Posts by M Gale

But we've already shat on them from a great height?

See title.

Solution: Buy more stuff.

No.

Besides, my tablet IS my mifi dongle.

Eclipse EPOS terminals.

It's funny. I still go into a DSG store very occasionally for a phone top-up or something. Watching the cashier blink and poke at the screen in confusion, I'll usually say "just give it here. See that button? Yeah, the e-topup/e-voucher thing? That's the one. Now the icon for Three network.. 10 pounds please.. like me to cash the till up for you too?"

Though these days I'll usually just use the self service tills at the local Tesco, yes. Same thing except I'm actually supposed to be operating it myself.

To be fair..

..you don't have to prang a car hard to fuck it up completely. They are designed to fall apart around you these days, so you don't become one with the metal framework. 50mph into a sufficiently solid barrier will really ruin your day, and you'll be thankful for crumple zones when you wake up in hospital.

Windows-native? Well, Windows-specific perhaps.

I don't know about any of the others, but I'll bet the old directx.transform bollocks still works in IE.

Ohlol

"Mark my words, Google will lock down the apps "market" in the next year or so because they can and it's an income stream."

I think the lawsuit from Amazon would be an awesome beast to behold, if that were to happen and their new budding Amazon market app were to be banned. Not to mention the other alternative markets that come on the cheaper, non-google droids. I think you'd hear the words "class action" within maybe five minutes of that announcement?

I don't think Google would be that stupid.

Well...

...Nokia *phones* can be quite good. They are phones. They make calls. They have a battery life that lasts for longer than the length of a gnat's fart. They're cheap, and they work. Every functionality you could want from a *phone*.

Nokia *smartphones* on the other hand... ew. Either an operating system that they have said is getting canned so there's really no point buying if you want to buy apps a year down the line, or an operating system made by Microsoft.

But then...

We'd be complaining about "Dances with Chipmunks", Shirley?

Cue/Queue

Give it a day or two for the commentards, the guy might be right after all.

Re: Format?

..Also a subject of this semester's Computing in Society module, where the prof pretty much reached the same conclusion. In 20 years, will there be Word v6 file readers still around? What happens to all the documents still written in it?

Open standards. Good for more than just feeling superior about.

Naw.

It'll be after they cause irrepairable damage to SpaceX's reputation by trying to fling a Robin into GEO with the thing. Or seeing if Stig v3.0 can beat one in a drag race.

I have one of these.

Sold as the "ZTE Racer". It's an okay cheapy droidphone, but some people don't like single-touch resistive screens. I especially don't like pulling the thing out of my pocket to find it's called the emergency services in my pocket.

FIVE TIMES.

There should be a feature in these phones so that the emergency service guys can determine whether a phone has been triggered in a pocket and set an alarm off or something. Better yet, make it so that the screen can't be brought up with the "unlock or press emergency call button RIGHT FUCKING HERE" just by pressing a button on the front of the bloody device.

I'll probably get one.

If only to replace this DS lite with the knackered hinge/shoulder button. Not at this price though, might give it a little while.

Say what you like about Ninty's later-gen consoles not having a bajillion shader pipelines or being able to render things down to subatomic accuracy. Nintendo are first and foremost a game company, unlike any of the competition. They are undeniably good at what they do. The games tend to be cheaper as well, which in my eye is a double plus.

This coming from someone who always bought Sega consoles...

And therein lies the problem.

By acting as the self-appointed Arbiter of Morality, as opposed to just deleting malware, Apple and its app store will always have this trouble. You can't cater to one special interest group without catering to them all, and by agreeing to censor you become a lot more liable for any objectionable content.

Same problem with national firewalls and other such hysterically child-contemplating ideas.

Duck video!

I'm pretty damned sure I remember that. Used to compress a lot of early PSOne/Saturn/Mega CD-era FMV, back when it was called "FMV" and not just "Video".

Nice to see where it ended up. Shame to see the MPEG LA doing an SCO.

Also reminds me..

Of when Blue Yonder (now Virgin Media) had a rule barring you from hosting anything other than "personal use" servers over broadband, and no servers at all on dialup. That somewhat insane rule (almost as insane as running a server on dialup) didn't last too long!

Anyway, in some parts of the country, VM are still the only feasible choice for broadband so are a de facto monopoly. I understand AT&T are in a similar position. "You pays your money, you makes your choice" doesn't sound quite so justifying of onerous business practice in this case, surely?

Photos at 720p...

...generally look better than cardboard mock-ups at 1920x1200, surely? I can see this being awesome for mmo games. No chance I'd want this to be the future of all games, but that's less resolution and more down to ownership issues.

Not only the hardware and applications.

Also all of "your" data. I know there's some real use for a rentable, scalable computing resource attached to a whacking great Internet connection, I'm just not sure my day to day computing or a company's trade secrets is it.

$31337 would be nicer.

Not that I'd complain at the grand-and-a-bit.

As evidenced by the flashlight-cum-tethering app...

Apple don't do a complete code audit of every app in their store. What's to stop a similarly spiked app with a rootkit on board making it in? Only one hardware platform to figure out how to root, too.

Well, unless it gets banned for not having a convincingly wet sound to the farts available, or something.

Oh hell yes.

"Just hold this a minute", he said. I tell you, a 100w rig being keyed up is as effective as a cattleprod for various assorted bastardry.

I'm a sucker for a sweet little toy

"Currently Android tablets are sharply divided into two categories -- sub-$200 junk and wayyyyy too expensive."

I keep pimping this 7" toy I've got here (selective quoting opportunity right there), a Commtiva N700. Also sold as a Linx 7, amongst probably a couple of other names. It has a capacitive screen, Froyo and 512MB RAM. Not the biggest on-board flash ROM at the same 512MB, but you get a micro SD card slot so that's less important.

It's not as snappily responsive as a higher-end tablet like the Tab or Pad, but it's what I would regard as good enough. No Flash because of the 600mhz clock speed, but that hasn't been a big problem. While something like Captain Forever could be nice to try on a toy like that (and if you haven't ever played it, get yourself to www.captainforever.com and have fun), there's still plenty of games in the Android Marketplace that don't depend on Adobe's plugin.

Price-wise, it's £300, as opposed to the Tab's £450 and the iPad's £_shitloads_via_a_contract. Has features like tethering and portable AP functionality without having to root the thing, and £300 is the wifi+3g, SIM-free, no-network-lock, you-actually-own-the-device price.

Plus, at seven inches, it'll fit in a large pocket. The protective wallet you get with it isn't bad either. Find a shop selling this thing and ask to have a play with it, see what you think and whether you like the price in $.