Posts by dotdavid

What?

"Try as they might, they can't seem to generate sufficient "wow" with their hardware/Android combinations to muster much brand loyalty and, in return, chunkier profit margins."

Oh please. Samsung, LG and the like can't even manage to code a simple launcher replacement, what makes you think they'd be capable of forking Android and doing a good job of it? Amazon might succeed with their fork but only in using Android as a locked-down but quite-functional firmware replacement - not as a credible mobile OS.

Like it or not, Google do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Android. It wouldn't make much sense for these companies to fork it now. Maybe by "Ice Cream Sandwich" when it's a credible phone *and* tablet OS it will be more forkable as a lot of the hard work will have been done, but right now I doubt it. Plus when they do fork it they need to retain compatibility with the vast number of Android apps available otherwise people will shun the fork like they shun Windows Mobile and WebOS.

Of course if Google starts throwing their weight around with Motorola things might change. I'm sure they're being watched closely. But it's a bit too early to predict the death of the Open Handset Alliance, methinks.

Needs a revolution not evolution

Apart from the bigger bin and better battery, this doesn't seem much of an improvement on my Roomba.

Looks a bit like they *are* resting on their laurels a bit. I'd love one of these with some kind of automatic bin-emptying system (no I have no idea how that would work) - it might be a worthwhile upgrade then.

And they really should do something about the price. As others have said you can get more capable competitors for less now.

Trust your employees...

...not to slack off. After all, blocking Facebook isn't going to block a determined slacker.

There's always El Reg's forums for example... er...

Friends who become spambots for Gore...

...will soon become ex-Friends methinks.

Does Google really need *that* big a shot?

...after all, it's unlikely to have to fork out too much for Oracle's groundless IP-trollery.

*ducks*

Operators

The operators will screw this up, just like they seem to screw everything else up.

I can see either one of the payment companies succeeding, or maybe Google. But not an operator.

"not to participate in any internet relay action"

Am I the only one that mentally put a "hot" in that sentence? Am I? Anyone?

Oh ok then.

Transport

Think it'll take more than a complaints site to fix my transport. First Crap Con, I'm looking at you...

Excite?

More like the Toshiba Yawn.

"Hmmm our tablets aren't doing so well... I wonder why. Must be because they're *NOT THIN ENOUGH*! Eureka! Back to the drawing board lads!"

HP

HP probably thought "ah, no need to discount the Pre3 now, we had *loads* of sales of that tablet thingy we sell" completely forgetting that those sales were driven by the price cut and the price cut only.

What they should be trying to do is working out how to sell these things cheaper, as they obviously do sell at lower price points.

Google making a meal of things

I don't understand why they can't require full names, but then have a field for a nickname and have a setting that means you only show your nickname to people. Then they have your real name to do, er, no evil with, but the average punter is relatively happy as they can continue to feel nice and anonymous behind a pseudonym.

Hell, they even already have the nickname field in Google Profiles *now*.

Why are they making things so difficult for themselves.

Ahah!

"We are now working on ensuring everyone that owns a webOS device has a positive experience"

So *they're* the source of the recent leaks of Android for the TouchPad.

I joke... I joke...

Obligatory XKCD

...oh you've already done it. Nevermind then.

Sold out?

Let me guess... thousands of punters heard of an imminent price drop on Tweeter, and in an effort to beat the rush bought up stock at full price in the hope that Misco would refund them the difference when the price drop came into effect...

I suspect Misco are going to have a lot of returns shortly.

OTT

For a tasteless one-liner am I the only one who thinks this is a little excessive?

A caution, fine. Maybe even a fine. But four months in prison?

I always assumed this sort of law was to stop people who actually, well, incited this sort of behaviour - and I can't see the words "Let's start Bangor riots" posted to a private social network for 20 minutes as being a particularly effective incitement.

Disillusioned

I've been a bit disillusioned by G+ ever since the "real names" debacle started and still hasn't finished. When G+ launched there was a real feeling Google were listening, and making solid improvements. Unfortunately while the dev team seem to be much more approachable the People Who Make The Policy Decisions are still uncontactable and unaccountable.

I had hoped that Google had gotten over the lack of communication with users that they had during their Nexus One support days, but the lack of a decent justification of their real name policy has shown me that nothing much changed.

Although I must admit, Facebook are hardly better.

Excellent news

Now we just need an app for tracking the criminals too. Care to supply one, Huawei?

Good in theory...

...but in practice, these robotic vacuum cleaners don't really work that well. I have a Roomba and in my experience;

1) Perhaps it's because I'm particularly slovenly or because of my two cats but you have to empty it a lot. I dunno, but having to keep a watchful eye on the little machine to make sure it hasn't filled up seems a little beside the point to me.

2) It's good for a quick sweep around but doesn't have a particularly powerful vacuum so you need to vacuum properly now and then.

3) Because of 2), and the fact that the Roomba can't do stairs, you need another vacuum cleaner. I have one of those little Dysons, initially for doing the bits the Roomba couldn't but recently I just do the lot.

4) Occasionally cat hair gets in the little cogs and you have to do a full disassembly, clean, oil and rebuild job. iRobot make it quite easy but still, I've never had to disassemble any other hoovers I've owned.

5) My Roomba lacks the LCD screen that the Neato product has, which alas means you have to look up a lot of the little warning beeps and boops it makes when things go wrong.

6) Alluded to in this article, the Roomba sometimes fails to navigate properly back to the charging point or doesn't quite sit on it right when it gets there, meaning it dies and looks a little pathetic.

7) You have to keep your place relatively tidy, as alas it lacks a human's "hoovering around crap" skills and can easily get stuck on random objects.

Because of all this I've basically stopped using the Roomba and just use my little Dyson.

I really hope the technology moves on and one day there is a robotic cleaning machine that just gets on with it. Unfortunately we're not there yet.

It was you!

"As Head of Enabling Software this was your correspondent's role at O2."

If I were you I'd be wary of admitting stuff like that to this lot. From what I remember of that era, "enabling" software was the kind of bloatware that disabled a lot of smartphones' best features.

Flame icon because the lynch mob will be using it.

Chavs on trains

I've always thought a funny comedy show sketch would be a bunch of OAPs jumping on a train, leering at the commuters then playing Mozart very loudly on their mobile phones to the general annoyance of the rest of the travelling public.

Still I've often wondered why I get so easily annoyed by noise on my morning and evening commute. I commute on a line with a lot of tunnels and I take a stupid amount of pleasure when we go through them and some loud-mouthed fool's telephone conversation with his mate is cut off suddenly. I hope all these teens switch to Spotify streaming or similar soon so I can get a similar thrill when their hippity hop music is cut off.

Megaphone so I can shout "get off my lawn" louder.

Localisation?

I wonder how much this has to do with language. Maybe there are more English ebooks around. And a bigger range of titles definitely makes the whole ebook concept more attractive.

HP + WebOS

HP never really knew what to do with WebOS, I think their thought process went something like this;

1) Apple is making loads of money in tablets and phones.

2) Android is doing pretty well, but each OEM is making less money. I wonder why this is?

3) Must be because Apple both own hardware and software!

4) Hey if we buy Palm we'll have hardware and software. Then we'll be just like Apple and make loads of cash!

Hopefully they'll sell WebOS to someone else. I'm guessing some of the less-successful Android OEMs will be interested, if there's any truth to the rumour that they're wary of Google now they own Motorola.

Google's faults

Google+ is really highlighting Google's main fault - that they don't listen to their users (even users of a so-called "test" service) and are very very bad at communicating when they've made a mistake. They really need to sort this out as otherwise Google+ is quite a nice system.

As for this chap's name, how about telling Google is it "Mynameis Stilgherrian"?

NSW

Am I the only one that keeps reading NSW as Not Suitable for Work?

iPad Sales

Judging by the number of "win an iPad" competitions there seems to be around nowadays, I wonder whether most of the sales are from companies buying them up to give away as prizes...

Not sure this is a big deal

"Google loves to whine about how bogus the whole patent-protection racket is, even as they play the game to their own benefit."

Personally I don't have a problem with silly patents, until they're used to launch silly lawsuits. Google haven't done so yet, so I'll reserve judgement.

alpha.gov.uk

...is a stupid domain name. As it's a site about the UK government, not about very early test versions of the UK government. it should be called gov.gov.uk or something.

Let loose

I think the benefits should be loosed into a fund to compensate riot victims ;-)

In all serious though, while I really don't like paying for these scumbags' lives, I wonder whether the loss of benefits will mean they're even more likely to commit crimes. I suspect it's a more complex issue than the petitioners have realised.

Sherlock because he's not exactly needed to identify a lot of these rioters as they post their own photos on Twitface.