the site, you're still not going to know every undercover car on the roads) but the people using it don't seem to be the most clued-in types.

Cut to the chase

a) "It's just a demonstration of the success of the left wing propaganda machine making people believe in a fairy tale so that New Energy can profit"

b) "It's a demonstration that people won't be swayed by the right wing propaganda machine attempting to make people believe in a fairy tale so Old Energy can profit"

just indicate a) or b) as necessary, and move along...

They're great for sticking on the oil filter on your car to keep any metal shavings in there.

Really Mental Services

Apart from the obvious mentalness of :

-touching phone whilst stopped at lights = extremely dangerous

-touching phone whilst stopped with engine off = perfectly safe

I'll admit I've had a phone call whilst driving, and I've taken the phone out of my pocket to see who it is - if it's urgent, I'll pull over, if it can wait, I'll keep driving and call back when I get home (or, more likely, completely forget). The act of checking who it is is less distracting than changing the song on my mp3 player or trying to work out where the turn-off is in a GPS, or doing any of the multitude of the other things-that-people-do-but-aren't-explicitly-banned-yet.

Also - and this is a big example of how out of date our lawmakers are - what happens to people whose cars have start-stop technology? *technically* the engine is turned off, so touching their phone before turning off ignition switch is ok? but all others are obviously death on wheels?

Apparently the massive dangers of using these devices disappears when you're tasked with enforcing the laws instead of policing them - (I don't have a problem with police using data terminals whilst driving - obviously it's necessary - but I do have an issue with the double standards. Surely a dangerous act is a dangerous act regardless of the job description?)

Lastly, from the .PDF comes this little example of how clear the rule changes can be:

"Pedestrians or cyclists crossing roads at lights

If traffic lights change to yellow or red while a pedestrian or cyclist is crossing the road at the lights, they may continue to the far side of the road (as intended).

Penalty: $66"

So do they get a $66 penalty or are they free to continue to the other side?! Or are they now LOCKED IN to crossing the road, and any attempt to turn back or stop will result in a $66 fine? Obviously crossing with a little red man is illegal, but this isn't new - nor is it detailed in the pamphlet.

when life gives you lemons, make Lemon Meringue Pie

"When Google launched Android, Page said, he'd been warned that the company was "nuts," "

It's hard to imagine where Google would be now if they hadn't entered the smartphone arena. At most, it would be dominated by iOS, and at the very least it would be a hodgepodge of fragmented OS's from a dozen different manufacturers - whilst mobile has drawn faces away from PC screens to the detriment of Google, Android has allowed them to recoup some of that lost revenue before it disappeared into the vast Jobsian Walled Garden....

I'm surprised it's taken this long for one of our nasties to reach foreign shores, considering the speed at which those from elsewhere appear to flood Australia. (also surprised to realise that we only apparently have two species of venomous spider - for some reason I thought we had more?!)

Really though, if you see a redback, you pretty much have to be looking for one(most of the time). It's the funnel webs that I get concerned about (at least they're easier to spot & kill - until they spot you and come scurrying towards you at top speed).

< flame, cos its the closest thing I could find to a redback.