* Posts by Andrew Orlowski

1435 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2006

Nokia E6 smartphone

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: EDOF camera

It's EDoF after all - just better than any I have used. The copy now clarifies this. Thanks.

Nokia unveils Contractual Obligation Meego Phone

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: I can't agree with Orlowski on this one ...

Er. No.

Vintage Psion prototype: Yours for £85,000

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: sliders

I think colour screens killed off disposables. Pity.

Aunty squirts serendipity into TV apps

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Whilst the Reg do often headline grab

Yep. Becoming the second screen isn't the same as saying it is the seco d screen now - it plainly isn't and has some way to go. And chatting afterwards, he agrees that for lots of immersive, classic kinds of shows, there's only one screen.

Cloud iTunes DESTROYS music business FOREVER!

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: @Rob 10 - and your mum, too

AAC has LOTS of advantages, it's an excellent piece of work.

Rob is being a wee bit sensitive. It's as if the inventor of ASCII took a bad review of Emacs to be an attack on his reputation. A bit silly, really.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Pretentious hack

It's not all about you, Rob.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: As usual, stupid dismissal by Andrew

I don't see the any evidence that iCloud encourages piracy, Greg, and your post doesn't provide any evidence either way.

What's got you pirating is a very easy-to-use Spotify ripper. I'd expect a ripper to do that. All iCloud will give you at launch is another place to store stuff, and a way of syncing it.

Whether piracy goes up or down as a result is something we can't say yet.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: "For me, rsync across my home network does just fine. ®"

Ah, but the current system - a combination of fingerprinting and the online catalogs - is nowhere near good enough. There will be lots of holes in iMatch, just as there are in Spotify. It not only fails to pick up obscurities - try finding an old Van Morrison album on iTunes or Spotify.

Now, if I have an iPod (or other device) big enough, I will be carrying a 100 per cent mirror of my music library around with me. For people whose record collections are mostly Coldplay or Ministry of Sound albums, it may get a 100 per cent match. YMMV.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Please clarify

Thanks Christopher - you're right. I'll clarify the piece, pointing out the original songs in your library are not altered.

The drawback of an iMatch'd library is that there will be holes. Spotify is "holey" enough already.

BP world energy review: Chinese coal drives up CO2

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Two wrongs don't make a right

Not quite.

"China will one day .... need to use (and potentially buy from us) all that energy-efficiency and renewable technology that we've developed."

Most unlikely, since China invests more in energy innovation than the West. If a renewable technology offers advantages over non-renewable technologies it will be able to develop it by itself.

The point is, the UK and Europe are unilaterally investing in poor technology hoping the rest of the world "follows our lead". It isn't doing so.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Debatable...

Robert Kennedy Jr. -

"Since 2007, the discovery of vast supplies of deep shale gas in the US, along with advanced extraction methods, have created stable supply and predictably low prices for most of the next century. Of the 1,000 gigawatts of generating capacity currently needed to meet national energy demand, 336 are coal-fired. Surprisingly, America has more gas generation capacity – 450 gigawatts – than it does for coal...

"In an instant, this simple change could eliminate three-quarters of America’s coal-burning generators and save a fortune in energy costs"

"To quickly gain further economic and environmental advantages, the larger, newer coal plants that remain in operation should be required to co-fire with natural gas. Many of these plants are already connected to gas pipelines and can easily be adapted to burn gas as 15 to 20 per cent of their fuel. Such co-firing dramatically reduces forced outages and maintenance costs and can be the most cost effective way to reduce CO2 emissions.

"Natural gas comes with its own set of environmental caveats. It is a carbon-based fuel and its extraction from shale, the most significant new source, if not managed carefully, can have serious water, land use and wildlife impacts, especially in the hands of irresponsible producers and lax regulators. But those impacts can be mitigated by careful regulation and are dwarfed by the disaster of coal."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58ec3258-748b-11de-8ad5-00144feabdc0.html

iTunes Match is iPiracy, claims loopy Oz industry troll

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Er, no

Because you're not getting any new music at all for your $24.99/yr. You're just getting sync and somewhere new to keep the music you already have, in an online locker.

The "clever" bit is that you don't (in theory) have to upload anything to have the tracks available on another machine, if they're matched against the cloud catalog. For this Apple negotiated licenses, because it's making a copy of a sound recording.

I'll pass, because I don't want my MP3s chewed up and spat back at me as AACs... and I don't want to pay £20 for that privilege.

Apple embraces 'n' extends messaging

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: XMPP?

Um, no.

That's like trying to argue that Microsoft Exchange messaging is "open" because it's based on DCE/RPC.

Nokia: When pigeons fly home to roast

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: strawman arguments as usual

It's too early to tell if Nokia is out of the game completely, by about 18-24 months. The operators will rally around whatever Nokia has to offer next spring & summer. We'll then see how the market reacts, and after that, know if Nokia can make real money on those devices.

The criticism that Elop announced the deal prematurely has a lot of merit, and I said so at the time. I'm sure Elop would have preferred to have had teams working on WP, so he could wave a real working prototype around when the deal was announced.

But he didn't have the luxury of time. He was bequeathed an empty product pipeline. My contention is that Nokia's sales would be in the tank if it hadn't announced a new platform strategy.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: MeeGo/Maemo was the Apple moment

Thank you.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Jumping out of the sinking boat

Because Google wouldn't cut them any special favours, and WebOS wasn't available.

What is UltraViolet™ and why should you care?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Sony Beta & Disney

See below: DECE originated at Sony.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: dont think so

I should have pointed out that UltraViolet is originally Sony's idea. They want it to work.

Netflix overtakes Bittorrent as traffic champ

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: It's extremely sad that this is a surprise

Me too.

Adam Curtis: The Rise of the Machines

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Sunny days in blue skies are an every day event, dear boy. You gotta get out more.

The "we" means policy makers, politicians, etc.

Adam did remark that the policy elites are much more pessimistic than any one else, in some cases, pessimism is confined to the policy makers and not shared by anyone else. His point was that managerialism creates fatalism.

This didn't make the write-up. I should put it in.

Would putting all the climate scientists in a room solve global warming...

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Gratz on an (almost) objective climate change article

"So what you're saying is, that the people who are most convinced that the world is headed towards something terrible, happen to have ideas as to how to stop it?"

Er, no. The people who say the Sky Is Falling insist everyone else's ideas are not only ineffective, but immoral.

I suggest you do some background reading on the relative costs and benefits of mitigation vs. adaptation. It isn't a new debate. Much more useful than ranting on about creationists and conspiracy theories - as you say, a little less emotional, and more rational analysis is a good idea.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: God forbid anyone should cramp our "lifestyles"

Tom Welsh:

"compelling people to change their "lifestyles" is by no means unreasonable. It's the minimum we should expect of any competent government"

That's because you're a natural authoritarian, Tom.

Small groups have always sought to bypass democracy and impose their minority views on everyone else. Sometimes it is done in the name of race, or genetics, or for a higher calling: in the name of national destiny, economic ideology, religion or "saving the planet".

They all amount to the same thing. But governments are there to serve the people, not the other way around. Sometimes we need the image of a rope and a lamp post to remind them of that.

Facebook 'smear' shock: Journos aghast!

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Lost in a world of leaks

Good point. Although this is the probably the most inept piece of PR work I've ever heard, this is deserves highlighting: and has got lost in the noise.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Facts?

Cold-calling a random blogger with the dirt may well be a new standard in corporate stupidity.

Cold-calling a journalist with the dirt is a daily event, though, and is not news.

This is the point you have missed, as an outsider, or don't want to see. As I wrote in the piece - why do you think PR companies exist?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Sounds to me as if...

Saying "Ah, well of course *everyone* knows these things go on daaahling" ...

But everyone does, unless you've just arrived from Mars.

Why do PR companies exist? Do they exist only to talk the happy talk? That is such a naive point of view I don't find it credible.

Freeman Dyson: Shale gas is 'cheap and effective'

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Sustainable

"Unfortunately this debate is quietly steered by the oil companies et al, who pervade every forum and influence every decision. "

That, sir, is a paranoid fantasy.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Quoi?

strum: "Cheap energy is a short-term, mostly 20th century addiction - not to be continued for long"

If the people need it, then the people will get it.

"[ ... ] the pampered West [...] the West's comfortable ignorance."

Guilt and self-loathing are much in evidence in here. I recommend getting a hair shirt, and flogging yourself daily. You can do my penance for me.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Cost

I've driven past the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm many times, and it's always been furiously active.

According to this the average wind speed through the pass is 15-20mph and the peak wind coincides with peak energy demand, during the summer:

http://www.eoearth.org/article/San_Gorgonio_Pass,_California

When I pass a wind turbine in the UK, it's hardly ever moving.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: No. Just No.

"but no, why talk about creating a long-term, sustainable culture of efficiency"

Because what you call "sustainability" isn't in the long-term sustainable. A 50 per cent drop in demand just isn't going to happen - even if you try and enforce it at gunpoint. An abundance of cheap energy is what we need, and what we'll get.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Read the report, not the press release.

Estimates of shale gas production so far have been wrong in one direction. They've all underestimated the yields.

So we'll have to wait and see if this continues. But since shale requires no subsidies, it's the investors who will bear the risk and will take a bath if yields fall short of expectations.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: What get's me is....

Geothermal would be on my list, Mr Wanktrollop, it's the only renewable worth considering for now. Unless you live somewhere very sunny.

But you can be sure somebody will tell you off for puncturing Mother Earth with a great big rod - as they already have with fracking.

Mentally ill file-sharer had 'low self-esteem'

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

"Let me through, I'm a victim"

Interesting post, Kurt, thanks.

Depression and Asperger's have been around for ever: but the idea of pathologising such behaviours is quite new. Making everything a "disorder" is simply another former of social control: Adam Curtis' explored this in The Trap - see Part 2 of the series.

And this is my point, most people with Asperger's would not dream of using it to plead victim status. It may make you a little different, but it does not make you a victim. Most people would have more self-respect than to indulge in such special pleading. They would not dream of using it to escape a conviction. It give everyone with the same condition a bad name.

You also imply than nobody should write about anyone with OCD, Asperger's unless they are suffering from it themselves. Which is nuts.

Five amazing computers for under £100

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: How do you know Steve Jobs was a fan of the Psion 3MX?

Jobs had a 3a for several years. Not a great secret.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: San Francisco

Only it isn't £100.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: SLUGs anyone?

That's a good choice, and the going rate is £20-£30 too.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: iPhone? You must be joking...

Probably not, but that ZTE Blade is a lot more than £100.

From the FA:

"I've excluded hire-purchase deals. You can get a thoroughly modern computer in half an hour, if you pick it up from a mobile network or Carphone Warehouse. But, obviously, that's cheating.The cost isn't really £50 or £100, that's merely the first instalment."

High Court squashes Digital Economy Act challenge

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: RIPA vs DEA

The ISP doesn't examine any traffic. The copyright holder must do the digging, and provide accurate information. All the ISP does is identify the suspect and inform them.

Download data versus piracy claims: the figures don’t add up

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

False and false

Of course lobby groups exaggerate the figures. I've written many times that two thirds of people (in the UK) don't download unlicensed material at all. The "we are all Pirates" claim is empirically false. But it isn't one being made here - it's merely an analogy.

The contention that piracy hurts legitimate markets is not falsified by this. (There is plenty of research on this - Google for "substitution ratios".)

Nor is the contention that creating new legitimate paying markets (that grow the industry, like DVDs did for movies) made much harder when they have to compete with freetards falsified, either.

If you're suggesting that piracy is a victimless crime, the data shows otherwise. It harms small bands, small publishers, small labels. You may _wish_ it to be otherwise, but that's neither here nor there.

Why Nokia failed: 'Wasted 2,000 man years' on UIs that didn't work

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope

Well, there's Sky. That's a platform, I'm not sure how global it is...

Nokia's developers wait and wait for Windows Phone

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Dissenting Nokia shareholders stop throwing toys from pram

A technical cock-up: Comments should have been enabled on both. Once it's gone live there's no way we can restore commenting, unfortunately.

'You don't even know what change management is'

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

OK, so it should be called...

"Project Management"

The "change" is completely redundant. As I thought.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Proves my point

"Managing Change in an Organisation is a whole lot different to normal management. Managing Change often involves changing the culture, ethics and just about everything in an organisation in order to meet the objectives of the change."

No, that's part of normal Management.

"Experienced Change Manager will be very clued up on what is legal and what is not.... General Managers IMHO are in the main totally ignorant about this area of employment law."

WTF?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Good post

Thanks Gall.

"as opposed to management of a steady-state/"business as usual" service."

That's Standard Operational Duties, part of Traditional Management as the Strategic Change stuff.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

It already exists

It's ten years old, but doesn't need updating really.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/12/how_to_write_a_flame/

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Er, OK.

Not as good as last week's - but it was high on righteous indignation.

OFT waves through Sky's Virgin TV slurp

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Two answers for Chad H.

You seem confused.

1. This story is about a broadcaster buying in some more content. Not a provider buying another provider. Assuming you know the difference - why are you worried/concerned about this?

2. I flagged up the issue of content companies controlling technical standards ten years ago in the CPRM FAQ. For the same reason, we've reflected concerns about Project Canvas, which is ... content companies controlling technical standards.

Google, Verizon offer net neutrality proposal

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

@Trevor

You make a lot of good points above, yes: most of the rhetoric is "utter bollocks" and "fearmongering". I agree. You also highlight why it's now a Dead Duck:

"Why should we have to show harm before legislating? "

- and -

"You say that we should not legislate against this until after it has happened. I call that bizarre and dangerous."

That's too bad: it's just how rational societies work, and there are very good reasons why it is like that. Once upon a time the King or High Priest would issue prohibitive laws according to what he had for breakfast. We have moved on since then.

So that's a generality. More specifically, business isn't regulated unless there's a market failure. There is no market failure here. There is no evidence of harm. Google and Verizon's document shows where they agree, and where they agree to disagree.

If I were you, I'd get used to it!

"Personally, I will not stand idly by while there is any potential threat to the free flow of information."

Well that's lovely, but what the Dickens else are you going to do? Jump up and down on spot until the threat passes? Set yourself on fire?

Remember, Trevor, that discrimination-by-content affects us at El Reg much more than most people commenting. If a carrier decided to block El Reg, for example, jobs would be put at risk.

"The ability to charge different rates based on the ORIGIN, DESTINATION or ACTUAL CONTENT (not PROTOCOL TYPE) of traffic is my beef. "

Well, when that happens, we'll have a look, shall we? It's already happened aplenty, without anyone complaining - a gaming ISP with low ping rates is A Good Thing. QoS is A Good Thing. Paying to see an new release movie streamed to you is something you have a beef with too, that isn't "harm" or "abuse" or a cause for additional state intervention. Ofcom, the Competition Commission and the OFT can already intervene when content providers monopolise distribution channels. They do all the time (regulators like to keep themselves busy) - it's why Kangaroo was axed, remember.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/03/project_kangaroo/

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Actually...

"We'll still have the internet - or rather, the internet as of today - but it will stop evolving and growing because it won't get any new bandwidth."

Quite the opposite. Most of the capacity built isn't in use today because it isn't profitable to use it. If you have profitable businesses, then the capacity will meet the demand. FiOS and the growth of CDNs are good examples.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Eh?

@ Identity: "If not a 'conspiracy,' why did they pay people to sleep in the seats at a Boston FCC hearing? Charity for the homeless or blocking criticism?"

Whether people were paid to sleep or not at the hearing is irrelevant. The question is whether Comcast's network management was justified, and if not, whether it justifies technical regulation.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

@Trevor

"I say: yet"

OK, we're agreed it's not a problem. That's more than some people will admit. Some people have imaginary friends. Others need an imaginary problem to fight...

I'm in favour of both competition regulation and consumer protection - I think that's enough to deal with the problems you envisage, and you certainly haven't made the case that we need technical regulation for the first time. Luddite legislation that forbids network engineers experimenting and innovating is about the stupidest idea I've ever heard.

"The thing that I have never seen from you Andrew, or form anyone else who has done anti-net-neutrality analyses is an explanation of exactly why these megacorporates won’t try to lock down the internet?"

"Anti-net neutrality" ?

That's like being anti-unicorns - the net has never been neutral. No such explanation is needed. Things may change, and but why not find something else to get worked up about? I'm guessing we've cured malaria, and I just missed the news...