* Posts by robin thakur 1

152 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2009

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Tesla knew Autopilot weakness killed a driver – and didn't fix it, engineers claim

robin thakur 1

Re: WTF

Yes, knowing the limitation of these systems, when it comes to detecting cyclists and motorbikes, it would make me significantly less likely to want to ride on one, even in countries where they are more common. In Dallas where I now live, even the idea of riding a bike to work (motorised or not) seems absurd, not least because you'd be boiled in 46 C heat, but also the massive SUVs, Pickup trucks and big trucks would probably end up squashing you without realising.

robin thakur 1

Re: Is this time really any different?

This happens on many brands of cars. I've seen it happen on Mercedes and Audi for example where the car running in Adaptive cruise with lane keeping on, driving in the right most lane will sometimes try to exit by moving the wheel. It's disconcerting, but if you've got your hands on the wheel and know the vehicle's behavior it's sufficiently rare as to be acceptable. If the Tesla is navigating on Autopilot as well, that's perhaps a bigger problem. I never saw this problem in the UK, but rarely was I driving in the slow lane there unless I needed to exit. It's much more common in the US.

robin thakur 1

Tesla have form in this regard. They are currently on a push to make Tesla Vision the reference based solely on the cameras surrounding the vehicle. This belief has caused them to remove radar and USS parking sensors completely from all their cars (retroactively disabling the use of radar on older vehicles) and rely just on Vision. What happens when it's dark, snowing, raining heavy, foggy? It simply doesn't work. For all other brands, they possess LiDAR or radar built in (and often other sensors with built-in obsolescence) so they will work mostly in those situations.

So although Tesla does have the mapping and even traffic data which is shown clearly on the central console, don't assume that their design ideology allows them to do something as obvious as look up whether it's currently on a freeway (the US equivalent off a motorway/dual carriageway) without using only the cameras. Besides which, as Auto Pilot technically doesn't prevent you enabling it, even when not on those types of roads it makes little difference. Besides, the NTHSA in America is a surprisingly toothless organization if you look into its powers, it can't force Tesla to do anything it doesn't want to do. government orgs in other countries have much more power which is one reason why Tesla neuters a lot off the automated driving schtick outside of North America.

robin thakur 1

Re: There is no possible fix

To be fair to Tesla, FSD (and possibly autopilot too) operates very differently in the countries it's available in. When I moved to America I was surprised how much better it works here than in the UK and the additional features you get in FSD which work here. In the UK it's currently a pointless upgrade because of what you mentioned (plus you don't get a $7500 tax credit for buying one) I noticed on the UK site just now that you can also only buy the model X and S in left hand drive configs in the UK, which seems...unusual.

As for pedants pointing out that Tesla doesn't advertise in the conventional sense so they've never mis-represented the feature, they have a website, registered to and run by them, through which you buy the product, ergo the descriptions have to be accurate. To quote what's on the UK site "Autopilot enables your vehicle to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane." No caveats to this statement are provided.

Interestingly, in the US, you can clearly get away with even more bullshit, because Enhanced Autopilot is advertised as containing Autopark, Summon and Smart Summon, which have actually not been possible since Tesla decided to remove all the parking sensors on all models to save money last year. On the UK site, they are marked as 'Available soon' This kind of grifty post-truth attitude to facts and safety is why I'm not buying one any time soon.

Other manufacturers in the US like Chevrolet, GM and Ford brands have Blue Cruise which is certified to be completely hands free (but not attention free) only driving on freeways which have been mapped in their database and is ahead of Tesla in that regard. How it copes with emergency vehicles is unknown though. It's not available in the UK yet to my knowledge,

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about these systems (gleaned from maybe reading the manual) should know the limitations of them outside of their own wishful thinking or Hollywood movies. For example, my Audi start-stop traffic assist and auto cruise is useful, unless somebody sharply pulls in front of me to close the gap. I know I have to disengage the auto cruise system and break, otherwise this would cause an accident right there, because the car does not detect the new distance in time to slow down automatically. The German cars I've owned from established manufacturers make these limitations abundantly clear.

Oddly enough, when a Tesla accelerates at a barrier, someone dies: Autopilot report lands

robin thakur 1

Re: Not an "autopilot"

I find them useful within their limits. The problem, as I understand it, is that:

-The driver has to be of sufficient intelligence and aptitude to read up on them and use them appropriately and build up a feel for how the systems behave in different situations or when they fail. Nobody checks whether this is the case or not

-They differ by manufacturer and there are no standards enforced by the industry. e.g. Park Assist is different on every car

-You are dependent on the manufacturer explaining adequately how they function, the limitations and not just being a marketing bullet point

-They might change over time with software updates

-Have they been tested to destruction in all world markets the car is on sale in and do the characteristics vary by market, are these results publicly available?

By way of an example, if my Audi was in adaptive Cruise mode with lane keeping assist on, it might seem like it's operating autonomously but if it can't detect the lane markings for a few seconds (for several different reasons), it doesn't sound an audible alarm it just changes the lane marking on the cockpit/HUD from green to gray and you suddenly notice it drifting a little.

Tesla's autonomous lane changing software is worse at driving than humans, and more

robin thakur 1

The problem is the public

I received a circular from my Audi recently which said something to the effect of quite a few drivers on the roads already think fully self driving cars are on the market and a smaller percentage think they already own one. This stat alone is pretty terrifying! Seriously though, my car has adaptive cruise, lane keeping, traffic jam assist (where it steers, accelerates and brakes) as well as auto parking, and autonomous breaking, but you REALLY need to know the limitations and realise they are assistive only and need driver input at all times. There have been times where it has stopped detecting the road lines to stay between or where it has almost but-not-quite done an emergency brake because somebody waved their foot in the road at a crossing or it didn't like the way I was driving.

Tesla definitely encourages such thinking in their promo materials. Look on their website and the videos they have of autonomous driving and things like the car disappearing off to park itself or being summoned back to its owner. Can it do this safely or can it not? Why is it being sold if the latter? How much testing of these features is carried out in markets other than America or Germany?

It's a Christmas miracle: Logitech backs down from Harmony home hub API armageddon

robin thakur 1

Re: Failing Strategy

Wait, Logitech update their Harmony remotes yearly now? Every 3 years and you'd be lucky, and they'll still be missing industry standard features like HomeKit.

robin thakur 1

Re: Joy to the World

Agreed, the message Logitech has been sending users for a long time now is "Thanks for the money, now F*ck you." Harmony hasn't been revisioned in years, still built on ancient software and doesn't support Apple HomeKit. Security has never been a focus for the company for literally years on Harmony, otherwise Homekit would have been simple to implement, so it seems like screwing over its users proved too tempting to avoid in this case.

robin thakur 1

Re: Joy to the World

Logitech are utterly sh*t at support, they don't listen to their customers, only when the Register gets involved. Go over to the Logitech Harmony forums and see how many people have asked for full Homekit integration only to be ignored for a number of years, or fobbed off with nothing answers. They haven't cared about Harmony users for years, they do the bare minimum to keep the lights on.

The last phablet? 6.4in Samsung Galaxy Note 9 leaves you $1k lighter, needs 'water cooling'

robin thakur 1
FAIL

Re: Fuck that.

Well at least you had the Note 4 with it's designed-to-fail-at-the-end-of-your-phone-contract memory chip rather than the explode-in-your-face Note 7. The exploding Samsung Note 7 seems to have made them a lot more conservative in the Note designs of late, see elaborate cooling solutions, under-specced batteries and underwhelmingly, outdated CPUs. Oh and a stylus that you have to charge. Great, that's real progress then.

This Note 9 announcement is so dull, so underwhelming and soooo incredibly meh, I can't really see how there will be a Note 10 as Samsung just can't be arsed to innovate anymore and I expect their sales to dip again this year.

robin thakur 1

Re: High performance tablet

They're already there (not sure about the cooling) - except that they run Windows.

Haha good one...Is that a joke? I think by now we've established that users pale at the idea of Windows on a tablet, (Surfaces aside, [until 2019 at least]) and that an iPad Pro offers things which Windows in that format doesn't, like useful, popular apps populating a vibrant marketplace.

robin thakur 1

Re: Nobody buys Samsung anymore...

And this is the part where the community is great, where they support the software for much longer. On xda developers, Samsung flagship phones are one of the few with official lineageOS support.

That's great for muggle end users to try and wrap their minds around or ignore completely... Must be why Oreo is still at 12% after a year, which is pretty shocking. Samsung is doing great damage to Android by muddying the waters with its own apps, own (crap) assistant, own payment system, lots of proprietary stuff, slow updates and hostile approach towards Google all while being the biggest selling vendor and being perceived as Apple's main competitor, not the Pixel. Must make the Alphabet people wince.

Official: The shape of the smartphone is changing forever

robin thakur 1

Having gone from Samsung Android landfill to an iPhone 7 Plus, to an X I must say that the ability to have the same size (diameter) of screen in a much smaller body the size of the iPhone 8 with no bezel is one of the biggest steps forward this gen. I drop my phone even less than I used to, can properly use it one handed and larger phones simply look and feel a bit unwieldy to me now, especially if you add a properly protective case, you're not far off an iPad mini...

Samsung escapes obligation to keep old phones patched

robin thakur 1

It needs to be law for it to be taken notice of

Consumers don't know anything about IT but they all use these devices constantly in high risk situations. This has the potential to affect everybody else if these devices are commandeered into a botnet or otherwise spread malware or leak bank details due to flaws in Android which are left unpatched by manufacturers who have absolutely zero incentive to do so and they barely break even on some of these devices.

This is one way in which the law needs to be updated globally to force manufacturers of devices containing firmware towards a minimum 2 year period to have a security warranty with longer options for things like Teslas. This might even help reverse plateauing if everybody knows that after 2 years your phone cannot necessarily be used securely To do otherwise is the height of irresponsibility. Apple users don't have this issue obviously, so maybe buy iPhones until Samsung wakes up and takes notice.

Peak smartphone? iPhone X flunks 'supercycle' hopes

robin thakur 1

Re: Expensive XXX

Make it properly? The sensor array and the horns are the only thing I mildly dislike about it, but honestly, the screen of the 8 plus in a body the size of the 8 makes it worthwhile for me. I can hold and use my phone again properly, finally!

robin thakur 1

Re: Choose your phone with more care..

With all the issues Google’s very expensive Pixel is having, I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Say what you will about Apple but the X is a lovely, powerful and expensive bit of kit which laps it’s nearest Android equivalents in CPU/GPU horsepower. You can get that in the iPhone 8/8 plus, but the miniaturisation vs screen size, the sensor array and the trialling of the 7 layer silicon is what you’re paying for.

Google's phone woes: The Pixel and the damage done

robin thakur 1

Re: Just like Apple

What do you consider a technical reason? The only reason they need to give is that everybody they talk to uses iOS and iMessage. Sure they and all their friends *could* move the conversation to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and the like but perhaps they don't like Facebook that much and they want the iMessage integrated experience. Maybe they use Find my Friends or iCloud Backup or any number of other Apple features which, while it might exist on Android, it doesn't work as seamlessly or as conveniently. This doesn't necessary exclude more technical users if the default simple mode works properly with no tweaking necessary. Reliability is by far the most important factor for me.

robin thakur 1

Re: Just like Apple

I have no idea why Android devices need so much RAM to run at anything approaching smoothness. The apps on Android (particularly games) also run worse almost without exception and where they are available cross platform, the iOS version is the better one 99% of the time in both performance and features.

robin thakur 1

Re: Just like Apple

Apple is a year and half ahead of the closest Android competitor in performance terms of CPU GPU and because it is proprietary, that lead will only likely increase, especially with Google's mobile efforts dying. This is what makes it the premium brand, after all a Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S 8 are no longer cheap landfill these days, they are 800+ to purchase. Agree on if their needs do not require such powerful devices, but if you want premium, in terms of design, build quality, performance, experience and aftercare, Apple is the correct choice.

robin thakur 1

Re: Just like Apple

Not necessarily true on the phone spec gouging. Apple's own chip designs wipe the floor with Android, which are just off the shelf designs. Hell, an iPhone 7 plus from last year stamps on the current Android flagships, and the iPhone 8 and X are many leagues ahead in terms of GPU and CPU performance and Apps that actually make use of this power.

Yes, you do absolutely pay more for onboard storage on Apple which is fixed, but it certainly is not as simple as saying the hardware is the same across Android and IOS with different OSs. Androids use Qualcom chipsets which are broadly the same across the devices (barring oddities like Exynos from Samsung on certain regional models) and Apple uses proprietary designs for CPU and now GPU which simply have no peers in the mobile space in terms of performance. Androids ship with more RAM than iOS devices, and perform far worse.

Therefore, I don't see that the iPhone price is that inflated when a lowly Note 8 or S8 will cost you most of the price of an X when the CPU/GPU on the X (or even the 8) is practically two years worth of performance ahead of it.

2019: The year that Microsoft quits Surface hardware

robin thakur 1

Re: Mine...

I'm not quite sure why *nobody* apart from Apple can manage to get trackpads with gestures working properly even now.

robin thakur 1

Re: Who wants a poorly constructed piece of garbage

The Surface Pro has an odd hinge too actually like an aircraft flap. It failed on my first Surface pro 3 but the two replacements haven't had issues (with the stand) however, it's definitely a compromise if you need to type on your lap, doesn't really work well. The surface Laptop would be good if it was priced normally and didn't have the stain magnet keyboard or Windows 10 S.

robin thakur 1

Since Apple started making 9.7" and 10.5" iPad Pro's you've probably seen more than you think but just assumed they were iPads. I've grown to love my iPad pro especially after iOS 11's changes and getting the smart KB and Pencil really adds far more to the experience than I anticipated. I still have to use the Surface pro for work stuff until my new MacBook Pro arrives

robin thakur 1

Re: The PC industry sure needed Surface to remind them how innovation looked like

The high pricing of the Surface and its accessories build in a few different factors including the weak pound, the high return rates, the development and marketing costs, and also the low volume which they sell. There is also the point that they do not want them to be the go to choice for people also considering HP, Asus, Lenovo or (shudder) Acer laptops. They are marketed to compete directly with the MacBook /Air/Pro line and make MS seem relevant. I can't imagine they have made much profit off of my Surface purchases due to the number of returns.

robin thakur 1

Re: Flat surface sales

Umm...have you seen the benchmarks for the iPhone 8/X CPU/GPU versus Android? An iPhone 7 still beats this year's Androids in any test that matters and the 8/X proprietary chipset simply leaves the Note 8, the S8 and any other Android you care to name in the dust. The software even exists in the App Store to use all that power! How novel. Samsung do make nice screens, and storage I'll give them that, the rest (Bixby, plastic pencil, Iris recognition, exploding batteries, slow processors) they can keep.

robin thakur 1

Re: Thin margins are their own fault

It doesn't come with a "Wacom Stylus" it's made by N Trig, and also it is sold separately along with the Keyboard. The pen for Surface has come on quite a bit since the one released with Surface pro 3, but is not as good as a proper Wacom made digitizer or the Apple pencil + iPad Pro for drawing in my experience, owning both of the devices in question. For some reason, my usage of the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and it's zillions of Adobe apps, Including Photoshop Sketch (which I couldn't live without) works better than the Surface running full Photoshop, possibly because it's designed for a tablet and is better to just sketch something out quickly and easily. Adobe don't seem to make their apps like this for Windows, you're just expected to run the full Windows version on the tiny Surface's screen and go slowly blind. Therefore I wouldn't exactly say this makes the iPad Pro look anaemic, it's closer to being the right tool for the job for many people's workflows and everything is touch optimized from the ground up, not as an afterthought. Windows 10's touch support seems worse than 8 as MS know they can't jettison it totally but they know that very few people use it.

robin thakur 1

You're right, it is trouncing the Wii U, that qualifies it as a success right?

robin thakur 1

That assumes that it will sell millions long term which is far from a given. It is priced as a bargain pc as opposed to being a console. Forza has never been a system seller on its own for Xbox in the same way GT has for Sony and making a driving game pretty (4k, 60fps) ain't exactly difficult because it is more or less on rails. Other exclusives like Sea of Thieves and the rest are nice but not system sellers. All the games for it will run happily on an Xbox One S, so they are limiting the market to people with 4K TVs who are happy to pay £449 for the privilege of a slightly higher resolution assuming devs take full advantage of this and reproduce the textures and geometry to take advantage of the extra power. I've cancelled my orders for the Scorpio Edition and the regular Xbox X until I see what the reception is going to be like especially amongst developers and not just rabid Xbox fans.

robin thakur 1

It is the obvious question. To me there has been a change in Microsoft's dedication to Xbox since the Xbox One underperformed (flopped really). Expensive first party games like Scalebound and Fable were cancelled and others were delayed. The studios like Lionhead that Microsoft had paid top dollar to acquire were quietly folded. Halo seems to be the only major platform exclusive that sells in any numbers and third parties are starting to take note.

They stripped the Kinect off of the main SKU and are now completely screwing up, by late releasing the Xbox One X which is basically mostly expensive custom parts and high performing PC parts along with zero games that take full advantage of it. This is hard to turn a profit on, even given that most new consoles make a loss (Nintendo aside) and make it back on software. Besides which, Shareholders hate the Xbox business, because it was loss making for a long time and got them terrible PR during the RROD era. Even now its not exactly making money hand over fist when you take into account the R&D costs.

This is not easy to sell like a whole new generation launch with exclusive games, it just means that the same games will generally run fine on the older Xbox Ones, they will just look a bit better on the Xbox One X if you also own a recent expensive TV i.e. they are turning it into a PC-esque ecosystem.

I honestly cannot see there being another Xbox after this. Yes the preorders might have sold out, but how many are they producing? Are ordinary people going to pay that much for a console when you can get the PS4 'equivalent' so much cheaper.

The Xbox brand will become a byword for a service offered through Windows to play PC games on, and MS's empire and influence will shrink once again.

robin thakur 1

Re: Isn't it obvious

It's perfectly reasonable to point out that a £129 laptop is not going to be functionally equivalent to a £2500 one. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Laptops are indeed a depreciating asset but:

a) Some people like having nice things and there's nothing wrong with that, one's cloth is cut according to one's means.

b) Some people do use their laptops to actually earn money.

Most people have learned through experience that corners will be cut on cheap laptops in the form of slow HD, old CPU, low ram, poor screen, and installed bloatware. If you can only afford £129 for a laptop, you probably don't care about these things, and nor should you as there's not much you can do about it. That's the whole reason why Microsoft created the Surface line to showcase Windows on a reference design in a sea of shoddy landfill bound laptops that strangled its performance and customer perception.

People don't replace their computers or tablets as often anymore, it makes sense to raise the purchase price correspondingly if manufacturers don't want to see their profits crater.

robin thakur 1

Re: Isn't it obvious

No offence, but you sound like a fan boy, and I am a fellow surface owner. Most people that experienced problems on a device as expensive as a Surface (I will not say overpriced because Microsoft is losing money on them) would send them straight back to the store, and this is what the return stats tell you. The return rates, combined with the cost of manufacturing at low volume, loss making business and general reputational damage of products with problems means that the cool factor is the only benefit to Microsoft.

The palpable novelty of seeing Microsoft unveil hardware, like it's a dog walking on its hind legs is tempered by the fact that they are not all-in on this business in the same way that Apple is and can leave it in a heartbeart if Satnad decides that they've made the point with Surface, i.e. they've moved the market on for Windows hardware enough when they don't need to prop it up with expensive reference designs.

NO company as traditional as MS will keep a loss making business indefinitely if it's future value does not justify it, the shareholders simply will not allow it. MS isn't going for world domination with the Surface, that's not its strategy, and to the consumer, that is a weird strategy. Watch out xbox, you are on notice.

robin thakur 1

Re: Isn't it obvious

Serious heat problems and the keyboard is dodgy. Just what you want on a 3k laptop. I think overall it's low margin because it is relatively low volume overall, especially at the higher end. Who would trust MS to support a piece of hardware enough to drop that amount of money on one.

Microsoft's foray into phones was a bumbling, half-hearted fiasco, and Nadella always knew it

robin thakur 1

Re: Awwww shut up and quit your whining.

It's not necessarily that the Snap CEO just didn't like Microsoft. He perhaps didn't see the point of porting it to Windows Mobile given the user demographic or sales figures, the cost of supporting another platform, MS's policy on apps updates, MS's previous behavior when it came to their mobile platforms and abandoning them.

The skills to create a Windows mobile app are also different to those required for a iOS/Android App and might well have diminished their focus, or worse led to a 'poor cousin' app which was missing features.

He possibly assumed correctly that a lack of apps, was not the Achilles heel of Windows Mobile and in fact its problems lay elsewhere and had a lot to do with Windows 8 being universally hated and bombing, Microsoft/Nokia not refreshing hardware regularly enough to generate buzz and the lack of a sustained focus from MS.

I fully expect MS to get out of all remaining businesses they are in where hardware is involved in the coming years, meaning Surface, Xbox, and their keyboard/mouse businesses will be sold off or shuttered. The fact that some of them are decent products or have even had some limited success will not be enough to win them a reprieve from Nadella, looking to offload low margin business in favour of a relentless focus on software.

iPhone 8: Apple has CPU cycles to burn

robin thakur 1

Re: I have a better idea

It's funny isn't it. Phones with removable batteries were readily available, yet the majority of people don't buy them, so the manufacturers stopped making them. Same with Micro SD cards, Google now shun them, so people generally don't bother and get everything from the cloud instead. Sales data says that people buy thin phones with fixed storage and non-replaceable batteries and value features like being waterproof far more. Thicker phones with longer lasting batteries generally don't sell.

Clearly our requirements as techies are not that important to the powers that be because we don't spend enough money on gadgets and are content using really old phones like the S5. A cynical person might say that the vast majority of people just buy a new devices when the battery on theirs starts to flag because all the intervening OS updates have made the phone run like a three legged dog anyway.

robin thakur 1

I have the same sad come down feeling after I've raced through the new features and sniffed the box, having ruined any surprises in iOS by being on the beta programme.

However, you can't really measure the satisfaction engendered by other people's envy and that is the part that makes it totally worth it. Not from other techies that might snarl at you that the LG V30 looks similar or that Samsung went with the bezel lite approach first, or even the perverse section that point out that it's mostly all Samsung inside anyway from a hardware perspective, nobody really cares what they think anyway, they can't even iMessage. The fact that Apple's tech in this last couple of rounds is so far ahead of their competitors based on their CPU/GPU designs being proprietary is just the icing on the cake that is actually capable of shutting them up.

When I first imported an iPhone from the US in 2007, using it in the street would cause a cooing group of people to gather round you in awe and the same when I got the watch a couple of years back, people stop you in the street and on the tube to ask you about it, or offer to buy it if it isn't available in their country, it's weird!!

slightly </sarcasm> but mostly true

robin thakur 1

Re: Please explain to me ...

This is simply the way human beings work to differentiate themselves by buying into mass market ideas disseminated and reinforced through the media . They use their phones constantly therefore what they use says a lot about them to other people with the same priorities. The same is true of the car market, fashion etc. why wouldn't it extend to the phones market? Yes I use an iPhone and will be preordering the X in black and white, but only the 64GB this year, because next year they might work out how to get the fingerprint reader working under the screen :)

robin thakur 1

Re: iTunes on Windows

What I did is use iTunes Match to get my GBs of music to the cloud and now mostly use Apple Music. Anything Match can't match...will get uploaded and is then accessible anywhere storable offline etc. I've not had to use iTunes in conjunction with the iPhone since about 2013 (other than for buying Music occasionally, so whenever I see people whining about iTunes these days, all it tells me is that you are probably stuck in the past and haven't properly used the Apple ecosystem for a while.

Five ways Apple can fix the iPhone, but won't

robin thakur 1

Re: Keyboard

As you don't have 3d touch on Android, you might not know that on iPhone you can just use push-touch the keyboard on a text section and control the cursor like its a trackpad. Selection issue solved. Without 3d touch if you have legacy Apple hardware I agree that cursor movement was a bit sketchy...

robin thakur 1

Re: My list

Err no, why comment if you don't know this to be true? The file explorer is there on iPhone as well. As you would expect, it functions more like the Finder function of OSX and just shows you files, not the inner workings, but what did you realistically expect?

I do miss the back button on Android, but not enough to get an Android phone, somehow.

Never used Contact Shortcuts, do can't speak on their usefulness. Sudoku Apps, I somehow think amongst the 2 million apps there must be one. I think if you uninstalled all the apps from the iPhone and used it as stock, the battery life would be huge :)

robin thakur 1

Improved Radios

When I bought the iPhone 7 Plus in the UK, I had no idea that it unlike the American version, it uses an Intel Modem on the chipset. I have had much worse reception using this than any previous iPhone. Signals take longer to be detected, for both Wifi and cellular, and it is just overall much worse than the old chipsets they used in previous phones.

They really need to fix the way the iPhone connects to Wifi as well, especially public wifi networks. It takes too long and doesn't always bring up the bounce screen to login unless you are on the settings -> wifi section. On a Samsung Galaxy 7, I used to use before going back to iOS, it worked seamlessly and auto connected. THis convenience was not enough to keep me on Android however as there was so much else that didn't work properly.

80% of IT projects in public sector delayed due to IR35 – report

robin thakur 1

Re: Numbers.

The reality is that lots of people where I work walked out in advance of the change coming in because as usual there were lots of grey areas in the legislation and the company in question couldn't guarantee anything. Some left the country and went to work in Europe or the rest of the world where at least there is some certainty of tax laws and fewer issues.

Everyone was told they 100% had to switch to Umbrella Companies from Ltd companies. Then somehow, and at the last minute, exemptions and contract changes were made to allow contractors to still be outside IR35 (with recertification every 6 months) and to stay as Ltd companies. The net result is that some of the ones that left have now come back on higher rates and the ones that didn't leave have seen little changed, other than the massive tax rises affecting all contractors (loss of dividend relief, raising of the VAT flat rate scheme etc.)

Move on nothing to see here....

Nasty firmware update butchers Samsung smart TVs so bad, they have to be repaired

robin thakur 1

Re: A blessing in disguise

The reality though, is that while you *can buy a dumb tv still, the flagship models from Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony costing several thousand all have smart platforms of varying clunkiness because that's what the market demands for reasons of convenience.

Not everybody wants devices and cables visible everywhere, and the trend is towards the display being on its own with the processing box being separate, connected via near invisible proprietary optical cable.

I learned this a while ago that my HTPC/XBMC/Kodi box is a mystery to everybody else in my house apart from me and if it stops behaving normally, nobody knows how to fix it, and they hate having to use a keyboard and trackpad on the sofa. Unless you live on your own or the TV is in your mancave, most regular people demand stuff that is easy to use and pretty foolproof. You can thank Apple for that. We use a Logitech Harmony Hub and an iPad app which everybody can use without problems.

Quite why a TV with 8 CPU cores runs so damn slowly in browsing the menus is a bit of a mystery until you take into account that Samsung develop the software themselves. Samsung have always been rubbish at Software, hence the worst thing about their phones are the additions they make to Android, the worst thing about their TVs is the Tizen OS developed by them which nobody even wanted on a phone and as for when their assistant Bixby was announced, being worked on by "*thousands* of developers" I just laughed to myself because guess what? That's rubbish as well.

Samsung Update not fully tested and bricks their TVs? Not surprised in the slightest. Samsung marketing always has a nice expensive sheen, with shiny hardware and nice specs, but dig beneath the surface and there are plenty of rough edges, under tested features, naff software and support nightmares waiting to happen. A brickable device that is this expensive in this day and age should tell you everything you need to know.

Apple celebrates soaring iPad sales: Put it on my tab, says CEO Tim Cook

robin thakur 1

Re: The new iPads are amazing, but still overally expensive

As with any tool, I tend to cynically believe a lot of these devices are just used as tablet baby sitters running Clash of Clans and their ilk for kids by parents that have little engagement with the learning process. Yes they have amazing educational opportunities with these tablets including the Swift Playgrounds app, but they do need to have some control in place to stop them becoming wasted potential.

robin thakur 1

Re: The new iPads are amazing, but still overally expensive

Yer, the sarcastic spin from tech sites (including El Reg) on the iPad launches this year focused on the most amazing thing being a price drop at the time, but look who's laughing now eh? It has made the iPad and the iOS ecosystem more accessible to schools and volume purchasers. I also sometimes believed the iPad's days of strong growth were numbered, but Apple focusing on them once again has seemingly paid dividends. The new iPad pros are truly lovely with the new fast screen display tech they have, and I shall be picking one up in due course.

New iPhone details leak: Yes, Apple is still chasing Samsung

robin thakur 1

Re: $1400?

Spare cash?!? You've been able to buy a pretty decent set of Bluetooth headphones on Amazon by Mpow and the like for £15 for literally years now. You don't need to buy AirPods unless you desperately want siri integration, the battery life and the automatic pairing etc. If you can't affor £15 on top of your "£1400" phone then you can just use the free adaptor in the box.

robin thakur 1

...and if it wasn't for the first iPhone and the App Store changing up people's expectations for what was possible on a phone, how do you think the Samsung Galaxy S 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 would ever even exist in their current form? Not to mention the fact that Samsung does Iris recognition, Apple does 3D Facial recognition, and they also have a we-will-not-sue-you deal with MS for yonks now, and your post looks even weaker. It's lucky for MS that they have the deal in place otherwise the Surface laptop would have landed them in hot water...

Hopefully Apple accomplish what Samsung couldn't and embed the fingerprint reader under the glass, not having to place it in the damn inconvenient position on the back of the phone. I also don't want a curved screen or one with round corners, thanks Apple. I do want a second gen set of Airpods to go with my 8 :)

Alexa, why aren't you working? No – I didn't say twerking. I, oh God...

robin thakur 1

Alexa hasn't been quite that bad on the Echo and Echo Dots I use at home, but there's the sneaking suspicion that it works much better in the US market than it does in the UK as Amazon haven't made the AVS service available here yet as far as I know and certain skills aren't available outside the US.

That said discoverability is an issue with any device that doesn't have a screen, mainly because what Alexa listens for is so precise sometimes that it borders on unnatural. "Alexa ask Harmony to turn up the volume" might sound ok to say once, but when it only works correctly 1 in 3 times, it's a lot of effort. Similarly inflexible is the integration with Philips Hue bulb system, you have to be so precise with what you say. "Turn on the lights in the master bedroom" doesn't work but "turn on the master bedroom lights" does, for example. Siri seems far more flexible in what you ask, so its surprising that Amazon with their clout, deep pockets and talent cannot make Alexa better at understanding requests.

Expect the Note 8 to break the bank (and your wallet)

robin thakur 1

I don't think Samsung's brand, reliability, build quality or features justify such premium pricing and this is, let's face it, trying to recover some of the legendary costs of the previous exploding version. At some point soon, Samsung will cut their losses on Bixby and kill the poorly thought out feature (push to talk really isn't where the market is going) and you'll be left with a useless button.

The curved screen, far from being a good thing is a real inconvenience as it makes it nearly impossible to get a good screen protector/case combo that doesn't peel off, captures palm input when used one handed and serves zero practical purpose, the same as their curved TV range.

That was on my old galaxy s7 edge. I can only imagine the inconvenience of having the fingerprint reader moved to the back of the phone to force you to use iris unlock on the newer models and a ridiculous size which means it's two handed or nothing. This is not worth premium pricing and like all Android flagships will be available at a massively reduced price on the second hand market shortly after launch.

Apple hurls out patches for dozens of security holes in iOS, macOS

robin thakur 1

Re: Credit to Apple, At least they do updates.

I did the same and went back to iOS. Whenever an OTA update came out on my old Android phones (rooted) if you clicked on yes to install it bricked the phones and the firmware needed reflashing and restoring (if the backup worked!).

It was at this point you realized that a phone these days isn't a cool piece of kit for tinkering with but a bloody necessity which you can't be without for 3 hours while it reflashes/restores...

UK regulator set to ban ads depicting bumbling manchildren

robin thakur 1

Re: Stereotypes

To discuss his points sensibly, if I as a mixed race person you watch this type of advert in London and 90% of the people around you are non white, then this racial mix is representative. If you live outside a metropolitan area and see the same racial mix when 99% of the people around you are white British it just looks like odd, multi-cultural agenda based adverts. In certain areas I've been I've found adverts really jarring that contain white people because 99.9% of people walking past were not white and the ad is pretty much irrelevant to them. Therefore, in conclusion his point is not necessarily racist it's just what he's used to.

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