Posts by Andrew Jones 2

I don't understand why people concoct all these bizarre scenarios - in the same way that Google will never actually sell your data to advertisers - because that's what makes them money, Google are also not going to be passing video footage of you on to anyone else because again - as soon as there is the slightest suspicion that something like that is going on - people will dump Google like a hot stone.

Pretty much the same argument exists for Android - if people legitimately started reporting they were being served ads for something they were talking about to someone else over the phone - or even just with the phone (in standby) in the same room - an investigation would happen and people would start ditching Google - even before the results of the investigation was complete.

I'm surely not the only one who has common sense when it comes to this?

I was originally quite happy with the Modern Skype - and then I started to realise that I wasn't getting messages as soon as they were sent - the delay averages around 10-15 minutes. Once I switched back to the modern app all the delayed messages would come through and then when I went back to the desktop they would continue coming through for about 5 minutes and then start becoming delayed again. I had to give up and install desktop Skype.

This is the main reason I won't touch any Home Automation product that has the ability to be controlled from a website or uses the web for the logic for timers and stuff.

Sorry, but I have to call bollocks here.

Samsung came up with KNOX for the enterprise market - and I'm pretty sure you will find that phones were shipping with KNOX (consumers hated it). Samsung created Touchwiz for Android - it has a bit of a mixed reception if we are being honest. HTC created Sense for it's phones - and generally it was quite well received.

I don't know what the "solution" to the "problem" is supposed to be - either - you allow OEMS to put stuff on top of Android - so that OS updates can continue to be timely, or you let OEMS tinker with the main workings of Android - ensuring that OS updates are NOT timely, security updates are NOT timely and certain apps might not actually work as expected or at all.

Or - the OEMS huddle up together and release something based on Android - fine OK, but you have a number of issues here the big one being - they are in business to make money, if they all make something the same - where is the thing that differentiates them? If they all make something different - what is the difference to what they have going on with Google? If they make something different enough that it goes right to the core of how Android works - you come back to the issue of Timely updates - both general and security.

Not totally convinced that providing a handy place to grab the text so anyone can send it to all their iPhone owning friends was the best idea in the world. It only works if it is formatted correctly across multiple lines, so reproducing the text on a single line would have been a better option (IMHO of course)

“On browser, desktop and mobile the folks who make the operating systems for those environments, as well as things like browsers, have an interest in tightening those things down and allowing fewer third-party things to run,” he added.

No.... they have an interest in cutting down the amount of security risks. It's not that long ago that it seemed like every week we were being told to update the Java VM as an urgent because some new exploit was discovered.

This would explain Google's ridiculously over complicated password recovery system then.

A friend was trying to remember her password and we eventually opted for the account recovery thing.

An email address we can contact you on.

What is the last Password you remember

When did create your account MM/YY

When can you remember last using your account MM/YY

Secret Question & Answer

When did you last use:

Google Mail MM/YY

Hangouts MM/YY

Google+ MM/YY

Wallet MM/YY

OK it only wanted approximate dates - but still - I went through that 6 times - before we finally recovered her account!

Did these people not even bother to read the press kit? The 10kW battery is designed for BACKUP ONLY and specifically says that it is optimised for WEEKLY charging - the 7.5kW battery is designed for DAILY charging. The comparison to the generator is laughable - because it's running off fuel - why even bother - that's like saying Solar panels are prohibitively expensive and it would be cheaper to run from a generator - well guess what - it would be even cheaper just not to bother with renewable energy at all and just take your electricity from the grid.....

My Nexus 4 doesn't allow access to the cellular voice stream - older Android used to be able to access the voice stream but you will find that pretty much every app in the play store designed to let you record the audio stream really only works if you have a rooted phone or if the manufacturer hasn't blocked access to the audio stream. Stock Android doesn't allow this.

It's worth noting though - that because privacy and tracking are specifically being categorised here - the vast majority of these URLS are likely to be Analytics - about how the app is used, what are the most frequently access sections etc etc - all valuable data for an app builder - that doesn't necessarily tell them who you are. Of course the alternative is to not have any app tracking going on, and people will simply uninstall the app because "it's crap", leave negative reviews on the Play Store without actually leaving a detailed description of how the app could be improved and the developer will be left in the dark trying different things to attempt to make the app better - but without knowing what is actually wrong with it - and almost no-one will bother to actually write an email to the developer offering constructive criticism.

Dear El Reg - read the specs again - it's 2kW continuous with a "Peak Power: 3.3 kW" read the presskit http://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/teslaenergy

Further it's all very well talking about existing technology potentially being cheaper - but the whole point of getting away from lead acid batteries is because a) you need a dedicated room to put them in and b) they give off hydrogen when charging - leading to a potentially explosive situation.

As for your off-the-grid comments - did you watch the presentation? It's pretty clear he means developing countries could use it to live off the grid - the sorts of places that don't know what an AC unit is or a dishwasher.

OK - so a quick question here.

I was aware that the watch checks periodically (roughly every 10 minutes I believe) for a pulse to a) record it and b) confirm it is still being worn. If skin-ink causes this process to fail - then I have to assume that the issue with all the current Android Wear watches - sweat will also cause it to fail. Does this therefore mean that everytime your wrist gets a bit sweaty the watch will need you to input your passcode?

It won't let me upgrade which is really annoying - I'm stuck with a bug that is apparently not uncommon - https://plus.google.com/+AndrewJonesMcGuire/posts/brwsn2MmPgh - it says it temporarily needs 0.00MB to install and there is more than 8GB free, I even tried adding a second virtual hard drive but nope - it just won't install.

But.... they are utterly incapable of making their F8 site work. For a while the Opening Keynote video was available to watch, but wouldn't actually play - and the Error Console was complaining about a referencing error with indexOf. Now the video and any other video is unavailable, the only thing that actually works/worked on their site was their live stream.

Potentially open to attack......

While half might be running a version of Android that is vulnerable - half certainly haven't enabled the option to allow installs outside the Play Store.

But.... isn't Messenger / Facebook chat just using the XMPP protocol - and is in fact open to ANYONE to use? EDIT: Nevermind https://developers.facebook.com/docs/chat

What happened to the thing where Windows had copies of it's system files and if they went missing or were altered in somewhere, Windows was supposed to restore them from it's secure backup on boot? Did I dream that happening?

If you keep going down that road..... you could complain about every service.

So.... is it a good thing or a bad thing that Netflix have a cache server at TalkTalk so when I stream Netflix - I'm not actually going outside of TalkTalk's network and thus get really fast data transfer with no buffering? Surely in terms of Net Neutrality - this gives Netflix an unfair advantage? Whereas for me - it's the difference between being able to watch Netflix at any time of the day or night - while BBC iPlayer is restricted to only being usable without 10 seconds of buffering every 30 seconds - between the hours of 1am and 6am. If one were to keep going down this road - one could complain that (purely a hypothetical example) Amazon Instant Video might have a better peering agreement than HBO and therefore HBO are at a disadvantage to Amazon.

Chrome says:

The site ahead contains malware

Attackers currently on twiiter.com might attempt to install dangerous programmes on your computer that steal or delete your information (for example, photos, passwords, messages and credit cards).

Some phones don't have removable batteries - they do however have press and hold power button for 8-10 seconds. The Malware can't override that.......

I can never understand this attitude that people come up with - oh let's charge them because they are providing content that has already been paid for twice, but let's charge them again anyway.

Netflix pays for bandwidth via however it gets content onto the public internet and the customer pays for the same bandwidth in order to consume that content. To then add another tax on top because Netflix are using bandwidth they have already paid to use - just makes no sense.

If we start taxing any company that dares to use bandwidth they have already paid for, we'll be watching more and more services shutting shop and there won't be any 'next big thing' being unleashed on the world.

OK, I want one!

The bit that always annoys me about all of this -

why isn't there an easy (AND FREE) way to verify you are registered to vote.

Those of us who live in rural areas are awaiting the results of this trial with hope. According to the Digital Scotland website our exchange is expected to be upgraded between July 2015 and December 2015.... which would be great - but we all connect directly to the exchange. The only hope any of us have is this trial which a few months ago was being called Fibre to the Drop Point and now suddenly has a different name. BT clearly are not going to install street cabinets and re-route 300-400 phone lines. So FTTdp is our next best hope.

And because Twitter refuse to just use industry standard and well tested 2FA and instead opted to create their own, which requires at least one device to be signed into your account - guess what happened when ALL devices got signed out? I've managed to get 2 accounts signed back in using the backup code, but my 3rd account - is refusing the backup code, and Twitter says that they have sent a login notification to my device (which was signed out) and now I can't get in. Dear Twitter, just use OTP like everyone else!!

If the hotels get permission to boot people off a network that the hotel doesn't own, thereby breaking the computer misuse act (or it's equivalent) - then I see no reason for hotels to complain if some people decide to return the favour - and continuously boot all hotel customers off the hotel network. I also see no reason why the mobile phone companies can't sue the hotels - since as a paying customer of my mobile network, including the ability to tether, then the hotels are interfering with a service I am paying for.

There is a surprise.....

Competing search companies get nervous when Europe starts talking about separating search from the rest of business. Who didn't see that coming?

Amazon might one day learn an important lesson - the reason Netflix is popular is because almost every device in existence enables you to watch Netflix. If Amazon started there - they might have a chance.

It's really just the N7 2012 that is affected, and it's not even really related to Lollipop. It's more likely people are starting to use their Nexus 7 again after the update to Lollipop because they want to see what it is like, but they appear to have forgotten how terrible the Nexus 7 2012 had become BEFORE the Lollipop update. I factory flashed Lollipop on to mine, and it wasn't terribly usable before the flash. The method of getting Lollipop onto the tablet whether via OTA or factory flash makes no difference, the problem of shitty NAND is hardware not software and one of the few things that helps (which of course a factory flash does anyway) is clear /cache which will bring the tablet back to life again for a few days.

It is worth noting - that the tablet does in fact run speedier between slowdowns - and in my experience the slowdowns thus far have been cause by heavier IO use, in particular - when updating or installing something via the Play Store - because ART uses more space than DALVIK did - the tablet spends a longer time writing to NAND and you might as well not bother touching the tablet while that process is ongoing.

I'd imagine it probably is actually for the safesearch setting - the pfSense box we have in the internet cafe has the same issue - the only way to force safesearch to always be active at the moment is to force DNS for the Google domain to point to the nossl address. Otherwise pfSense cannot add the details that force the request to enforce safesearch.

We could really do with knowing how long the batteries actually last in these things - especially the ones listed on page 1.

Well, this isn't the first time we have a Cyberman go against it's programming because of emotion -

In Doomsday a cyberman/woman (Yvonne) goes against her programming - and disobeys orders - and a tear of oil leaks out of her eye. Potentially in both Danny and Yvonnes case - they were so determined NOT to be "upgraded" that they were able to interfere with the process.

However it still has not been explained - how exactly - the digital dead minds can "feel" what happens to their physical bodies - providing of course that wasn't just a lie.

Nor has it been explained what "missy" has to do with Clara being the impossible girl. It is explained why the Doctor and the current Clara were destined to meet - but not what that has to do with the previous 2 Clara's......

Hated it -

really was hoping the whole afterlife thing was going to turn out to be something gripping and new - but no - the usual enemies, now with huge holes in the plotline.

As for it's been done before:

The Library - conciousness' living in a computer.

The Bells of Saint John - uploading people to a data cloud.

Come on Moffatt - bring us something new!