* Posts by Robert Hill

563 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2007

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SGI's Itanium super smokes Java test

Robert Hill

Well, that's not the point EITHER...

On one hand, this article addresses the need/possibility of SGI pitching to the commercial space, and THEN goes on to give specs in terms of performance per core. Totally off target.

If you want to pitch the the commercial space, then the ONLY metric is performance per dollar, period. And perhaps trade-in allowances for your current kit, but you can't get that from a benchmark obviously.

In the commericial space, most aquisitions are based upon cost metrics first, supportability second. SGI always sold cool kit, and I've used them myself on a few projects, but they have limited experience in supporting their boxes in a commercial environment. For them to be succssful in that space, they need to compete on a cost per performance number, AND have off-the-shelf solutions that include pre-configurations for network integration, storage integration, load scheduling, fault reporting, etc. None of this stuff is rocket science, but it's stuff that HP and IBM do very, very well - and SGI would have to make some investment in their sales and configuration abilities to support to the same degree I suspect.

News anchor tells weatherman to 'keep f**king that chicken'

Robert Hill

US Advertising reference...

As a service to the UK readership, and to explain the attempted joke, the news anchor was refering to a US advertisment for chickens, which goes "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken", which he was trying to say as "It takes a tough man to give a tough weather forecast" or similar. Hence the follow-on, "keep plucking those chickens" makes a bit more sense if you know the US advertisement.

At least I HOPE that's what he was trying to say...

Ford says new Taurus 'is fitted with stealth fighter radar'

Robert Hill
Thumb Up

@Gene Cash

You, sir, are TOTALLY on-target...

Too much flash, not enough concentration on things that actually matter, like efficient petrol (gasoline) engines, low-particulate diesel engines, and upgraded interiors and reliability.

Having SAID all that, frankly Ford is probably the best of the US manufacturers for providing well-driving cars, as they lift so much from their EU designs. If you have to buy a family sedan, and you want it American, then the Taurus is a damned good car, much like the Mondeo is in the UK - frankly the Taurus has always been that. Boring, but for a family sedan who cares?

There is a reason why only Ford was able to turn down government stimulus money in the US...and I am proud of them for having done so. I just wish they had kept Land Rover and Jaguar, who benefited enormously from Ford's investment and production knowledge...

T-Orange: It is possible to have too much spectrum

Robert Hill

Not sure about "no use for the spectrum"...

I have watched the recent network failures at O2 on both 3G and 2G networks with alarm, and we all know that it is due to the popularity of smartphones. Yes, it's the iPhone today, but give a year and the influx of Android, WebOS, et al handsets with 3" screens and decent browsers and app stores will make all networks suffer - to say nothing about USB 3G dongles.

Given the delays in rolling out LTE (alias 4G), I think that every network is being forced to reconsider just how much spectrum they need/want/can afford to deal with the vast increase of data useage on 3G.

Suggestion to T-Orange - if you have useable spectrum, KEEP IT and use it. Spare yourselves the future embarassment and brand damage that O2 (and AT&T in the US) are suffering...

Orange data users turning red as data dries up

Robert Hill
Terminator

The TIMING

Bill, the timing of this article, co-inciding with the "Too much spectrum for T-Orange" article is, er, unfortunate, at least if this problem can be laid at the feet of data network loads. And I would take that bet...

What US Homeland Security collects about you

Robert Hill
Boffin

No surprises there really...

I would expect that the records would only come from travel related companies, NOT the credit card companies - to get general credit card statements for anyone who MAY have travelled would be a horrendous civil rights breach, whereas obtaining travel records from travel companies (travel agents, brokers, airlines, etc.) is very obviously related to a real trip.

As for the total card number being needed, again, not a surprise. That helps them identify the use of stolen cards for travel, which would obviously be a huge red flag, or also the use of one card to book tickets for several trips at once for different people, also a huge red flag. I am frankly surprised the article author couldn't see this.

Other things that I would EXPECT them to collect but are not listed are the time of check-in for the flights, special meal requests, and longer term information such as number of visits to a given destination for a given traveller (probably stored as derived data somewhere else, rather than on a per trip basis).

Now, the predictive reliability of all this information is of course another matter, and I doubt that any FOI request will get access to the testing results and verification methods of the data analytics that is the end product of all this data. I just hope for all of our sake's that it is fairly good, and not simply handed to the lowest cost bidder...

Byrne's naked shorting crusade outs Yahoo! security vuln

Robert Hill
Boffin

@Version 1.0

I think the answer is obvious - Byrne wants to expose and take away the mechanism by which a lot of Wall St money is made (illegally and/or immorally), and Weiss is a profiteer of that mechanism, and/or has many friends which are. His involvement in Portfolio.com, and the IP address of the computer used to manipulate Wikipedia being in a Wall St insitution support that view. If I remember, Overstock.com was the victim of such an attack itself, which lead to Byrne's activisim and relentness pursuit of Wall St short-sellers. I always liked Overstock.com, it was an early online pioneer of good values, good customer service, and such.

For the record, this is PRECISELY where Chicago University "efficient market" economic theories of free capitalist markets fall down - when there is an ability to game the system. Not that I've been reading my Krugman recently...lol.

Lawsuit seeks to tag WGA nagware as spyware

Robert Hill
Gates Halo

@Nigel et al

I have moved mobos several times on my current copy of XP, and it has always been painless. I did have an initial installation issue, called a toll free number, was given a string of digits, and it has been flawless ever since...and that was very early in XP's lifespan until now.

WGA IS a security update in my book - cracked versions of Windows are ripe with embedded malware (yes, those disks you can buy in Asia for £2 often have it pre-installed, as do many torrents!), and MS insisting that people who want to buy Windows use legit copies stops worms and viruses from spreading to the overall community. That was incidentally MS's own line, and it does make sense to me. The fewer cracked copies, the better support from MS, the fewer pre-installed malwares, and the better the overall ecology of Windows machines.

I mean, BEFORE MS got serious about stopping malware (and they are much better now), the entire industry SCREAMED BLOODY MURDER at them for not making it more secure. MS has gotten better with security fixes, they insitututed WGA to try and stop cracked copies they could not support (especially as many cracked copies could not/ would not install updates anyway for fear of breaking their free copy!), and they have released malware detection and removal tools at little or no charge. Compared to where they were 10 years ago, that IS an improvement, and WGA is part of it. And frankly, we all gain from it, because our MS-centric desktop computing environment is getting more secure...

I don't thing Bill usually deserves a halo (except for his and Melissa's charity work), but in this instance I will give him the benefit of one...

Apple's iPhone loses carriers money, claims researcher

Robert Hill
FAIL

@The First Dave

Dave,

Very few consumers would want to pay the upfront costs of a non-subsidized phone, given the limited lifetimes of many devices. Additionally, there is a HELL of a lot of testing and certification on each device before it is rolled out onto a telco's network - and sometimes each network requests firmware upgrades to better support it's network from the handset vendor, and sometimes testing will show that a given handset has too many problems to be worth supporting (rare, but it has happened).

Then there is the question of support - while many El Reg readers can configure WAP and proxy gateways on their phones, the overall public is loathe to do this, and wants things pre-configured so they just work. And if a Joe Public user has issues, they expect to be able to get detailed help from the network operator (after all, Curry's or Best Buy staff will not know the way to configure your phone for each network either!). But network operators cannot be expert with all phones, nor have the skilled staff to support an infinite variety - so they offer a selection (and remember, they have to support even older phones they used to sell, so the number of supported devices for each network is actually fairly large).

All of this points that the handset is NOT independant of the network, and therefore I don't expect the current model to go away any time soon for Joe Public. I personally buy my phones seperately (until I got an iPhone!), starting when I just "had to have" a linux-powered Moto A780 that I bought in a decrepit importer's office in Manhattan, and then I "had to have" the one of first HTC Touch imported in the UK by Expansys...so I am very familiar with the issues of non-supported handsets! Fine for some of us, but a nightmare for most...

Robert Hill
Boffin

Only 600-700k UK iPhones on O2

There are roughly 600-700k iPhone users on O2 UKs network - anyone thinking that ALL O2 cares about are iPhone users, or that that is the only phone they sell, are simply misinformed. And if you think that that number of subscribers really matters in the scheme of their 13MM+ active customer base, then you really can't do math. Yeah, they are important - but only because they ARE chewing up the 3G network (with dongles) airtime, and even hitting the 2G network as well. Capacity is well overstretched - but that is not just an O2 issue, Voda and others are experiencing it too. The simple fact is that the current wireless networks were designed for voice first, data as an afterthought.

Until we get LTE in place, that will continue to be the case for every operator, as more 3" screen-bearing smartphones begin to offer good browsers and downloadable apps.

Boozy chess grandmaster passes out mid-game

Robert Hill
Thumb Up

Totally believe this...

I watched a "man vs machine" chess exhibition at the New York Athletic Club about 5 years ago, and while I cannot remember which Russian grandmaster was playing, I DO remember that I passed through the floor below the exhibition, where they were setting up for one HELL of a party post-match, with plenty of food, bar staff at ready, and a horde of Russian women with impossibly high cheekbones, blonder than blonde hair, and 5" heels parading around with champaign glasses half-full, awaiting the end of the match. This was, of course, out of the public eye, and I only found it because I was their with a NYAC member who could go anywhere in the club. I remember thinking that chess was such an intellectual game, so pure, so innocent - and then...and then I wished I was a grandmaster!!!

Nokia brandishes superfluous Booklet

Robert Hill
Paris Hilton

@F1reman

I like bile, acidity, spiciness, and sheer lewdness in writers. That too is why I read El Reg, and have for some time. But I really don't get where something as white-bread as Nokia introducing a logical product that doesn't seem all that bad in it's segment warrants it - save such tones for things that utterly DESERVE it, such as what Nokia is actually DOING with all of that personal Ovi data they are collecting, or the mobile operators such as "O2 Media" that are flogging "personalized advertising" using our mobile phone history processed by analytics to sell us yet more stuff. There are definately things that warrant and indeed scream for bile...it's just this seems like construction workers whistling at all the girls, even the ugly ones...

PH, because of the last bit...

Robert Hill
WTF?

Someone got up on the wrong side of bed...

Certainly, the conclussion that Nokia is introducing a netbook to preserve their share of the network operator stocklist isn't that much of a revalation. OF COURSE they would, and actually it is probably a good idea for them to do so, especially if they can make it a semi-premium product, include Ovi, and close out competition like Samsung. Actually, with most of the old notebook manufacturers having moved into handsets, Nokia is simply repaying the favour. And it's not like they actually have to DO much to produce it, other than to spec it to Foxconn or similar, and draw up the marketing and support plans.

Netbooks ARE what people are buying now - people want Windows so they can actually run real apps on them (I even use Adobe Lightroom on mine). The Linux/Windows netbook war has already been fought and won - by MS - and not due to MS marketing, but due to user perferences for an OS that could actually run some common apps and not just a browser and email client.

Nokia may well have an opportunity to offer something more than a "me too!" product in a tablet form, but they also had to compete in the bread-and-butter market segment to guard marketshare first, and to garner Ovi sign-ups secondly (that user data they are gathering is VERY valuable stuff, ask Google and the operators' own media groups). Basic strategy really...

So why the bile in the article?

And where is the dead Tux icon when I need it?

US 'grooming robot' to reduce navy bottom-fouling

Robert Hill
Boffin

@TseTT

And small robots don't set off magnetically triggered underwater mines, which copper sheathing does very well...

Actually, copper is now considered so dangerous for the marine environment that it's use in antifouling paints and such has been very constrained over the past few years. Something about killing off all the marine life in the harbours if we continued to use it on every boat...

UK.gov revives net cut-off threat for illegal downloaders

Robert Hill
Grenade

@mfraz, et al...

You know, they really CAN tell what you have been downloading, by putting their own peers into the torrent streams and checking what IP addresses become their peers for different files and file types, and then building a database, and then performing basic analytics. And by the way, not even encryption will defend against that - you still have to join a group of peers, and if the authorities have a machine in that peer group they WILL get your IP address. It isn't rocket science, it doesn't even demand a tap on your network - it just demands anyone that is willing to set up a few hundred or thousand virtual machines, put torrent software on them, configure it to participate in certain types of file sharing groups, and then record who connects to them as part of the peer group. Hell, you can play at home if you would like by setting up your own clients and recording their connectivity - it's just that YOU can't force the ISPs to release the identity of the actual IP address holder. (N.B - yes, I realize that you can always randomize or cloak your IP address via various methods, but for most people that is still a stretch).

So - to those that worry about legal and legitimate use of P2P, there simply isn't much reason to worry - because they CAN target those that are downloading illegally, and as seen above, very simply. That's not to say that the power to shut off net access won't be used illegally in some situations, or on flimsy grounds - but you can say that about ANY government power, from taxation to criminal prosecution. So I am much more concerned with the supervision and openness of the prosecutions that take place than any of the proscribed penalties at this point...and they haven't really speced that yet. If it IS open, and they have to show detailed proof (which we know they can do, see above) of piracy, then hey, by all means restriction of net access may be a valid strategy of enforcement. It won't be popular, and should only be used in egrarious cases, but I can certainly see it as a last resort - a computer version of capital punishment. And frankly, I still feel that there are activities that fit that penalty...even the non-computer one.

Robert Hill
Grenade

P2P will have to end soon...

The writing is on the wall, and we will just have to get used to paying for it, as we did previously.

As far as I can see, they certainly have the technology to prove that what most people are downloading is copywritten or not, as most people don't use encryption (and using encryption reduces the size of your peer group on P2P because so few other people use it, rendering your file transfer rate slower).

I suppose this can be dealt with the old-fashioned way - walled BBSes and encrypted FTP. Or use the old newsgroups with an encrypted client. But that really reduces the variety of what you can recieve, and payment is usually going to be required in some form (to the BBS operator, or to the newsgroup host).

Of course, the solution is for the studios to build their OWN netshops for digital content, and put the DVDs directly on the web with a payment mechanism, either streamed or downloaded. And priced reasonably. Hmmm....of course that obviates much of their current distribution model and business partners (WallMart/ASDA, Tesco, etc.), and will make lots of people very unhappy. Has to happen eventually though.

And to whomever wrote above that the "success" of iTunes and other digital distribution models PROVES that no enforcement is necessary of only the studios would provide their own legal system, I might counter that the HUGE amount of music piracy that still exists despite iTunes existance proves otherwise. The vast majority of music listings on TPB are in fact for copywritten work, most of it on iTunes should someone have wanted to buy it...but the download stats on TPB say that an awful lot of people are not choosing to buy it.

Free was nice whilst it lasted, but in the end you have to pay the artists and their studios...blast it. Thankfully, FreeviewTV with a timeshifting recorder usually has all the video that I really want to see anyway...

Brit diplomats' mission to expose Scientology's 'diploma mill'

Robert Hill
Grenade

Just remember Issac Asimov's quote...

Asimov has written about the party he attended 40+ years ago with a bunch of other Sci Fi writers, including Hubbard. It was at this party that (and I quote Asimov here) : "We were sitting around discussing the difficulty in making a living writing, when Hubbard said 'You know what I ought to do? I ought to start a religion, that's where the real money is."'

Now of course, the rationalist in me can't figure out how what he does is any different than the major "churches", except at least he admitted it's a game...how is paying for Scientology "training" any different from Catholic tithing, or the passing of the collection plate, or even sending your children to Sunday school? Oh yeah, more people do it, so it must be OK...oh, wait...

Electric car powers across land, ice and water

Robert Hill
FAIL

And I am SURE...

that all of the car's electrics and hardware will be MARINE GRADE, and protected from water, salt, condensation, high-voltage shocks (most of those electric vehicles need more than 12V for their motors!!!)...and of course have positive bouyancy even with a full load of batteries on board and useful payloads.

Uh huh.

What, did they have a team of monkey's working on this all night long? First, I suggest they learn a leeeeetle about boat building, and THEN design ambitious amphibious vehicles...watch a few re-runs of Top Gear's attempts to build amphibious cars to get the picture at least....

Builder blacklist boss hit with £5,000 fine

Robert Hill
Big Brother

Perfectly reasonable...

If his only mistake was to not register as a data collector, then a small fine is quite reasonable.

IF it could have been shown that his database contained unwarranted and unjust information, that he had no mechanism to redress data inaccuracies, etc., then he would have been guilty of a far larger misdeed. As he was not found guilty of these, then his business is much the same as Equifax and the other ratings agencies, and likely as legal as their is. I mean, if you can rate someone's credit historically, then why should it be illegal to rate their employment history? And if you think this guy make a killing, then you should look up the billions the credit ratings and other data collection business make - he is small potatoes, and probably actually does provide a service to employers wishing to build safe buildings with reliable workers.

Vulture Central plans Brit-Yank dictionary

Robert Hill
Happy

From a UK-resident New Yorker...

Things I've had to figure out that exclude the above (I hope):

"on offer" - means for sale, sometimes seems to mean on special offer (on sale)

"footy" - not the part of your body that supports you, but a ballgame with many, many supporters

"garden" - actually means the entire back or front yard, not just the planted bits

"fanny" - not the hind side, the bits on the other side of the girl

"yuf" - Brit expression that encompasses the deep respect and love they have for the next generation of well-behaved citizens

"council" - local governments, adept at income-redistribution to recent immigrants and non-workers, providing housing for free to same, and writing parking tickets.

"sorted" - fixed or solved

"drinker" - usually a place where drinking takes place, rather than the person doing the drinking

"off-license" - a place to legally buy alcohol that may be consumed away from it's licensed establishment, i.e. a package store, liquor store, etc.

"tea" - not just the main British drink, but also confusingly used to mean supper

There must be more, but this is what pops into the head at present...

Scientists print out super-slim battery

Robert Hill
Joke

This is nothing...

This is nothing but a thinly veiled grab for power...or thinly printed perhaps.

Gamer embezzles virtual cash to settle real debts

Robert Hill
FAIL

@Ed Blackshaw

Nope, I have no problem with that, and was paying for two accounts and frequently buying GTCs to fund major ship purchases (I can make more money in the real world than in game).

No, I really didn't like their attitude towards allowing scamming - there are very simple mechanisms they could put in place that would easily stop it, and yet they don't. The constant begging and scamming in Jita (the main trade system) is enough to turn many off, and it would be very easy to prevent or crack down on - but CCP does nothing for that, even when it is THEIR brokerage system that makes it so easy to scam other players by mis-listing merchandise. Or the problem that BoB had with a single director being able to wipe-out the largest alliance in Eve all by himself, because ANY alliance executive can dis-band the alliance in 2 minutes work - again, easy to prevent by making it a majority directorship vote, or by making the CEO required to do it. And the list goes on...

So my issue isn't about CCP making money (which they deserve for a such an impressive experience), but about their being quite happy with scamming - as long as they are not the ones being scammed!

Robert Hill
Pirate

Not the first Eve rip-off or double cross...

Really, in the sheme of Eve, this is hardly the most notable double-cross. The Band of Brothers director that closed the alliance minutes before their rivals The Goons invaded their entire space with everything they had probably cost more in terms of real-life currency losses and consternation. And The Goons themselves lost their entire Titan fund when their leader went walking with it. The Guiding Hand Social Club corp EXISTS merely to infiltrate and pillage alliances from within for example...they have stricken some rather large alliances over the years, once they get someone up the the level of director within the alliance. Etc, etc, etc...

The important thing is the Eve/CCP does not ban you for those types of offences, as long as the money stayes within their closed system. Now taking it OUT of their wallets, er, "closed economy" apparently will get you banned...although you can put IN as much as you want by buying Game Time Cards and selling them in-game (they even provide a secure transaction mechanism for their purchase and selling between players!).

Now I remember why I stopped playing Eve...

Is your cameraphone an oxymoron?

Robert Hill
Grenade

Loss of standards?

Digital media have conspired to make more media more accessable to more people - sharing and communication is now commonplace between social groups spread worldwide, in a way that old media could never have supported. This is a good thing, but also a bad thing...

The quality of commonly-accessible digital media (jpgs, MP3s, pdfs, etc.) is often worse than the media they have replaced (notice I am not including FLAC, RAW shot in a 39 Mpix digital camera, etc.). As such, we as a generation are getting used to reproduction standards that are in some ways worse than what we had a generation ago - your common compressed MP3 played through iPod headphones sounds worse than a good quality turntable hooked up to a vintage 1970s hifi with good speakers. But as it is "digital", we think that it must contain all the data that should be there, and we learn to relish it's ubiquity.

The upshot of this is that we are getting more media shared wider, but our appreciation of the nuances is dissapearing. When you look at a friend's holiday cameraphone snaps on Facebook, it will never have the granduer or impact of vacation pictures taken as 35mm slides and projected on a screen in the living room while you all sit down and drink wine and discuss them. You will never see the fine details on Facebook, notice the background of the pictures, the expression of the faces of those in the back, the whitecaps on the water behind them, etc. You WILL get a top-line impression of what was going on - the central thought, as it were, but not the complete context, or the mood, or the complete emotion.

As a result, we are more and more drowing in media saturation, with ever lower expectations of what it should or at least could be. Photography especially is more and more about conveying a very simplistic thought, rather than an appreciation of the photograph itself - after all, it's silly to worry about the "rule of thirds" when the entire photograph is only a 2" square of pixels on a monitor.

The only good news is that digital photography is also making DSLRs and processing more readily accessable to those that would persue it as a hobby, and as a result the "serious amatuer" ranks are swelling slowly but surely. The only question is whether people will still care to view that type of studied photography for long...or appreciate it.

Hero: HTC names third Android smartphone

Robert Hill
Terminator

@Jimbo 7

What good is openness if they don't open the developer's kit to more people??? Right now very few app vendors have WebOS development kits, and that's because of Palm's lack of sourcing them. Technically, the Pre could easily best the iPhone, AND be open source (and don't talk to ME about open source, I was one of the few to own a Motorola A780 Linux smartphone in the US - in 2003!). But the lack of 3d party apps is going to render it stillborne if Palm doesn't get their finger out...and Apple has a huge lead in apps. Palm doesn't even have an app store set up properly...

Robert Hill
Grenade

SO like an iPhone...

except for the total lack of 3d party apps in any appreciable quantity. Oh, wait then...

Spanish court in favour of topless celebs

Robert Hill
IT Angle

There IS an IT angle...

It's about freedom of media and digital media especially, versus our privacy rights. This is one of the prevailing issues of digital today, and is therefore especially relevant to our industry, which is as much about communication as computation.

Kodak retiring iconic Kodachrome film

Robert Hill
IT Angle

@Wim

Never quote Ken Rockwell in a photography discussion...just don't. I totally get the point of composition mattering more than technology, but Ken is a very divisive figure that you either love or hate. Certainly NOT the last word in anything.

Kodachrome will be missed, greatly, but to be honest the use of film in small formats like 35mm is rapidly declining, and Kodak never really offered it where it could still have a market, in large format photography. And tbh, most large format photography these days is black and white, because of the need to self-process the negatives and then scan. If Kodak were to offer a viable large format Kodachrome...well, we'll never know. I will morn it's passing, but I will admit that I have never used it either...

NPfIT failed nine Gateway Reviews

Robert Hill
Stop

Statistical Average results then...

Statitically, one third of all IT projects basically succeed, one third delivery but with compromises in scope, costs, or timing, and one third fail outright to meet functionality, timing, or cost by large margins.

So saying one third of the projects were graded "red" would be spot on average, and anyone with a smidgeon of project management experience would know this.

Nothing to see here, move on...

Be broadband denies BitTorrent ban

Robert Hill
Pirate

Not a Be consipiracy...

If it was, they would do more than block the trackers, they would block the torrent traffic...

Let's see - Vuze says all's clear and has been.

@Mike Richards - Be often sends out repeated notices of projected service outages, when you get multiple notices, it is most likely still ONE outage from what I have seen. YMMV, but after a longish time with them I have noticed they tend to over-warn, and under-outage...

The Pirate, well, just because!

Minority Report command sales system pushes Euro UAV

Robert Hill
Black Helicopters

@Mike Richards

rotflmao...my thoughts exactly!!! But it had better come in black...

US lawmakers call for AppleT&T probe

Robert Hill
Thumb Down

What is this idiocy about ending subsidies?

If handsets are unbundled from contracts, most people will end up paying a LOT more up-front for their handset. Don't believe me? Go to www.expansys.com or www.expansys.co.uk, and look at the price of operator-independant handsets with and without tarrifs.

iPhones in particular have been available in the EU via countries that already do prevent lock-in of handsets to networks, and the price for non-subsidized iPhones is very, very high - 600 or 700 euros if I remember right. Compare that to the subsidized price, and you will realize that not too many people will want to buy a non-subsidized iPhone if it involves that much cash upfront.

There is no free lunch - top-line handsets are expensive, and they will remain out of reach of most consumers without bundling and lock-in.

Olympus unwraps first Micro Four-Thirds camera

Robert Hill
Thumb Up

FINALLY...Olypus have hit their old niche

As an avid Olypus photographer (E-3, E-500, SW1030, etc.), I have been eagerly waiting for Oly to recapture the niche that was their's back in the days of 35mm film: small, light travel cameras that did little to sacrifice quality. The 4/3ds format was supposed to be their position in that in digital, but the APS-C camers turned out to be not much heavier or lighter, leaving Oly with their top-quality optics but sensors that couldn't compete with APS-C in dynamic range, and bodies nearly as bulky and heavy.

Now the E-P1 and Micro 4/3ds changes all of that, enabling Oly to finally reduce the flange to sensor distance to almost nothing, resulting in a camera that can take advantage of Oly's great optical designs. Sure the sensors still won't have the dynamic range of APS-C, but the gap is so small now, and the E-P1 so much smaller and lighter, that it now has a niche - the ultimate travel camera. Nice one Oly - again the innovator.

Palm politely cuts Pre tether

Robert Hill
Boffin

Rude idiots...

Tethering a laptop into a mobile makes the mobile connection consume nearly an order of magnitude more bandwidth than the phone itself would use to browse the web, plus or minus a bit. If you want proof, go to http://www.handsetdetection.com/blog/2009/04/firefox-user-agent-switcher-excellent-for-mobile-website-testing/ and use the info to configure your Firefox browser to mimick the behaviour of a mobile phone (I suggest the N95, but feel free to use the list on Handset Detection to find a few faves). See what many of your favorite sites look like when they identify a mobile handset rather than plain Firefox. Smaller web sites don't really differentiate much, but larger ones, the ones that make up a huge amount of most user's web traffic, DO differentiate, and really compress the page content. That includes smaller graphics, no flash, etc.

The other issue is that there is only so long that you can spend browsing the web on a 3" screen, whereas the limit of occular strain is much higher on a larger laptop screen. Even on my iPhone I find that after an hour I need a nice break, but on my 21" monitor at home I can go all day and all night, and on a good 15" laptop screen nearly as long.

Lastly, the network operators are really scared - not about revenue, but about overloading their core networks with unlimited data. Simply put, current wireless networks were never designed to accomodate the strain of providing wireless data on the scale that unlimited tethering or even a large number of dongles will place on them. Until LTE is deployed, or even WiMax, that was never their design criteria. And it's not simply a loss of revenue they fear, it really IS a concern for the network stability (network operators obsess over this to a degree that is fanatical, despite appearances at times). Their is no easy fix for this until next gen networks are ready to roll-out, IMHO.

So I guess the story is just because the phones support it, no one bothered to tell the network operators 5 years ago that they may want to plan for tethering loads and build the infrastructure to handle it - which would look like financial suicide for them at that time.

In the end, they will compromise - they will end up allowing it, charging for it, and capping it eventually. At least until LTE is deployed...

Mobile internet? It ain't just for the iPhone

Robert Hill
Boffin

@Martin Lyne

I happen to be one of the better placed people in the UK to comment on how much mobile networks know about you, as mobile customer analytics happens to be my profession, and I have worked with operators closely.

The answer is much more the former (anonomyzed user X...) than the latter, pretty much across all networks. Most of them outsource their ad serving to companies like Double Click or 4th Screen, Amobee or JumpTap, and will not share your data with them except as a hashed or doubly hashed number as a user ID. And that data is very, very limited...age range (not age), gender, maybe a lifestyle or interest classification for ad targeting, depending upon network. No personal details such as where you live, etc. That's not to say they don't know more, and couldn't learn more - but in terms of mobile ad targeting, that is pretty much the limit in the current environment.

As for mobile networks knowing more than the internet companies, that is hardly the case - mobile doesn't have cookies, and as such state-dependent knowledge is harder to acquire and maintain. Nor is there yet much ecommerce on mobile, which can be a huge factor in building a personal profile on the wired internet. Mobile may be better at linking their billing data to you for profiling, but over 50% of the UK mobile market is on prepay SIMs with no bills. All in all, customer profiling for mobile is still quite a challenge, and much harder than on the wired internet.

Not to say that mobile won't catch up...real-time traffic analysis and sophisticated contextual analysis of web browsing are on the horizon for mobile. But not this month...

AT&T's iPhone MMS to be free

Robert Hill
Pirate

@AC re: AT&T MMS "upgrades"

MMS messages are broadcast into the network via an MMS gateway - there are many vendors on the market, and they all work slightly differently. My _guess_ is that the iPhone requires the use of a specific gateway, and AT&T have a different one. And the project to procure and deploy the new gateway just for iPhone is running behind schedule, probably because Procurement at AT&T decided to haggle with the vendor over pricing for a few months, trying to squeeze a few pennies out of the hardware cost - and probably saved $5000 or so at the cost of delaying the entire project for months and pissing off their most important consumer customers. Ummm, not that this EVER happens at telcos, never...lol.

Alternately, the iPhone could have MMS designed for one gateway, and need to be redeveloped slightly to accomodate whatever AT&T has in place. Same net effect, except Procurement isn't to blame, but the developers are.

And NO I don't work for AT&T, and nor do I know this is the case...but my experience at mobile telcos says these are very likely scenarios...

Pressure group demands UK apes China net filter plan

Robert Hill
Stop

@David Edwards

Phorm aren't for net censorship -- Phorm are for targeting advertising, and there is too much money in porn and gambling advertising for Phorm to ever be against THAT. Just like in the early days of home videotapes, the money is in things that people would rather do in privacy, and are willing to pay for in some way...

Transition flying car into 'beta test': Deliveries from 2011

Robert Hill

Fender bender?

The worry for me would be driving it as a car, knowing that even the smallest fender bender could compromise the airframe or the lifting surfaces. Then you would have a choice - maybe DRIVE back the 400 miles over rough terrain in the Outback that you just flew over, or hope that the damage wasn't too severe and that your loved ones in the cockpit would be safe in the air.

There are viable reasons for leaving fragile airplanes on tie-down points and in hangers, and getting into a real auto to do your driving...unless they can show this thing has some real resiliancy. And you do have to wonder if it would ever be really safe in a roadway accident at even 50 miles per hour - major auto companies have spent decades making autos safe in crashes, and they don't have to worry about weight as much.

Sharp creates true-hue five-colours-per-pixel LCD

Robert Hill
Thumb Up

We need this...

Anyone that has seen the output of an 8-ink photoprinter compared to the standard 3 ink business inkjets can understand what the difference should be like. This is the same concept, although still with only 5 colours instead of 8. But even that should be a huge step up in colour rendition and colour depth.

If you do ANY photo or video editing on a monitor you will want one of these. And maybe a Sigma Foveon-sensor DSLR to shoot the source materiel with...

Supercomputer innovator preps for asset sale

Robert Hill
Dead Vulture

RIP...does this remind anyone of MassPar?

Too bad, another innovator bites the dust. In this world screaming for energy efficiency, dense server clusters, etc., a well-positioned, well-engineered product couldn't make it.

I blame the parents.

It's hard to think that the only real challenger left to x86 clusters is nVidia Tesla arrays...go CUDA!

The tombstone...for obvious reasons.

Atlantis safely back to Earth

Robert Hill
Stop

@Dave - Not flaws, design choices

Sure, a post-mortem can easily say that "IF things had been done differently..."

But that same post-mortem team didn't have to actually weigh those design choices against other factors - such as the stability of a much longer vehicle at lift-off, the capability to assemble and stage a taller vehicle, the gantry and interconnect issues, etc., etc., etc. Some of those may have been trivial to make accomodate a taller design, some may have made it nearly impossible. The point it, we don't know, and neither did the "experts" that were simply concerned with one fact -- could it have been more survivable. Unfortunately for engineers, there is rarely only one condition to optimize for...

If you compare the loss rates of Shuttles to the loss rates of early sea-going exploration ships in the 1500s and 1600s...well, no contest, the Shuttle is a lot safer. And frankly, in terms of spaceflight, that IS where we are - the equivalent of the 1500s caravelles. Expect to lose a few, because that's what exploration is all about.

Green GT rolls out sexy e-supercar

Robert Hill
Stop

"School of Design..." 'nuff said

OK, it looks hot, but there is NO WAY any driver would want to compete in this - it was crafted by a school of design, not a school of engineering. SURE it looks good (did I say that already?!?), but it probably not had a whole lot of thought about crash resistance, rules, or even basic aerodynamic performance at 150+ mph.

But intersting marketing ploy - try to link it to Le Mans to generate some heat, then sell flacidly driving production cars (or even "prototypes") to people with too much money and too little sense...

Unsafe at any speed: Memcpy() banished in Redmond

Robert Hill
Gates Halo

MS actually does GET it on this one...some here do too

It is VERY easy to say that a competent programmer knows how to avoid buffer overlow in any language and in any condition...

The problem is that 25 programmers often have a more difficult challenge when working together than a single lone programmer. And with Agile and related "no/light spec" (asbestos suit on!) methodologies proliferating, getting information about what exactly each buffer should have and what length it should be updated to each team member during a development phase is a difficult task. Yeah, that's what encapusulation and concepts like data hiding are all about, but let's face it, pure C was desgined with little of that in mind. Changes during development WILL get missed, and the code relying upon it WILL run, even passing all testing. It will just have a massive security hole looming beneath the surface...

What MS is doing is defining a new library that APPEARS to (and probably DOES) make group programming in C a bit safer. Not that code won't FAIL, or BLOW UP...but at least common security exploits can be stopped. If your program fails, that might be a small or even a large loss. But if your program security hole results in the bank accounts of 100,000 people being emptied, that is a DISASTER from a legal liability viewpoint, a software brand viewpoint, etc.

Anyone who doesn't see how useful this is hasn't programmed on large projects, and hasn't faced the vagrieties of changing specs and design while trying to hit a deadline with a large team doing co-operative development...this is a safety catch for when the left hand really DOESN'T know what the right hand is doing...

The Halo Bill icon for this one...even he deserves an attaboy occasionally.

Chip cooler launches liquid nitro at CPUs

Robert Hill
Happy

Make those TALL leather gloves

When handling liquid nitrogen, the key thing is to ensure that no liquid gets spilled into the cuff of your glove from above, or you will lose some flesh or a finger. You can safely pour liquid nitrogen right over your bare hands, provided you don't cup your hands and keep your fingers open - it forms a vapour layer and the liquid runs right off (yes, I have done this repeatedly). But get it caught in a glove, and it has nowhere to go, and pools in the fingers. End of said fingertips...

Way back in the late 70s, we thought that future computing would be done using Johsephson junction superconductors cooled with liquid helium...at 4.2 degrees Kelvin. There was even the requisite cover story in Scientific American that swore it - and I did a Science Congress project on it in 1981. But no one really wants to run a computer at 4.2K (I/O is a bitch), and the liquid gases (especially helium!) are expensive over time. I might just have to buy one of these in honor of those ancient prophecies...

Ofcom works out why Wi-Fi doesn't work

Robert Hill
Paris Hilton

Microwave Ovens

My parents owned one of the VERY first microwaves, the Amana Radarange. It had two big circular dials, coolly backlit, that functioned as the analogue timers. No programming, no digital readout, no rotating trays.

It was built like a TANK, heavy as hell, and with a door that slammed shut tightly and hermetically.

Microwaves SUPPOSEDLY are totally sealled units, with heavy EM shielding surrounding the cavity, and doors that function as part of that shield. The Radarange had a perforated sheet of metal that was embedded in the glass of the door - today's units don't seem so well built or sealed, probabably because they cost a tenth of what the originals did. I suspect they leak a bit more EM too...

Paris, because microwaves are probably the only oven she has ever had to operate...

2060: Humvee-sized, bulletproof meat-eating spiders attack

Robert Hill
Alien

@Steve Craft

"3) Isn't Greenland still part of Denmark, and therefore the EU? I am sure that these arachnids will be found to be non-metric or disrespectful of cultural diversity and then will be buried under a glacier of paperwork from Brussels that makes the Greenland icepack look like a snow cone by comparison."

Actually, the problem is that Greenland may be part of the EU, and that will mean that these 2 metre+ sized flesh eating spiders will soon be listed as dis-advantaged, protected species and allowed to roam in the streets with full legal protection..

Larry Ellison: SPARC buy means we're just like Apple

Robert Hill
Go

nCUBE anyone???

It's not like Oracle hasn't owned hardware vendors before - their experience with nCUBE (1988-2002) was highly interesting, and really helped Oracle mature their parallel database thinking in the early days. I did a number of benchmarks on the nCUBE at the Northeast Parallel Architecture Center in Rochester in '93, and it was a decent enough machine.

I think the important consideration is SYNERGY, between the hardware design and software architecture. Database software is able to use very high degrees of parallelism in the CPU, microarchitecture, and overall systems design - probably more so than any other type of software. Sun had some very talented people working on highly parallel architectures that are a natural fit for that, and Oracle is and always has been the best parallel database (besides specialist Teradata). I think there may be some synergies there, and I would expect that Oracle and Sun may be able to get some very nice results working together closely. In someways this is a return to the olden-days of parallel processing, where many database vendors had proprietary hardware systems (Teradata and the Y-network, Oracle and nCUBE, MassPar and Transputers, etc.). Ahh, those were the days...

Oracle has the cash, and Larry is a risk taker - and part of me thinks he just likes the challenge of saving Sun or extracting what value lies within. Good on him if he makes it work, as it can only drive the market forward...

Apple bars 2.0 code from App Store

Robert Hill
Jobs Halo

El Reg...why the smack?

So...the article is a bit confused, or confusing. Not sure which.

Apple isn't asking any developers to GIVE UP support for OS 2.0, they are simply saying that new apps must ALSO work on 3.0. That is actually future compatibility - while not requiring them to break backwards compatibility. Obviously, as 3.0 has a lot of new services, there is no way to guarantee that any given 3.0 app will run on 2.0...so backward compatibility really can't be guaranteed.

But comparing the Moto to Intel switch isn't really the same - mostly because operating systems for PCs are a VERY mature technology, while smartphone operating systems simply are not (as some vendors prove with every release!). So there is a high probability that there are 1000 new API calls in 3.0 that do things that 2.0 never considered possible - and no workarounds are going to make that happen.

Given that, all Apple can do is ask for future compatibility, and that is what they are doing...but somehow, someone has to try and find fault regardless...weird.

Great news about 3.0 coming soon to GA...really looking forward to it.

Vauxhall city e-car won't be 'mini Volt'

Robert Hill
Happy

Branding

Is it me, or has anyone else noticed that only Opel seems to have the proper logo for building an e-car?

Obama declares war on Ireland over tech tax avoidance

Robert Hill
Thumb Up

People really don't understand...

Governments are going to tax both people and the companies that they work for. Why? Because governments have to supply infrastructure, defense, court systems, eduction, etc. to support both sets of entities.

The only real question is how much gets taken out of YOUR pocket, as a worker, and how much gets taken out of your EMPLOYER'S pockets, before he pays himself 10,000 times more than he pays you. For years now companies have learned to game the system with international incorporation and subsidiaries, managing to declare actual INCOME in countries with little or no taxes, and declare LOSSES in counties like the US that actually have realistic taxes on corporate earnings - it's very simple to do, the lower tax country simply invoices the higher tax country subsidiary for "services" or "consulting" and the income is transfered (that's the simple version, there are a range of ways to game it). And the loser of that? US employees, who have to make that difference up out of their personal taxes, or loss of services.

Stop crying for the companies - they are sticking it to the individual tax payer. They are only going to pay their workers what the market will bear, so it's not like they are going to give you a raise because they pay less tax (a typical right-wingnut arguement against corporate taxes of any kind).

I am convinced that MOST companies would actually pay a fair and balanced tax as long as their competitors had to, at least in the US. The problem is that once a few started using havens, they all felt they had to to look good to investors. Obama is trying to reset that game, and hopefully he will be successful.

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