* Posts by Steve Todd

2644 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Sep 2007

EU could force countries to allocate 700 MHz band to mobile by mid-2020

Steve Todd

Re: Nothing to do with IOT or Traffic.

The number of base stations you build has to be cost effective. 700, and to a lesser extent 900MHz, is good for covering rural areas where you can't afford to build one base station to serve only a handful of people. 2100 and 2600MHz is good for city centres where even small cells become saturated.

Steve Todd

Re: Stupid frequencies

Analog TV needed large lumps of spectrum because of long distance propagation issues (ghosting etc). DTTV solves those issues, and packs many more channels into the same space. It's also designed to allow national networks to run on a single frequency. The result is we don't need the extra space (but some folks will require a new aerial). There is quite a lot of sense in re-allocating 700MHz to mobile data.

BTW, Internet of Things is all very low bandwidth. 2G should be fine for most of it. This is all about 4/5G mobile internet for people.

Back to the Future's DeLorean is coming back to the future

Steve Todd

If I had a spare $100k

I certainly wouldn't be spending it on a car with as poor acceleration and handling as the DeLorien. A Tesla Model S perhaps. Something that can hit 88MPH effortlessly and in short order certainly.

Blighty's Parliament prescribed tablets to cope with future votes

Steve Todd

Not that I'm a great respector of MPs

But there are a couple of factors in play here.

Firstly they have other jobs to do other than just hanging about the debating chamber (committees, constituency work, lobbying etc.)

Secondly divisions are often about motions and amendments proposed in the chamber on that day. The result is that it's hard to know what you're voting on all the time, and what your party's line is on it. Now if this division app can inform them about what it is they are voting on, how their party expects them to vote and give them time to think (rather than having to scurry from whatever distant Westminster corner they are in) then it seems like a good idea. How well it is implemented is the important question.

KeysForge will give you printable key blueprints using a photo of a lock

Steve Todd

In the dim and distant past I was the junior dogsbody for an IT project where it was decided that we needed more keys for the project office. I was sent out to procure them. The local locksmiths told me that they were high security keys, and I needed a letter of authorisation to get them copied. Some months later we managed to lock ourselves out. The building manager turned up with a standard issue catering services knife, inserted it between the door and the jam and gave it a sharp tap. Door opened. So much for high security.

Huffing and puffing Intel needs new diet of chips if it's to stay in shape

Steve Todd
Stop

Re: Really, selling the same cpu for 5 years makes you wonder why sales are dropping?

I'm not an Intel fan, but even I know that they have been making improvements to the performance and architecture. The i5 from 5 years ago isn't the same as the current i5 (they are fabbed on a different process, use less power at a higher clock speed, have better on board graphics and execute more instructions per clock cycle). Core i is a brand not a design.

VW floats catalytic converter as fix for fibbing diesels

Steve Todd

Re: This Is No Fix

" ALL pass U.S. EPA regs, when the emissions controls are operated the same as when the EPA conducts a lab dyno certification test."

The rub is that operating those controls has a significant impact on the performance of the car (why do you think that VW didn't enable them all the time, rather than just on a dyno?) If you leave the hardware as-is and just reprogram the ECU then owners are going to get shirty about this.

Steve Todd
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Re: Other tangible injuries....

If you believe that VW senior management didn't know about the software cheat then I've got a bridge that I can sell to you.

Companies regularly get punished for things done by only a small number of their employees. The company has a responsibility to prevent this kind of thing, and blaming it on a small number of scapegoats doesn't make them more likely to put their house in order.

Steve Todd
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Re: Ludicrous lawsuit. No tangible injury.

Nitrogen oxides in the air increase the death rate of people with asthma, heart and lung problems. It's a distinct and measurable effect. Death is not a tangible injury?

If you were talking about CO2 emissions then you might have a point, but in this case the EPA is doing its job and had produced a pass/fail tests for manufacturers to measure their products against. VW cheated at the test. There's no argument over this point. The only questions are how VW are going to put matters right and what punishment they will receive.

Qualcomm, Nvidia are driving us nuts – with silicon-brains-for-cars

Steve Todd

Re: Heavy on the power mind you

250w is worrying for two reasons. Firstly you need to apply much more cooling in a much better managed environment than the engine (which can be open to the elements and runs happily above 100C - the radiator system requires preasurisation because of this). Secondly it's going to have a shorter service life because of the heat. With a car expected to last 10 or more years you'll get through 2 or more replacements for these I'd guess.

Steve Todd

Heavy on the power mind you

nVidia's offering chews through the best part of 250W, and you're going to have to cool it too.

The new Huawei is the world's fastest phone

Steve Todd

Faster charging?

Only by dint of using a 9V, 2A power adapter, thus throwing out the window the commitment of phone manufacturers to ensure that everything charges via USB.

Intel completes epic $16.7bn Altera swallow, fills self with vitamin IoT

Steve Todd

Re: Real-life application: GbE smart switch

"While HP/Agilent/Keysight continued development of their Megazoom ASICs producing a range of scopes which in price/performance terms pissed all over Tektronix offerings."

Whereas the Rigol DS1054Z, the budget buyer's choice of champions that pisses all over the products of HP/Agilent/Keysight in price/performance is powered by a Xilinx Spartan 6LX25 FPGA. It's not that simple.

Steve Todd

Re: "We will apply Moore's Law to grow today's FPGA business"

FPGAs are massively faster than a CPU at highly parrallel tasks, even given the difference in clock speed. The latest generation of Altera devices combine ARM CPU cores with FPGA fabric on a 14nm process. The result is a device able to clock (on the FPGA side) at up to 1GHz, share memory with the main CPU, provide custom blocks for functions like floating point math (10Tflops peak) and DSP operations. They are both reasonably power efficient and far faster than a conventional CPU.

Where ASICs win out is cost for high volume applications. Where they lose is in flexibility and ease of reconfiguration. You can start with an FPGA design and convert it to an ASIC once things are stable and if volumes justify the costs.

The ball's in your court, Bezos: Falcon 9 lands after launching satellites

Steve Todd

Re: "...spaceships land like this... ...Sci-i..."

Vertical landing on the earth has been done also. The DC-X project was a technology demonstrator for single stage earth to orbit craft and was making vertical landings in the 90's. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Steve Todd

Re: Returned to Earth

What's more the upper stages were nolonger attached when the retro-burn and landing were happening, so a much lighter craft altogether.

All eyes on the jailbroken as iOS, Mac OS X threat level ratchets up

Steve Todd
Stop

Re: Yet more excuses for Apple to wall off OS/X even more

App signing is a requirement you can turn off. Also it's not Apple who sign it, it's a developer key that is used. You still have full control of what runs under OS X.

EC fires antitrust charges at Qualcomm over its pricing tactics

Steve Todd

Re: Krait was OK be it overhyped

You know that (1) a Cortex M processor is a microcontroller and has nothing to do with lowering power consumption (it's there on the TI chip to provide determinative timings and control, something Cortex A series aren't so good at). And (2) bigLITTLE was put together by ARM to allow switching between a low power, slower Cortex A CPU and a higher power faster core depending on demand. Software sees them as single device.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo good two go

Steve Todd

Re: Its about time

I can see at least three problems with this idea.

Firstly you've confused accuracy of repetition with time. A pendulum isn't a clock and can't tell you what time it is. Neither is a pulsar.

Secondly they lack a tuned frequency. If you want to detect them with the kind of tiny antena you can put in a mobile phone or what have you they need to resonate strongly at a particular radio frequency (preferably a high frequency also).

Thirdly the baseline is too long and too imprecise. The GPS system gets its fix by having a precisely known location for each of the satellites the receiver is locked to, plus being able to measure the difference in time between the arrival of signals. The result mathematically is a set of intersecting spheres. The position of pulsars isn't known to the level of precision required, and the sphere has expanded so far that you can't get the multiple points of intersection required.

Steve Todd

@Drive

Why on earth do you think Putin is helping against ISIS? He's spent most of his time attacking rebel forces not in any way linked to ISIS.

Steve Todd

Re: I cant really understand - @Pete

Erm, the Rusian system is called GLONAS, not GLASNOSS.

Steve Todd

Re: I cant really understand

A nuke doesn't need that level of precision. There are civilian applications that do though. Flying precision instrument approaches to airfields that lack glideslope equipment for example, or surveying a site for construction.

Why are only moneymen doing cyber resilience testing?

Steve Todd

Re: Paris is worse

To be fair it's not the ATC system that is running Windows 3.1, it's the box that was used to get weather data from their met office. You could have pretty much done that on an 8 bit machine.

Hate your broadband ISP? Simply tell your city to build one – that'll get the telcos' attention

Steve Todd

Re: We all know how this song goes...

The rail network in the US of A is optimised for freight. Because of that subsidies per passenger mile aren't relevant as they aren't really interested in that as a performance measure.

Research: Microsoft the fastest growing maker of tablet OSs ... by 2019

Steve Todd

Were chicken entrails or tea leaves used for this prediction?

Given that analysts consistently fail to predict what's going on in the current quarter who here thinks they stand a chance of getting anywhere close to correct in 3-4 years?

What the world needs now is Pi, sweet $5 Raspberry Pi Zero

Steve Todd

@Vorlamd

Not sure where you're doing your shopping, but Amazon lists a 4 port unpowered hub for £2 and a powered version for £6.

Why Microsoft's .NET Core is the future of its development platform

Steve Todd

Re: .NET .. the lame clone of Java

Not being able to tell if an object passed at run time is of the type your generic was designed to handle isn't a problem? Me thinks you do protest too much.

There are all sorts of gnarly bits to the language because it grew that way. Collections were an afterthought, so most but not all array-like objects now implement them. It's the exceptions that bite you in the foot.

Steve Todd

Re: .NET .. the lame clone of Java

Well, you could start with Generics. Because of the way they were grafted on to the language spec. you can't determine the type of a generic at run time.

Steve Todd

Re: Entity Framework is an abomination and shouldn't even exist

If programming was only about performance we'd still all be using assembler. Modern development is about cost and maintainability rather than absolute performance. Most of the time you can throw more hardware at the problem for far less than it would have cost to do it the traditional way.

Steve Todd

Re: .NET .. the lame clone of Java

Quite the contrary. They managed to sort out the mess that is Java, a language & framework that grew through evolution rather than clean design. As a result it's got all sorts of legacy horrors in it and a distinctly illogical way of doing some things.

Microsoft had the advantage of comming second, and poaching a rather good framework designer from Borland when it came to dot net.

Steve Todd
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Re: Entity Framework is an abomination and shouldn't even exist

How about because as a commercial programmer you spend half your life writing boilerplate code that reads data from a database into memory or writing it back (CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete). SQL databases don't map themselves naturally into an app, so you need a translation layer to save you all the work of doing it yourself. There are other products out there that do the same kinds of thing (nHibernate for example) and, done properly, it makes it easier to build apps using TDD principles. You don't need to use EF to build queries for you (it can call stored procedures for example), but it can do so if you're in a rush to get something out of the door.

Apple's design 'drives up support costs, makes gadgets harder to use'

Steve Todd

Re: So it's not just me then...

Erm, that's nothing to do with the GUI, it's a function of the security model. If you'd bothered to use iTunes then you'd have found that the task was a piece of p*ss - drag and drop the file onto iTunes, select it for synching to your i device, job done.

Apple supremo Tim Cook rules out OS X fondleslab, iOS merger

Steve Todd

Re: Ha

What's more the benchmarks put the iPad pro ahead of the i3 based Surface 4 machines, for less money even, and with higher video performance even though they are higher resolution.

iPad data entry errors caused plane to strike runway during takeoff

Steve Todd
FAIL

Re: Using toys as tools... @big_D

Ignoring for a moment that the Suface Pro 3 wouldn't have had time to gain approval from the Australian aviation authorities, there is no table in an aircraft cockpit. This renders any thought of the Type Cover void, you'd be better off with a standard laptop.

The device's primary purpose is as an eReader for aviation documentation (aircraft procedures, maps, approach and departure procedures etc), for which the iPad has proved its self in certified commercial operational use over the last four years. Your idea of what is a toy and what the airlines think of it don't match.

AMD sued: Number of Bulldozer cores in its chips is a lie, allegedly

Steve Todd

Re: 80286

There was a 386 CPU and 387 math co-processor. The 486SX was equivalent to the 386, the 486DX had the co-processor integrated on chip.

Steve Todd

Re: Reread the Article

Hyperthreading isn't based on having two cores, it's one core with an alternate register set that gets switched in when the active set stalls for some reason (like a cache miss). AMD are providing two complete integer cores that can execute simultaneously, but share some of the logic that feeds them and an FPU. If memory serves then both integer cores are able to access the FPU at once, providing they limit themselves to 128 bits of math.

Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Steve Todd

Re: Made in Port Talbot

Erm, no. The Dragon 32 was powered by a 6809, the conventional TRS80 had a Z80 under the hood. The TRS80 Color Computer (a TRS80 in name only) was very similar, but much less software existed for it.

The 6809 was a nice CPU, but the Dragon was hampered by a crappy 6847 graphics chip. If they had fitted out with something less brain dead then they might have made a go of it.

We turn Sonos PLAY:5 up to 11

Steve Todd

Re: Marantz MCR510?

It is DLNA and AirPlay compatible. You don't need an app on the iPhone, just select it as the target AirPlay device and off it goes. Multi-zone I'll grant you is missing, but you can cast from multiple devices. There is a remote control app for it to allow you to select input source.

Steve Todd

Marantz MCR510?

For the more techie around here (i.e. most of us) who can wire up a pair of speakers then this little beastie gives you internet radio, AirPlay and a DAC for £200, plus add your own speakers to taste. A complete stereo system for less than the cost of one Sonos Play:5, and you can add a subwoofer if you crave the base notes.

Oracle's Larry Ellison claims his Sparc M7 chip is hacker-proof – Errr...

Steve Todd

Re: Top Vs Bottom bits

That would depend if they are using word or byte addressing. Byte addressing is a nasty Intel hack.

Dad who shot 'snooping vid drone' out of the sky is cleared of charges

Steve Todd

Is that 200 feet

AMSL (which most aircraft fly to) or AGL? 200 feet with bird shot is, to say the least, improbable.

Windows 10 out, users happy, PCs upgraded, my work here is done – says Microsoft OS chief

Steve Todd
WTF?

Re: And why not?

That IS sarcasm isn't it?

Another go with MIPS IoT: Imagination unveils new Creator board

Steve Todd

Re: Not an easy sell @tojb

I'm not quite sure you get the IoT, or how much CPU power you need for a given job.

1) a couple of hundred MHz CPU is plenty for an eReader. Look at what's in the Kindle.

2) You can handle touch screens with 8 bit CPUs, STM do a version of their Discovery board with a built in touch screen and a 180MHz ARM. It's plenty fast enough for anything an appliance would need.

3) a house would comprise a network of IoT devices. Non of them, nor the hub, need serious power to handle their job.

4) chromebooks are not IoT devices.

5) ICE doesn't need huge amounts of CPU either. The trend here is to make it little more than a smart screen for whatever latest and greatest smart device the user has bought. That way it won't lag behind over the lifetime of a car (10+ years).

6) you can get very cheap ARM based systems (the Orange Pi for example is a 4 core, 1.6GHz ARM A7 machine with 1GB of RAM, and costs £10). The cost of an external WiFi dongle is tiny. Unless you expect to see these in sub £20 devices then it's a non starter.

Steve Todd

Not an easy sell

There are many options already out there. At the really cheap end there is the ESP8266, that gives you a microcontroller with built in WiFi for a few dollars. Most IoT stuff doesn't require multiple GHz cores so what exactly are they targeting with this?

Apple 1 goes on sale, expected to fetch £300,000 to £500,000

Steve Todd

That's Apple I tape based software copied to CD and isn't claimed to be original 1976 vintage. The original tapes are no doubt more than a little dodgy by now.

Intel inks $8bn debt deal, preps for Altera buy

Steve Todd

Re: Data center chip business?

Quite right. Altera are in the business of software configurable hardware. Data centres may use this because you can design custom hardware for specific tasks that are highly parallel, but it's not applicable to all tasks, is far from easy and is slower/more power hungry than ASICs. Conversely Altera hardware is in demand by engeneers for small run, high performance device designs (the millatary love them for example).

TRANSISTOR-GATE-GATE: Apple admits some iPhone 6Ses crappier than others

Steve Todd

There is a strategy in mobile devices called "hurry up and wait" where the CPU goes to full power and clock speed to (a) finish the user request as quickly as possible, but (b) to go back to sleep as soon as it can. Sleep states use little power, and most of the time a mobile CPU is doing little more than idling. Maxing the CPU continuously doesn't represent its typical workload.

Put it another way, it's like complaining that Car A gets shitty MPG when you floor it and take it to speeds over 100MPH. Most people won't drive it like that, so what you are interested in is what its MPG looks like around town or on the motorway.

Steve Todd

Re: This has interesting implications beyond Apple

I'm not sure it's that simple. Heat and power are only two factors when choosing a fab. Lead time, capacity (how many wafer starts you can buy on the line) and yield (how many good chips do you get from a wafer) are important factors too. Apple may have used the two fabs in order to isolate themselves from yield issues at one of other of them, or in order to ensure enough capacity to meet expected demand.

Steve Todd
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Re: all i know is

You can find Apple Certified 3rd party cables without trouble, and they are both cheaper than the Apple version and won't stop working on an OS upgrade. I got a pack of 5 from Amazon for £15.

The Steve Jobs of supercomputers: We remember Seymour Cray

Steve Todd

Re: A question

To my knowledge Woz wasn't involved in the design of the Macintosh. He designed the Apple I and Apple II to that end, and they were cheap compared to commercial kit at the time.

PC manufacturers these days have two basic options : compete on price (which leads to a race to the bottom), or compete on features (at which point PCs and Macs are about on parity for a given price point).

You're not forced to buy a Mac, in the same way you aren't forced to buy a BMW rather than a Ford. Providing there are enough people out there who think that BMW/Apple are worth the extra then they make a living. That seems fundamentally democratic to me.