* Posts by Ebeneser

43 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2009

China's Android users warned of giant botnet

Ebeneser

Google Market Place?

Ever heard of it? ... get your apps from there ...

Microsoft's Azure cloud down and out for 8 hours

Ebeneser

Re: Who on earth is suprised by this?

bob - my thoughts entirely.

Google swings new mobile unlock patent punch at Apple

Ebeneser
Stop

Slide to unlock prior art?

It's called a bolt.

UK student faces extradition to US after piracy case ruling

Ebeneser

re: Turtle (head?)

Hmm, if you understood that the original statement was about unintended legal liability, you'd be better able to place your idiot moniker. Privacy isn't the issue here, as clearly if I wanted any, my data wouldn't be in the cloud.

Ebeneser
Unhappy

Wider Implications

I use Google Docs and Amazon Web Services constantly for all sorts of personal and business stuff. I treat them as if they were a local extension to my computing environment ... (I live in the UK).

Makes you wonder if using these services in such a naive manner is a really bad idea ...

After all I'm sure my data is stored in the U.S. and therefore de facto accessible by US government agents ....

BT's gift to Google: A patent war over ads and Android

Ebeneser
Thumb Up

Looking for my bonus...

Some smart arse has hatched this as the only way he'll make a bonus in 2012/13

Only problem is the suckers at the top of BT fell for it ... probably out of desperation.

BT have been screwing the British public for decades, obviously times are hard, and its time to diversify into screwing companies that have pots of cash as well... normally when this happens it takes about 3 to 5 years before they realise they've pissed away hundreds of millions in legal fees with no discernable gain, and the original people who came up with the action have left and gone back to Oracle.

GCHQ code-breaking challenge cracked by Google search

Ebeneser
Unhappy

Let's face it ...

From a cyber security point of view we're screwed ... and if the salaries posted on the recruitment site are indicative, you'd be better off working for the bad guys ...

China Central TV comes to Freeview

Ebeneser
Black Helicopters

CCTV

"Not that CCTV is all propaganda, but it does have a tendency to toe the government line ..."

Just like the BBC then. At least there's a chance they'll tell us stuff the UK media views as off limits, I'm sure the opposite already happens in China ...

Google shamed by Apple in race to HTML5

Ebeneser

Really?

Fair and Unbiased.

El' Reg. The fox news of mobile phone reporting.

Microsoft bans all plugins from touchable IE10

Ebeneser

A first for Microsoft

A standards compliant browser.

That needs no plugs because it implements the yet unfinished HTML 5.

I guess they'll be fine if they implement their own MS-HTML5 and integrate it into windows 8 to close out the competiton... oh wait, that was 13 years ago and it was 98 not 8.

Acoustic trauma: How wind farms make you sick

Ebeneser
Meh

Couple of issues

Windfarm developers are relying on ancient/flimsey shallow data and no one is prepared to fund a proper study. The wind farm developers won't fund a study as they're happy with the weak research they already have, which means I guess that govenment environmental agencies need to do this.

I can think of lots of reasons why this isn't happening, which include lack of cash / government lobbying (Elliot Morley anyone?) and the fact that a study may only serve to reenforce existing rules - which basically makes it a waste of money.

Chances of anything being done about this ... zero.

Android malware attacks show perils of Google openness

Ebeneser
FAIL

Hmmm

So lets get this straight, the suggestion is because of apple's control and android's openness android is a virus farm.

What I don't understand is how apple can prevent a similar type of thing happening - human intervention/content scanning isn't going to help - and if its simply a case of running antivirus/scanning when the apps are uploaded to the market, I'm sure Google can manage that, or buy someone who can.

I guess its another case of sensationalist reporting for El Reg with little substance underneath, been a bit too much of this recently ...

Ebeneser

no java here

Android apps compile to davlik byte code and are executed on a 'linux' system. Java is just the starting language, android doesn't contain a java runtime.

If I'm reading the article correctly we're talking about root exploits - which wouldn't requires passwords. Typically they require patches to fix, and provided they aren't day0 then one would imagine it should be possible to scan for attack signatures...

Microsoft takes Oracle side in Google Java-phone attack

Ebeneser
Thumb Down

Unsurprising

Can't believe that crap like this is even reported by el reg, large scumbag supports wannabe larger scumbag spouting here say as fact in order to promote inadequate up and coming products before they wither away and die. gimme a break.

UK jobs growth grinds to a halt

Ebeneser
Happy

Sounds good to me ...

If you can't get paid work without experience, but can't get experience without paid work, then getting unpaid work to gain experience in order to get paid work sounds like an option to me. Its certainly something I'd consider if I felt the chances of getting a paid job were significantly increased.

Unpaid workers will always be open to abuse by employers, but if you look at it from a personal standpoint, with specific goals in mind, its something that must be considered.

Apple TV: Third time unlucky, Mr Jobs

Ebeneser
Unhappy

End of Apple ...

I already have Apple tv v2 in the UK. Its crap and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Try getting one of those nasty avi movie files to play, and you realise what a curse those open video formats are, now if all media was wrapped in a nice Apple proprietary format everything would be so much simpler. So for all those with pre-existing video libraires, its time to break out the conversion tools and hit the on-line forums, then reach for a good book while the conversion runs, before you load the movie into itunes and the magic of over the air updates to your 160GB Apple TV fails for no apparent reason.

The end of Apple? I think so. After several years leading the pack with ipod then iphone, their next bit of innovation is to repackage this rubbish in the hope that all the new fanbois will believe the propaganda and shell out whatever money they have left after splashing out for the ipad, which after 8 weeks is now gathering dust.

I think the common term is 'running out of stream'. Now lets see what GoogleTV brings ...

Scottish iSchool goes 100% iPad

Ebeneser
FAIL

hmm

Truly Pathetic

Google Nexus One 'too popular' in dev phone afterlife

Ebeneser
Thumb Up

Nice Phone

I got my nexus one delivered in the UK in January, 5 days after it came out. I didn't have any problems getting it, I needed one for development, I got one, period.

Its a nice phone. Its main developer benefit is it gets the lastest versions of Android first, and its not encumbered with proprietary UIs.

Oracle sues Google over Java in Android

Ebeneser
FAIL

Worst thing that's happened to Java

was Oracle bought it.

.NET for Android prepares to get probed

Ebeneser
FAIL

Waste of time

It always amazes me how companies find time to invest in projects that are clearly going nowhere. Mono should have been drowned at birth. The fact that it now threatens to infect android shows its true colours, these of something akin to a cockroach.

Google risks OEM wrath for unified Android UI plan

Ebeneser
Happy

Talk about mis-representation

Google decide to polish the Android UI with the help of their new ex-palm ui designer, and some people think its a step towards control freakery a' la Apple. Android is OPEN SOURCE, so people can choose what the hell UI they want. HTC are still free to put Sense on, Motorola can continue to ship BLUR, Google hope that they can make something better so the need to create multiple UIs subsides ... its really that simple ...

I mean talk about hedging your bets 'Google is reported to be planning' ffs what happened to factual objective based reporting rather than speculative crap who's only intention appears to whip up an inflammatory point of view based on hearsay.

Watchdog calls for Google break-up

Ebeneser
Stop

Astroturfers-R-US

Pretty unsurprising that a lobbying group sponsored by Microsoft is calling for the breakup of Google.

Perhaps the title should have been 'Microsoft Lobbying Group calls for breakup of Google", but then I guess most people wouldn't have bothered to read the article.... 9/10 for misleading headlines El Reg for the purposes for getting an audience,.... and a reaction...

Why the Google antitrust complaint is not about Microsoft

Ebeneser

@john Smith

Establishing Trust, its the same for anyone you trust, if they bias the results your're less likely to notice, hardly an indication of a monopoly.

Multiple barriers to entry? If they're so obvious why not name some ...

Interesting dead author quote, not sure how it fits here but interesting none the less.

So Apple are a monopoly because they can dictate how much people pay for iphone, and all the extra apple only bits ... closed market maybe, monopoly i don't think so. The discussion revoles around the definition of a particular market in which the monopoly exists, you have to define the market before you can assert that a monopoly exists, big equals bad doesn't cut it.

All I've learned from JS is that Upton Sinclair is a dead author, so I guess I'm less ignorant in some small way than I was before ...

Ebeneser

Pots and Kettles

There's a difference between being a large company and being a monopolist. Just because you're big enough to get custom parts out of Intel doesn't make you a monopolist.

I agree with the classic monopolist defence bit though, I've never heard a monopoly say that they were a monopoly and didn't support choice, pretty much common sense regardless of your size.

I think you'll find barriers are classic monopoly behaviour rather than straw man BS, you capture a market, you defend it ... with barriers... not too difficult to understand.

Usually a monopoly exists where a court finds that a particular company wields monopoly power in a particular predefined market. Not because a bunch of people KNOW, or THINK its a monopoly, or even because of some tenuous thread of logic whose only supporting plank is the conclusion it eventually reaches.

Even when a monopoly exists, it still has to be proven that 'bad things' are happening before anything can be done. Saying 'they're big so they must be bad' is normally pretty accurate, but in itself isn't sufficient for a court to limit what a company can and can't do.

Google promoting their own products is something that most people would find normal acceptable behaviour. And the only way that's every going to change is a court finds that they're a monopoly in a predefined market and then decides to restrict their actions... until that happens... nothing will change.

Ebeneser

Barriers to Entry

Normally when a monopoly exists its because the monopolist erects barriers to entry, and people have no choice... eg Microsoft and their dominance of PC outlets and incentives for companies like Dell to ship only Windows or get less attractive volume discounts. Or Microsoft building IE into Windows 98, so that most people wouldn't be bothered to download Netscape as there was already a usable web browser integrated into the system. Theres normally an attempt to limit consumer choice for the benefit of the monopolist, and damage to competition results.

People go to Google.com/Google.co.uk etc to perform a search because they believe that its the best way to find something. Google don't guarantee that the order results come up meets some universal law of fairness. You use Google, you accept a Google slant, you use Microsoft Bling, you get a Microsoft slant (after all its the algorithms stupid).

Barriers to entry? Try pointing you web browser at another search engine... its not difficult.

I fail to see how this case can have any merit. You visit a company's web site and surely that company can present you with information in any way it sees fit, if you don't like it, you go somewhere else, its hardly lockin.

And the MapQuest complaint is a joke, MapQuest was always crap, Google Maps is massively superior, Google Maps with StreetView is a level of magnitude ahead (and no, Google didn't cut off MapQuests air supply, it just came out with a better product). The filing says "it would be unwise to say this can be attributed to the superior design of Google's mapping service", of course it would be unwise as it would undermine the raff's case for goodness sake.

As far as I'm aware two types of monopoly behaviour exist, those where a company is a monopoly and those where it isn't. The first things that has to happen in order for any of this rubbish to have a prayer is that the Search Engine market needs to be clearly defined and identified as a market where a monopoly can exist (like the market for desktop operating systems). Then once that market has been clearly delineated, Google have to be proven to have a monopoly in said market (in a similar fashion to what happened to Microsoft).

Once Google have been identified as being a Monopoly in a well defined market, then their behaviour should be curbed to meet the extra restrictions placed on monopolies ... look how Microsoft have suffered over the years from being a Monopoly and having to open up their systems .... (humour) ....

So before Google are officially classed as a Monopolist, they can do what the hell they want ...

I guess its just a matter of time before the Raff's crawl back under their stone and maybe invent something that doesn't compete head-on with one of the most successful companies of the modern era ...

Google extends ARM to browser natives

Ebeneser

Freedom?

Here's one technology you won't be seeing on your iPhone any time soon.

Android app brings in $13K a month

Ebeneser
Thumb Up

Hmm figures ....

Android Market place - Car locator $3.99 - 5000-10000 downloads.

Max revenue = 3.99 * 10000 = $39900

Seven months(?) on the market place = $39900/7 = $5700 per month = £3800/month (1.5 xchg rate)

The actual amount will likely be less than this as the price was raised to $3.99 and the downloads are somewhere in the range 5000-10000.

But I guess about £3500 per month isn't bad, as its around 40 grand per year.

Windows server revenue outpaced Linux in Q4

Ebeneser
Thumb Down

This is news?

The revenue of something that costs "windows server" outpaces something that is free - Linux, hmmm looks like the headline is targetted that the purchasers who feel the need to buy whatever most money is being currently spent on, because they're incapable of analysing the benefit of something that you don't have to pay for. After all, if its free, then it can't have any real value ... can it?

Yes I know its trying to take shipped boxes into account, but the headline looks to be like an attempt to make people more comfortable spending their money on windows. It falls into the same bucket as the reason why its difficult to find Linux boxes in PC world shops... which is simply because if its free, PC World don't make money on it, where as something like Windows has all sorts of opportunties for adding markups and selling other paid for software like MS Office, rather than pointing the customer to the equivalent free Open Office.

Ten years of .NET - Did Microsoft deliver?

Ebeneser
Alien

Choice

It all boils down to choice, if you want to only use Windows you use .Net, if you want to choose the platform best suited to your application, be it linux or various unix systems or Windows, you go with Java.

If you only know Windows its a really simple choice .net and c#. If you're a bit more broad based certainly on the server side, you can write it in Java and run it pretty much anywhere. Another win for Java is the large amount of open source libraries from people like the apache foundatation. Another nice thing about is the source code is easy to come by, helping debugging and general understanding ... not sure if that's the case with .net.

There is no doubt that .net provides a first class environment for programming Windows Enterprise systems, trouble is time spent learning it is effectively time spent tying yourself to Microsoft and their products... which is fine if you don't mind. For people like myself who've been in the industry quite a while and seen and taken part in the various 'Microsoft Wars' being tied to Microsoft isn't one of our favorite past times.

Google to flog unlocked phones in January

Ebeneser
Alien

You can pretend all you want

but as the first poster pointed out, there's a lot going on here. People who dismiss it with the 'nothing to see here/seen it all before/move along' are completely missing the point.

Google are pretty much gunning for everyone, Apple, Microsoft, Mobile carriers and anyone else that gets in the way.

Apple have a very nice phone, thousands of mainly useless apps, a hamstrung excuse for an operating systems, and a pretty limited wider infrastructure. If they need to trumpet things like 'push notification' which are fairly basic OS/networking capabilities, then they can rightly claim the title of 'MS-DOS of smartphone systems'.

Microsoft have a mobile operating system lead that they've thrown away and a mixture of web based infrastructure that tries to tie you to the desktop, because they're too short sighted to see what's coming. A bit like when the internet first appeared and MS jumped on the bandwagon a couple of years later by retrofitting their existing apps then trying to re-invent/subvert the existing internet standards in their own image.

Google have a cloud which is designed to deliver anything anywhere and scale to ridiculous levels. If you've been watching what they've been doing recently, its scary the speed with which they can enter and change markets, and its all based around the cloud and mobile technology. Recent examples are Google Navigator for Android - Tomtom 10% share devaluation, UK houses for sale on Google Maps - Rightmove 10% share devaluation - Google voice search/Google Goggles, Public DNS servers, partnerships in underwater high-speed data cables, threats of mobile manufacturers/carriers and this is all in the past month or so. Now you've got Google moving to create their vision of connecting people to their cloud, via Android mobile phones, your got to be pretty dense if you can't see how important this is to their strategy. Think it will fail? Yeah ... right.

AT&T to choke your iPhone

Ebeneser
Thumb Up

British!!!??

Sorry, have to disagree with McMoo, over the years there's been some great coverage from the states, especially the journos in San Francisco. And given that when the states sneeze we catch a cold (swine flu anyone), its always useful to be up to date with developments stateside.

Granted in this particular case the article was a little misleading in that it doesn't apply to your average iPhone toting Brit, but it is none the less interesting ... seeing AT&T swim against the tide in order to create profit.

Android 2.0: what to expect

Ebeneser
Big Brother

Progress?

Think we're entering an era where the phone is your life, or at least contains more about you than any biometric universal id ever could. Only problem is that everything on it is accessible by Government, Law enforcement agencies and the Security Forces, so that they are better able to look after you and keep you safe for all the Global threats that regularly appear to justify their existence.

Simple fact is that if you use a modern smart phone you have no privacy, pretty much by definition. Cloud connected, location sensing, always on, a 'friend' in your pocket. Two ways of dealing with this, get used to it, or get rid of your phone.

iPhone app transforms speech to text

Ebeneser
Happy

Same here

Nice to see iPhone getting features that have been on Android for some time now. Who knows maybe iPhone will get Google Goggles as well by Summer 2010 :-) Shame iPhone won't be able to perform image recognition and voice-to-text *at the same time*. Maybe Apple will add real multitasking one day to support this.

Google equips self for 'real-time' search

Ebeneser
FAIL

Microsoft

Think the Microsoft connection is a bit over blown. From where I sit Microsoft are a long way back and losing ground fast. If I were Microsoft I'd just focus on protecting my desktop monopoly and let everyone else get on with creating a brave new world. The unnamed Web CEO was probably the CEO of MSN, which is probably why they didn't name him/her.

TomTom iPhone Car Kit

Ebeneser
Terminator

Interesting how this pans out

I'd be interested to see a comparison between this £60 piece of software and the free Google Navigator currently available with Android 2.0 in the US. One would imagine that TomTom won't be bringing this out for Android any time soon.

HTC HD2 Windows Mobile smartphone

Ebeneser
Pint

WinMo Apologists crawl

... out of the woodwork.

When a phone appears with ground breaking hardware and ball breaking software, its not difficult to see the missed opportunity. Pretending that WinMo is anything but the final throws of Microsoft's mobile strategy is bit like saying Bing will kill Google Search.

When Microsoft have to (allegedly) pay HTC to keep the lovely snapdragon processor away from those nasty android people, you know things are getting pretty bad. When android devices running said processor mysteriously disappear from trade shows overnight in order to better showcase WinMo you understand the beast is back.

The most glaring shame about the whole HTC HD2/WinMo circus is that if the device ran Android, it would sell like hot cakes on a frosty morning, and peace and love would fill the airwaves.

Nokia N86 8Mp cameraphone

Ebeneser
Thumb Down

Er What?

Hopeless and pointless, its a bit sad really that with so much interesting stuff happening on iphone and android, nokia come up with this crap. Sure they'll sell a few to some of the die-hards above, but at this rate they'll easily halve their current market share within a couple of years. Good Job Nokia!

Firefox flaws make up 44% of all browser bugs?

Ebeneser
Pint

Hmmm...

Gimme a break ... yawn ... and wake me up when there's some real news again ...

Sun and Apache: the Java scars that endure

Ebeneser
Unhappy

Pretty Obvious

that Sun don't want to give credibility to ASF's java implementation. That's the only reason for withholding the TCK. Sun might not want to admit it openly, but they've decided not to. If it were for any other reason Sun could easily say "you can't use the TCK because.... or unless ...". They're not saying that because they don't want ASF to use it period. Sad thing is that Sun thinks that playing dumb everytime the question arises will make the issue go away.

J.

HTC says no to Android HD2 to aid Windows Mobile

Ebeneser
Headmaster

I need a new android phone

Already have an HTC Magic (works well, pleased with it), but will need another android phone for the wife shortly. Makes my choice easier because now I don't have to consider HTC, as I know they're too busy looking after the Microsoft relationship to focus on creating the best android device possible, which is basically what I'm after.

Google navigates Android to turn-by-turn directions

Ebeneser

Global Maps

The issues with US-only is that apparently Google now own their own US maps, so they can do what they like with them. For Europe they're likely licensing the maps from a third party. I know with Google Maps on android in the UK, there are specific licensing restrictions that prevent you from building a traffic navigation/route planning application, or anything that can control a fleet of commercial vehicles, or perform GPS based asset tracking.

J.

Speculation mounts over AVG plans for OS X client

Ebeneser
Alien

Re: Mac/av

James O'Shea sums things up nicely.

You've got three view points:

1) Knowledgeable about the reality of the situation and lack of threat

2) Ignorant of reality, and scared of what might happen

3) Vested interests in making sure that viewpoint 2) is encouraged as much as possible in order to profit from it.

Sounds a bit like Al-Qaeda and the threat from muslim, extremists.

Google mocks Bing and the stuff behind it

Ebeneser
Alert

Microsoft will always be rubbish

Right from the early days 90s and 80s Microsofts goal was to sell crap to as may people as possible while removing and undermining competition. They weren't bothered if it worked properly, if it was full of bugs or infested with viruses, the goal was to suffocated the competition, famously cut off their air supply, and by being the largest and only game in town, reap the profits that that position presented. They're not interested in simple thinks like open standards, easy integration, and robust architectures, the goal is kill the competition by whatever means they can get away with, and thereby leverage their market position.

The reason why Microsoft will always have substandard products is because high quality isn't their objective. The objective is to sell the worst software they can get away with, and use their monopoly position to ensure that their rubbish has little competition.

The reason why Google will always beat Microsoft in the internet arena is the same reason Apple will always beat Microsoft in the operating systems arena. Microsoft focus on crap, Google and Apple focus on trying to build the best they can at any moment in time. Just look at the abortion which was Vista, it was crap because Microsoft weren't focused on building the best operating system they could, but rather they were focused figuring out how they could create a tool for desktop domination, through control and drm, they didn't have an architecture, they had a marchitecture (architecture driven by marketing).

Are Google scared no. Are Google interested in the competition, yes. Will Google take over the world? probably. Will the world be a better place probably not.

Sooner or later Microsoft need to realise that they aren't an internet company, they're a desktop monopoly still trying to leverage their dominant position into other markets. You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig. How many decades will it take them to realise that they just don't get it, and that the world of computers would be better without them (innovation breathes a permature sign of relief).