Posts by Ralph B

define:significant

How do DisplaySearch possibly justify their headline "x86 processors and Windows 8 expected to take significant share after 2013", based on their own data?

Clearly this is not the everyday usage of "significant" - meaning "important; of consequence".

Perhaps they mean "having or expressing a meaning; indicative; suggestive: a significant wink" - i.e. the tiny market share after 2013 shows a significant failure of x86 and Windows 8 in the tablet market.

Or perhaps they are using the statistical meaning - "of or pertaining to observations that are unlikely to occur by chance and that therefore indicate a systematic cause" - i.e. the tiny market share is significant of the failings of the MS OS and Intel architecture.

Just asking.

I'll make a bet ...

Apple's market share might have dropped from 95.5% to 66.6% but I bet they still take 95.5% of the profit in that market.

The non-iOS tablet makers are on a race to the bottom.

Why bother with the dots at all?

Why not an individual TLD for everybody and everything on the planet? I'm sure the DNS root servers are up to it, eh? I mean, having a logical hierarchy to spread the load is so passé nowadays, isn't it? If it should happen to melt down, ICANN can always offload the job to some Google or Amazon cloud, can't they? Nothing to worry about.

</sarcasm>

Meanwhile, I wonder if someone at the ITU is watching this and wondering if they can maybe get away with reorganising the international dialling schemes in order to sell rich people 4 or 5 digit phone numbers at $500k a pop.

Plenty Offish?

Wow, a dating site that specialises in offish people. There's a niche. Still, I guess even unfriendly people have to breed.

VIZ Prior Art

It's a blatant copy of Mickey's Monkey Spunk Moped.

Like the Mars bars ...

Even the 3G service in Glasgow is fried.

That dish transporter ...

... definitely has the Thunderbirds theme playing in the background.

Any bets?

Any bets that the those who laid down will be the first to be laid off?

Trans-Genre Mix-up

Nexus Prime? Shouldn't that either Nexus 6 or Optimus Prime? Not some trans-genre transformeral Dicking about?

Anonymous maybe, but ...

Monitoring this would be pretty trivial for The Man - either by directly tapping the server(s) or by registering a Vibe "client" with a fake location to match that of the targets. Thereafter the life-span of the messages sent will be determined by how long it takes The Man to secure conviction.

Bogus

The earlier Kindles had a physical keyboard because they had no touch screen. The new Kindles don't have a physical keyboard because they do have a touch screen.

And it will have to be a very bad virtual keyboard to be worse that the earlier physical keyboards.

And all this has absolutely nothing to do with whatever customer-author interactions that Amazon may have planned or hoped for but failed to achieve.

(Of course, you might have argued that the lousy physical keyboards are a factor in this failure, but you didn't, did you?)

Muscle-Car Input Somewhat Overstated

According to Wikipedia, Pierre Cardin was only responsible for the _interior_ of the 1972/73 AMC Javelins. His contribution was an $85 option.

Still, I hope his tablet also comes with "six multi-colored stripes, in a tough satin-like nylon with a stain-resistant silicone finish".

Another interesting number

So, they've bought 1023 patents from IBM, have they?

1023 is 2^10 - 1

And a googol is 10^10^2.

And they bid Pi billion dollars for the Nortel patents.

These guys are geeks. And geeks are good.

Even if they are also evil.

Baked Apple

The "iPhone 4 - Important Product Information and Safety Guide" has a section titled "Keeping iPhone Within Acceptable Temperatures" which reads as follows:

"iPhone is designed to be operated in temperatures between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F) and stored in temperatures between -20º and 45º C (-4º to 113º F). Low- or high-temperature conditions might temporarily shorten battery life or cause iPhone to temporarily stop working properly. Leaving iPhone in a parked vehicle or in direct sunlight can cause iPhone to exceed these storage or operating temperature ranges."

So, if you solar-charging iPhone doesn't get knicked, it'll get cooked.

A couple of comments

The Reg says "hackers penetrated one of its community websites and accessed names, email addresses, and other information belonging to developers of smartphone apps."

That would be "ex-developers of Nokia smartphone apps." I suppose there might be a few determined hobbyists soldiering on with Symbian, Maemo & MeeGo, but everyone else will have moved on.

The Reg says: "At time of writing, the discussion boards weren't accessible. Nokia's advisory said the service would be restored as soon as possible."

Since the discussions are mostly people bitching about the Nokia's "strategy" change, and failure to deliver, I don't predict they'll be back any time soon. A nice excuse for Nokia to do some spring cleaning.

FAIL, because ... it's Nokia.

Or Alternatively

Being able to see images of the real book is all very nice, but if you just want to read the book, then you will probably be able to find the same content at Project Gutenberg, for free.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:MobileReader_Devices_How-To#iPad.2C_iPhone_and_iPod_Touch

Go Girl Goldilocks!

Am I alone in thinking that the 10.1 inch is too big, and the 8.9 inch is too small? If only they'd make, you know, a 9.4 inch version, then I'd buy it.

Maybe.

Are you listening Paul Chambers?

So, next time Robin Hood airport is closed you make a FoI tweet about when it might re-open, rather than a joke about blowing it up.

Except you have a life ban, so never mind.

One Careful Driver

I expect he also has a Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle for sale on eBay ... marked: "Buyer collects".

Meta-study Required

I think we need a meta-study to examine whether increasing numbers of studies into whether porn causes rape is causing more porn.

What a great opportunity

What a great opportunity for a practical joker with a bunch of "alternative" QR code stickers.

Suspicious

Anyone else here reckon they might have sold (part of) their customer database to the spammers, and now that they've been found out, are trying to blame a break in?

Neigh!

Neigh! Neigh! And thrice neigh!

In Russia

In Russia netbook charges you.

They Will Backtrack

Of course they will backtrack. A bunch of folk WILL pre-order on the promise of weapon advantage. Then EA will later be "reluctantly forced to withdraw this offer due to public reaction", thus placating the boycotters. The pre-orderers won't bother cancelling their pre-orders because they are lazy and fickle. Nice bit of publicity generated by all the controversy, and inevitably, more publicity equals more sales. Business as usual.

Captain Elop

The Good Ship Nokia was sinking slowly, so Captain Elop made a hole in the hull to let the water out. But now the ship is sinking quicker, so Captain Elop wants the hole made bigger.

Prior Art!

The Beano's General Jumbo did it first!

- http://www.beano.com/retro-beano/general-jumbo?decade=1960

Trudge?

> "Surely they see the Tardis approaching, say, 'Oh. It's him again' – and trudge away."

"Trudge"? That should be "trundle", Shirley?

oBAMa

The Press's microphones don't seem to have been sensitive enough to record the muttered sentence that followed the President's quote: "We have proceeded through all the processes required under our extradition agreements. Now we send in the Navy SEALs."

Super-Injunctions via Hardware

Here's a solution for future Ryan Giggs ... hire Cisco to handle the super-injunctions on the Internet.

Or Google.

Might even be a business model for Twitter ... cash for forgetting hashtags.

Someone's been watching The Onion

The Onion had this vid on the story some time ago:

- http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

And that's not to say it isn't true. Sometimes it's best to hide the truth in plain sight. (Eh, Osama?)

Big Potatoes

Kinda puts the $375k that the BBC paid Boston Business Computing for bbc.com into perspective, doesn't it?

I seem to remember that The Reg got a bit hot-under-the-collar about that story a few years ago. Ah, yes, here it is:

- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/05/bbc_domain/

Might be worth revisiting that story now, maybe?

With or without Playmobil re-enactments.

It'll all end in tears

As far as I understand it, the camera for Skype is, at the moment, an extra component. But once it's included in the TV we'll be on a slippery slope. If you know what I mean.

Finally Some Good News for Sony

This story makes a pretty good argument for restricting idiot offspring to a Playstation & Gran Turismo.