Hipster detection complete

My hipster twat detector used to require both a Vespa and a helmet with Momo Designs written on it. Now it just needs an iBeetle. (I wonder what team of geniuses spent hours in a design workshop to come up with that name.)

Why not go get it?

If he's got "accurate geolocation data" then why not go get his laptop back?

I stopped reading when I got the the phrase "End Of." because:

a) It's the most annoying phrase in the world. (And fondleslab comes pretty close.)

b) It was the end, wasn't it?

Batteries OR flywheel

All this talk of whether batteries are better. Just use a load of batteries for the mass of the flywheel and you've doubled your storage. Hybrid storage FTW.

What could possibly go wrong? I'm off to patent it now...

A late convert to the M

I'd read a few of his fiction books but only got into the Culture series as a result of the "best SF films never made" on here. Thoroughly enjoying them.

It's inspiring to see someone deal with such a tough situation so well. Another example was Steve Evans from Wolverhampton on BBC News this morning.

Is there a GOOD broadband provider?

Can anyone actually recommend a broadband provider. I want to move from Sky becuase the router you're forced to use is rubbish. Every other provider I consider turns out to be "the worst ever".

Wow. I'd take one of these with the "XYZ positioning accessory that plugs into a computer" over a 3D printer any day.

and what's really annoying is that many of them won't accept a + in your email address. (For those who don't know, adding a "+company" to the first part of a gmail address is a good way to identify and block when your address gets passed on to third parties.)

Apple to patent "imparting spin – the angular momentum possessed by an electron – to a storage medium *in a mobile device*" in 3... 2... 1...

Other mispronunciations

I once interview someone for a job programming in a language that he called "C hash". Needless to say he didn't get it.

Very poor article for the Reg

Not the best researched article on The Register. As Richard12 points out, passive NFC is powered in exactly the same way as RFID because it *is* high frequency (13.56MHz) RFID - with comms happening in both directions. More basic RFID is 125kHz but works in much the same way.

There are plenty of NFC enabled phones - my Galaxy Nexus being one obvious example. It worked fine with Google Wallet using the free pre-paid card but there was no way to associate a UK credit card with it.

Also, a HUGE unnecessary chunk of the article talking about Apple when there's not really anything to say about Apple and NFC.

I'd be happy to give this a try on my Orange Galaxy Nexus, but strangely it appears to be GS3 only. Why?

I hacked Google Wallet on there a while ago, but after the $10 sign-up cash there's no way to use it in the UK.

The irrelevent Apple mention

I've got to agree with the other comments about the pointless inclusion of Apple in the title. Yes - it's clear from the text that Apple had nothing to do with Curiosity but it's lazy fanboi journalism. The most recent one that irked me was on the BBC News site - "Apple chip designer Arm Holdings in 23% profits boost" - where the first word of the headline has to be Apple even though they're just one of many ARM customers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18980476

"Hot on the heels of Apple's release" - What's this got to do with Apple?

Google have a prototype. Olympus have a prototype. As far as I know Apple only have a vague patent on peripheral vision that they'll use for trolling and lining some lawyers' pockets in the future.

" In my experience good techies are really uncomfortable with actually lying"

In my experience of RBS staff in India, they have absolutely no problem at all with lying. Lying and not getting caught seemed to be the complete moral equivalent of telling the truth,

Been there, done it

Having seen first-hand what happened to bits of RBS as they were outsourced to India, this comes as no surprise at all. Incompetent doesn't even come close.

Could be worse

At least you can make phone calls. Down in Reigate my local MP (who doesn't live in the area) proudly announced how he'd stopped the installation of an "unsightly" mobile phone mast. Screw the fact that some people might like to make a phone call once in a while.

Some obvious flaws

How come the article avoids mentioning the obvious flaws? (Or the solutions if I'm wrong.)

* As a few commenters have already said - you need the lights on.

* Strong sunlight will probably swamp the signal.

* What sort of light source will the return channel need? A tiny LED will probably not get though. Do you need a USB-connected desklamp aimed at back your MiFi router?

Let's wait and see

I was tempted to jump in on this (not that they need any more) but decided against it. The watch looks great but there have been many before it that have looked good and had me salivating at their potential but then failed to deliver when reviewed. I'll wait until they're available for general sale and I know if I'm getting what I thought I was getting.

The same thing happened at RBS after it was rescued and hence mostly government owned. Work moved to India. Lots of IT redundancies.

Everyone who's seen Indian outsourcing in action can guess what happened next. Quality went down the pan. Costs actually went up after initially looking like they were lower. Total screw up.

This will be a monumental disaster. And that's BEFORE considering any privacy issues.

Acid Rain

I'm just amazed that the Acid Rain hasn't killed us off already.

Citizen Kane

I know it's often voted one of the best film ever made so I watched it. At least I tried. I gave up waiting for something to happen after the first hour.

You're holding it wrong

Apple would obviously consider this user error. You're holding it about 5000 miles east of where you're supposed to.

Windows stickers

I found a great use for those stickers. A friend's mac laptop looked great with "Designed for Windows XP" on it.

Anyway, back to the point of the article. Yeah. Showing where the NFC is is simple and useful. If Apple had done it then it would be viewed as a (probably patented) miracle of usability.

You can get it on there if you want it

The phone in question that it's missing from is the Galaxy Nexus, so it shouldn't be that hard to get it on there if you really want it.

It can be installed on the UK version... errr... apparently... so I've heard. Attaching a UK card or topping up the Google pre-paid one from the UK more of a problem though.

Useless bloatware

I was at 44con when the vulnerability was shown. It was cracked wide open in 10 minutes and looked like it'd been written in 5.

My bank (First Direct) used to recommend it but I haven't seen it recently so I think they no longer do. I'll move from any bank which insists I install it.

The review misses the point that there are other options from Sonos - the ZP90 (to connect to a stereo) the ZP120 (to connect to speakers) and the slightly bigger but similar Play5. Also the Play3 does do stereo on its own - although obviously not brilliant seperation on an all-in-one unit. The stero pairing is just an option. You also don't need the bridge as long as one of your Sonos units had a LAN connection to share out to the other units.

I'm a very recent Sonos purchaser but really like it. More importantly my wife does - especially compared to my overly techie homebrew attempts.

On the down side the Android app works fine on tablets and resizes well, but doesn't really take advantage of the bigger screen.

Oh - a greyhound BUS

I can't have been the only one who read the title and though "Half a litre?!? That's impressive for such a little dog."

They'll buy it

Some fanboi somewhere who has already installed Lion will be considering getting one of these just to store files on because it's got fruit on it.

(Just noticed Adrian Esdaile's post which nailed it with "ooooh! Pretty! Shiny".)