* Posts by Mage

9265 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007

Let's replace Ethernet with infrared light bouncing off mirrors!

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Re: Underestimating the difficulty

Though fibre has a much larger minimum bend radius than Cat5e

Mage Silver badge

plumbing pipe

Yes, in late 1960s they invented plumbing for lasers, commercial less than 20 years later.

It's called fibre.

AT&T ready to trial latest attempt at pumping internet over power lines

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Stupid

Will people never learn?

Basic physics. You can't have more than a few hundred bits per second on power lines without two issues.

1) Signal susceptible to mobile radio and interference.

2) Signal radiating and interfering with other services.

Domestic powerline adaptors only "pass" FCC and CE because they are tested using loop holes in the procedures. They need to be tested properly, at which point they will either be banned or manage only about 80K bps without interference (and over a shorter range too).

If USA wants a say in 5G, Cisco HAS to buy Ericsson

Mage Silver badge

Curiously the USA used to have Motorola

Networks to Nokia

IP to Google

Handsets to China (Was it Lenovo?)

Free smart fridges! App stores in fountains! Plus more from Canonical man

Mage Silver badge

Wishfull thinking

I seriously hope "White" Goods makers either don't hear this guy or ignore him. Otherwise we are going to end up in the 18th C. tech wise, without any working white goods.

TVs are bad enough already. You can't even buy a real radio any longer except for a car, and Halfords seem to think car radios only do FM and DAB. Or stupid App controlled light bulbs that can make a bot net. Philips was once a world leader in Electronics, and in 1926 before getting into radio, they made proper light bulbs.

Are people determined to make everything that uses mains or batteries as unreliable and unsafe as Windows ME on the Internet in 2016?

Parliamentary Trump-off? Pro-Donald petition passes 100k signatures

Mage Silver badge
Flame

"he is the leader of a free world"

No, he's not.

He's only the leader of the USA. Maybe 13% of the population, but consuming 75% of resources?

How many countries of the 195 to 205 (Not everyone agrees which countries are "real") are "free"* and have equality of opportunity.

[For an extra 5 points define "free"]

'Grey technology' should be the new black

Mage Silver badge
Unhappy

Zooming Text

Yet Windows and Linux has had a magnifier (and screen readers) "built in" for maybe 15 years. They don't seem very usable.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Android vs age

We have a fairly recent non-smart 40" Toshiba. It's brilliant. The new 43" Sony was to replace it, but it's in the bedroom as the Program guide text is too small (too small there too), the GUI is garbage and it's not in Internet anyway as our broadband hasn't enough cap for video.

Android TV seems designed and tested by people that only use the TV as big smartphone.

Mage Silver badge

Doro

Except most Doro are only GSM and here in Ireland operators only have to give 6 month notice to replace GSM with 3G or 4G. No requirement to warn Retail two years in advance (See SOGA).

Mage Silver badge

Re: It's not all about the buttons...

Voice control is no solutions.

Fact:

GUIs and UI design have got MUCH WORSE since 1990s. Everything is designed on initial impact, not usability.

Nielsen Norman Group is like a voice crying in the wilderness.

Flat Icons, Flat UIs, abstract over simplified icons, removing the simple two bright and two dim lines from every "button". No mainstream smartphones with buttons. Grey text on white, or dark grey on black, gratuitous changes to location of stuff on newer versions. Ribbon instead of conventional Menus.

I could go on. But most new GUIs, OS versions etc are now barely usable for anyone. Even with Mate Desktop and Redmond theme (Win9x - NT4/XP) many applications ignore desktop theme and do their own thing. Stupid GUI and scroll bars on Firefox needing two plugins to nearly fix. Stupid GUI changes on Thunderbird, "Concept style" flat GUI on calculator.

Windows is a downhill slide XP -> Vista -> Win7 (though you can disable stupid Aero), Win8 and insane Win10 like Win 1.0 with no sensible theme/GUI modification.

Father of Pac-Man dies at 91

Mage Silver badge

Ah ... Pac Man

Oddly the first computer game I had, though I'd used computers for 4 years. I had Pac man clone on a Jupiter Ace, written in Forth. Maybe 1983.

Sony takes $1bn writedown: Streaming has killed the DVD star

Mage Silver badge

Re: Sorry, but no

Content

DVDs and even BluRay are cheap compared to CDs. But I've not bought any for ages.

But I'm not buying or streaming or watching broadcast. I lost interest in US comics and Disney years ago. LCD stands for Lowest Common Denominator. Crap "reality" styled stuff, or lavish "costume" dramas that are really just soaps and run roughshod over the facts and period dialogue.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Sony has only it's own blind devotion to draconian DRM to blame

Also the Sony 4K HD TV has CRAP Google Android and DRM:

1) Can't even tune without accepting Google "contract"

2) Primarily set up for Internet Apps. Not everyone actually has Broadband with a Cap for Video or a Netflix sub.

3) The satellite feature is unmanageable to set favourites

4) The GUI is garbage and on 43" set the text is unreadable, too small.

5) The USB HDD must be dedicated, it wants to format and encrypt it

6) Even FTA content can only be played back on same TV.

Sony has lost the plot. My old Z1 phone is great. Even the PS4 has a better GUI than their new TVs, but I think their SW has gone downhill since PS2.

But even going back to Mini-Disk their content arm crippled it with DRM. You could only play back your OWN live recordings via analogue on Net MD. You could only check in and write one copy of any file to the Minidisk via the evil Sony Application.

Madness.

Baird is the word: Netflix's grandaddy gets bronze London landmark

Mage Silver badge

Steam Punk

Marconi wagon mounted Wireless sets were sent to British forces for Boer War. They could in theory have sent radio fax (wired fax dates from 1851!) or 22 line Nipkow disk (like Baird TV) TV from South Africa to London. It would have needed some repeating stations, receiving on to recordable 78s (which may have existed) or Edison cylinders and retransmitted.

Some home recordings of Baird TV exist on 78s intended for home recording of Radio. The Baird tests started with AM radio after hours. Some of the USA AM stations had radio fax transmission in early 1930s after hours as well as the USA version of Baird TV.

Nothing unique or innovative about early Baird systems. The later ones overlapped superior RCA & EMI electronic TV.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Lines

Visible and system lines are different.

405 approx 378

525 is 480 (hence VGA is progressive version of NTSC)

625 is 576

1125 can result as 1080. My Analogue CRT actually is 1125 lines to do 1920 x 1080 HD via VGA connector.

I think I mentioned 220, when actually last Baird was 240, but I don't know how many visible lines.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Dead end: Philo Farnsworth

Philo Farnsworth's camera was electronic and also a dead end. Nor was it anything like an original concept or the first.

It's just the USA sees him in same light as UK sees Baird, a plucky underdog fighting the big corporation. Actually EMI was originally HMV, the UK branch of the Victor Talking Machine Co., bought by RCA, that had once had Marconi as a founder.

So EMI / RCA camera co-operation and also Marconi transmitters in UK is no surprise.

Double the resolution of a Farnsworth camera and the sensitivity is half. It was at the start 100s of times less sensitive than the Iconscope (Early RCA & EMI camera). The RCA/EMI system sensitivity was only much affected by frame rate as it stores the charge on the image between scans.

Philo Farnsworth's camera was doomed to never be usable at feasible lighting levels and even 220 lines (which Baird tried it at).

Mage Silver badge

Re: His mechanical system, even enhanced, couldn't compete

Actually some satellites DID process film in space, partially to avoid the "Ice Station Zebra" issues.

Mage Silver badge

Re: His mechanical system, even enhanced, couldn't compete

Cathode Ray tube was Victorian, yet Dutch, not Baird was first to use it for display of Baird mechanically scanned TV.

The real problem, as Philo Farnsworth found, was the camera tube. Farnsworth's was very poor sensitivity because it didn't store charge. Baird bought some, but the film camera was better. The RCA / EMI system developed by Vladimir Zworykin.

1933 RCA Electronic camera (HD if on 9" display!)

http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/rca/1933cam/1933-p1.html

It was based on his design started at Westinghouse Electric in 1923

Baird was rubbish, chasing a dead end.

"In 1907, Russian scientist Boris Rosing used a CRT in the receiving end of an experimental video signal to form a picture. He managed to display simple geometric shapes onto the screen, which marked the first time that CRT technology was used for what is now known as television.[20] In 1897, J. J. Thomson, an English physicist, in his three famous experiments was able to deflect cathode rays, a fundamental function of the modern Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). The earliest version of the CRT was invented by the German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897 and is also known as the Braun tube"

"In 1926, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi designed a television system utilizing fully electronic scanning and display elements and employing the principle of "charge storage" within the scanning (or "camera") tube"

Mage Silver badge
Facepalm

Baird

He didn't invent modern TV. He started with a 22 line mechanical system, based on Victorian tech. The last version (using CRT display and film based cameras) was 220 lines.

RCA & EMI developed modern TV based on a 1905 idea. USA was 440 (later 525) and UK was 405. Operational from 1935.

On a 9" screen (typical) it was indeed HD compared to 1920 x 1080 on a 42" screen today.

WWII saw higher resolution used for Nazi rocket range CCTV.

1948 saw 625 line in Europe.

Baird was a showman and not even a real engineer. Eventually the Baird company paid him to sit at home. The film based near real time camera with built in processing and scanning was clever and used in early satellites as electronic cameras were too poor. The film processed on the satellite could be high resolution and the scanning of it could be sent back slower than real time per frame, as it was really still photography.

Boeing's 747 to fly off the production line for the foreseeable future

Mage Silver badge

Re: "tuna in a can"

Flaky chunks?

Shirley you mean sardines?

Did I read somewhere that Boeing was really developing a supersonic passenger aircraft (early concept had mad swing wings which make sense on a smaller plane), but abandoned it and transferred as much development as possible into the 747 development?

It's certainly been a successful design. What it needs is an upgrade to use a General Dynamics fusion engine.

Former Mozilla dev joins chorus roasting antivirus, says 'It's poison!'

Mage Silver badge

Re: Problem with Anti-Virus

The problem is OS design and ESPECIALLY email client and Browser design.

Many people can't be bothered learning.

It's crazy bad design that you can infect OS from browser content.

AV isn't the solution, so while it sometimes nearly impossible, user education, when accepted is far more effective.

Mage Silver badge

Re: :unsure:

All the PCs I've cleaned viruses, trojans, rootkits from DID have AV installed.

I know people that have never used AV and never had infections.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Problem with Anti-Virus

AV is rubbish:

User education is more effective.

It regularly trashes OSes.

It slows machines

It has wrong default settings

Never up to date.

Gives false confidence, so users don't bother learning about basics.

Disable uPNP on router and PC, always use EXTERNAL firewall, turn off SSSD and all other stupid default services on Windows. No remote content in email. Use NoScript and whitelist and blacklist on each site you use (once per visit is usually enough). Don't install stupid toolbars. Always use custom install and untick extras. Don't download "free" versions of pay only software. Only use sensible sources for SW and codecs.

Disable Autorun on all devices.

All far more use than ANY AV.

I've been saying this for 25 years.

All far

Bookish hacker finds holes in Amazon, Apple, Google epub services

Mage Silver badge

anyone can print and sell your books

This has always been true.

The Lord of the Rings was ripped off by a USA company.

Actually "anyone" can print and sell your books only in the sense that ANYONE can re-publish anyone's content of any kind, and DRM does not stop it. HD Video example: HDCP on HDMI and BD copy protection are extra costs to the consumer and HDCP creates problems. A pretty good pirate copy can be made by pointing HD camera at 42" HDTV in a dark room.

1) It's mostly a problem if you are already famous, then you have the resources to enforce your rights.

2) DRM is NOT the solution to copyright violation.

3) It's an overstated problem in terms of claimed lost revenue.

If you have a good story or great educational material, then publish, but NOT exclusive to Amazon. Also use Smashwords (who distribute to Apple iBook, Barnes&Nobel, FlipCart, Kobo etc). Read Mark Coker's free ebooks on the subject (Smashwords). There is also now Google's playstore.

Mage Silver badge
Alert

I use MY kindle serial number on a Calibre plugin that removes DRM on books I BOUGHT, so I can read them on MY own KOBO.

So I don't want DRM enabled on the books I write and get published. Yes, "piracy" is wrong, but the amount of "lost sales" are grossly misrepresented.

I totally support copyright. I totally oppose abusive technology controls on how we consume content.

I'm still not any clearer though, on what the actual "flaws" found in this research actually do, or what they affect.

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Clarification

Is this about DRM? DRM is unethical and should be illegal.

People or publishers can publish on Amazon or Smashwords, DRM free. I write and publish. I'm opposed to DRM and have never used it. I will though pursue anyone selling without giving me my royalty, or giving away copies, or plagiarising.

DRM doesn't even work anyway. It's contrary to the Berne Convention as it is still there when the copyright expires. Frequently blocks all fair use, or seriously limits it.

I also believe copyright should revert to author after 5 years and never be assigned to publisher for life of copyright, also 10 years after death is generous. The 70 years is a corporate land grab.

I remove DRM from anything I buy, but I don't even make copies for friends, only to other devices (like read Kindle on a Kobo) and/or backups.

Can we have clarification as to what these vulnerabilities enable?

Mine coat has a paperback and a Kobo. A commercial "pirate" can cut off binding, auto scan a book quickly, OCR, and even proof.

The problem is never ordinary individuals or downloaders but people uploading to "file sharing" sites and mostly commercial piracy.

When stuff is easily available, and reasonably priced (you listening Big 6 on eBooks or all CDs vs DVDs) then most people don't bother with piracy.

VPN on Android means 'Voyeuristic Peeper Network' in many cases

Mage Silver badge
Big Brother

Reviews?

How many people clued up on what an App is really doing write reviews?

You almost need a spare phone with diagnostic tools to test Playstore Apps?

Apple eats itself as iPhone fatigue spreads

Mage Silver badge

Innovation?

You can NOT "innovate" a particular product category for ever. It reaches maturity.

What about longer battery life, longer product life, more robust, and five SEPARATE connectors for charge, HDMI, data master, data slave and analogue audio/ear/mic. Then it could be used as a pocket sized dockable computer or a phone.

My ancient Sony Z1 nearly achieves this. My tablet is a FAIL. No way to power except on USB, previous model had a power jack. Can't connect USB slave devices and charge on USB, only USB host + charge. Only "casting" via wireless, which needs special TV HW and doesn't work with most apps. Previous tablet and old Z1 phone has a real HDMI port.

I hear there is an Apple Watch too, which is useless without an iPhone.

Apple sacrifice functionality nowadays for "marketing" appearance / "show room" cool, c.f. Waste bucket styled Mac, iPhone 7, Mac book pro touch, the x10 overpriced BT earbuds etc.

US Congress asks FCC to snuff out Google's TV landgrab

Mage Silver badge
Facepalm

The arguement is irrelevant.

PCMCIA vs USB dongle misses the point.

1) It's possible to do cable or VOIP with no set box or dongle. My TV has DVB-C, 2 x DVBS-2, Wifi, Ethernet, DVB-T2 (USA models would be ISDB or whatever) and the PCMCIA style slot that can take a CAM for cable or satellite and a viewing card. It has dedicated USB HDD port (encrypts drive sadly even for FTA content. I have very small setbox. for HD TV DVB (which is more demanding than cable TV HW & SW), cost $50. I have an even cheaper HD Sat box, a little bigger. Ten years ago Motorola had a PVR setbox with HD, Cable, Ethernet VOIP(via external or using internal cable modem) and no need for a card. It could use DOCSIS to validate. It had the PCMCIA CAM slot too.

2) It's really about perceived control of content (anti-piracy) rather than forcing box rental (that's a means to an end).

3) Who gets to supply and bill the customer for content. That's why sky is going head to head with Global Liberty/Virgin and Netflix in UK by supplying not just by dish, but also by Broadband (even over virgin) via linear and non-liner VOIP streaming.

It's true you shouldn't have to rent the box. Sky actually gives away their boxes, but they are crippled (even the sat one) if you have no sub. The minimum contract with Sky ensures cost of install and box is covered.

Bloke launches twinkly range of BBC Micro:bit accessory boards

Mage Silver badge

Hmm

Very nice range of boards.

Unfortunately the BBC "motherboard" is a rather poor design concept.

Still, he's overcome the existing really stupid interface to create a decent one.

Google tests Android Instant Apps streamed on-demand to mobes

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: Instant Apps

It's a terminal and server. So 1960s.

No thanks. I only want things that need Internet Content to need to connect to the internet.

This also has even less security and privacy (potentially) than locally installed apps. With a local app, you can turn off data connection.

Jinn workers besiege delivery app co-founder to protest wage changes

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Gig economy?

It's merely using the Web to exploit naive workers, like has been going on before the Internet existed. Show me one of these companies that isn't undercutting real businesses that pay insurance, tax and holidays by exploiting their workers by pretending they are not employees.

DDoSing has evolved in the vacuum left by IoT's total absence of security

Mage Silver badge

Clue in the name DDOS

An individual might have as much legitimate traffic as their IoT thingy. Far too complicated for an ordinary ISP to figure out.

Nuclear power station sensors are literally shouting their readings at each other

Mage Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Encrypted Morse code transmitted via sound

It's not new though, dates to 1950s!

Resistence is futile: HPE must face Oracle over Solaris IP

Mage Silver badge

Daft

Is Oracle wanting to extinguish Solaris with their fixation on only making money from support?

Government to sling extra £4.7bn at R&D in bid to Brexit-proof Britain

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Paris Hilton

Re: Martha Lane Fox

Forgot about her. I was thinking of a different one.

Not that I have a problem with women in tech. But those are not tech women.

Mage Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

I doubt it will work.

UK Governments have a bad track record.

Computers in 1950s.

First aircraft with added rocket engine, 1950s

Ever Ready Batteries. Blocked their takeover of Mallory (now Duracell), now gone.

Inmos and Transputer sold to a clueless buyer.

UK Electronics was too dependant on Military / P.O. pork, quality was so poor that when Japanese opened UK factories they had to import parts.

Tarrifs higher on parts than finished goods for many years to protect useless to non-existent parts makers.

Only country to abandon Space after reaching it.

Only country to abandon working Nuclear weapons in favour of import only.

Scrapped Harrier.

Thatcher's dream, a Nation of shopkeepers (financial services who are parasites and money launderers and other "service" industries).

Silicon Roundabout

What's her name with the pointless websites.

UK in the past wasted Billions on protectionism and investment in doomed stuff, killed anything new with potential.

The BBC Computer was only incidentally successful in creating ARM. It was the innovation of core Acorn people backed by Apple investment, to help the Newton. For every tech success like ARM (most of which like the successful Sussex based Satellite building company are despite the Government) there are many the Government actively killed or created a a toxic environment for.

Maybe 1952 was the zenith and it's been downhill since.

Bane of Silicon Valley patents sets its sights on Rackspace and NetApp

Mage Silver badge

Re: Bonanza is coming to an end

I hope so, but is that definite?

Samsung set a fire under battery-makers to make the Galaxy Note 7 flaming brilliant

Mage Silver badge

Re: Pushing the envelope too hard

Not so much greed as "fashion" (appearance) over ruling function and sound engineering. Product design is too much orientated to showroom appearance.

Mage Silver badge
Flame

Pushing too hard.

Phones are getting too thin and fragile.

If the phone had been 2mm thicker this would never have happened.

1) Needing a bumper case is a design fail on the phone.

2) Not being able to sit with it in jeans pocket without it bending, unless it's designed to bend like an eraser or chew bar is a fail.

A larger phone needs to either be designed to be flexible or be even thicker. So ultimately the problem is Samsung's design. I imagine it will happen with other brands of phones unless they reduce the battery capacity.

Stallman's Free Software Foundation says we need a free phone OS

Mage Silver badge
Big Brother

Free PA

No.

Why should a "free" OS copy every stupid feature of the closed ones?

Windows 10 networking bug derails Microsoft's own IPv6 rollout

Mage Silver badge

Re: I don't know what the fuss is about.

"Only the Internet should be IPv6.

With internet doing IPv6 then we could use 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses in our internal networks."

If the two systems interworked sensibly. Good luck finding an off the shelf ready to run box that can do that.

Mage Silver badge

IPV6 is a bad design

It takes no account of the real world, privacy is an afterthought kludge and has about zero ability to work with IP4.

I hope the IETF has been working on an IPv8 that interworks properly with IPv4 and that can be easily configured for privacy and security by default on home users "edge routers + firewall + modem + Wifi Airpoint devices.

Essentially we can only turn off IPv4 when EVERYONE is using IPv6, that's not realistic. Nor is the configuration of a home LAN other than for network specialists.

IP6 may be a wet dream for Google and IoT, but it's not fit for purpose for ordinary consumers or to allow seamless transition to IP6 from IP4.

One BEEELLION dollars: Apple sues Qualcomm, one of its chip designers

Mage Silver badge

Re: Que ?

Very possible with Qualcomm. Without the "exclusive deal" the "mark" gets charged even more royalty (protection money?) often a percentage of entire product as well as surcharge on chip.

Even Intel only charges just for the chip (which no doubt partially explains the high cost), not a percentage on the entire product it's used in.

Qualcomm is to manufacturers what some exploitive software companies are to retail or business end users. I don't think they are liked by any manufacturer.

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Business Model

Qualcomm's main business model is NOT selling chips, that's a means to an end. They licence.

Thus they lobby to have their IP in standards (which is why 3G was much less good than it could have been), buy up small companies and shutter them and buy larger ones and kill almost all products that don't have a per handset or per chip (or both) royalty.

They not only charge you for a chip, but want a slice of the product that uses it. They epitomise what's wrong with patents.

Of course they charge too much. Apple though should take care, most of Apple's patents shouldn't have been awarded, nor the excessive awards against those deemed to be breaking their patents, both "inventive" (= supposed real patents) and "design" (=Registered Design, a kind of copyright)

People in glass houses.

Kettle & Pot.

Elementary, my dear IBM: When will Watson make money?

Mage Silver badge
Black Helicopters

AI solution

It's the cost of all those pesky humans, experts and programmers, that are curating and tuning the datasets. What they need to cut costs is replace them with AI.

After all it's working for the Japanese purchasers of IBM kit?

I'd love to see a break down of HW costs vs ongoing "development costs" for each Watson sale. Or are Watson systems like a sale of a Adobe Creative Cloud or Oracle DB*, a trojan to ensure annual income from support, so it's losing money as it's still at the infiltrate stage (like inkjet printers in supermarkets which have to have only partially filled cartridges as they are so cheap).

(*Though those have an almost zero additional cost per sale unlike Watson sales.)

AWS offers $20 bribe to derps who buy old IoT condom-o-matic dunce dobbers

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Re: When down to last 9 pack

How is the crises averted? Magical Replicator delivery via internet?

Or do you live in a 19th C style American Rural retreat? I'm rural and it's a 20 minute ROUND trip to the cheapest supplier, or 5 minutes to the village shop.

I like mail order using the Internet instead of a printed catalogue and posted order, it's more convenient and faster (except from outside Europe). However for food, basic household items, footwear, many clothes and large heavy things the local retail suppliers are actually cheaper and I'm more likely to get something uncrushed, fresh or fits.

If I'm sick I can even use the sort of service people had from 19th C. to 1960s, instant contact of retailer and home delivery (Tesco via Internet and various fast food via phone or internet).

These Amazon buttons are a malicious supplier "lock in" for the terminally lazy.

My coat might have my phone (inc internet) or car keys. Both far useful than this Amazon tat pushed on their home page. You can imagine what I think of Amazon Echo.

Seven pet h8s: Verity is sorely vexed

Mage Silver badge
Happy

Yah!

gcy2017 := New (Year);

gcy2017.happy := TRUE;

Great to have you back Verity.

Fired Ofcom Remainer bod sues UK gov for withholding his payoff

Mage Silver badge

Re: Private Eye

Yes, especially as the documentary series on it stopped production ages ago. Far more enlightening than Panorama, Newsnight etc.

"Yes Minister"

Viral Chinese selfie app Meitu phones home with personal data

Mage Silver badge

Sad truth of Android

Many applications that shouldn't be, are communicating no-one knows what to no-one knows who. Eating your data allowance and privacy. Several apps inc. Kindle ereader put up error messages, even when you have not run them since last power on, when data is disabled.

Many versions of Android (even on things still being sold) don't allow any disabling of permissions. Many don't even properly inform you what is happening. Android TV on so called "smart" TVs is particularly bad.

* Only install Apps you REALLY REALLY need.

* Disable all Data when not explicitly wanting Internet

* Creatively use alternate versions of Apps that don't communicate (Calibre on Mac, Windows, Linux etc can take a remove DRM plug-in that uses your own Kindle serial number, then your /phone tablet can use any eReader app, even an ePub one.

Don't use eBooks using Adobe DRM. It contacts Adobe.

Don't use stock Android or Chrome Browser, but use Firefox on Android phone/Tablet.

Don't use ChromeOS or Chrome Browser on Windows, personally as I'm not Chinese, the Chinese security people rather than Google knowing everything might be preferable? However I avoid that too.

This is hardly news. Very many big name USA companies Apps do this.