* Posts by jai

2310 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2007

UEFA Euro 2012

jai

Re: Footie?

quite right! this is an IT news website, read by people in the IT industry. 90% of us haven't had to run anywhere, or engage in any kind of sporting activity since we were at school

Ssssh. Apple quietly mashes monster MacBook Pro

jai

Re: 15" Retina ?That's 2299 Euro to us

and it's 40 bucks more than that if you buy it in the UK. sucks.

but it's a damn lovely shiny looking machine. if i win the lottery this weekend....

Apple introduces 'next generation' MacBook Pro with retina display

jai

Re: But

they will be when Anna gets around to writing and posting this exact same story

Apple juggernaut cranks out big, big numbers

jai

Re: No answer for 1m Android activations every day then..

because the activation itself generates so much money, much more than apps or messages or any of the other stats, right?

activations just show a phone has been enabled, that's half the story. if there's 900,000 activations, but 1,000,000 old phone go silent every day, that's a totally different statistic.

But knowing the number of people that are using a platform to purchase apps and use features, that's a statistic that a developer wants to know. it's useless to a dev if 900,000 phones are activated but none of them download an app, or just re-download it because they purchased it for their old phone.

'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

jai

LPs make good ranged weaponry, although aiming can be an issue. (Dire Straits and the Batman Soundtrack, not Purple Rain or the Stone Roses)

Also, the humble Swingball set can be put to great use - assuming you utilise the correct end.

jai

Re: Mmmm, Hollow Point Zombie Bullets..... The cure to "Bath Salt" zombies everywhere.

Rule #2: Double-tap

www.zombielandrules.com/

Insider cuts into Apple, peels off Intel Mac OS X port secrets

jai

Re: Google 20% time projects

GMail is just the only one that the general public are likely to be aware of?

Android activations near a million a day

jai

i wonder

how many of those activations are on ICS though and how many are on older versions of Android because people are buying the older, yet cheaper, phones

Facebook changes data-use policy despite 87% poll opposition

jai

Like... to be notified of further updates.....

So, you have to "Like" the announcement that they've steamrollered over everyone's opinions, in order to be told about the next time they plan to ignore public opinion.

What's the betting that they then turn around and say "Well we have 3 million likes, so obviously people agree with us!"

Intel to target TV viewers with facial recognition ad tech

jai

Alan Partridge

Shouldn't there be an "Ah haa!" at the end of that subtitle??

Rogue kebab provokes Carlisle post-pub car deathmatch

jai

Re: Bah!

I believe the song suggests:

"Chips, cheese, curry makes you feel brand new /

Washed down with a Special Brew..."

but maybe that only applies in Newport?

Raspberry Pi safe and warm in TINY Lego fortress

jai

Just goes to further prove the point: everything is better with Lego.

Apple-Moto patent gripe almost thrown out the door

jai

so no news then really

but he warned that he could still change his mind and allow the trial to go ahead

So basically, what he's said nets to zero. The trial may happen, or it may not, he'll tell us in another weeks time.

Sounds more like the judge is looking for more time because he hasn't done his homework on time and also looking to get his name mentioned several thousand times in the press and the blogs.

1,000 Foxconn iPad workers trash dorms in riot against guards

jai

just-slap-an-Apple-sticker-on-it

"just-slap-an-Apple-sticker-on-it"

So now you're saying it is Foxconn who are rebranding their own kit??

HMRC Tax Calc

jai

PAYE?

Seems strange the app should favour PAYE employees, because I'd think the majority of those people are not required to fill in a self-assessment form anyway.

Marathon

jai

ah nostalgia

god I loved this game! it wasn't just the gameplay, it was the depth of the story, that you got in dribs and drabs though the terminals. it was almost a cinematic experience. there aren't many games these days that offer that depth of back story.

Flying Dutchman creates dead cat quadcopter

jai

it's all very well, but...

Yes yes, very artistic and all, but it's only a matter of time until someone does this with their grandmother!

Windows 8: We kick the tyres on Redmond's new tablet wheels

jai

flash baked in? so adverts unavoidable?

So Flash is baked in to IE now, and because IE is going to be plug-in free, does that mean there's no way to use something like Ad-Block to avoid adverts?

Or is there a type of non-plug-in plug-in that we'll be able to use?

Ultrabooks: objects of desire but just too darn expensive

jai

doomed to fail?

I don't understand how Intel expect to increase the uptake of Ultrabooks by forcing the manufacturers to include more, new tech.

That's going to be expensive and so force the manufacturers to keep the prices high. Surely the best way to gain market share, if that's their ambition, is to allow the prices to come down and to start approaching normal laptop prices. and then, when people are buying ultrabooks in large volumes, it will be natural for these extra features to be included at an additional cost. But you need the lower end ones too if you want the product to move out of the niche market of those of us who value the lightweight portability over the price.

Facebook goes offline, shares stabilise at merely disastrous level

jai

Re: Tipping

Mr Pink, is that you?

Fans get date with Lara Croft

jai

Re: Looks pretty good

"Never played..." dear god man what have you been doing with your life?!?!?!?!

jai

Re: Big Smile

I think we all crapped ourselves when that T-Rex appeared! As you say, looks quite tame now, but I can still remember the blind terror as I panicked, back-flipping down the valley with the finger held firmly on the fire button until the ammo ran out.

Can't view the trailer here at work - is this the one where she's in a tunnel/mine and there's lots of "push [] to avoid falling rocks" "push X to dodge exploding barrels" etc. Which I thought was a shame - while fun in God of War, it's not a game mechanic that I think the Tomb Raider series needs. Much preferred it in the original few where I was responsible for triggering the cool stunts and near misses, not following some pre-designed path and timing.

SkyDrive slips snapshots into cloudy wallet

jai

Re: or this

quote This tutorial is a quick tutorial...

hahahahahahaaa

In that case I'm not sure I have enough hours left in my life for one of their long tutorials...

jai

why not stored in the cloud?

You mean I'm going to have to ensure my home desktop remains running and online all the time that I'm away from home, in case I want to pick up a photo that's on it?

Far easier not to bother with SkyDrive and just make sure to sync any pictures I think I'm likely to want on my phone before I go away.

Besides, upload speed from home isn't going to be particularly fast. That fine when syncing with a cloud in the background, but when wanting to view the photo on demand, I'm going to be left waiting.

I need to multitask, but Windows 8's Metro won't let me

jai

I've long suspected that MS don't see the focus-stealing as a problem, but more of a feature. It seems I'm correct and Metro is their next evolutionary step in developing this feature.

Sony PlayStation 4 will not be download only

jai

more downloads

The industry is clearly going towards download distribution. Removes the costs of manufacture and physical distribution, kills the pre-owned games market.

Plus, from a consumer view point, faster loading times and no longer boxes and boxes in storage full of old games that i'll never get around to playing again anyway

jai

Is there any guarantee that the PS4 will be backwards compatible?

It was a selling point for the PS3, but didn't they drop it after a year or two?

Online bookie can't scoop £50k losses made by 5-year-old

jai

Re: Win-win

It's a damn sound strategy. And now there's clear legal precedence, so it can't fail, can it? (all my legal knowledge comes from watching Harry's Law and Boston Legal...)

I just need to find someone's five year old to borrow while I make a series of outrageously risky trades and bets.

Leaked snaps said to confirm iPhone 5 speculation

jai

Re: Headphone jack at the bottom?

Not so surprising - they've done it before with iPod nanos, switched the location.

Plus, wouldn't a headphone jack at the bottom make a lot more sense? if you are using the headphones and the microphone on them, then when you hold the phone out in front of you while talking, the jack would be towards you, instead of dangling out in front.

HTC slips One X, Evo 4G past Apple US patent ban

jai

powerless?

Quotes from the article:

boxes of the HTC One X and the Evo 4G LTE were warehoused

the launch of the Evo was stalled

The delay was enough to spook investors a bit

To me, that doesn't exactly sound like "powerless" or that the ban was "useless"

Looks like they got exactly what they aiming for really.

Study: The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate

jai

Re: Lewis biased, again

Er? are you sure you've parsed the sentences correctly?

lets say (by turning the sentence components into variables in a highly unsound scientific manner):

A = communication strategy

B = sound scientific information

C = other information outside of 'sound scientific' Venn diagram bubble = !B

D = good result

" ... A communication strategy that focuses only on transmission of sound scientific information, our results suggest, is unlikely to do that. "

So A + B != D

or another way A + (!C) != D

Because B is a small subset and C is everything else that is not in that subset, we can infer

A + C = D (since A cannot change state and D has only two possible states it can be in, good or bad)

which is A + !B = D

Lewis states "thus it is....that the us government should seek to fund a communication stategy...which is not focussed on sound scientific information"

So this is A + (!B) = D

seems to make sense to me.

jai

Re: Skeptical

copy & paste? you do know you're reading The Register don't you?

Pocket

jai

Re: so....

Instapaper can.

Not sure if there's an Android native app for it though. But for mostly text websites, it's must better than Pocket.

Vauxhall Ampera hybrid e-car

jai

-1% rating?

is -1% like a division-by-zero = infinity type of thing?

cos, -1% makes it sound like it's utter rubbish, yet the bulk of the review sounded quite positive.

too confusing for this early in the week

Samsung snafu grounds blue Galaxy S III

jai

newly invented colour?

this is a brand new colour blue? it doesn't exist on Pantone's charts?

jai

that lack of preprod testing doesn't bode well for future issues with the phone.

probably best to wait a few months before getting one

Dual-dock prototype iPad eyed on eBay

jai

Re: Uh...

well someone paid $10,200 for it in the end

LG shows off 'first' full HD LCD for smartphones

jai

Is there any chance that the phone when it's released will have the same size bevel as that screen she's holding?

now that my telly has a near invisible bevel around the edge, i find myself longing for borderless images, from the phone, to laptop, advertising billboards at my train station.

A phone with an edge-to-edge screen would be fantastic. And would look great at this resolution too.

Steve Jobs' death clears way for vibrating Apple tool

jai

clears the way?

No more fondling those slabs fanbois, you'll be jabbing them.

You're saying these are going into production and will be available soon, or included with the next iPad and iPhones?

No?

Because it's not like Apple have past form for patenting an idea and then not producing the product is it?

jai

Re: Deja vu from recent Reg headlines

never let it be said that El Reg doesn't know how to bear a grudge against someone, even after they've died

Absinthe 2 lifts iOS 5.1.1 gadgets over garden wall

jai

Re: Well ...

question on a wifi scanner? these give you a list of all the wifi networks nearby that are broadcasting their SSIDs? is that different than the list of wifi networks that show up in the wifi settings screen? or does it allow you to try and crack their passwords or something?

jai

Where's the El Reg Top Ten... Jailbreak apps ?

I've JB'd my iOS devices at various times over the years, to see what all the fuss was about.

But each time, I've never found anything on the other side of the garden wall that was sufficiently amazing, or consistently stable enough to warrant all the effort.

I assume I'm just not finding the amazing software that's out there which drives everyone's burning desire to jailbreak

Max Payne 3

jai

Re: Was looking forward to it but the hype has put me off...

the aim-assist locks you on for a body shot, you still have to manually aim to get the headshot. and bodyshots use up a ton of ammo, so headshots are the only real option, making the aim-assist quite redundant anyway.

jai

The /real/ problem with this game...

...is that I've been playing it for an hour each night since Tuesday, and so far I haven't seen a single TV showing me the on-going Adventures Of Captain Baseball Bat Boy damnit!

These are the small touches that are missing from the game so far that means it's almost, but not quite, as good as the original. It'd be like playing a GTA game without Lazlo on a radio station.

(unless, of course, they have an episode of Lords & Ladies playing on a radio later on in the game, in which case please ignore this whole post)

jai

Re: That's not Max Payne!

actually - Max Payne looked like Sam Lake in the first game.

But in MP2 he looks like Timothy Gibbs.

And in MP3 he looks like James McCaffrey.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Payne_(character)#Character_development

So it's not lame. It's entirely in keeping with the tradition of the game.

Top Facebook exec begs students: 'Click on an ad or two'

jai

Should have realised before

Didn't they do any stats beforehand to realise that no one likes the ads and no one clicks on them?

Or did they just hope that for some reason, after the IPO, we'd all have a change of heart?

jai

Re: What adverts?

I don't. I access the site via m.theregister.co.uk

But that is more because with the adverts, it's blatantly obvious to passers-by in the office that I'm reading a website.

The plain layout of the mobile site is perhaps a little less obvious that I'm not doing the work I should be doing. Just need to override the CSS that puts the big splashes of red at the top and bottom and then I can fully pretend I'm busy reading TPS reports....

From home I access the normal site though, so I'm not depriving El Reg of their income too much :)

SpaceX does what it HASN'T done before: Dragon in close ISS flyby

jai

space elevators damnit! how hard can it be????

jai

Re: "hopefully without a patent-war"

(how big is a pace in space, by the way?)

It may be just one small pace for man, but a giant pace for mankind.....