Posts by QuinnDexter
70 posts • joined Tuesday 23rd August 2011 16:32 GMT
"You, Google, YOU came and based businesses in the UK and Europe and took advantage of our tax laws, which we wrote, designed to benefit large multi-national corporations, meaning that you pay next to no tax in the UK, and very little else in the rest of the Eurpoe."
"Correct. Is that everything?"
"Right...er... yes, that's all"
Why are the relatively new global companies the only ones being investigated? Shirley BP and companies of that ilk are doing the same kinda thing, and if not they need to slap their accountants? Why would anyone pay more tax than they have to? If it's currently such a terrible tax solution then perhaps the PAC should move to change the laws rather than attempt to embarrass companies into paying more when they don't have to.
Maybe there should be an icon of Kent Brockman to choose from, seeing as the words "tax avoision" are becoming part of the English language - I even heard it on the Beeb, so it must be proper English
Re: World Travel...
#1 As it will need cellualr coverage make sure you buy a suitable roaming tarif in advance. On that note, why would operators not want to subsidise this kit? They would be properly data hungry...
#2 I'd tend to agree that you are not likely going to use this as the primary source for holiday snaps, unless you are uploading them directly to Google+ or FaceBook. Dont know what storage they've got so this will probably be the standard.
#3 I don't think anyone knows, including those morons ready to "punch someone in the face if they are wearing these near me" (who assume that Google will happily force a FUCKING MASSIVE phone bill on you by having every second of every day of your life uploaded to their servers. Next their complaint will be "won't someone think of the children - bans these in public places"). Myself, I'm not sure. Before it was realeased I wanted an iPad because the same morons targetting this said "Why would you want one? It's just like a big iPod". Yes. It's just like a big iPod. That's why I want one! Glass - I'm not sure what I would use it for, and the scaremongering privacy concerns aren't actually a concern.
You make it sound like they are leaving the potential $5bn willingly, whereas it is political pressure which is making it not worth their time.
Fight the battles you can win. If they spend $6bn chasing a potential $5bn then that does not make good sense. Huawei have the financial clout to take a hit on their profits to make their targets, but not that much. Huawei are hardcore - on the TFL bid for phone coverage on London Underground they said they would supply all hardware for free, providing the capability for all operators to link into their own networks, and they would charge industry standards for the manpower required to install of the network. They don't have posters of "Employee of the Moth". They have posters of "Worst performer of the month".
Also, just because a business doesn't crack the USAofA doesn't mean it will roll over and die... China's population is 1.3bn, there are nearly 500 million EU citizens, and just over 300 million yanks, who still have the ability to buy Huawei kit.
Re: I had to read the last word in the first sentence twice
Unless the non-Google_Glass bloke doesn't know of their existence, and somehow thinks the aforementioned winker has a Fox Glacier Mint glued to his forehead, then he's probably safe... :)
Thick ass yanks?
" because that kind of manufacturing was too complicated to be done Stateside."
Is the story saying that Muricans are stee-you-pid or something?!? Shirley a factory is a factory and can be built anywhere, and the assembly can be done by under-paid drones of whatever nationality.
To Lightnight - two issues, the first being minimum wage restrictions that aren't as expensive in other parts of the world, thus meaning either a reduced cost to us, the buyers (haha!), or lower overheads for the company (a lot more likely).
Secondly, the US and UK have the same issue. Many people now think that any form of manual labour is beneath them, and don't feel that they should drop their standards to take a job in McD's / cleaning / etc, but are happy to drop their standards just enough to pick up their benefit / welfare. This then leaves the job opportunites at the less enticing end of the scale to immigrants who are less picky and more keen to actually work for a living, but who then get lambasted for "coming over 'ere and stealing our jobs!"
Re: Freeview is a public service
BBC (and part of Channel 4) are a public service. QVC less so.
Smooth Criminals
How good is it that common sense has seen these two blokes, who stole and were likely to distribute (though actually hadn't yet), unheard MJ tracks (pretty big news) got community service for their crime. If they had been in America they would have been shipped off to Guantanamo Bay and fined a few million dollars. Wonder how Sony feel about that...
Hallowe'en
Any kids that turn up trick-or-treating will automatically get double sweets. Extra credit for character with less than 10 minutes screen time
I think this is a good thing. Take the stories away from Lucas and give them to a good director / producer like Disney have done with Marvel and we're on to a winner. Admiral Thrawn, anyone?
Tatooine
A long time ago in a galaxy not very far away at all
Re: The DB5
Looks like the number plate still rotates as well :)
Hmmm
The recent Bond movies are the betters ones, IMHO. Gritty and animalisitc type Bond - the scene in Casino Royal when he's tied to the chair and being tickled with the rope can't exactly be compared with the laser beam closing in on his nads in Goldfinger, but shows how the characters have changed over the years along with expectation of the audience. Connery's Bond is the most agressive of the rest of the pack, but in comparison with Craig he's still cool, a measured quick thinking officer and deals with it as such. Craig's Bond is an ex-SAS hardnut who becomes a caged tiger. I've not read the books yet but JimmyPage above suggests this is what Bond should be.
I saw Roger Moore first cos that's the generation I'm from. Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only and Diamonds are forever were almost wiped from my memory when I watched Goldfinger and then Dr No and saw the cool viciousness of Connery.
"The second study, by Robin Canup at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, also backs the impact theory, but she reckons that the Earth and the planet that hit it were each around half of the Earth's current mass."
The maths doesn't work for this unless her assumption of each Proto-Eath and Theia has a tolerance range of half a moon each, which is a kinda hefty tolerance...
@ Local G
Perhaps the matter that makes up the numerous moons coalesced seperately to the gas giants and then got dragged into orbit around them as the big fellas were on their little trek around the sun
Wow - the Ericsson R380s - I used to work in Cable & Wireless in Warrington and used to get the same train as those who worked at Ericsson in Birchwood, and they all had these. There I was with my T18 with removable covers and programmable ring tones thinking I was the canine's conkers. Then suddenly there was this, this think of full-frontal monochrome beauty with a STYLUS and everything.
Posted in Vote NOW for the vilest Bond villain
Goldfinger
He was the villain that echoed all that was good about Connery as Bond. Iconic
Very close second should be Kananga - "Names is for tombstones, baby"
15%
When paying for a meal by card last week when I was given the chip and pin machine it was on a screen giving me the option of 10%, 15% and 20%. Strangely, on reflection, it didn't offer 0%...
Re: Going direct to music buyers? That already exists..
Eardish? What's that? Dotcom has loads of free publicity going on at the minute though...
Re: I bet the lawyers will be ready
Risky - the level of arrogant luddism on this thread is phenomenal. Arrogant, specifically in terms of presumptive insolence, rather than any lack of knowledge, but maybe that's worthy of mention too.
The presumption that the two minutes of thought you have put into an opportunity such as this, will come up with something unique, that thousands of previous man-hours of effort from everyone involved (so within Google, the out of the box thinkers who came up with the concepts, the techs, the engineers, and not to mention Google's lawyers, and then State or National law-makers, and probably most importantly insurance companies and lawyers who would be for and against Google, and those who look at it not including Google etc) haven't been able to uncover or comprehend, something as simple as who would be to blame when the car is involved with an accident, is staggering.
Download the logs from the Google Car and it will tell you exactly what happened when, thus clearing Google from the opportunity of being sued for defective software or algorithms. You can be 100% certain that before the slightest bit of code was touched with the mindset of self-driving cars a risk assessment was carried out and this grew and grew, and Google would not release these into the wild until their lawyers have practically signed in blood to say that everything is covered for Google as far as can be expected in terms of economically viability.
Re: Scary stories from the Chocolate Factory
STOP EVERYTHING, GOOGLE! MachDiamond doesn't know what you're doing so it must be wrong, unsafe, and not very well thought through!
Re: More reading time
Perhaps with that mindset we should ban anyone who is not local from driving on roads.
Perhaps the system will be smarter than a mindless automaton who follows direction like some meatsacks do wtih TomTom and end up in the sea. Perhaps if you bought one it would be able to register the shock of the first time it goes over a pot-hole and knows where it is for future use. Just like a local would...
How much do Samsung pay their lawyers?
Re: *Whoosh* as the point flies over your head
@Richard12
I completely agree. Have Google done this to make sure a competitor benefits? No. They haven't spent a fortune developing this for others, it's because they need it for their benefit.
Posted in iPhone 5 adaptors goldrush begins
Hmmm. I was holding out to upgrade. I've got a 3GS so not exactly tantalised by every shiny shiny that comes along. Was hoping for more, but all I can see is meh. Thing is, I've invested in loads of apps and have an iPad 2 so am I gonna re-buy apps on another phone, buy this iPhone 4SXL or stick with the 3GS until the next update?
Re: What's the new part?
@JDX - you already do in the UK, and we don't get charged directly for each bin which is emptied. We currently have four different coloured wheelie bins for different waste, and the local council have to be pretty fascist about what goes in which.
Say I decide to put glass bottles in the paper bin, then that bin load I have put out for collection is contaminated. Once the binmen showve it all in the back of their truck then that whole truckload is counted as contaminated and cannot be recycled, meaning the company that collects the waste does not make the money they were forecasting on the refuse contract. So they, rightly, will work to find repeat offenders.
It has been described to me as they are able to work out which part of which street the offending contamination came from, narrowed down to a select few houses. Those few will be monitored and if it happens again and they find the culprit they get a nice letter through their door warning them of their actions and potential for the culprit to receive a bill for that waste which has been contamiated.
Posted in Valve puts Steam on the TV
Perhaps it's more likely that Valve could be given access to the walled gardens of Apple, Sony and Microsoft etc so the apps appear on that hardware and the companies who provide the consoles / devices get a cut...
Re: Misnomer
I've not really got a strong opinion on climate change. Due to the fact that I have a lot in my life to cram in (and not cos I'm just too lazy) I'm part of a generation where peeling an orange is too much effort for not enough gain, and leading to the drop in orange purchases. Apples are easy, cos you just rub them a bit and bite. If you can be bothered to rub. Bearing that in mind, when my eyes passed over your statement "These are sophisticated models and one day, we will produce accurate ones" I actually read:- "we will produce ones that justify our stance."
Full accurate evidence doesn't exist at the minute for either stance, so it doesn't concern me too much, until someone shows that having a shower every day kills one polar bear and three penguins each year. My electricty and bills do concern me more, and anything that can be done to lower those is good, and if that has an impact on my CO2 emmissions, whether relevant in the grand scheme of things or not, doesn't really affect me. So no evidence to prove either arguement exist, but anyone who suggests that you are wrong are denialists?
Re: VR
Anyone know if there has been any widespread reports of dizziness or nausea this with the Sony headsets? Maybe it's a lag thing, if the old VR stuff had a lag between recognising your head morvement and turning that into a change to the visible projection then that would cause nausea, but does the modern kit suffer the same way? Will Google Glass's AR elements take so long to catch up with your head movement as to have the default setting be 'off' unless you've locked your own head in a vice...
Re: Bah!
@nematoad - so are you saying with Apple you get what you pay for? What does that mean for Samsung and other similatly proced Andriod phones where the service is nowhere near as good or timely?
I don't get trolling. Maybe I'm just young enough to be a geek and into all electronics but old enough so as to not have my eyes bleed every time I read a positive missive about a piece of hardware I don't own. Can't Fandroids and Fanbois just learn to get along?!
Re: Surveillance
Really? You're comparing having your number plate being taken to what people are going through in Syria? Honestly?
You almost had a low level of agreement right up unitl your "one last fact". Tim Berners Lee (and his team) are much smaller than the R&D departments of Apple and Samsung. He came up with an idea and a solution, and the solution to that involved many different pieces of hardware which would have had other patents for other companies involved, and you can bet the majority of them would not give their patents away for free. In this instance, an individual with an idea that cost him probably some time, but not much money giving it away for free and large conglomerates protecting their IP into which they had ploughed millions cannot be compared. Perhaps you only discovered TBL when he was on the Olympic opening ceremony or something...
Re: Standards and Prior Art
"Whereas what users want is standard operations that work across the range of products from different suppliers. I don't want to have to learn a whole new set of pressy-swipey movements every time I decide to get a different tablet or Pc or phone - and I don't appreciate the extra difficulties that these software patents add to learning a new device."
Really? Is this missing the same <sarcasm> tags that I expected the main article to have?
Re: Apple having it both ways
Did their R&D budget get used up buying different iPhones and iPads for their designers to copy?
"I imagined a future where a starship computer would be able to answer any question I might ask, instantly. Today, we’re closer to that dream than I ever thought possible during my working life."
Have Google got a starship?! This has been about on Android and Apple for ages, hasn't it?
How many phones were Samsung selling when iPhone launched in comparison with what Apple shipped? Perhaps they saw Apple selling squillions of phones more then them with a shit model and realised they had to do something to address that, and tried to emulate what Apple had done. If you're a business you watch what your competitors do and react if you need to
The story or the responses on the thread?
Re: Repay the money you c**ts...
Hmmm. I can see the idea, and considering bus drivers and tube drivers (who just push and pull a lever) are getting additional payouts for the Olympics would seem to make sense. But then some squaddie who's based in North England gets pulled down to London to work a few hours a day and albeit probably lives in a tent for a fortnight, will still get to go drunk on LSSA and London rates for a fortnight. And if they're really lucky get entry to the big ceremonies and big events, and women's beach volleyball. (Get G4S out on the gates and turnstiles and doing the sh1t jobs!) Giving those squaddies some cash in the face of colleagues getting battered in Helmand might not be accepted too well beyond those that directly benefit, and the politicians who would use it to build kudos...
It looks cool...
...though it needs some fancy moving parts and sound effects to emphasise when it's going from plane to rocket mode. And who doesn't want a matt black Bond villian-esque rocket? Looks like the hollowed out volcano will need to be remodelled to allow horizontal take-off and landing.
The sound on that video is terrible, btw.
Re: Xbox is a bit comical
I agree. I NEVER use my Xbox for anything other than games, and my PS3 use is 50/50 for games and other media
Re: Apple made just one mistake
Thanks Simon. But that still doesn't show that Apple have done anything illegal. Favoured nation means that Widget maker will make more money for eveyone but Apple. That's a choice, and a free choice for a free market, the widget maker makes to have his widgets sold to a new audience. Widget Inc signs up to the deal knowin the consequences for all the sellers it supplies to, and in the long run probably makes more money cos the other costs go up. That would shirley not be illegal of Apple unless they sat down and prescribed to Macmillan, Penguin et al their exact sales strategy
And Apple haven't said they can't sell their widgets anywhere else. I can even use Safari on an iPad to by a book from Amazon and download it to my Kindle App, and no money goes to Apple even though they hold the same ebook on the iBooks catalogue. That fulfills the free market aspect too...
Re: Apple made just one mistake
(I'm getting myself ready to be shot down in flames for missing a point...)
Was that a mistake or a valid business statement, that is used in contracts all over the place. Paraphrasing, but I'd guess "To be an Apple partner, and thus gain limited entry to our walled-garden, we have to get the same good deals as everyone else. Offering an additionally discounted version to someone else would show this partnership is not respected, and would therefore become null and void."
So yes, Apple batters them with a 30% cut of the list price, but expects the same list price as that given to Amazon, B&N etc. Is that a mistake? Perhaps Apple's actions and proposed contracts have prompted Macmillan, Penguin et al to review and fix their prices regardless of the distributer, and if that is what the publishers have done, is that Apple's doing?
As someone who has gone through many redundancy tranches (though not been picked) I see that this is a good thing. Helping those made redundant to stay within a job (or at least making it easier for them) is a good thing.
Re: Bad practice @ChrisW
But how is a human better than a computer in avoiding these? Or to put it another way, how can you think that a computer taking control would not be. Better? A lot of cars now include this braking tech, ignoring the human interface when the computers notice something amiss, as computers react faster. Computers react faster. The people in the original shunt might be damaged, following car less likely. What part of that do you miss?
Re: Bad practice
...if the cars remain under the control of humans. And that's the point. The interface will be a computer aided by cameras and IR and radars and other gadgets, not a person on the phone, changing a radio and lighting a cig. Dunno if you'd noticed but technology generally does things quicker than people
Motorway driving
I see this as a good thing, but a few years too late. Perhaps as an augmentation of the almost driverless cars that Google have been working on. "Want to pay £500 to save fuel, then this patch will give you the ability to be part of a road train"
The only problem is the cars would communicate with one another to find out who is going where and thus build the most efficient road trains, which would mean agreeing to pass your SatNav data over to Google, who will then bombard your HUD with Googletastic marketing about shops near your destination.
Perhaps that's an advertising stream I could patent. Movies or TV programmes from HUDFlix(TM) beamed to your HUD, interspersed with marketing directed at your end desitination...
Re: Space Elevator
A working space elevator is actually a fantastic idea. All this nonsense about building a base on the moon to launch missions to Mars. Someone on Mock the Week likened it to RyanAir saying "Yes, we fly to Manchester" but then landing in Leeds and putting you on a bus...
Movies is one thing. As long as we have Blockbuster that review was going nowhere, and now Netflix / LoveFilm have given the opportunity to dump the case. Just the excuse the comp commission was looking for... They just need an excuse now to dump any investigation into Sky Sports, if there even is a review at all
Posted in Audi proposes PC-packing stunt bikes
Secure
And who needs bike locks when you could just use your smartphone to immobilise the darn thing?
Right.... but it's light enough to carry away, and I don't think any App is going to magically increase the weight by a few tons (or tonnes) to stop it being robbed.
...with the combination of manual pedalling, can produce speeds of up to 50mph.
IIRC, that means it needs a licence, as a powered vehicles that can go over 15mph, but I expect to be corrected by someone swiftly...
Hmmm
So spinning disc is cheap, and high capacity but slow, noisy and all those moving parts take lots of electrickery
Solid state are lightning quick, efficient and quiet but expensive and not too roomy... but they are decreasing in price and increasing in capacity.
Hybrids mean you can start up faster than spinning disc, and that's about it. I reckon they might be able to fool some of the people for about a year
Also, the graphic shows that the cost of the "atennae" also decreases as part of the overal cost, whilst as a percentage everything else increases and hybrid drives lessen their cut. Ignoring the spelling and the fact that insects have antennae, and comms stuff has antennas, that pricing change makes as much sense to me as hybrid drives
Posted in Teens break up with Facebook
Re: So the unprofitable users are leaving
Those leaving are unprofitable *now*. In a few years some of those may be quite profitable, and if they are elsewhere and their needs are being attended to they aren't going to spend money on / through FB.
