It's hard not to feel like we're doomed as a species to a future of boring mediocrity and sameness... The movie Idiocracy is a chilling preview of where we are heading...

How many adult scientists and engineers today didn't blow the occasional thing up as a kid? I doubt there are any. I used to experiment with a lot of things as a kid and had a few incidents... But it was worth it. I'm only 30, but now looking back at building rockets and tesla coils when I was 12 I think that today a kid today with a passion for science has a better chance of being accused as a radical terrorist rather than the potential Einstein that they may be.

http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/atomictoys/GilbertU238Lab.htm

Can you imagine seeing something like this today? It's a shame that I missed the 50s.

Cheers,

Troy.

Crimson Editor

My favourite editor by far on Windows is Crimson Editor (Also known as Emerald editor). Sadly, it's no longer developed... But still available. I use it extensively at work. It is a little bit slow at starting up, but not too horrendous.. It's still faster than any of my IDEs by far. Out of any editor I've ever used it has the best macros, block editing, and regex functionality. Block Editing is a godsend... I guess that's what you call multiple cursors here. Crimson is the first editor I ever saw that implemented it and it's still the best. A sizeable amount of my daily work consists of 'TARDEP' tasks... A lot of converting lists of data into SQL inserts and such... and the Block editing is the only way to go.

http://www.crimsoneditor.com/english/home.html

Wot no Ultimaker?

Pity that the best hobbiest 3d printer isn't listed.... The Ultimaker (www.ultimaker.com). I print on mine at 0.08mm layer height and have gone down as low as 0.04.... I've compared directly with prints from most of the printers on this list and the Ultimaker blows them all away. As a plywood contraption it doesn't look as good as some of these,but it excels where it counts.

Also, I just have to toss in my 2p on the Replicator.... Makerbot are going the way of Apple... they had a great hacker community but now they've evolved into a corporate environment and have close-sourced everything and are moving towards a closed non hacker-friendly eco-system. They've taken work done by the community and have built proprietary work on it without giving anything back.

Cheers,

Troy.

Linux?

I've been looking for something like this... I agree the price is a little high... but I want a tablet / laptop combo (I've been considering the Asus Tranformer Prime). The CPU is a little weak, but enough for my purposes.... But, for me it has to run a proper distro of Linux (Mint). I use only Linux on my PC's and haven't touched Windows at all since about 2008. I want to use it for on-the-go Linux C++ and Java development and I need to run my Linux apps...

So the question is... Will this thing work with Linux? Touchscreen support in Linux is iffy at the moment.... but that aside would I be able to install Mint on this? With these new Windows 8 machines I'm mostly concerned about the boot loader being locked down somehow. I don't know anything about how Windows 8 machines operate, but I remember reading something about the new machines encrypting the bios and only running signed software. Is this the case?

Cheers,

Troy.

3d

Any idea how this works with 3d on a PC? I'm not much of a gamer, but I'm interested in a good first person shooter if it works nicely in 3d with my HMZ-T1 headset.... And head tracking! MW3 looks great on my headset but does not support head tracking, which totally breaks the VR experience.

I'm so glad the reviewer tested it with Linux. I am looking for a device just like this, but I don't do Windows. I've been exclusively Linux now for nearly 10 years. To be honest, I just want a slim 11-12ish laptop that's slightly better performing than your average netbook. I'm not doing anything intensive so an i3 or similar is more than enough... This sounds right up my ally. I do not not really need the touchsceen, but I would hate to have it and not be able to use it.

Touchscreen support in Linux seems to be sorely lacking. I have a touchscreen monitor on my desktop that will not work in Linux, but I briefly tested it in Windows and it works fine there. I'm really hoping that this situation improves soon.

Troy.

Honestly, there are a zillion review sites out there... When I read El Reg I look for an interesting read with only a kernel of factuality to it. Your reviews should be the same. I like the toungue-in-cheek style of your writing, but that rarely comes out in the reviews...

If I want a real review of a digital camera I'll go to dpreviews, etc, etc. When I read The Register I want to be entertained. It would be great to see your reviews as the Top Gear of technology.... Take the most outrageously expensive pieces of computer gear and review how well they work underwater.. Look at the product claims and verify them to the extreme.

However, one thing that nobody seems to do which I would find useful is pictures of the box that something comes in. When I order something I often have to decide whether it's convenient to have it delivered to my office and take it home on the tube/train or if I need to take a day off and wait at home for delivery.... Sometimes it's just impossible to guess what sort of box something will be delivered in...

"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin" for Intellivision....

My favourite game when I was a kid and one that I still dust off the 32 year old console for every now and then. That game still sends shivers up my spine when I play in a dark room....

The Replicator is not bad... but there are better 3d printers

I love my Ultimaker. In the year and a half that I've had it I've printed hundreds of novelty items... and a couple of useful ones. I have also repaired digital cameras, high-chairs, and TV remotes for friends. My desk here at work is covered with an army of yoda busts..... Including a glow-in-the-dark yoda... the force is truly with that one.

I'd go with an Ultimaker (www.ultimaker.com) over the MakerBot Replicator any day... Even the newly released Replicator 2 will not match the quality I get from my Ultimaker. I've printed at as low as 40 microns resolution... It's still the best amatuer grade 3d printer out there. It will easily out-perform the much more expensive comercial grade printers with the draw-backs simply being it's less sturdy construction and more maintenance / care / calibration being required.

Also, the ReplicatorG software is pretty limited... Most people these days use Cura, Slic3r or the commercial NetFabb... and there are a few others.

Potential

I see a great potential for the tablet style controller, if they use it right... My first thought was good old fashioned RPGs. It used to be a PITA to switch to your inventory, map, spellbook, etc... Now you can have all of that on the tablet and keep the gameplay on the screen... Think of Fallout 3 with your pip-boy on the controller all the time...

Also possible are social multiplayer games that couldn't previously be done on a console.. Like Texas-Holdem... I think it's kinda pointless on a console, but none-the-less you could have your hand on the controller and the community cards on the TV.... Now a creative sort could come up with all sorts of fun games where there is a private element and a shared public element like this that could take advantage of the tablet.

It'll still never appeal to hardcore gamers... and so what? The market is casual gamers like myself who love to play simple mario mini games with friends and family and have never 'fragged' anything in my life... The truth is, we outnumber the gamers in the big wide world and make Nintendo a lot of money, which is the objective of business.

Why are we going backwards?

Am I to understand then that Windows 8 will not support windows? I don't understand why the UI creators these days think the desktop paradigm is broken. It isn't. I have to use Windows 7 at work and I can't stand it.. I've been a long time Linux user at home and have recently switched to KDE after the demise of Gnome 2... Now I'm looking at Cinnamon or MATE as potentials for my primary desktop...

I know I may be old-fashioned, but I _HATE_ tabbed browsing. I have three 24" monitors and I use them. I detest maximized windows and believe that windows should be sized to hold their content and no more. I never maximize a window to full screen... I have lots of screen real-estate and I use it like a desktop. How many people have a large desktop but keep everything in a single neat stack in the middle? Do you just move papers from the stack to the top to look at them and then shuffle them down the stack? Maybe you do... but I tend to spread them out over my desk so I can scan across them with my eyes.

When I browse the web and something catches my attention I open it in a new window somewhere else on the screen.... When I'm ready to read it then I just have to move my eyes to that window's location. I don't even need to focus it until I'm ready to scroll. At the moment I have 12 windows open - 5 different consoles connected to various servers, a Java IDE, my email client, and a couple of browsers. I like to always keep my email client visible taking up about 1/3rd of one of my 3 monitors. My consoles are spread variously around the screen so I can see what's on them and refer to them. I also need to copy data between them - How can you drag and drop if you can only see one at a time?

To me, a minimalist GUI is ideal. I like a task bar to display a clock, and events tray and a task list is nice... A launcher menu needs to be easily accessible somehow... But mostly I want a big empty desk space with pretty wallpaper.

If I had time and inclination to write my own gui it would not have maximize buttons.

</rant>

Troy.

Prime HD

Is this a name-change on the previously announced Transformer Prime HD, or a completely new tablet? Sounds like the Pime HD to me.

For anyone interested in 3d printing there are a lot of options out there now...

I have an ultimaker printer that I love (www.ultimaker.com). Also there's reprap (reprap.org), UP (pp3dp.com), various options from Makerbot (www.makerbot.com), SUMPOD (http://www.indiegogo.com/SUMPOD-1), and a zillion others...

Or, if you don't want to buy your own you can get SLS, or FDM 3d printing (or CNC and Laser cutting ) done at either Shapeways (shapeways.com), or Ponoko (www.ponoko.com), or a zillion others.

Cheers!

Finally.

I can't wait to see these. As a 3d affectionado and someone who has been wanting to get my hands on a decent hmd since I saw The Lawnmower Man in 1992 I think I will probably buy these, even at that price. I've been looking at HMDs for years and the cheap ones are all way too low in the specs, where as the decently spec'd ones are £10k+... These are still on the low side for resolution though... 1080p would have been nice. My question is, what do they look like to a computer? I want to play flight sims with these (plus head tracker!), but many modern flight sims do not support anything less than 1920x1080 resolution at all.. If these look like a 1280x720 display to the computer then it may refuse to play.... I'm hoping there is a way to present them as a 1080p display and have them scale to their native resolution.

In any case, I _love_ 3d... Bought my first pair of shutter glasses for the computer about 7 years ago or so. Although I'm not a 'gamer', games in 3d are amazing. My favorite is still Doom 3 played with my edimenaion 3d shutter glasses. Back in the 90's I seriously thought everyone would have sunglasses sized full immersion hmds by this time...

Not quite a donair

Honestly, I've been dissapointed with these 'doner kebabs' that you have in this country ever since I moved here.. They just don't hold a candle to a real proper Canadian Donair. We really need to introduce proper Donairs to this country - I think you'd like them. Much better than the half-arsed dry attempts that your kebob shops make now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donair

And of course you need real, proper poutine here. FYI, poutine is made from _Chedder Curds_, not curdled milk!!! There is a significant difference. Adding Lomon juice to milk just curdles it... That is just discusting. Chedder curds are more similar to something like say... paneer. Fresh chedder curds are delicious by themselves and when added to a poutine they are simply divine.

Hmm, not sure what pressure you are looking to achieve but creating a vaccuum chamber of this nature is not as simple as it seems... For one thing, using copper tubing into your steel or aluminium vessel witll be difficult to plumb and may have tempurature expansion issues. Your tube and bottom cover will need to be welded on and that will require a very good internal tig weld. Any other type of weld will produce virtual leaks. You also need to be very careful when working with it since a fingerprint or any sort of contamination inside will outgass severely when the pressure drops and could require hours (or days) of pumping to get the pressure down unless you have a large capacity (expensive) vaccuum pump.

Mind you, my vacuum experience comes from working with my Fusor, so I'm thinking in the high vacuum range under 1 micron of pressure... That would test your rocket for ignition in outer space... Your vaccuum requirements are probably not quite so stringent.

Yay

Late notice, but just enough time to change my plans for tonight... Forget Planet of the Apes, going to listen to Video Game music instead tonights. Tickets purchased.

Not the first

"The Archos tablet has gone for a spin, being the world's first tablet computer to use a disk drive instead of flash memory. Seagate's single platter Momentus Thin is the lucky spinner."

I disagree.

My Kalador tablet (386 DX) from about 1994 has a 20meg hard drive.

My Fujitsu Stylus 1000 has a 340 meg hard drive (http://gigaom.com/mobile/the_first_8_inc/)

My Compaq concerto has a 40meg hard drive (I think...)

Acetrax

My Viera TV has Acetrax built in. I love it. Service is fast and the quality is superb. Even during peak times on my crappy Central London 2mbit BT line I still see no artifacts or glitches when streaming high def. The catalog is... not bad.... but far from good. The only downside of Acetrax is the limited catelog...

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs:

"Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of tablets in this country. The Apple Ipad was the tablet to own. Then the other guy came out with a two core tablet. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Ipad 2. That's two cores and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to four cores. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling two cores and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five cores."

And for those looking for an IT angel...

Who needs and it 'angel' when you've got Paris? She's angel enough for me.

Crips vs Bloods

It's just a classic gang turf-war for geeks. These are kids that want to belong somwhere, but would get their asses kicked in a real street gang... These memes that they claim ownership of are their gang colours and signs.. At least for now. Soon enough it will escalate. It's just a matter of time until innocent bystanders just tying to read their emails or get their daily fix of lolcats will be caught in the crossfire. Pretty soon no place will be safe from these hooligans. Organized cime will follow... They will get into the dealing of penis pills to minors and soon no subnet will be safe.

One badass f*cking fractal

Jo Co said it best...

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Mandelbrot%20Set

Mandelbrot Set you’re a Rorschach Test on fire

You’re a day-glo pterodactyl

You’re a heart-shaped box of springs and wire

You’re one badass f*cking fractal

And you’re just in time to save the day

Sweeping all our fears away

You can change the world in a tiny way

Mandelbrot’s in heaven, at least he will be when he’s dead

Right now he’s still alive and teaching math at Yale

He gave us order out of chaos, he gave us hope where there was none

And his geometry succeeds where others fail

If you ever lose your way, a butterfly will flap its wings

From a million miles away, a little miracle will come to take you home

Can't wait to hear more

I love my Real 3D W1. It's just too damn chunky. The thing really feels a lot like the very first digital camera I ever owned - a 1.3 megapixel beast that was coincidentally also a Fuji FinePix camera. I picked up the W1 and got great pictures in Egypt with it - the Sphynx looks amazing in 3d. I also found that the ColorCode 3d Blue/Amber analygraphic method is great for viewing....

I want this new version - it looks like it's much more evolved than the original... Perhaps not too much smaller overall, but it does appear to be slimmer and hopefully lighter. I think I'll need to trade up if it is in fact smaller.

@ratsac11

-(most importantly for newbies) you can change settings without having to type stuff into terminal. This is how most help advice comes as of writing

You're right, the terminal is the most important feature for newbies. I don't know what I would do without it. Quite frankly the terminal is the best newbie tool ever concieved of. Here's why... When something breaks on Windows, have you ever looked on the internet for a solution? Or tried to walk someone through how to fix it? It goes like this: "Open the start menu, click run, no, R-U-N... yeah... now type in regedit.. click on that little boxy thing beside _MASSIVLY LONG KEY NAME_... click plus, plus, plus, pus... find the thing that say X... no, the other thing that says X... change it to Y... Make sure you change the right thing to the right thing otherwise your computer won't boot... Then close... now open control panel... find Z.... blah blah blah... and reboot.." It doesn't work? Did you miss something?

On Linux:. Type the problem you are having in to Google.... First hit is usually your answer: Open up terminal, and copy and paste "xxxxxxx" into it. There, fixed in one step with no chance for error... And you didn't even have to re-boot.

Woohoo fee Windows

I wish Canonical would give me a free copy of Ubuntu now.

oh, wait....

Oh no! No More Pirate CCTV Images?!?!?

So that's how El Reg gets their hands on all that wonderful CCTV footage of major stories. Is this the end of the quality insider reporting on such important issues? And I was really hoping to see some of that famous cctv footage of pirates today on International Talk Like a Pirate day, with Optimus Prime making an appearnace of course.

Please, Please, Please dedicate your top Hacker-Reporter-Boffins to finding us a new source for these quality images.

Slightly used

If you like this, I've got some corn for sale... Slightly used, but it's in great condition!

Fibre in the sewers

Hmm.. Somehow I missed this story when it ran. Had I seen it I would have pointed out that Google has already beaten everyone to it.. They introduced a similar system last year, on the 1st of April:

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Sounds like a great service to me.

In Soviet Britain....

Doughnuts eat boffins...

Thats some good shit

Somebody must have been on some seriously potent butthash (ttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/jenkem_warning/) to mistake a stripper for a gorilla .