Re: If it stops that damned Microsoft Cloud expanding banner ad...
Ah, so that's what the blue lego brick is for? I did wonder.
It's not such a good advert; it's not convinced me to buy anything.
Posts by BristolBachelor
2200 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jan 2009
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Can't watch Flash vids in Firefox? It's not just you
Lightsquared cremation postponed
Monday 18th June 2012 11:19 GMT 
@DavCrav
The spectrum that lightsquared has was always marked as "space to ground" spectrum, and lightsquared are perfectly in their rights to use it as such. The FCC said that they could also use it for "ground to ground" IF and only if they can do it without interfering with the GPS "space to ground" spectrum next door to it.
I don't think that the FCC have even changed their mind on that point; it's just been demonstrated that lightsquared can't do it without interfering.
China goes Alt with root proposal
Monday 18th June 2012 08:00 GMT
Re: The problem China has
The rest of the world is already unhappy at US.gov saying that it owns the entire internet (and the entire planet too, but that's another story). On top of that; it seems that a fair amount of the spying and malware comes from US too.
Surely the best solution for all would be for US to unplug from the internet, "saving" themselves from Iran, Israel, China, etc. and at the same time, saving everyone from US?
Tim Cook reveals 'great' update for Mac Pro
Thursday 14th June 2012 18:08 GMT
What? You bought a workstation that uses Intel Xeon processors 2 years ago and only put 3GB of RAM in it? My HP laptop from 4 years ago came with 4GB! Got a MBP last year and it came with 8GB (but supports 16GB). You do know that your MacPro supports 48GB, don't you?
I can imagine that XP runs along very nicely in 3GB, but normally anything you want a workstation for wants more. (E.G. Adobe Creasive Suite will happily bloat itself out to use 12GB or more) I'm not sure that you can blame the latest OSx if you only feed it 3GB.
All of Europe's data in US servers? We're OK with that - EC bod
Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it
NASDAQ offers $40m to Facebook IPOcalypse investors
LinkedIn admits site hack, adds pinch of salt to passwords
Samsung Galaxy Tab 'a harmful drug', says Apple in ban bid fail
Telefonica grabs Jasper cloud to hook up British vending machines
Wednesday 6th June 2012 10:20 GMT
I have seen GSM kit in M2M for years. The only problem has been getting a contract with an operator who lets you keep the SIM going without all the usual "3 months and cash top-ups" crap.
As for why GSM? It works almost everywhere, just put in the SIM when manufactured, deliver and switch-on. No requiring a WiFi AP. No changing settings everytime someone chages the AP or security model, or when you move kit to somewhere else.
As for why vending machines might want comms; how about stock control, failures, etc. It's much cheaper to only send someone to stockit when it needs it, and it makes no money if it's empty, broken, switched-off, etc.
US military gives NASA two better-than-Hubble telescopes
Earth bathed in high-energy radiation from colossal mystery blast
Tuesday 5th June 2012 08:59 GMT
solar origin
The statement that if it were of solar origin, then aurora would've been commented on, or it would've done serious damage to the ozone layer assumes a CME type event lasting at most a few days. However, the growth took place over a year, so perhaps a slower, longer lived event could've done it without having to have killed everything, or make people think that they were at a nightclub?
It seems to me that we don't fully understand the processes in the sun (hence the questions about the recent solar minimum, and the glut of solar science instuments being launched like SOLO - yay)
LOHAN sucks Reg reader's instrument to death
Monday 4th June 2012 19:01 GMT
Re: The ubiquitous bricks
Actually, these look like the solidest bricks I've seen in Spain. This weekend I tried to put a (ahem) big TV on a wall for someone.
The wall is made of bricks that have a skin of about 8mm, a 40mm gap and then another skin of 8mm. The skin is terracota (so more fragile than glass), and the individual bricks are about 500mm long and about 200mm high. (yes they are stuck together at the edges see example here The right-hand side is an outside wall; the left-hand side is an internal wall. The yellow bit could be insulation, butis normally air; in fact for external walls, there may only be a single skin of bricks. or here )
The TV has a mass of 35Kg, plus add anouther 8Kg for the bracket and it was a case of guess what happens. Is it that the fixings just pull out of the bricks, or that the brick gets pulled out of the wall, still attached to the TV?
Next weekend I'll find out.
Sharp to show OLED 'retina' display for laptops
Oracle case crippled after judge rules APIs can’t be copyrighted
Wealthy Kensington & Chelsea residents reject BT fibre cabinets
Thursday 31st May 2012 11:54 GMT
Re: Street sited?
Indeed. Am currently working in Spain and all of their infrastructure tends to go underground; pipes, substations, telephone concentrators, etc. in a few places there are poles too.
The thing is that this costs more, so companies would rather stick them on the pavement instead (and sorry if you are in a wheelchair, or have a pushchair/pram).
Researchers find backdoor in milspec silicon
Space Station crew enter the Dragon
Monday 28th May 2012 18:42 GMT
@YAAC
Actually some of the ITAR-free satellites are built in Europe, but yeah you're kind of on the right road.
They didn't learn from the first try which was "OK, we'll launch your satellites, but only on our terms, like only America is allowed to make any money from them". It was the whole reason for Europe having independant access to space.
Self-driving Volvos cover 200km of busy Spanish motorway
Monday 28th May 2012 18:01 GMT
Re: Worried
"A computer can't be truly intelligent, so claiming a computer will be better than a human is rubbish."
That is refreshing to know. So when I ask my calculator what is 3 x 3 and get the answer 9, then I can be sure that the answer is not 9, because I am more intelligent than my calculator?
"The lifespan of a human...computer that is 70 years old and still in use..."
So are you suggesting that computer controlled cars should only be used for journeys that take less than 70 years?
Oh and I know a lot about cosmic rays, and their effect on all sorts of technology, not just memory. However, normally these cars are only driven on the surface, where cosmic rays don't reach because they hit the molecules in the air on their way down and don't reach this far. As long as they don't drive these Volvos in space, we should be OK too.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I wan't sure if you really were a troll, or just a failing Turing test.
Steve Jobs' death clears way for vibrating Apple tool
Friday 25th May 2012 21:18 GMT
Re: camera on a stick etc.
I've got a pen in a cupboard that works like that. You have to buy special paper for it, but the whole page is like a 2D barcode in really tiny, faint dots, so the paper just looks an off-white colour. I haven't ever used it, although I did use one in a demo. I assume that there is more to the patent than it says here, or the US patent office has just ignored the prior art.
Personally, I've got 2x Wacom tablets and have also used the Wacom cinteq (?) which is a monitor with a built-in tablet. These systems use inductive styli, and have pressure and angle sensing and buttons on the styli. They are very accurate and read from up to a couple of inches off the surface. They are very easy to use.
Have also got the Galaxy Note which also has a Wacom pen. It's not quite as good, but works very nicely. Also with the Ice Cream Sandwich update, you get a dot on the screen as you move the pen over the surface (not touching) and things like links highlight before you press them. That it very much the way to go if you have control of the pen and the writing surface, IMHO.
How to keep your money safe if the euro implodes
Friday 25th May 2012 20:10 GMT
@Spartacus
"But it's also a sign that the Eurozone countries don't stick together. At that point, the Euro is no longer a proper single currency.
Somewhere around this internet, I read that some US cities and states even have gone bust (borrowed more than they could pay, and then just refused to pay). I don't think anyone said that the US dollar was bad because of that, or is not a single currency of the US. It just means that you use the same currency as a load of other people and if you screw-up, it's your own fault (borrowing more money than you could ever pay back).
Friday 25th May 2012 19:30 GMT
Re: Cui Bono
Well having read a few things about the US dollar, I don't understand why it hasn't collapsed (and still isn't). Except that China is sitting on soooo much of it, that if it collapsed, they'd really lose out. Also, for some reason crude is always traded in US dollar.
Now imagine that the Euro seems to be a stable currency (not now; but 2 years ago), and so some international trades start happening in Euro instead of dollar; crude oil, metals, etc...
That's what I've been told, but I think maybe someone needs an aluminum foil hat ?
Sunshine nudges asteroid into odd orbit
Friday 25th May 2012 11:29 GMT 
Are they sure?
Are they sure that it's the Yarmovsky effect? For that, you'd presumably need to know it's absorbance / emitance parameters and it's rotational velocity to confirm that it is indeed due to the Yarmosvsky effect? I'm surprised that we know enough to say with certainty.
If we do the sums and it doesn't make sense, we'd have to attribute it to something else. Since Dark Matter® and Dark Energy® are already taken, perhaps we could call it Dark Magic?
Galaxy Note
SpaceX Dragon, first private ship to the ISS, launched successfully
Tuesday 22nd May 2012 20:58 GMT
@laird cummings
Actually there were 2 O-rings used, not one. The idea of being 2 was that the second would hold in the case of a failure of the first. The problem that occured was that the first didn't seal because the ambient temperature was to low (surprisingly, the other o-ring was at the same temperature, and so also failed).
The fix was to honor the minimum ambient temperature requirement for launch.
I'd guess that is why someone downvoted you, but they could've at least said why.
Report: SAP exec charged with $1,000 LEGO bar-code caper
IP law probe MPs hunt for smoking gun, find plenty of smoke
Monday 21st May 2012 22:53 GMT
IP the savior?
" These intangibles, unlike the products of the tangible industries of textile and hardware, cannot be made more cheaply in the emerging economies"
I hear this trotted out, along with "finance", as the 'new' industry of the UK as if to justify the collapse of manufacturing. The thing is it used to be true. The Chinese particularly didn't have the "it doesn't work well", or "it could be better" attitude that drives better products. Well it's not true anymore; and they are clever; they invented paper and fireworks while we were scrathing on cave walls. They are churning out engineering graduates faster than we are doing anything (especially China/India). Meanwhile in the UK, engineers are sucked into finance/management to make more money and school kids see banking as the way to make money.
A lot of software development has already moved to India. It probably is more cost effective to develop hardware in China than the UK, however, given the profit generated from manufacturing so much of it there, it's hardly surprising that they are starting to invest in designing things for themselves too. China is also starting to rule the roost in publishing research papers and new patents.
I won't even talk about how the finance industy just sells your investments/debts to each other just charging a percentage with each transaction....
Nope, I'm sorry, but I don't think that IP is the magic bullet/savior that you think it is
Monday 21st May 2012 22:06 GMT 
" the other conception of copyright as a regulation, something that trips consumers up, and therefore the less of it there is the better"
Perhaps this view comes from people who have been on the reciving end of this type of behaviour:
You buy some software; find it doesn't work & ask for your money back - "Sorry no can so, the box has been opened; it's illegal to get your money back because of copyright" or other similar crap.
You buy a DVD by mistake; you already have it - No you can't change it because of copyright.
Your PC blows up, you put the HDD in a new box, but Windows won't work; you have to buy a new copy because of copyright.
You buy a CD or DVD and you want to listen to it / watch it on your mobile; not allowed because of xopyright...
Smoke-belching flash drive self-destructs on command
Monday 21st May 2012 18:20 GMT
SSD catching up
There have been spinny disks with this tech in for a while. They contain a small vial of acid that eats the surface coating of the disk, rendering the data gone forever (supposed to be more secure than the "secure erase" app that wrote over the data with random blocks 10 times - and would've taken about a week for w hole disk).
There are a couple of options; there is a mechanical option (lever ISTR) or an electrical input.
SpaceX Dragon chokes at the last second
Does Britain really need a space port?
Friday 18th May 2012 21:46 GMT
Re: South America
"Even the Russians are using the "European" Space port "
Well actually I think that the Europeans are using the European space port, just that they are buying Russian rockets to launch from there. The Russians are very much interested in launching rockets from Russia, and hence are starting to build their own launch facilities in Russia (as opposed to renting one in Kazakhstan).
Next-gen MacBook Pro, iMac make benchmark site debut
Wednesday 16th May 2012 17:54 GMT
Re: USB 3 instead of ethernet?
USB3 would be nice, thanks. However no Ethernet is a killer.
Yeah, the theory says that Thunderbolt can do it all, but the only things I've seen for thunderbolt that can do anything have no thunderbolt out, so that means I lose my nice calibrated monitor.
The idea of trying to use USB for a gigabit Ethernet conenction just makes me shudder. How much CPU will it take to service the USB just to get data in and out?
NASA found filming August's Mars landing in California desert
Wednesday 16th May 2012 17:46 GMT
Re: Delays
It might be to get hints more like "Always drive down the dunes directly, not cutting across at an angle"(remembering an old episode of the Fall Guy). If you drive the thing into a situation where it's lost control, even zero delay is bad.
As far as actual driving goes though, I thought that they were pretty autonomous these days. Certainly the Euro one being put together recieves commands like "Go over there" and I think it just about does it by itself, without driving into giant rocks, sign-posts or rivers like human TomTom owners :)
Wednesday 16th May 2012 17:41 GMT
Re: Skycrane?
Unless it has changed since I last heard anything about it, the platform does not hover. The rockets are used to slow it's descent, and the rover is lowered on the cable. Then just before impact, the cable is hoisted in at almost the same speed that the whole thing is approaching the ground. In this way, the rover slows much more (although I suppose that the sky-crane speeds up!) The rover then gets a soft landing, and the skycrane smashed into the ground, it's job done (the skycranes job that is, hopefully the rover's job is jsut starting at that point).
Adobe backs down, patches critical Photoshop CS5 hole
Monday 14th May 2012 23:16 GMT
Re: They did shoot themselves in the foot
It's a bit disingenuous of them to say that CS5 is 2 years old. I bought Photoshop directly from Adobe less than a year ago. It was the latest version at the time; The box says Photoshop CS5 Extended. As far as I can tell, the next version released was "CS6" and that came out after bug was found, so actually CS5 was the current version.
Now I don't know which version of Photoshop I actually have installed because it says that the version is 12.something! (Yay, way to go with useful version numbers!) I have gone to the Adobe website to try and find out, but not found anything useful (pointers anyone?).
On the Adobe vulnerability page, it just says Photoshop 5.x (so is that PS 5 which is vulnerable, or PS 5.5 which El Reg says is not? Also there don't seem to be any updates at all for PS 5.5, even updates to Camera Raw which were released after the supposed release of PS 5.5!) It's not even mentioned on their Photoshop top-issues page
British 4G mobile data rollout 'will mean NO TELLY for 2m homes'
Samsung, Qualcomm team up to take on Wireless Consortium
Tuesday 8th May 2012 21:47 GMT
Anyone here know anything about these specs?
I'm curious about the "data channel to request a particular voltage" bit. If I understand right, the voltage at the output of the coil in the device being charged will be the ratio of the number of turns of the primary & secondary multipled by the primary voltage. However, the charger supports multiple devices, so what does it do when 1 requests a voltage the requires e.g. 20V in the primary, and another requests the equivalent of 4V?
Oh and before some wise-arse just tells me to use Google, my only net access for at least a week is a Galaxy note with a part-time, shared 32kbit link.
Microsoft scrapes Windows Azure name off cloudy kit
Boffins embiggen data storage space with 'phase-shifting' material
IEEE commits Wi-Fi refresh to standard
Tuesday 8th May 2012 08:16 GMT
"improved radio resource management"
OK, now that bit definately gets my thumbs up. I hope this means that different APs / clients within range of each other co-operate on the limited bandwidth available, but maybe that would be assuming too much? Anyone with any knowledge of what they mean?
The other thing that I've been waiting for (if anyone has any way of putting suggestions), is for a security standard for open APs where the client conencts to the AP in the open, they exchange keys and then switch to encrypted communications. No need to enter a 500 character pass phrase in each bar/cafe, but your comms are reasonably secure (at least from WiFi slurpers) without any hastle, and it's fully automatic for the masses.
Engineer Doe thought people's private info 'might be useful'
Monday 7th May 2012 16:14 GMT
@PaulR79
I guess that Ohm's law isn't really a law either then. I mean really it was just a prediction that the potential difference across a conductor is proportional to the current flowing through it. In fact V=I*R isn't even the law, it is a consequence of it. Oh, and then there is the issue that the law only follows for "ohmic" conductors. For those non-ohmic conductors, the prediction doesn't hold. Then there's Kirchoff's law,
Quick! arrest all hardware engineers with their dirty resistors; calling things laws when they aren't!
(By the way, if your grief had been that the prediction was that the number of transistors on a microcircuit doubled every 18 months, and had nothing to do with processing power, I would've been on your side)
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo
Pirate island attracts more than 100 startup tenants
Monday 7th May 2012 10:59 GMT
Re: Seems a bit daft
"The US is not short of space. Seems to me if they were really serious..."
That all depends on who they are. The people talking about this probably want to do it without interference from the US gov authorities (taxes, who can do what, what nationality you are, etc.). However, they don't have sovreign rights to carve up a piece of California to be a lawless sub-state. Hence saying that they will do it in international waters, nothing to do with the gov.
The other they is the government, and they are more than happy with the laws they have about taxes and who is allowed visit / work there, etc. They probably don't want to relax their laws anywhere, and would probably rather extend them over the entire planet, thank you.
Samsung Galaxy S III: A Swiss army knife of wireless tech
Saturday 5th May 2012 13:34 GMT
Re: Bluetooth LE
I don't think that BT itself defines a limit, but there is a finite bandwidth (although LE things normally only transmit small packets occasionally), it's more down to the controller about how many things it can link with. For example, my laptop is connected to a couple of keyboards, mouse, Wacom tablet and a couple of phones with no problems at all, however the stupid Parrot thing in the car can only manage 1 connection.
Friday 4th May 2012 16:28 GMT
Bluetooth LE
An example of where this may be found is the various sensors on a bike; wheel rotation, crank rotation, even a heart-rate monitor belt. You don't really want to have to change the battery in those every time you ride your bike. The norm is a year or 2 before the sensors give up the ghost and you need to change them.
A relatively expensive bike computer is crap compared to even the free apps on a phone (which will log the route, etc and allow you to upload it to a computer), add speed/cadence/heart-rate into the mix and it makes for a nice experience, and a "bugger off" to Polar.
Friday 4th May 2012 16:22 GMT
Re: and
GPS gives you a basic accuracy of 30M. If you are driving a car, then your satnav guesses which road you must be on, and then tracks along the road, assuming that is where you are driving. If (and that's a BIG IF in cities), If you can see a few extra sats, the accuracy increases, but since each system only has a few more sats than it needs, the chances are you can't see extra ones, unless you are in the sort of area where it doesn't matter.
Now consider that your phone can see all the GPS and all the GLONAS sats; that's twice as many, possibly giving you higher accuracy, so that if you are walking, your phone may be able to work out actually where you are.
Nokia dinged with shareholder lawsuit over poor Lumia sales
Saturday 5th May 2012 13:02 GMT
Re: Nokia share price really is in the toilet now
"the company is surely worth more by being broken up - Elop and his plan is achieving total destruction of shareholder value."
Is that true? Does Nokia actually have anything worth selling now? They have killed or maimed adn killed everything that they used to have of value I thought. I can't believe how they've gone from having a phone at least 10 years ahead of anyone (communicator) to just circuling around the drain, about to be gone forever.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
