Posts by Tom 35

Re: Only fixed one little bit.

"That's why you can't patent iron but can patent a unique type of iron hinge."

It's not like taking a raw material and making a new item.

It would be more like taking a bike bell and sticking it on a car, and getting a patent for the whole thing.

Then the companies insurance division will offer a 10% discount for cars with bells.

They are just sticking a bit from one thing, onto another. Corn is still corn, but now has a gene for resistance to weed spray (taken whole from a weed that developed the resistance naturally). The same company happens to sell that weed spray.

And for a bonus they claim patent infringement on the farmer down the road who didn't buy their seed because the pollen from their patented corn has blown onto his crop.

So no it's not pretty well thought out, this is just as stupid as the slide to unlock patent.

Re: Yes, because I associate quality with Best Buy

It could be worse...

Future Shop is were Best Buy sells stuff that's too crappy to sell in Best Buy, and dumps last years left over stock from Best Buy US. And they still have the "you need this $90 monster cable set for your $26 DVD player" scam going.

Re: What you post can vanish at any time...

Skipping the double negative...

True, it and a few others (GEnie) were pay services.

This would be closer to all the BBS systems, FIDO net... all gone now.

Re: So

The email actually sent expresses a legitimate business concern that Amazon was in a position to use it's monopoly position in the market to squash Apple's demand of a 30% cut.

I don't remember Amazon being declared a monopoly...

Apple could not compete with others, and keep their fixed 30% cut unless they could get the book sellers to sell to them for 30% less then what everyone else charges retail. The only way they can do that is price fixing.

Re: "You can easily buy it with one click!"

And it's US only. I can get hundreds of real radio stations from all over the world now.

Once Apple decides to open in Canada I'm sure they will only play stuff that is available to buy in the Canadian iTunes store.

So not so much about finding new music... all about selling more with some ads on the side.

Re: Will Microsoft's hubris allow them to backpeddle?

"Microsoft will surely have to backtrack now on their used game / online activation policies, but the question is whether their hubris will allow them to?"

Sure, right after they put the option to turn off not-metro in Win8.

They will do something as useless as the start button, maybe only require you to reactivate your player when you switch games.

Cat ina box

It's true, any box will put a cat right where you want it.

http://youtu.be/2XID_W4neJo

It's not when they came out, it's when they stopped selling them.

"When did the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1 come out? That's right, 2009 and 2010"

When did they stop selling the 3GS? That's right 2012.

The iPad 1 only lasted a year so 2011.

Yup, old as the hills, no one is going to be using an iPhone that's almost a year old!

Re: StartIsBack

"Fine to complain if you find W8 annoying or crap, but saying it is unusable is, I would claim, a flat-out lie."

I'm sure you could do a days work with someone standing behind you playing bagpipes. It's not impossible but how long could you keep it up before you kill something?

I have used Windows 8, but if the boss gave me a shiny new W8 touch screen laptop it would not be long before I killed something.

Re: An Important Consideration

I expect there were some managers jogging around the field with the goal posts.

What are you on about?

"the power to set the price and terms on which they will make a sale"

They do. But having set the (wholesale) price, and made the sale they have no business telling the buyer what they can sell it for.

"the curated view of search results actually looks quite interesting if it works as advertised."

It looks interesting but bing works ok for famous people searches. I can't see it being that useful for general searches for subjects where pictures are not needed. And I expect it needs a very fast connection to look smooth.

More colours, small tiles (oh look almost like icons, hope you remember what they are all do), background animation, slide show... that's all just great but not at all what we want.

Re: Apple fines its staff? WTF?

Maybe they have a big swear jar. Say a bad word* and you pay.

* Example: Samsung, Android, Tax, Amazon...

Re: Oh, Amazon

Netflix is available from my BluRay player, I can get an app for my phone... I think Lovefilm is similar. Amazon I would have to use my computer.

But my real problem is with their whole business model.

They carve up the world. Don't give me that "oh, it's because of the contracts" crap, you wrote the contracts and that's the way you like it.

So I can get the crippled Canadian versions of Netflix, or iTunes. No Amazon Video or MP3s at all...

Exclusive deals, now you get to choose what you want more as most people are not going to subscribe to multiple services just for exclusive content. (worse with cable as an exclusive may end up on a service that's not even available to you.)

Re: Nice ... Nice ...

Lots of people thought the start menu was crap. But the start screen is a lake of liquefied pig shit. So we want our crap back, at least we know how to work with it.

Change can be good, or as the start screen / metro shows it can be bad. Windows 95 to 7 had both good and bad changes, but more good then bad.

Re: We'll put Outlook on Windows RT slabs

You have not seen the current mail app...

They will have to REALLY screw up the Outlook port for it not to be an improvement.

Re: workers would get “generous severance packages”

But paid in Farmvile coins.

Re: Almost correct......

Take the "digital copies" that come "free" with some DVD / BluRay disc.

I only ever got one to work (after getting new codes from their support system twice) and the quality was crap. Now I toss the paper with the code in the trash with the shrink wrap, I'll make my own digital copy that I can play where I want if needed.

Re: Someone should tell the Sun-Times

"And the phones do have a flash. Admittedly nowhere near as powerful as a Canon Speedlite"

Understatement of the week.

There are a few (not iPhone) that have a small xenon flash. The LED "Flash" most often found on a phone is only of any use for a few feet, better then nothing I guess.

Re: Trusting ANYTHING plugging into a USB port....

iPhones, iPod touch don't even have a mass storage mode, they want you to use iTunes. This used security flaws to do it's dirty work, and I'm sure Android is not free from it's own flaws, or Winphone...

Re: mint is really doing things no linux has done before

"Yup, so long as they're trapped in a nightmarish past where user interfaces never made it beyond Windows 95"

Better then a dystopian future. where your 27" monitor has the same UI as a 3" phone.

Re: Sales = Money, surely?

They care because no one is going to buy more until they use all the ones they already bought.

Re: In an ideal world...

No.

It's true that DRM will not prevent pirate copies from appearing 10 seconds after the content goes live, but the people who are paying still get a gimped service. I can't see this being any better then Silverlight with open source.

no advantage

Except the people who bought one to avoid the crap. Like me.

I will not by buying an LG with crapware. If Moto do go pure droid maybe they will get me next time.

Re: What is missing

Finding settings in Windows 8 is even harder then older versions of Windows.

When you search the Microsoft site to find out how you get crap like this... (looking for change font size)

"Open Screen Resolution by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering Display in the search box, tapping or clicking Settings, and then tapping or clicking Display."

What?

They tell you to search, often a word that you would never guess, or remember. Searching for the actual setting gives you nothing.

If you want to run your not-metro pong app it's great, but if you want to actually do something it's crap.

Re: Of course the Warlords will just sit back and allow this

Don't forget the religious nut jobs. I'm sure they will think this falls under "western education".

Re: "It’s a challenge - a great technical problem I think. Our researchers love the problem"

Remember when they fist came out with the "core" chips and only wanted them to be used in laptops. Tried to force everyone to stick to P4 for desktop. Tried to pigeon hole atom too.

To have Intel go to something ARM like may be too much to ask.