Posts by Mike Bell

Re: Assuming it's about the watch

I doubt I'd buy one either, but I don't think I could complain about nightly charging. Most people don't take their watch to bed with them. Yes, I said most, before fingers start twitching.

Re: Defending Subsrcriptions

Assuming for a moment you could buy recent versions of all those applications - which you can't - the reason they are so expensive is because Adobe really love charging their customers, and to date the competition hasn't been that great, which has made it easy for them to get away with it.

The landscape is beginning to change, though. There are some great applications coming out that in some respects are better than Photoshop. For about 5% of Adobe's price. As I mentioned in another recent posting, we need Adobe to have some serious competition.

Re: Another mag stripe dead-end?

Gradually being dragged towards Chip & PIN? In the US, retailers have only 7 months left to upgrade to Chip & PIN. After that, they're exposing themselves to much greater liability for fraudulent purchases.

Samsung's acquisition may be of use in other parts of the world, but it's a dead duck in the US, surely?

Re: Need a good kicking

Hey, well done. They must have relented and allowed access to three-year-old versions. For a while it was extremely difficult to find that on their website.

Nice of them, isn't it, to let you buy old unsupported stuff. If you bought it a few weeks ago, don't expect to see any patches anytime soon.

As for wanting the latest and greatest, you are stuffed, mate. It's rental all the way for you.

Re: Disaster

Is that long-life popcorn you've got in the cupboard?

There are a million far easier ways of committing fraud than trying to fool Touch ID using elaborate print-cloning techniques.

Re: What's the second factor?

@Bradley.

No, you don't.

If you wish to enable optional two step verification, you may use another phone or another Apple device to receive a verification code. If you don't have such a thing, don't enable it.

A printed recovery key may also be used if the verification device is unavailable.

But in any case, there are limited circumstances in which it swings into action, as described here. In the main, when making important security changes or setting up new devices with your Apple ID.

Re: And if....

@AMBxx

Interested. Where do the BBC use client-side Java?

Re: We already have this

Educate yourself.

You don't have to look very hard to find out how the world's money supply actually works. Note the criticisms, in particular.

Re: Isn't it amazing that...

Kingsman is a wonderfully over-the-top bit of fun, saw it yesterday. It takes no prisoners – least of all itself.

Re: If you really want to know ...

Agreed.

From the article:

the wave function described in quantum mechanics suggests the cat exists in a superposition of dead/alive states simultaneously

A quick reminder: the wave function is a well defined deterministic function that describes the probabilities of things happening. The 'wave function' of the insurance industry describes very well how many cars will crash on Britain's roads in a given year. What it doesn't do is describe whether or not my car in particular will crash.

And so to the cat and its wave function. In many-worlds there are vast numbers of 'universes' containing virtually identical boxes and cats, some of which are dead, and others that are alive. The observers in a live-cat universe will see a living cat; the observers in a dead cat universe will see a dead cat. This doesn't mean that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time, just that the universe has obliged by giving us - somewhere - all possible outcomes. This strikes me as being a parsimonious and elegant description. No need to come up with the notion of an observer, and the eternal conundrum of why a particular particle decays 'spontaneously' becomes irrelevant.

Re: Leverage, Leveraged, Leveraging

FFS, we've been through this before.

To leverage something is to use it to maximum advantage.

There are more important things to worry about.

Re: "only faster for certain classes of algorithms"

Can anyone remind me whether cryptography is one of those problem classes?

Yes, it is. Google Shor's Algorithm.

Re: "campaign leveraging the recent Adobe Flash zero day vulnerability "

No, they mean "leveraging".

Look it up. It's in the dictionary.

Re: Wireless charging

Your iPad or charger is faulty if it takes that long to charge.

Indeed. If the following were true

"Apple, which has always derided fondleslabs that used any pointing device other than a human finger attached to a human arm"

then they wouldn't be selling stuff like this on their online store.

OED:

cyber, adj.

In predicative use. Of, relating to, or involving (the culture of) computers, virtual reality, or the Internet; futuristic.

Comes from...

cyber-, comb. form

Chiefly prefixed to nouns. Originally: forming words relating to (the culture of) computers, information technology, and virtual reality, or denoting futuristic concepts. Later also: spec. forming terms relating to the Internet.

Re: iBeacon vs Google

Actually, it's designed to receive information like, for example, whereabouts you are in a building with no GPS visibility. But you're right, the knee-jerk Apple bashing in respect of privacy is completely unwarranted, as is so so often the case.

Re: "Apple wants to collect and store your fingerprints..."@Mike Bell

Nope.

This is the hash code of an account password that I use to login to a live website.

9z076KYZa3ULVBHYTWNtbGL2vmM=

You didn't hack into its database, but I'm letting you know what it is to save you the trouble.

Care to tell me what password you're going to use to try to fool the login system? Hint: the website isn't expecting you to type in the above hash.

Further, it's not true to say that your finger will forever produce the same hash. It is almost certainly produced in conjunction with a random salt value. Just like when you update your password on a website that has any kind of decent security.

Good luck.

Re: How about a new UIDH

There already is such a header in existence: Do Not Track

I have this set whenever I use various browsers, but the ad men just ignore it. Microsoft didn't help by setting the header by default in a version of Internet Explorer. That annoyed the ad men greatly, to the extent that they will have nothing to do with it.

Hands up, anybody, who remembers US Robotics modems that weren't much faster than that.

Re: brilliant things you forgot to mention

Yeah, he was brilliant on Clive James' show, appearing on TV after quite a long hiatus as a trio (IIRC) of alter egos. He pretended to be some crazed UFO spotter as well as a completely useless football manager with the catchphrase 'Dare to Fail', so funny. His 'diseased penis' also had me in stitches. Apparently, it needed 'regular massage to get rid of the pus'. Genius.

Re: Too late - it already exists!

The Amazon review for that USB cable is awesome!

When my wife and I got engaged I proposed with a standard USB cable. I didn't get a steady job until recently and couldn't afford a cable as nice as this one. After being hired to stand in front of dominos pizza while holding a sign and jumping around like a chimpanzee on cocaine for almost six days I finally saved up enough hard earned cash to get her something nice. She had previously expressed interest in the gold plated lion tooth enforced XLR cable made entirely from recycled turtle tears but I knew deep down she wanted something with diamonds that would also keep jitter and distortion to a minimum. After months of searching I finally found this. At first the $998.75 price tag seemed a little steep but then I saw it had free shipping! The decision was a no brainier. My wife loves it; she wears it almost everyday. The smooth and shiny black cable goes with almost anything and ever since she started wearing it her jitter has been kept to a minimum. The only distortion that can be heard is portrayed through the jumbled banshee like squealing of her girlfriends who are all so jealous. If I had any complaints it would be that for $998.75 the cable should be a little longer. 3M is more of a $783.67 cable quality. Because of this, i give it 4 stars. Other than that I've got no complaints. I mean cmon, Free shipping!!!

Re: 30%!

Apple validate, host, deliver and update digital content for that 30% commission, as well as handling customer complaints and refunds, and providing a massive advertising platform for the vendor.

Compare that with many High Street purchases you make, where middle-men make their mark-up at multiple steps along the way.

Re: There is no requirement on digital content

You don't necessarily need an iPhone - it's your iTunes account that is relevant here.

I recently accepted updated terms and conditions that were presented to me prior to downloading some newly purchased content via my iTunes account. I couldn't say how it was worded because, naturally, nobody ever reads that stuff.

Maybe they should fit an electric toothbrush attachment while they're at it.

Yep, the right way being anywhere in the vicinity of the card reader. It doesn't need a phone signal to conduct the transaction.

Re: Google play store

There are plenty of 'real people' who don't use Google Play Store. That's one reason why Android has cracked the market for mobile malware.

Re: Real Security systems

Any security system can be circumvented with enough determination and effort. Beating the PIN out of a victim is a darned sight easier than fabricating a false fingerprint. I've not heard of a single instance where Apple's fingerprint reader has been put to criminal use, probably for this reason.

Re: Explain!

People from South East Asia have a thing about being referred to as monkeys. A friend from Malaysia once got the idea that I had likened her to a monkey (actually I hadn't) and she went ape shit. Pardon the pun.

It probably wasn't meant as a racist remark at all, just a mighty slur on Obama's character, from a North Korean perspective.