* Posts by Ale

28 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Feb 2008

Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review

Ale

4g band compatability

"the iPhone will be compatible with the other frequencies coming up for auction soon"

Really? I've just finished reading an article on your site which states exactly the oposite.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/13/4g_iphone/

Ale

Re: Expensive?

£30 is not a huge apple tax, but you ignore the fact that you can get the SIII for £425 from amazon, making it a £105 apple tax.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review

Ale

Re: Don't Call me Mr. Fahrenheit

Or just pick your preferred units in settings.

Google now -> settings -> Google now -> weather -> units

Not difficult.

Android Jelly Bean won't get Flash Player

Ale

Quote from the nexus 7 guidebook.

"Important: Flash isn’t available

with Chrome for Android. if you

need Flash, download the browser

from the Google Play store app ."

Sorted.

Three touts 'unlimited' Euro data roaming for a fiver a day

Ale

Re: O2 doing it as well

A big yawn for O2 then, that's what Vodafone are already charging for roaming in Europe. Even on pay as you go sims.

It's very convenient if you use google navigation for short trips to the continent, as that rarely uses more than a few MB. Even a day's driving across France doesn't suck in more than the 25MB limit.

Jabra Clipper

Ale

Samsung HS3000 seems much better

The samsung has apt-x codec support for much better sound quality. It also has voice prompts (it talks to you), pretty useful for a gadget with no screen. It's also much cheaper.

Mobe hackathon contest spits out Wi-Fi-by-bonk app wonder

Ale

Is this new?

NFC task launcher, available from the android market, already lets you program a tag which sets your wifi params and connects you to the network. They even suggest you can have a tag in your home so that visitors just need to tap it to connect to your home network.

GiffGaff goes titsup again in 'leccy cable gaffe

Ale

@AC 13:46

I was on O2 before moving to giffgaff. The O2 network was just as patchy in London. In fact I think it got better after I moved to giffgaff.

Samsung shows third-gen Galaxy Tab

Ale

Typo?

Is that screen res a typo? 1024x800 is far more common.

GiffGaff mobile network goes titsup for 3 weeks

Ale

Unlimited data

"GiffGaff, known for its cheap contracts and "unlimited" data allowance"

Why the quotes around unlimited?

HTC prepares quad-core smartphone for 2012

Ale
Thumb Up

@Shades

Go ahead and switch.

You'll probably save about £25 for every month you're on giffgaff. When the phone is released, if you decide you want it on a subsidised network, gg has no lock in so you can just leave!

Moto rolls out Xoom 2 Android fondleslabs

Ale

Should be Xoom 1s

Not much of an improvement over the original Xoom.

Xoom 2 only has 16GB as opposed to 32 on the original.

The 20% hike in processor speed is not much, esp as the xoom 1 is easily rooted, and processor speeds of 1.5GHz are apparently not a problem.

It's a bit lighter, but 700g is not really a problem for me.

Not sure what else has been improved (gorilla glass?), and the xoom 1 32Gb wifi is currently available for about £320.

Motorola to launch 8in Xoom 2 for Xmas

Ale
Thumb Up

Unlocking

Unlocking xoom tablets is trivial. The xoom 2 will also be trivial.

I bought one on the back of the last price reduction, also got a free bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's a lovely tablet wich I have used constantly.

Because it's so easily unlockable, I re-flashed it with the US rom, available on the Motorola support page. It now thinks it's a US Xoom, which being a Google experience device, gets its updates directly from Google.

Half of Britain now owns a smartphone

Ale

4s launch

Everyone I know who went out and bought a 4s (5 people) all traded up from older iPhones. If you extrapolate that number up, then the launch of the 4s won't have affected apple's share of the market at all!

GM OnStar cars will upload all data unless owners opt out

Ale

Premiums

This should be great for the insurance premiums of those of us with nothing to hide!

Google does a mean spring clean

Ale

Notebook is awesome

I never really understood why Google discontinued it. Can anyone suggest a viable alternative?

Sony distribution centre engulfed by fire

Ale

Massive bang

I live just over five miles away from there, yet I heard the explosions at midnight as it went up and could see flames and smoke on the horizon.

I hope no one was hurt.

Aussie retailer accuses UK shops of HDMI 'scam'

Ale

Cheap cables can cause interference

I have found a cheap cable caused interference on the cheap RF coax cable routed with it, causing my TV to loose reception when my bluray player was on.

I upgraded to a significantly more expensive cable with ferrite cores for £6, and that sorted it.

T-Mobile to tout 'truly unlimited' mobile data plan

Ale

Pah.

Giffgaff gives truly unlimited data on their £10 per month plan with no lock in.

Digital Stream DPS-1000 BBC iPlayer set-top box

Ale

Re blu ray players

I agree with the previous poster who mentioned the Sony s370. I bought one for £90 last year to do exactly what this box is meant to do. iPlayer, loveFilm, qriocity (sony's pay per view streamer) and local media streaming. It also plays blu rays!

Why pay the same for a no name box which does less?

A fifth of Europeans can't work out how much a TV costs

Ale
Stop

This is not an arithmetic test.

The question quoted is in English, and the survey was carried out in Europe, so it's an English test!

How many people on here know the answer to this question?

"Respondenci byli obok przedstawiony scenariusz, w którym dwa sklepy sprzedawały identyczne telewizory z płaskim ekranem. Powiedziano im, że w sklepie, cena wynosi 500 €, ale 10% zniżki jest oferowany. W sklepie B, cena 400 €. Konsumentom zadano którym telewizja będzie tańsza"

Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers

Ale

Re: Clarkson price

If you look at that Kindle edition of the Clarkson book, you will see just under the outrageous price, "This price was set by the publisher".

This is what is being investigated. The publishers are forcing Amazon to place outrageous prices on ebooks.

I wouln't be surprised if it wasn't Amazon that asked the OFT to investigate.

Steve Jobs takes 'medical leave of absence' from Apple

Ale

Re: It's too late now

Because it's a federal holiday in the states, and the NYSE is shut. That's probably why they announced it today.

Boris bikes for all from next week

Ale

Re: rules

Nope, most were due to left turning lorries.

Personally, I would far rather come across a dangerous cyclist than a dangerous driver.

Every time I have been seriously injured in London, it was down to a car pulling out infront of me.

Some cyclists don't stop at red lights, but I'd say nearly all of them will give way at one. For the ones that don't, there's natural selection.

Many "one way streets" in london are actually only one way for motor traffic. Many pedestrians and drivers seem not to realise this.

On the other hand. Most car drivers seem fine with going through red lights as they change, talking on mobile phones, speeding, goin the wrong way down one way streets, parking/driving on pavements and cycle lanes and generally not being aware of what is around them.

Panasonic adds iPlayer, Twitter to tellies

Ale

Article a bit misleading re. iPlayer

This update only adds (fixes?) iplayer on the red button of older tellies hooked up to freesat.

It doesn't add iPlayer if you don't have a satellite dish, which is a shame. It would be nice to have an iPlayer client via the vieraCast UI.

Treasury loony-magnet voting starts

Ale

Re Duh?

Utilities which have to put up their prices to pay the road charges, will lose customers and go bust.

3 offers best iPhone deal

Ale
WTF?

Tesco better than 3

You are comparing a 12m contract from Tesco, with a 24m contract from 3. Of course the tesco one seems more expensive!

If you're going to keep the phone for 2 years, you can switch to a sim only tarif on tesco after 12m, which makes the total cost cheaper, and tesco also includes wifi.

Academics propose carbon-capture kit for cars

Ale

Confused

I really don't get the complexity of this. Once you have a plant capable of using electricity to convert CO2 + H2 into hydrocarbon fuels, surely the rest of this scheme can be dropped?

A Normal car converts hydrocarbon fuel into CO2 and water in the atmosphere. The power plant then takes CO2 and water from the atmosphere and converts them into fuel. No need for expensive sequestration and transport. Unfortunately also no need for headline grabbing "carbon capture kits for cars"!

And as for this being bad for renewables, wouldn't some some great big fuel storage tanks be exactly what would be needed for the massive storage of energy required to make the renewables viable?