* Posts by Giles Jones

2536 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2006

Why I love Microsoft’s vapourware tablet

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: "all ARM tablets are stuck with the OS that they shipped with."

It's one thing to have some simple locking to stop you messing around, but the secure boot in Windows 8 is a step too far.

It requires Linux vendors to buy code signing certificates to get their OS to boot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8#Secure_boot

Alan Turing 100: Visionary, war winner ... game maker?

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Re: Was with you until...

Wrong Apple Lisa was first. Go back and read up :)

The Amiga and ST were not far behind (1985). The Lisa was hugely expensive, even those in Apple thought it was insane, hence the Mac.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: Was with you until...

Xerox never released a consumer orientated product around its technology.

But I think the article is not correct. GUI based computers didn't get personal until the Apple Lisa. The Mac came after that.

The rest of us were all perfectly happy with our Commodore and Sinclar machines. Commodore's contribution to the early personal computer market is always revised by Apple revisionists. Apple even claimed to be the first to sell 1 million when it was Commodore who did first.

Without Chuck Peddle approaching MOS to produce the 6502 and MOS being bought by Commodore a lot of the early computers just would never had happened. Commodore machines, BBC Micro, Atari VCS and countless other 6502 machines wouldn't have happened as the alternative processors were vastly more expensive (MOS got yields of 70% working chips compared to 30% industry average).

Gigapixel camera heralds new world of snoopery

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Re: "Rather than improve the optics of the camera, the researchers focused on the electronics"

That's because they're still using the "kit" lens :)

Microsoft's uncloaks Phone 8 developer preview

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Re: Not upgradeable is not ok

Maybe it is part of their plan to increase the userbase. Have WP7 owners hand their phones to someone else and then buy a WP8 phone.

Except many may just think "sod it".

Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe

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Re: Sir

Yup, Barbarian is the one.

British Waterways charity mapping data handed to Google for free

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Re: I wonder...

Which is really just a way of getting people to read some rules, which is fair enough.

It's not like you can go very fast on many tow paths anyway.

Apple extends Liquidmetal sole rights until 2014

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Re: Weird

Firstly the SIM should be removable without a tool, secondly why not machine a tool if you need one?

It sounds like inventing a biro for use in zero gravity when you could just use a pencil.

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

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Re: Looks nice, but...

Probably because Microsoft aren't experienced in making hardware and selling it to people direct.

Intel slaps Xeon Phi brand on MIC coprocessors

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All of these stupid names when most people just want the part number so they can find a benchmark for it.

But as we know, they couldn't trademark numbers, hence this ever increasing array of stupid names.

Carphone Warehouse clings to buoyant fondleslab, avoids submerging

Giles Jones Gold badge

I can't see how such sellers make any money.

For instance on the Carphone Warehouse website the Samsung Galaxy S3 is £499 SIM Free or £559 on a PAYG deal.

So for £60 extra you have the privilege of having your phone locked and a SIM card provided. Bonkers.

Foundering Nokia pushes 10,000 bods, 3 veeps overboard

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Re: They're making the wrong one redundant

They should have licenced WP7 as well as producing an Android phone. When you're struggling you keep your options open.

Torvalds splits 2012 Millennium Technology Prize with gene scientist

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Re: Dont get it

It's not so much that his code was bad, although obviously anyone starting out writing a kernel will learn a lot from there on. No, the real disagreement is over the way the kernel is designed. It is a monolithic kernel and years ago the opinion was that monolithic kernels were old hat and microkernels were the way forward.

Of course, there's been all sorts of different kernels and some even take bits of each such as the Amiga kernel. WIndows has a bit of a mishmash of kernel ideas.

Personally I think that what people consider to be "Linux" is not what Linus has created. The kernel is important but it isn't what people think Linux is, they're more likely to talk about the command line, Apache web server or Gnome/KDE.

The hardware support of Linux is the big strength, it supports a lot of hardware but at the same time this means that the kernel grows larger and larger. I used to roll my own kernels but it was becoming extremely tiresome due to the vast amounts of options in the kernel config pages.

Apple's Retina Macs: A little too elite?

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Re: Really?

So where's the problem then? the Mac Pro can have tons of discs in it.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: Suspicious, me?

I personally think the Pro is Pro-sumer these days, not Professional.

Besides, there are loads of professionals using much lower spec machine and doing their job okay.

Ssssh. Apple quietly mashes monster MacBook Pro

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Re: Screens are expensive

I imagine the screen costs a lot. The more pixels the lower the yield and yield is everything when you're making a product.

Mind you, if you make those pixels any smaller you wouldn't be able to see the duff ones.

Apple's online store goes offline

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Re: Or Maybe.....

When you buy laptop with Apple you can return it within 14 days and get a refund.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: Or Maybe.....

Exactly right. But of course the haters see it as another "weakness".

iPhones, iPads to be FULL OF FACEBOOK and NOT GOOGLE

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Re: Seriously?

Which is surely better than buying a handset every 6 months?

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet

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Re: Yuk

Did you not read the article? the use of Linux will already break the GPL as they will be linking with GPL C and C++ libraries and not releasing the source.

They're getting around this by keeping all of the code private under secrecy laws and not asserting copyright on it.

It's hardly likely anyone from the open source community will get hold of a drone to examine for GPL violations.

Samsung's projector phone beamed up to Blighty

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Re: Can't imagine I'd actually use the projector much

Sodcasting video as well as sound.

HP still NOT porting HP-UX to x86?

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Re: Common socket?

With Itanium they threw away all the best bits.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1008015/linus-torvalds-itanium-threw-x86

EU gives Google till July to offer fix for search dominance

Giles Jones Gold badge

There is competition, it's called Bing and it's from Microsoft.

Perhaps if there was competition from someone new, not another monopolist then people would use it.

Intel phone boss: 'Multi-core detrimental to Android mobes'

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Re: Come again?

ARM licences the core design to anyone that wants to use it. So as a result you see SOC designs with varying built in hardware and an ARM core. Lots of choice and competition since it is the complete chips that matter, not what their execution core is.

With Intel you get what Intel wants you to have. Hardly useful for compact efficient designs with minimal component counts.

Google Maps adds aircraft, tricycles and skiers to cover all bases

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Re: Useless retards

What is scary is they are probably relying on this map data for their automated cars. While the driving engine will be looking at what is around, the routing engine will be using their map data to work out where to go.

Marathon

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: "Running on the Motorola 680x0, Pathways could never deliver a Doom-like experience"

Alien Breed was 2D, but Alien Breed 3D was 3D, hence the 3D part of the name.

Plus there was Gloom and someone even ported Quake later on for high end machines.

Orange unveils Intel Atom smartphone

Giles Jones Gold badge

This is a non-starter for so many reasons.

1. ARM works. It is efficient and powerful enough for a phone.

2. Consumers don't care what CPU is in a phone. They care about battery life and performance. With Intel Atom you get a little more performance with much less battery life.

3. ARM is the one big contribution to the mobile tech world the UK has made. Intel want to control this market.

Stick with ARM, stick with a British success story!

Why Zuck will go soft for Facebook Phone - and rebrand Android

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You forget that Microsoft is a big investor in FB. Can't see them being happy about Android.

Nobody made a difference by just doing what everyone else is doing.

Self-driving Volvos cover 200km of busy Spanish motorway

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Re: What about all the unprogrammed exceptions?

Exactly right. You can't really have true/false decisions for real world problems. Hence neural nets, but neural nets need programming to tune up their "weighting".

It's all very well killing people and then having the system adjust to make the decision correct the next time. But it's not exactly fair to kill so many people is it?

Steve Jobs' death clears way for vibrating Apple tool

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Re: So

But think outside of the mobile and tablet market for a second.

Imagine a touch screen the size of a desk and drawing on that, some sort of feedback might help realism? imagine the screen being colour epaper instead of LCD or OLED so it doesn't dazzle.

Trekkie wants to build USS Enterprise … in twenty years

Giles Jones Gold badge

Perhaps he will need this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/U-S-S-Enterprise-Manual-Haynes-Workshop/dp/1844259412

Hands on with Nokia's 808 41Mp camphone

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The new iPad has more resolution than many monitors. What is a "real" monitor given the quality of them varies so much. Not to mention you should really calibrate a monitor with a calibration device.

Motorola Mobility loses to Microsoft in German patent battle

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Re: Breaking up something large is PATENTED?

The important thing is the use case of the parent, ie itscontext. This is breaking up something in the context of SMS.

Otherwise breaking up a chocolate bar could be patented.

Minority Report-style swishery demoed with cheap webcam

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It seems to be just a mapping thing. So if your hand is central in the web cam image the cursor is central on the screen.

Hardly much use?

Toshiba swaps skinny Android tablet's CPU

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More CPU grunt = more battery required = bigger and heavier. It's better surely to wait until you can upgrade the hardware without needing to add more bulk.

Otherwise tablets are just going to grow into laptops and what's the point of that?

Ballmer says 500 MILLION 'users' to 'have' Windows 8 in 2013

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: As much as I like the Windows 8 Metro concept....

Tablets have come along, but they aren't going to replace the desktop or laptop. Just like people still have desk phones in their office, paper and pen, photocopiers and so on.

IMHO the popularity of the tablet in enterprise (Microsoft's typical strength) is down to it being a device which can replace paper forms.

So people who are walking around a building such a health professional doing the rounds in a hospital can press buttons, tick boxes and the data can then be sent immediately back to an operations database and a dashboard somewhere can be updated so the decision makers can see what is going on.

This replaces the need for paper forms, scanning or data entry and eliminates errors as electronic forms can be validated.

It's hard to see how a vastly complex weighty Win8 tablet will do the above efficiently with enough battery to do a whole working day.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: Why should he care?

There's millions who had Vista but don't use it. OEM licences ship with most computers and companies often wipe the OEM licence and use their site licence.

2011 sets new record for counterfeit electronics

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It's okay when they do what they are intended to do. But there have been fake replacement chips for classic computers (C64) that have just been other incompatible chips rebadged.

Windows XP update fails in infinite .NET patch loop

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Happy

Reg missed the obvious article title: Caught in the .NET

Apple, RIM didn’t infringe Kodak patents

Giles Jones Gold badge

You do wonder why they granted it in the first place. What is the alternative to a viewfinder? chimping** after every shot?

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimping

Apple's trial experts are 'slavish fanbois who believe in magic'

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Re: Samsung Fanbois

Not to mention the fact that when supplies are low they go for inferior panels made by competitors for their monitors.

Review: Raspberry Pi

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Re: Waiting to pre-order...

Plenty of people around doing cool stuff with Arduino boards with 64k.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Not open source either.

It uses closed source drivers for the kernel. Not very sporting is it?

Eugene Kaspersky frustrated by Apple’s iOS AV ban

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Re: Epic Fail

Once they are discovered they can be remotely killed and it is pretty simple to return the phone back to a working state.

'Dated and cheesy' Aero ripped from Windows 8

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Everything is supposed to look grey, flat and boring instead now?

This is part of the problem with Windows. It's can't simply evolve gradually, Microsoft have to keep knocking it down and rebuilding it all the time. Have they not learned from Facebook that a good number of people don't like drastic change?

Audi proposes PC-packing stunt bikes

Giles Jones Gold badge

A bicycle is one of the simplest forms of transport around, you can very easily build and maintain it yourself with a bit of knowledge of mechanicals. There are plenty of standards so you can often move parts around between frames.

Then come the car companies wanting to cash in on the growing number of people on bikes by making it all complex, expensive, proprietary and hard to maintain.

No thanks.

'Facebook ads are very boring and not very imaginative'

Giles Jones Gold badge

Boring adverts are great. They fade into the background and then don't even get noticed.

There are many people for whom advertising doesn't work, I'm one of them.

Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones

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Sometimes it's not so simple. They show you the contents of the box complete with laptop or phone, but then there's a switch of the boxes.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Re: "Why is it an offence to separate a fool and his money?"

Insurers call that contributory negligence and refuse to pay out.

Giles Jones Gold badge

Because you can make chips out of them?