Posts by Nigel Whitfield.

Ah yes...

She's just opposite the old Morgan Computers shop. There's a woman duplicated on Charing Cross Road, outside Foyles, and another lady near Holborn who's had her feet stolen (both pictured on my blog).

We did come across some alarming leopard skin print curtains, but there are limits to what we can show on a family website.

Perhaps ...

... because some of us think that it's unfair that the poorest should be excluded from getting the best prices.

From the tone of your comment, I suspect you think "socialist" is some sort of insult. But we are apparently, as Mr Cameron insists on repeating, all in this together. Though he tends to temper that creed with massive doses of selfishness and hypocrisy, some of us prefer to take it at face value.

It really doesn't seem fair to me that those who don't have enough money to afford a computer, or a stable enough income to trust energy and comms companies with free access to their bank accounts, should end up being penalised by having to pay more.

Can't think of one

Most people will be using dual stack for a long time - IPv4 websites aren't going to go away for a long time. So if you have IPv4 installed for that, you may as well use it on your home network, either exclusively, or alongside IPv6.

It's perhaps worth playing with, if you want to gain more understanding, and practise typing those addresses, and we'll look in more detail at how you can go about doing that fairly soon.

But for casual use, not a massive case to be made for it right now, I'd say.

Worth remembering that you may have to address security in a different way, depending on how you do things. For example, my main network is firewalled via the router, but IPv6 connectivity is (currently) provided via a tunnel, so the router doesn't intercept anything coming in that way, as all the work's done by my OpenBSD box. That means that as well as fiddling around with IPv6 itself, I had to get my head around configuring the packet filter on OpenBSD to protect machines on the LAN via IPv6.

That won't be a problem when consumer routers appear, with built in IPv6 firewalls, but for now it's an extra consideration for anyone who wants to tinker.

There are ways round that

Privacy addressing is one solution to that; essentially, when you have so many addresses, it's possible to use a different one every day, or to have each application on a system use a different address.

Obviously, the prefix will still enable things to be narrowed down to a particular network, but that's really no different from how things work now.

Indeed they will

HP's website lists the price of a spool of black ABS at £650 plus VAT. Based on the specs, that's roughly £1 per cubic centimetre.

Video now added

Sorry - link got missed out inadvertently.

Yes, but

There are of course plenty of free eBooks available - but that's only a helpful argument if they're the sort of books that someone wants to read.

Resources like Project Gutenberg, or the free books available from Kobo, Baen and many other sources do mean that yes, you can find plenty of stuff to read without spending money.

But if someone wants to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the latest Dan Brown, or any of a huge number of other things, pointing out that they can get anything by Dickens from Gutenberg, or some free SciFi from Baen doesn't solve their problem, does it?

ePub is all very well ...

But despite the theoretical competition, even prices there have gone up. Waterstones - the retailer that Sony has tended to push their customers to - didn't even attempt to compete when Kindle appeared in the UK; some of their prices actually went up.

And that was before the introduction of Agency Pricing which pushed up prices of some books by a few pounds.

The walk through is new

Some of the bits and pieces will certainly have been seen elsewhere, but the central 'walk through' part is brand new.

That was my thought

But no, it's a closed wifi network, which will have things like voucher offers, background material and additional stuff for the deaf.

It's a great shame it wasn't switched on for the test day, because I too thought "That's weird, wouldn't Bluetooth be more straightforward?"

I guess they know that they can deliver a wider range of material via WiFi and a local web server, but I can't help feeling that they will have to explain to quite a few people how to select the right network and connect to it; once that's done, then the standard hot-spot landing page mechanisms should help point people in the right direction.

'Cos I'll do most things for money (but I won't do *that* ...)

I had tickets for the test-pilot. I write here often, and there's a fair bit of cross-over between the fans of gadgets and those of Doctor Who, apparently.

So, it seemed only polite to offer to write about it for the lovely people here.

To be fair ...

There have been exhibitions dotted around the UK, including Glasgow and one down in Cornwall as well.

I suppose the logic for this one is probably that London is a reasonable place close to the home of BBC Worldwide to try it out, while the production base in Cardiff is the show's home and so a logical final destination.

Of course, wherever you put this (or indeed, anything by the BBC) there will be people complaining that it's either too biased towards some particular area, or that they're spending money pandering to shouty people in the regions.

Educate, inform and entertain?

I think that sounds like a job for the Science Museum; I'm sure they could get tons of people through their doors with a 'Science of Dr Who' show.

But you are right, in that there are lots of things that could be done, given the show's longevity, the range of topics that it's covered and the wealth of material they must have in the archives.

With enough space and time (see what I did there? ;)) you could probably find ways to work most of the subjects of a school curriculum into a really comprehensive Dr Who exhibition. But, if they can't find space for more than a couple of hundred words about each Doctor, there's not much chance of a gallery of, say, all the historical figures he's met over the years.

Absolutely nothing

This ruling is about the rights holder saying to someone "Ere, you can't buy that from Greece, you gotta buy it in the UK"

That's not the case with porn channels. It's not the rights holder stopping people from buying them, it's the government, essentially not allowing them a UK broadcasting licence. That's entirely separate from this case, and when it comes to "moral standards" the EU broadly allows different countries to set their own agenda.

The ECHR sometimes (eg gays in the military, anti-discrimination) does sometimes get involved in the moral issues, but only when a case is brought by someone, and it tends to follow, rather than lead on liberalisation.

Doomed? I'm not so sure

I'm really not convinced that Sky is doomed, as I hinted above.

I'm no fan of Sky, personally, and I think it will be great for viewers if they can get things cheaper. But while this may look like a slap in the face for them and the greedy sods of the Premier League, I wouldn't be so sure, just yet. It may turn out to be something of a pyrrhic victory for the consumer.

Ultimately, it will depend on the final ruling, and what the Premier League does next.

Best case for the punters, if selling rights by territory is deemed not allowable, is that the Premier League decides that they'll sell rights on a European basis, non-exclusively, perhaps one broadcaster per country. Ordinary punters will still be able to shop around the continent to find a suitable broadcaster and buy a package at the price that suits them. They may save money - but in fact, I'm not honestly sure how many people will do this, given that they'll probably need a second dish and receiver set up to do it.

Some will, sure - but how much will they save? If that Greek broadcaster can now only buy a package that includes the rights for the whole of Europe, will they be able to retail it quite as cheaply as they can at the moment? And will the saving be enough for fans to put up with the extra dish and foreign language commentary?

Worst case is probably that the Premier League decides to sell a single exclusive set of pan-European rights, to just one broadcaster, which may then sell on the rights within some territories, to local retail partners. Perhaps the EBU members could club together, but do you really think that's likely? Far more likely that Sky - with their existing operations in Italy and Germany contributing - would be the one group that snapped up the package.

Sky and the Premier League are pretty close, not surprisingly, and they will almost certainly be working out ways in which they can turn this to their advantage, no matter what the outcome. I know that's not a popular opinion (waiting for all the thumbs downs!), but they're certainly not going to shrug and say "Oh well, that gravy train's stopped, never mind"

Ummm, no...

Sorry, but "with anything that is sold in multiple countries in the EU, the EU dictates that stuff is equally priced" is wrong.

There are plenty of examples where that's patently not the case. What the EU says is that people should be able to shop freely, and buy from wherever they want, and the hope is that a single market will, ultimately, lead to the harmonisation of prices.

But they can't dictate that things are equally priced because a) they don't like price fixing and b) retail taxation (eg VAT) isn't harmonised across the EU, or even within the Eurozone.

The main reason people buy a car from one country instead of another is precisely because it's cheaper, due to differences in things like first registration fees, and an EU insistence that thing like warranties aren't restricted when you do that.

There are lots of areas where people do shop cross-border, because it's cheaper - they do it in some areas for alcohol - the Baltic has a busy trade of ferries carrying drunken Scandinavians to and from Germany - or tobacco; around the Irish/NI border, the flow of traffic depends on the relative strength of the currencies. And sometimes, yes, local outlets near borders suffer as a result.

Notwithstanding firms like Apple, who now set a uniform EU price for the sake of simplicity, prices do vary considerably between countries, and (except in cases of profiteering, like wholesale mobile roaming rates) the EU doesn't generally have a problem with that.

What they do insist upon is that you have the freedom to buy from where things are cheaper, and in this case, the Advocate has decided that that freedom should trump the right of the the PL to sell by territory.

Sort of ...

The PL sells rights to a broadcaster, but they sell the right to broadcast those programmes to a particular territory (which is why, for example, the Sky contract says you should be in the UK; using a Sky box in France, say, is a breach of that contract).

And, in some countries those rights might cost more, depending on the popularity of the Premier League (or whatever else is being sold) and the circumstances in that country. For the UK in particular, the PL and its players have grown fat and greedy thanks to Sky's determination to beat other broadcasters off, and hang on to the rights.

In other countries, if there's no competition, then the PL might not get much for the rights, and so the local broadcaster can sell them for less to their own subscribers.

But all that's possible on the understanding that those broadcasters then don't sell subscriptions to people in other territories; and the Greek one is clearly quite happy to sell them to a Portsmouth pub owner. At which point, the PL steps in and says "Hang on, we thought we had the rights to that, sod off"

The EU already has rules that say you can't prevent reception in one country of broadcasts from another (with very few exceptions, which don't include this). The rights regime is the thing that's supposed to stop Greeks selling cards to UK residents, and it's that that is likely to be determined to be against the EU rules.

You're right that the Greek broadcaster doesn't have to sell at the same price to everyone; that's not at issue. They could charge more to a UK customer, for extra admin, or because they feel like it. But what the Advocate has said said is that, regardless of the rights, they should be able to sell to that UK customer, and the PL shouldn't be going round fining someone just for buying something from a country in the EU where it's cheaper than in the UK.

Don't get too ecstatic

On the face of it, you might think that this is great - and there are lots of good arguments for the tearing down of territory-based rights restrictions in various ways.

For a while, you might even be able to buy a cheap foreign card and point your dish at the right beam to pick up football for a bit less.

However, if the PL is no longer able to sell rights per territory, what happens next? Is there a cheery free for all, with people all over Europe buying cards willy nilly? Or will the PL decide that they will sell one package of rights for the whole of Europe?

If they do that, who do you think has pockets deep enough to buy those pan-European rights, and potentially sell them on to 'partner' broadcasters in other countries?

Yes, for now

You can, indeed. Though given the massive cuts to the library services, it will be interesting to see which way that goes.

And don't forget the lunatic fringe of the publishing industry, which thinks that borrowing books from libraries is, well, only going to lead to piracy if you let people do it at home, so best if it's restricted so that you have to take your ePub reader to the library to fill it with books. I wrote about this as a companion to the WTF on ebook pricing last year, see http://gonedigital.net/2010/11/23/libraries-and-ebooks/

If that does happen, in tandem with library closures, then borrowing eBooks from libraries will be a lot more difficult than it is now.

VAT could be lower

It wouldn't be possible to remove VAT from ebooks completely - you need cross-community agreement for more zero-rated things, apparently - but it could certainly be reduced.

There is already an agreement within the EU that would allow books - in any format - to be rated at a country's lower VAT rate, and some have taken advantage of this.

The UK lower VAT rate is 5%, so it would be possible for the government to move eBooks into that band.

But two things: a) that would be dangerously close to supporting artistic endeavour, and so unlikely under the current government at best of times, let alone when they're dead set on reducing the deficit

b) frankly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if a reduction in the VAT rate was swiftly followed by the publishers increasing their prices for eBooks, in order to maintain what they see as parity with the printed editions (neglecting, as they do, the fact that they allow sellers to discount print versions, but not electronic)