Posts by Robert Forsyth

Re: Affordability my arse

@03:15 GMT Anonymous Coward

Polycarbonate is used for bullet proof glass, a'nt it? In 2011 Nokia were machining* the phone case out of a single piece of polycarbonate, Apple are innovating again.

* I think they meant machine finishing: mould it roughly the right shape then precise cut with machine tool.

Re: Storage Desnity...

The more 1 bits you punch, but the un-punched 0 bits? However, most characters/numbers will have some bits punched.

Each line adds another card or 8 inches.

Re: They totally missed the boat

My Nokia 5800 played BBC iPlayer fine (with the option to download the video and just checked the server for the licence) and it could output to TV with the included AV lead.

However, it wasn't an N series, being much cheaper including free music subscription, so was not the same market as the iPhone.

Re: Travelling Godberries

Aren't most wars fought for acquiring and protecting resources for the greedy, the ideology thing is a marketing smoke screen to make the non-greedy support the greedy cause?

Some belief systems are for people who find science too hard, but mostly it allows oversized groups/packs of humans to live together efficiently (in towns and cities). These are the social protocols which allow trust and trade between people - think about the amount of work getting a bank account, if you did not trust them to look after your money.

Obviously this is an oversimplification.

Re: Ummm

On my OpenSUSE laptop/netbook

[Alt Gr]+' e -> ê

; -> é

@ -> ě

# -> è

~ -> ĕ

[ -> ë

] -> ẽ

Re: I wonder if it's straightforward role reversal

I don't see how you can say Apple's phone is a fashion item, it has not changed much every six months.

How is it pronounced in Finland? Does that matter?

I think it is Nok ee-a in UK and No key a in US. From Wikipedia it is noc-i-ar ('n'anny, ch'o're, s'c'old, k'i'd, f'a'ther).

Me too.

I was thinking a plot inspired by Brazil

Re: Just counted my tabs

I think there should be a (open) standard for bookmarks, open tabs, passwords, etc.; so that any browser can be used.

Chrome annoys me storing binary data unusable by other applications in my computer's (k)wallet.

Surely propane or butane "refrigerant" is cheaper

Re: They should try to hold on

I think I agree.

Why do companies only have to have one product (set) ?

Apple appear to have/had several products: iTunes-iPod/iPhone/iPad, Laptop-accessories and iMac-accessories; not all were madly successful, so were quietly dropped. Nokia although providing several services which made their phones better, but seemed too willing to let an incompetent carrier replace them, I think it would be better if the carriers just bought a complete package, instead of not understanding the tech they were selling.

Generalization

People will put up with an unreliable product and even say it gives it character, but when they are able and can afford a more reliable one they will switch (perhaps after a morning period). Reliability is one aspect of usability, important when you depend on it for communication with family and friends or colleagues and clients.

I think Blackberry should have been in all aspects of company - mobile device communication, a speedy, secure and reliable link between, say, architect's office and their pad/book for showing a client plans. Managing lost mobile devices, not just remote wiping private data, but providing alternate access to that private data - leave your phone on a train, just go to a phone shop at the station, get a replacement (for a cost), type in a configuration key and carry on.

Amazon could use razor blade model and sell it at discount so long as you can only play games from its store or using its services, etc.

Re: Surely it's obvious

It is very difficult to explain to middle management how some "innovation" is good for the business and should be invested in (unless some competitor is already doing it).

Some huddles are the IT department's own doing, and the rest (although various) can be classed as "oil - water interfaces" between different branches of an organization.

IT is often viewed as modern day typing pool or office cleaners, and are too busy with day-to-day duties. They are the nurses of IT equipment - essential and poorly paid. What is needed is a fitness instructor or personal trainer.

Poor internal marketing skills. With someone in technology with a strong clean vision and good communication skills. Innovations (to others in the company) might provide solutions looking for a problem, barriers to entry (user training, new equipment, etc.) which appear too high.

Since it is so difficult for technology departments to plead their case to the bean-counters, the few solutions which do make it, get all the love and the IT department becomes polarized and inflexible - hypothetical example, buying MS products has a clearly defined cost (fixed and variable) over a free/open product with fuzzy costs (this is why cloud services win with bean-counters); more MS tools are bought to service the MS environment, then fashion changes to BYOD and the IT department is left looking stupid.

In your face arrogance, the technology experts use complexity and jargon to exclude other business units. Other business unit leaders send their stupidest employees (from a business point of view) to interface with the technology experts, to avoid feeling stupid themselves.

Re: Disproportionate

I think other commentators are trying to express, they are sold on things non-technical people can measure, such as, "it is expensive it must be good" or "$famous_person person has one". There are measured by some pseudo-science (or non-provable or fuzzy) quality - intuitive (says Steve), best browser (unable to render sites my Nokia 5800 could).

How is a blank/black rectangle (with rounded corners) place-mat with an unlabelled dimple with a small square in it (a button which does not look like a button) intuitive of a phone or media player? Do four (mainly) unlabelled un-buttons which look like locator pins around the edge help?

One of the tear-down sites calculated it cost $60 to make, assuming manufacturing yield is near 100%.

re: PrettyPrint

Me too, first year of Computer Science, but I see this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prettyprint#Example_of_formatting_and_beautifying_code

Re: Dear Steve Bong...

CV out, Portfolio in

may be portfolio is also out, just meet at "the*" sushi bar

* if you don't know which one, then you are not the man for the job.

Re: The next 24 months is Microsoft's true window of vulnerability.

IIRC NeXTSTEP fat binaries ran on four differing architectures: Sparc, PA-RISC, Intel 486, 68k

Re: Why does plastic make it 'cheaper'?

No, it only has to look cheaper so you can sell the same thing at two different prices for two different markets, without culling your higher price market.

Does a lux version of a car really cost twice the base model? Does the size of the engine make much difference to the cost?

Re: E-waste

become = becomes

Re: Meh

From some other Reg article, the dongle does the streaming by itself from your WiFi. The phone/tab/browser just tells it what to stream.

This function was demonstrated many years ago, but then the dongle was the size of a (Linux) PC - now a Linux PC is matchbox size (e.g. Raspberry Pi). Even in the early 2000's some set-top-boxes allowed streaming from a server on a network.

Re: Rounded Corners

These corners are spherical (ish) not cylindrical.

Anyway MS and Apple are really friends:

Apple supply the sunny Californian version and MS supply the rainy Seattle version of a thing.

Apple, Intel, Oracle..., Ca

Xerox, Ct

3M, MN

Bell Labs, NJ

IBM, NY

Comcast, PA

AT&T, Dell, TX

Novell, UT

Microsoft, WA

Re: Weakness in MS

It seems MS problems are of their own making.

Assuming Windows is enough like Linux (Cygwin),

why can they not provide a WinXP, Win7 and Win8 like GUI program for their display service and gently encourage/ease people from one version to another.

Re: Beat Up ?

The iWatch (surely iChronograph, iChrono, iPerpetual or iPeriod ) will be the first new product since Jobs.

The first iPhone was just an iPod Touch with a phone, not even a smartphone, but it did make existing phone manufacturers stop and take stock when it took off. And some of the lesser manufacturers cargo-cult its features.

As much as I like Ives, this recent design statement BS indicates Apple is lost.

Re: So how much do you actually care?

But in the past, Apple were one of the last big companies to clean up their manufacturing.

And saying Apple is just a design company, doesn't cut it - a relation of mine is a designer and he cares deeply about the ease of manufacture and the impact on the environment.

Re: The first

@D A M

I marked you down, but now see your point, but you still make the mistake of rubbishing something without providing an improvement or in the spirit of this article how the old way was better?

@Boris

Your design has good and bad:

It is good that you can quickly access a particular robot without setting Baud-rates, colour of the button, etc., but your file dialogue seems worse than search. I expect your users have post-it notes stuck to their screen saying which robot has which program.

And why can I not just select a robot program and send it to a preview then, if correct, send it to a robot?

The people designing the program should make as many decisions as possible for the user, then when a hard choice cannot be made, provide a sensible default and remember what the user selected last time. But nothing stops the designer/programmer providing two or more presentations of the same service.

Re: Search as primary means of navigation?

Isn't this the handbag approach to storage and retrieval?

But even a handbag will probably have a pocket for a purse, compact, etc.

Re: orly

Tungsten bulbs still vary in intensity, but they do not go completely dark.

Florescent tubes flicker in your side vision, but stop flickering when you look directly at them.

Tungsten's spectrum is smooth from red to blue, whereas others tend to have gaps and be more blue.

In the eye, the quick acting rods are more sensitive to yellow.

Re: so what?

How about when you take a photo, then want to take the next one?

Find an email from last month with some detail you need to know?

Re: but NASA says there's nothing to worry about.

But will Gordon be playing Polo or American Football?

Re: Another nail for M$

That reminds me of Mucky Foot's Urban Chaos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQe1fhgQ6EA

http://www.gamefaqs.com/dreamcast/366268-urban-chaos/images/gs_screen-3