* Posts by Steve Evans

2772 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

Study: If your antivirus doesn't sniff 'new' malware in 6 days, it never will

Steve Evans

uh hur...

I have pseudocode for this:

- If article subject = AV_scare then scan article for study author.

"Host-based intrusion prevention firm Carbon Black" - Check

- If author in interested parties then salt=salt+10000

Hmmmm... salty.

AT&T defends FaceTime price gouge

Steve Evans

So...

Are they applying this just to Facetime, or are they also including the cross platform industry standard video calling feature Apple chose to ignore (can't have fruity users see the non-fruity weirdos can they!).

NASA: WE'VE FOUND Four-toed NON-HUMAN FOOTPRINTS

Steve Evans

Re: Bad form Lewis!

Don't worry GettinSadda, you still spent more time on your post than Lweis did!

Everything Everywhere bags 4G monopoly in UK - for now

Steve Evans

Are you really going to need/use 4G, or do you just want it because it is new and shiny?

Personally I often leave my phone on 2G, trading data-rate for single strength and battery longevity.

Apple, Samsung brass hats' patent spat chitchat falls flat

Steve Evans

Re: Idiots shooting themselves in the feet

Correct, with only one minor flaw...

All those in a position to challenge the US patent office (aka lawyers) are making way too much money from these crazy trials to want to change the trough.

Twitter API outrage: Break our rules and we'll break app kneecaps

Steve Evans

Not really a surprise...

Given the number of dizzy bird icons I see when I access twitter from a desktop browser (i.e. quite a lot, and I'm not even a heavy twitter user), I'd say they've been exceeding the capacity of their servers for quite some time.

It doesn't even seem to depend on time of day. I've even seen "dizzy bird" at 9am GMT, a time which is usually good for the internet as the Americans are asleep.

Maybe they should try to target the politician loving twitter-bot hoards a little better?

Samsung to fight iPad with stylus, windows

Steve Evans

Re: Old school?

I'm sure if Apple introduced a stylus you'd see it as perfecting and revolutionising an old idea?

Or would you just forget that it ever existed before and return to your job at the US patent office, "Approved" stamp tightly gripped in hand?

Steve Evans

Don't worry...

"Samsung today pledged to "completely redefine mobile computing" - by bringing back the peripheral we thought was lost, the stylus."

Don't worry. I'm sure the stylus will be lost (again) very shortly.

Text-and-drive teens ratted on by AT&T mobe tech

Steve Evans

That's very similar to the US open container law... Even your passengers can't have a drink when you're driving.

Hopefully that stupidity won't make it over this side of the pond... Then again, there are those trying to ban people smoking in their cars to protect child passengers (which is fine and understandable) except they're trying to get smoking in cars banned for everyone, even if you don't have children, let alone passengers!

Samsung's Wang was up 22 hours a day, had no time to copy Apple

Steve Evans

@AC 14:22 - Re: Throw out the case

Whilst every inventor has the right to defend their work, that is not what we are seeing here.

Apple haven't really invented anything. Touch screen devices existed long before the iPhone. Some of them had icons, and some of those were even rectangular with rounded corners. All Apple did was take ideas from various sources and then refine them. I admit they did a nice job (eventually once they fixed all the short-falls of the IPhone 1).

Rounding the corners off of things, so they are not sharp, is not innovation. It's common place. Real physical items have been manufactured like this for centuries. Even Mr Chippendale (C 18th) was known to rub a bit of sandpaper on his furniture. It is more pleasing on the eye. Applying this to a virtual object is so obvious it's not even funny.

Steve Evans

Re: Throw out the case

You could do worse than have a play with a Nexus 7... Very nice bit of kit. A complete bargain, and it fits into a generous sized pocket (back pocket of my genes for example).

Ten apps to install on your Nexus 7 first

Steve Evans

Re: If you root your Nexus

Even without rooting it you can use a keyboard and mouse (via a hub) with an OTG cable. Quite amusing watching a mouse pointer flying round Jelly Bean... And baffled a few friends when my Draw Something pictures suddenly became a lot better!

Steve Evans

Re: First App

It might not be supported, but it certainly works.

They just have a "not available" filter set for it in the market, sorry play room/store/site.

I just side loaded it from my Gingerbread mobile along with BBC iplayer. Sorted.

So my first app when I got the Nexus was AppSend on my mobile :-)

Apple pounces on Samsung doc as proof of 'slavish copy' claims

Steve Evans

Re: Confused about what they are buying.

I don't buy this at all. Nobody buys a Samsung instead of an iPhone by accident!

Cars basically look the same, and I've never heard of anyone going out to buy a Ford and accidentally coming back with a Toyota!

Apple patents shopping lists

Steve Evans

Re: Ye gods...

Yup!

I wonder if I can patent the idea of patenting stupid/obvious things?

Russian rocket fails to orbit 2 satellites after booster bungle

Steve Evans

@Mike Richards was Re: $7m for a satellite?

Nasty stuff hydrazine. Given the chemical nature of the burn, it really doesn't leave much to fail does it. Probably a stuck valve or someone didn't solder the valve activation wire on very well.

Steve Evans

Re: AMERICA, F*CK YEAH!

Yes, best you ignore the manned side... They still have one!

Steve Evans

"until the emergency commission, which is likely to be established soon..."

Aka the Siberian tourist board...

Foldable NFC keyboard could tempt Android users

Steve Evans

Re: Can't replace the battery?

Throw away instead of charging... Not very green is it!

And at that price, not what I'd call disposable.

I'm sure given the silicone construction, it wouldn't be long before someone cuts it open and finds a way to power it externally.

Now the other problem I see is the layout. I can't imagine it's too nice to type on spaced like that, and it also limits the user base... If the gap is for a smartphone, a Nexus 7 won't fit. If it's 7" tablet sized a bigger one won't fit, and phones will look a bit lost in the middle.

Surely a better design would be to have a standard keyboard layout and have the NFC part unroll to the top? (and a way of charging it of course).

I think I'll stick with the Nexus 7, OTG cable and mini USB keyboard all the same. Somewhat cheaper and not like typing on dead flesh!

British radio telescope genius Sir Bernard Lovell dies

Steve Evans

RIP

A truly great pioneer and inventor.

RIP Sir Bernard.

HP yanks 2-week-old VMware server crown from Cisco

Steve Evans

Horses for courses...

Now what's the price comparison.

How about x@y per £?

Euro NCAP to mandate auto-braking in new-car test

Steve Evans

Re: @iCode

Very true, but the likely hood of the old Bill deploying a forensic team to your RTA is rather slim.

Unless of course the driver behind happens to be an MP, large donator to the ruling party or a free mason.

Steve Evans

Re: @iCode

It does indeed.

Hitting someone up the arse is almost always the fault of the person behind.

You might have a hope of arguing it was the car in front which caused it if their brake lights didn't work, but given you'll have just converted their rear lamps into the world's most impossible jigsaw, you might have problem proving it.

Steve Evans

I'm quite looking forward to this... It could be the end of tailgating Audis... Just deploy a favourite British technique known as window. Aka a load of bits of aluminium foil deployed from the rear of the vehicle.

Copyright bot boots NASA rover vid off YouTube

Steve Evans

Do Scripps local news have a channel?

Maybe we should start issuing take-downs...

Black helicopters circle Street View car crash

Steve Evans

Hmmm...

It could very well be genuine, but the blatant promoting of the travel book shop makes me suspicious.

In the picture on Flickr the guy is even wearing one of their T-shirts!

The picture isn't as casual as it looks either, there appears to be a fill or reflector to the front right of the T-shirt guy too.

Curiosity needs OS upgrade before getting down to science

Steve Evans

Nowhere is safe...

... from patch Tuesday!

Acer Iconia Tab A510 10in Android review

Steve Evans

Design...

"Externally Acer could have been a little more adventurous with the design. As it is the A510 looks very similar to the Tegra 2-based A500"

They probably decided to stick with that design as it is tried and tested... Any chance could risk in a letter from Apple informing them that they've accidentally used a corner curve with a patented radius or something!

Curiosity landing live from NASA's JPL: How the drama unfolded

Steve Evans

Re: The Register was THERE!

They're all busy at the 'lympics!

Steve Evans

Time zone....

Note to the author...

When posting stuff on the intarweb with an international audience, it would be nice if times where given a timezone, not just left floating. Preferably a timezone that the whole planet can relate to such at GMT or UTC...

Not giving a time zone, or using one which is obscure or meaningful only to one nation is a tad insular.

Even worse when I'm reading this on a .co.uk website, and the times were obviously not from a time zone you would assume for a .uk domain.

/end rant.

Success! Curiosity Mars lander arrives precisely on schedule

Steve Evans

Re: "Hmm... Another indication of which OS is preferred by The Best and the Brightest™"

Given that this was an automated landing, those Macs wouldn't have been doing anything more than consuming a datafeed and displaying it. Something which could be done of pretty much any hardware.

It's not like they're actually going to trust the piloting job to a commercial laptop, although I wouldn't have minded having a go, I used to be good at Lander back in the 80s... Although the latency might make this version a bit more challenging.

Curiosity success 'paves way for Man on Mars by 2030s'

Steve Evans

Nice one...

When I saw the Horizon program last week I gave up trying to count the number of ways this could go wrong, so well done to them for getting Curiosity onto the surface intact and the right way up!

As for a manned landing, I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they tell the boffins they need to learn to abseil! :o)

Microsoft tightens grip on OEM Windows 8 licensing

Steve Evans

Ah-ha!

At last, the *real* reason Microsoft were making such a fuss about needing the new improved BIOS.

Nikon D4 DSLR review

Steve Evans

Re: Incredible quality

Found a side-by-side review.

http://mansurovs.com/nikon-d4-vs-d3s-vs-d3-iso-performance-comparison

Not much to choose between the D3s and D4 in the high ISO battle. I think the reason I was a little disappointed is because the D3s was such a huge improvement over the D3.

Steve Evans

Re: Incredible quality

Low levels of illumination in a scene will certainly show noise more than higher levels across all ISOs. It's down to bits per pixel decreasing with each stop of underexposure. Which is why it's important to try to expose properly. To my eye there really isn't anything special about that ISO200 shot. I've just looked at a few of my raw files also shot at native ISO 200 (I do a lot of night shots) and there really is no difference noise wise - as it should be. I don't do any noise reduction on camera, I save that all for post.

The real balls of a sensor shows when the ISO gets higher, and although those ISO 3200 and 6400 shots are good, they don't look as good as the article lead me to expect. I remember the D3S's shots being more impressive.

Now I've got to go find some good side by side ones to compare!

Steve Evans

Re: Incredible quality

I wouldn't expect any noise at ISO 200 from either the D4 or your 5D MkII or my more modest D300 either. That's native ISO. There should be no amplification to cause the noise. If you do have noise at native ISO either someone has lied about the native ISO of the sensor, or you've got a fault.

To be honest I was looking at the 3200 and 6400 ISO shots (dark regions) and I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. I'm sure I've seen far better from the D3S, then again, they might have had some PP.

Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Bauernfrühstück v bacon sarnie

Steve Evans

HP Sauce...

As manufactured in the Netherlands.

Another great British institution sold off to Johnny Foreigner.

It can't be long before HM Queen is sold off to the Germans... (Yes, I already know she's part way there genetically already!).

Oi, missile boffins! Stop ogling web filth at work - Pentagon

Steve Evans

Re: I for one...

Rather explains the shape of ICBMs though...

Aerodynamics my arse!

Hmmm, bad choice of words.

Hundreds of websites go titsup in Prime Hosting disk meltdown

Steve Evans

Tut tut...

RAID is about availability, it is *NOT* a backup solution.

/end lecture.

Nexus Q preorders halted, price dropped to $0

Steve Evans

@ h4rm0ny - was Re: Disappointed?

I wouldn't expect A/C to explain his opinion. I seriously doubt he's ever seen one, let alone touched or used one.

Then again they probably didn't stopped him badgering Apple to let him order an iPhone5 in March.

Steve Evans

Re: Disappointed?

I wouldn't be disappointed in a free gadget, even if it had some flaws.

From the article it looks like Jason Miller resolved his complaints by changing the firmware, in which case the hardware looks like it is fine and a change of software makes it a usable box (sorry, ball).

Then again, given Jason has the moniker "Hacker" it's not exactly a shock he'd change the firmware and mess about with it. Maybe a normal consumer customer would have been very happy with it as delivered?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing Ball 2, the sequel. The existing one didn't really grab me as a "must have" device, which is why I didn't order one, and why I'm not about to receive a free one. D'oh!

Anonymous declares war after French firm trademarks its logo

Steve Evans

Stupid or suspicious?

It could be an incredibly stupid company (that owns no computers for safety reasons), or, as the more suspicious side of me suspects, a honey pot.

What better way to catch the hornets than to poke them with a pointy stick?

Hobbyist builds working assault rifle using 3D printer

Steve Evans

Re: For those w/o time in the military:

It doesn't need to be rifled to be a lethal weapon at closer ranges.

Boy cuffed after Twitter troll's drown threat to Olympic diver Tom Daley

Steve Evans

Re: Arresting is over the top but...

Don't worry, they'll be arresting Tom for his apostrophe abuse shortly.

More reports that Apple plans iPhone 5 September surprise

Steve Evans

Re: "sources who have proven accurate in the past"

I've just checked with a reliable source, and they have confirmed rumours that the media will print any rumour that contains the word Apple.

I would have hoped somewhere outside of the tabloids might be a little less prone to hype and rumour, but it appears not.

Can anyone recommend a true facts only tech site, or should I start writing my own meta-site?

Apple reverses resistible rise of Android

Steve Evans

Re: Samsung

Not surprised sales were down... Apple successfully held to two most wanted models on the docks for weeks.

Samsung: 'Apple's proto-iPhone Jony is a Sony phone phoney'

Steve Evans

I personally like page 5... The original Samsung iPhone.

This whole saga really is a bit sad and repetitive. There's really nothing new or innovative about rounding off the corners of an icon. That's nothing more than basic ergonomics as seen on scrabble tiles.

As for the phone design, there are only so many shapes which can be held in the hand, fit in the pocket and line up with ear and mouth.

China denies US chopper tech espionage claim

Steve Evans

Don't worry...

I'm sure they did something good with the illegally gained funds...

Is the US still funding the Contras?

<American Dad><sing>Ollllli North</sing></American Dad>

Facebook's Zuckerberg awarded privacy patent

Steve Evans

Re: Prior Art

The USPO gets paid per patent they issue. So they grant pretty much anything.

If that's the way they are going to be paid then fine, but they also have to suffer a bigger fine for every patent they issue which is subsequently thrown out of court as obvious, no invention or prior art exists.

Buzz: iPhone 5 arrives September 21, demand 'unprecedented'

Steve Evans

Well rumour is the only thing feeding the annual iPhone n+1 fest, so why not allow some negative rumours along for the ride.

If Apple want positive publicity they can pay for it just like everyone else.