Taking bets
...that within a year of this technology becoming widespread, someone will attempt to sue Fujitsu for hand cancer caused by exposure to IR light.
1519 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
I feel that Google Glass has terrific potential. You could feed your glasses prescription into them and have a bluetooth based sensor that sends your current blood/alcohol ratio to them too. Then your Google Glass recalibrates itself so that no matter how drunk you are, your vision is not impaired. That way, the cute boy or girl you hook up with at the end of a session remains cute when you wake up next to them the following morning.
...especially when it comes to Firefox OS. I have a Lumia 820 and like it as much as the next man, as long as it isn't Eadon. Yet even I recognise that a new OS entering the market can only be a good thing. Is it going to cause Google and Apple to quake in their boots? I doubt it. Will it inspire Windows Phone 8 and BB OS 10 to fight tooth and nail for the third spot, thus improving their own OSes and setting a benchmark for newcomers to aim for? I hope so.
Even the mighty Android and iOS had issues when they were first launched and had extremely small markets for their first year or so.
I did briefly look at getting a Surface but the thing that puts me off the most is that the one I can afford uses Win RT. RT seems like the odd one out somehow because it's the only device so far that uses this operating system and (although I'm not a dev myself) I can't really see developers spending time and money creating applications for such a small market. If the smaller Surface had run Windows Phone 8, I suspect it'd be a more popular choice (although the pricing weighs it down unfavorably versus its rivals).
It's the same problem they had back in Round 1 of the Smartphone Wars, when there was the three-way between them, Symbian and Palm OS. They had the Pocket PC version of their OS (Windows Mobile), the smartphone version that cropped on on the SPV 500 phones and then Windows CE as well. Although Symbian had three different versions as well (Series 60, Series 80 and the very limited Series 90) they had a far larger resource pool to draw from, having several companies chipping in for R&D rather just one alone.
Not to put too fine a point on it. My first real relationship was with a friend I'd met online and through many months and years of conversation with, eventually blossomed into the best two years of my life. If you tell me there's no romance to be found in a mouse click, you're doing it wrong.
EDIT: And as for the "no beauty to be found in games", do we really have to re-tread this tired ground again? Even Roger Ebert admitted he fucked up on that score.
...and this is just a shot in the dark here, if they weren't charging ball-bustingly high tarriffs with fuck all data allowance, I might have gone with them. Most normal folks balk at paying above 30-35 a month for their phone bills and if it's a choice between a larger allowance and slightly slower speed or fast and gone in the blink of an eye, most folks will go with 3G. The other thing to bear in mind is that even in London you can't get a 3G signal all the time, so what are chances of 4G?
Apologies for the generalisations there.
I meant to edit both of these into the original post.
Windows Phone is the archtypal gold digger. She's managed to sink her claws into a moderately rich old man that's lonely but she seethes with envy that she's not one of the popular or fashionable types.
iOS is part of one of those smug self satisfied couples that you know will just be together forever and a day and sneers at all the lesser mortals. They're successful but that doesn't necessarily equate to everyone liking them.
I just bought a Lumia 820 last weekend and I'm quite pleased with it so far. The interface is fast and responsive. and the phone itself has a pleasing solidity that's been lacking in my previous handsets. More applications need to take advantage of the Live Tile feature though. I understand Live tile is supposed to function in a similar fashion to widgets in Android but aside from providing shortcuts, they don't seem to offer much else. I'm still getting used to the phone so I might have missed something.
I think electric cars have potential for those that live in cities for short frequent trips to work and back, or going across town. I'd be a little dubious about taking even the very latest one on a long trip (say London to Wales or even further). The only catch with that is that London has pretty good public transport compared to some of the other places I've lived, thus rendering an electric car somewhat pointless. =/
Plus I don't have a garage, so I'd need the world's most monster extension lead to reach the car park next to my flat.
I went to stay with an American friend a few months back and she made me a coffee. It was divine. She uses a locally grown bean and goes to all the extra lengths of grinding it herself, using filter papers and the net result is like drinking dark silk. <3
Of course, when I got back to Blightly and had Costa Coffee from my local shop it tasted like poison. So essentially she ruined coffee for me. =(
My perfect tea is also Assam:
0) Get a large mug and I do mean a large mug. I like my tea delicious and in gargantuan quantities. Tea cups are for folks that want to sample different blends of tea, rather than brewing a drink. Besides, Assam is the way to go. Samples are unnecessary.
1) Boil a kettle and make sure the water is *actually* boiling, not lukewarm.
2) Add *two* bags of Twining's Assam tea to the mug. The double bag ensures a rich strong flavour permeates all through the water but more importantly does so *rapidly*, so that you don't lose heat while waiting for the flavour to build in strength.
3) Add the boiling water to the mug. Ensure space for a small amount of milk.
4) Add one or two teaspoons of sugar depending on the gargantuan-ness of the mug.
5) Stir the tea bags in a circular motion at first and once the water starts to darken, then squeeze the tea bags with the spoon, probably no longer than about 30/45 seconds worth of stirring.
6) Remove the bags and add the milk. Ideal colour should be a slightly-pale tan. If it's starting to look even remotely white, you've screwed up.
7) Sit at desk and enjoy. Feel free to make contented slurping sounds if it will irritate the asshole working next to you.
Pro tip: Never, ever add the milk before the boiling water. If you do this, it causes the tea leaves in the bag to clump together and you lose most of the flavour. Don't ask me why it does this, it just does.
Hmmm, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say Thorntons. You see lots of their bars and boxes in Tesco and WH Smith, so why do they need their own independent shops? Anything that they can't do via their partners they could convert into an online business like Montezumas.
But we shouldn't fret about the loss of another High Street chain. After all it's been at *least* 50 metres since I walked passed a Costa or Starbucks - that's prime shopfront space going to waste there.
I have a 40Mb fibre optic line at home. What on earth do I need such a large amount of bandwidth for?
"It must be piracy".
I have a tower PC with two 1Tb hard drives. What on earth do I need such a large amount of space for?
"It must be piracy".
I have BitTorrent installed on my computer. Why on earth would I need such a program?
"It must be piracy".
I have a computer. Why on earth would I have such a device?
"Release the lawyers!"
Well, if one was going to go into prison and needed to conceal a mobile phone, which would be best suited to the task? Things to consider:
* Size
* Battery life
* Rounded corners
* Ease of cleaning
I'd probably go with either one of the early Series 60 Nokias. Other strong candidates for rectal phonage include the Sony Ericsson T68i (just make sure the camera and MP3 accesories aren't attached!) or possibly the Sendo X.
Good morning El Reg,
I could use a little guidance with regards to getting a new phone tomorrow. I've settled on Windows Phone 8 as my OS of choice (I politely ask that we refrain from discussing Android / iOS / Tizen / BB10) but I'm uncertain as to which type of Windows Phone I should go for.
My two front runners are the Lumia 820 and 920. I like the cheaper price, Micro SD and changeable covers on the 820 but the tank like quality of the 920, combined with the high quality camera is also a big draw. For those that have used either of them, I'd love to hear your experiences of them. The poor battery life on the 820 is a concern, the hefty price tag of the 920 is another.
The other alternative is the HTC Windows Phone but I confess I don't know much about them. Is the build quality likely to be the same as the Nokia phones? Is there a considerably better battery life with the HTCs?
I'm also free from the hellish clutches of Vodafone so now I need to decide who I'm going to leap into bed with for the next 24 months - Three or 4GEEOrangeWhatevertheHellTheyreCalled?
If anyone can offer me some advice with regards to these, I'd really appreciate it!