* Posts by Giles Jones

2536 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2006

SCO gets sale approval

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Trolling time

Maybe Paul Allen or Bill Gates will buy them and do even more trolling?

Why compete when you can impede.

Orange goes High Definition

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Priorities

I think many people would rather have more 3G coverage than improved audio?

What use is improved audio when it breaks up. What next, 5.1 surround audio?

Diesels greener than electric cars, says Swiss gov report

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Quite often

Lithium ion batteries are always oxidising. Probably get 5 years out of them before the capacity starts to diminish.

Also, what is the safety like? Lithium ion batteries can explode if damaged or overheated.

Apple Magic Trackpad

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Bluetooth for a reason

It uses Bluetooth for a good reason. Most if not all Macs have Bluetooth built in. There's no way Apple are going to have a annoying USB dongle sticking out of the computer to use this thing. Proprietary RF dongles are just that, custom to each device. So if you had a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard from two different manufacturers then you would waste two USB ports.

Bluetooth was invented to provide a standard low bandwidth wireless networking protocol, it's better to use standards then not.

Anyway, PS3 is all bluetooth and I believe the Nintendo Wii uses it for the Wiimotes. It's in more widespread use than you think.

What is IBM up to in October?

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Yawn

It will still be stored on hard disks. This is just another storage management system or a storage OS.

The revolution will be something other than hard disks, but we're nowhere near finding a replacement. SSDs will get there, but there's the issue of write cycles.

Apple QuickTime backdoor creates code-execution peril

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Erm

Lets face it, this hole wouldn't be possible if Microsoft's code execution protection worked properly.

Adding DEP and Intel adding a flag to stop the contents of the stack being executable has not stopped attacks being possible.

Sure, this exploit is via Quicktime, but I'm sure there are many other applications which could be used.

Why attack just Apple when the problem with with Microsoft's OS as well. This fault hasn't been mentioned as being exploitable in OSX.

AMD to dump ATI brand

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Brand

Neither ATI or AMD have the same ring to them as Intel or Nvidia. Both are initialisms which aren't that catchy.

They need a decent brand name.

Paul Allen launches patent broadside on world+dog

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Indeed

They've worked out that working for Microsoft and building things is hard work and risky, so why not retire and just spend all day hunting for good patents to use.

VW to eliminate worst road hazard: drivers

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Overtaking

There's no way in hell that this car will be able to overtake cyclists carefully.

If you're driving along a country lane and you need to overtake how will it know not to overtake on a bend?

There's going to be so many glitches and people killed due to "bugs". That is if it is ever approved.

Samsung gives sneak peak of iPad basher

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A bit too small?

It looks nice, but 7 inch screen? a bit small.

If you are pitching a device between a smartphone and a laptop then halfway in terms of screen is a good bet.

Halfway between a 3.5 inch smartphone screen and a 15 inch laptop screen is 9.25 inches. Close to the iPad screen size.

You can already get a Archos media tablet with a 7 inch screen.

Tools and rules buffed for Microsoft's iPhone challenger

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WinMo

They were doing okay in the mobile market, but like IE they let it stagnate for too long, had no ideas on where to move too. All the other phone platforms were just as clunky and tired.

Now that there's Android and iPhone around Microsoft has plenty of competitors ideas to innovate into their product.

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More than three

Probably because there's at least 6 mobile OS platforms:

Android, Windows Phone, Symbian, RIM, WebOS and iOS.

Google Marketplace DRM broken

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Always been a problem with Java

There are tools like ProGuard for java to obfuscate the code to make this sort of thing harder.

But it's a fundamental problem with Java, you can easily reverse engineer it.

Halo: Reach leaked to net 3 weeks before release

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Duh

Stick it on a network and someone will figure out how to download it. If you really want to keep it secure then don't make it available for download! Have they not heard of RSA tokens?

Also, review copies are where many of the leaks onto the Internet start from. DVD screeners were always popping up on the net.

Google's Wave flop: Spare us the warm fuzzies

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Google

Nobody is going to want to give time and code to Google and not get anything back in return. Maybe if you're rich already and have nothing better to do.

Microsoft's Apple revenge: the pleasure and the pain

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Microsoft needs massive restructuring

A Windows 7 tablet will fail. Only a mobile or tablet specific Windows OS will cut the mustard.

The problem with Microsoft's approach to mobile and tablet devices is it's been lazy or under-resourced.

They were too slow to react to Google, too slow to react to Apple, only just managed to save Internet Explorer from obsolescence.

They only reacted fast enough to compete with Sony by cutting corners, hence why the XBox 360 has been unprofitable due to warranty claims.

Microsoft needs to restructure, the internal competition just isn't working. Also, they need a geek in charge again or at least someone with some technical ability, good taste or high standards.

Galaxy S firmware update invalidates Voda warranties

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Mobile crapware

Seems to be standard practice for OEMs to just give into network demands and ruin user experience by letting them customise the OS. Although the precedent was set by Windows OEMs installing crapware on new computers.

Mobile networks are trying their hardest to push their pet projects on the masses, but forgetting that if you make a service that is good then people will flock to it. Bundling a service and force feeding it to people doesn't work.

Mobile networks are never going to provide anything to rival Google. They should just sack all their service software people and pass on the savings to the customer.

Jobs offers relief for iOS 4-running iPhone 3Gs

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To put things in perspective

People may moan about the slowness, but there is at least a fix in the works. I can't think of many phone makers who would bother to support a two year old handset.

Look at the poor HTC Hero owners, phone released July 2009, took a year before they got a 2.1 upgrade and 2.2 isn't planned. 2.1 apparently also erased all user data.

HP confirms 'Palm pad' to ship early 2011

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Nice....

Nice that they're putting a product out, but are they going to develop the OS?

What use is the WebOS if it falls behind the competition?

I may be wrong but HP aren't a company I associate with developing OS software.

Office for Mac steps closer to Windows version of software

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Stragegic move?

I've always wondered if they keep updating the Mac version to make money or to keep everyone using Office.

Given the high number of Mac laptops sold to students it seems to me like it is about keeping Microsoft Office in use by future generations as well as the current generation. I doubt Microsoft see it as a cash cow.

In some ways it is a bit of a shame that so many people are still so Office orientated. Editing documents, spreadsheets and mailing them around to people is so 1990s.

Dawn raids catch 9 for massive iPhone 'fraud'

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Resale value

iPhone's hold their value. In fact they tend to sell above RRP on ebay due to the 3 week shipping delays at present.

Google plots pre-Christmas Chrome OS iPad killer

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Argh!

Why Chrome OS and not Android? The UI is lame, Android is more powerful.

For once Ballmer was on the money when he accused Google of being confused. Google say that Android and Chrome OS are for different markets, mobile and personal computing?

Surely they are the same thing? a personal computer device just needs to be a bit more powerful and bigger.

Chrome OS will access remote applications. So no network link, no apps?

Apple iMac 21.5in 2010

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Well..

If you have to ask the price then you can't afford it.

Lets not forget the exchange rate isn't great for dollars to pounds at the moment. Apple doesn't change their price every week, it's there for the duration of the product's life no matter what exchange rates do.

Also, you probably don't want to run OSX or want an easier life.

They seem expensive when you think in "Wintel" terms. But Mac owners keep their machines for 5 years on average and still can get a few hundred quid for them when they are that old. There is no resale value for a 5 year old PC.

Android app secretly uploads GPS data, warns Symantec

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Permissions should be locked down by default!

Go back in time and look at how Microsoft used to provide Windows all enabled and not restricted. Users would then require the skills to lock it all down and make it secure. Firewall included but not activated for example!!!

You can't rely on the user knowing what all the terms mean. For example: GPS may mean nothing to some people, "Allow this application to monitor and share my location" means something. I've not used the software in question, but Android does seem a bit geeky and "made by techies, by techies".

Secure by default is better for avoiding viruses, ID theft and the like. Okay, maybe not for tech support people who have to then explain how to enable and unlock things.

Ellison wrestles Google to strangle 'unofficial' Java

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Well...

It's still a compiler interpreter. Just because the class format and JVM code is different doesn't mean it doesn't infringe on Oracle patents.

Just like if you implement PL/SQL on a non-Oracle database then you're likely to raise eyebrows at Oracle.

Apple staff allegedly sold secrets worth $1m

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Rubbish

Apple is corrupt? what you are on about? this was a guy who was passing on information that would disadvantage Apple. It would result in Apple possibly paying more for components than they normally would!

Why would they want that?

First SMS Trojan for Android is in the wild

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Can only be fixed in the OS

If the OS is changed to allow control of available APIs to an application then it would fix such things.

Have a preferences panel for each app in there you can have checkboxes for:

[ ] Internet/LAN access

[ ] Phone access

[ ] SMS access

Would be pretty simple to deny access for specific applications. Obviously some advert supported applications would then need to refuse to run until Internet access was restored, but you would at least then know that application was trying to connect to the Internet and get rid of it.

It's pretty bad that mobile security is poor on all handsets at present. I'm not sure if any of the application stores have software that reviews the application (checks for API references).

I wouldn't imagine many developers would be happy having to submit their code for review, so reviewing the binary seems to be the only option.

Tory MP's email fail stirs up bloggo-fury

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It's not spam

Spam = Unsolicited commercial email. Adverts and people asking you to buy stuff.

He's being sent lots of automated mail or just bombarded with lobbying mail.

I don't say I blame him. A more personal approach tends to work better than automated mails (which could be faked).

LG Cookie breaks into UK

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Maybe they do get it?

Maybe they do? I'm sure these phones are cheap to make and cheap RRP.

Adults may buy something better, but parents buying for their kids will balk at the cost of an Android phone or iPhone.

Beatles on iTunes? 'Don't hold your breath' says Yoko

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Hmm

There's just so many other people involved in this deal beside band members. There's only two Beatles still alive and neither of them really need the money.

What is really at stake is people who don't have as much money wanting to line their pockets.

What the consumer is missing out on is the chance to just cherry pick specific songs. It's something Pink Floyd don't like as they considered each song to be a chapter and the whole record a novel.

But the rest of us don't like buying albums with filler tracks.

Win 7 up, Mac OS X down in market share wars

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It is

OSX is sold as a separate OS for people upgrading their OS.

I bought Leopard, I bought Snow Leopard.

I expect to install another OS soon too. So 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. Mac users keep their machines longer. I've had this Macbook over two years now and I'm not feeling the need to upgrade yet.

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Windows licence count

I wonder how many of these Windows licences are actually in use?

If you buy a Mac you're almost certainly are going to use OSX. If you buy a Windows PC you might be formatting it and installing Linux or your existing Windows licence.

There must be two Windows licences for every PC out there.

IE9's Acid, speed and HTML5 trip to land lost surfers

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Hardware accelerated?

Sounds like Microsoft is really adding features for the hell of it, marketing reasons.

The same company that thought it would be a good idea to have the browser as part of the desktop or thought that ActiveX in the browser was good.

I wonder how long it will be before some exploit appears for this?

Apple iPhone app patent claim 'doesn't feel right'

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Yawn

Nice rewrite of history.

The use of the iPad name was authorised.

Xerox demonstrated their UI to Apple. Many of the people who worked on the Xerox GUI went to work at Apple.

Apple were just first to market. Everyone else then ripped off Apple. Atari, Commodore, Acorn, Microsoft and so on.

It's funny how the iPad, iPhone and iPod have spawned so many clones or killer alternatives (which never end up being as popular).

I don't see many people cloning Kin phones or Zunes.

Apple preps iOS fix as Germany warns of iPhone peril

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Bad comparison

iOS4 is perfectly good, it's nothing like VISTA.

It's the iPhone 4 antenna that has the quirks.

Comparing iPhone 4 to VISTA is stupid, VISTA didn't sell well yet the iPhone 4 has.

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Simple fix.

Simple, use Opera Mini.

Leicester City councillors eye up iPad to save £90k a year

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Why so negative?

Why are people so negative about councils improving the way they work?

If they have a document on the iPad it can be edited, searched easily, emailed and so on. Paper can't do that and lugging a laptop around is a pain too (especially through doors with security locks).

Tablets have a place in the paperless office, just because Microsoft didn't understand tablets and produced a rubbish tablet OS doesn't mean everyone else is prone to failure. If anything Microsoft had no Apple or Xerox to rip off this time.

Even with the Slate they still don't seem to understand that desktop design paradigms don't work on mobile touch screen devices. You have to scrap the existing interface and start again!

Apple ditches video evidence

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Erm?

Technical skills are no antidote to a rubbish user interface. A poorly designed user interface can be dangerous or result in data loss or accidental deletion of data.

Think poorly labelled buttons, badly layout of buttons, lack of confirmation messages (accidental button pushes do happen, especially on a phone) and other such things.

I think you seriously need to go back to 1996 prior to the launch of the iPhone and look at the sorry state of smartphones back then. It was all crude UIs on top of Windows Mobile, or phones based on Symbian S60 or UIQ. Shocking usability, slow clunky interfaces and about attractive as Windows 3.11.

Microsoft should starve on radical penguin diet

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Who cares?

Why do so many people want Microsoft to dominate the computing world?

They seriously have no taste or vision. They just wait for someone else to release something ground breaking but expensive or flawed, copy it and release a cheaper less decent version of it, with some flaws fixed.

Samsung Galaxy S

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Too many updates.

What that means is they have poor developers and rubbish QA. They released the product with lots of faults and software bugs. They'll fix as many as they can and then abandon the device when the slightly better newer version comes out a few months later.

Apple brings iMac line up to date

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USB3? who cares

What does USB3 do that Firewire 800 can't do better?

Firewire pro audio hardware is in widespread use. USB3 isn't yet.

O2 extends iPhone 4 return-for-refund window

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T&Cs

Read the terms and conditions for O2, you aren't allowed to use tethering even if you can "hack" your phone to enable it.

IBM's zEnterprise 196 CPU: Cache is king

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Apple

Apple left the PowerPC architecture for this reason. The PowerPC chips were not being produced for general desktop or laptop purposes. They were either high end server CPUs or for embedded devices.

The G5 was never going to be suitable for a laptop and a modern Mac Mini is faster than a G5 using 10% of the electricity.

Forget the Jesus Phone, here's the Rude Phone

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Appropriate name

Quite appropriate, Nokia's have been w*nk for quite sometime. Can't even do a sliding phone without the screen dying after a while (cable metal fatigue).

Acer beTouch E400 Android smartphone

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Cheap.

Well it is cheap, but even at the high end there's only a couple of ok looking phones.

It seems like there's a lot of space wasted for the logo and buttons. I wouldn't really want to use the web at that screen size and resolution any more.

iPhones dialling up premium-rate bills again

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Hmm

Then Apple needs to have the words "Ad supported" in the description. Not a big deal.

The advert is different to a trojan, you have to click on it and the advert is fairly clear that it is about a phone product. You can see the first time you run the app that the advert is there. You don't get that with a trojan, it remains hidden.

Developer slips tethering into iTunes

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I'm paying

I'm paying £10 a month for unlimited texts, 100 minutes (I don't call people often) and totally unlimited data, not 1GB or some other limit. This is with GiffGaff, which was started by O2.

PAYG and I can alter the package at any time, for a £35 top up you can get unlimited everything.

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So does the iPhone

It has tethering, but you still need the network to allow it.

I somehow think if you're browsing with IE and the request is coming from an iPhone that they will know something isn't right.

Apple ad-addled OS scheme resurfaces

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Just ideas

Many tech companies are patenting ideas, this is just another idea. Often some time passes before they are relevant or useful.

Who remembers BT's hyperlink claim? just shows how an idea could be profitable.

Apple iPad – the 'Tickle Me Elmo' of 2010

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Used one?

Have you used one?

Where did the reports of problems come from? an Apple support forum. What are user support forums for? they are for people asking questions when they are having problems with something. They aren't full of people saying "I just had to write that my phone is working great".

If you went and sat in a hospital waiting room you would also conclude that the human body is no good as well as they are people there having problems with their health.