* Posts by stucs201

1293 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2010

Apple patents glasses-free, multi-viewer 3D

stucs201

Cut out the middleman

If proposing a 3D system based on tracking eye position and accurate aiming of laser beams then why bother with a screen? Just draw directly onto the retina. Oh yeah, 'cos they might have trouble patenting an idea that SF authors thought of ages ago.

Analyst cuts PC sales forecast, blames iPad

stucs201
WTF?

what "dip in consumer interest in PCs"?

They're still predicting a growth of 14.something% or 30odd million *more* than last year. Sounds like an increase in interest to me!

This sort of nonsense interpretation is the sort of thing I'd expect from the sort of share-dealing types who panic needlessly and cause the recession they're afraid of:

Dealer 1: "Help, my companies are going to make less than last year"

Dealer 2: "I'm in trouble too, mine are making more, but not as much as I forecast"

Warren Buffet: "Mine are still making money, here let me use some of it to take those profitable companies off your hand at a bargain price".

Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010

stucs201
WTF?

Do none of you lot commute by car?

Smartphones and e-book readers (and mice?!) are not what I'd associate with commuting. Even the M6 isn't generally stationary enough for those to be useful.

While some those devices might be ok for those on the bus or train I'd expect more (any!) mention of things like sat-nav (expecially with decent traffic avoidance).

stucs201

Terrafugia Transition

Closest thing yet to a flying car to make the commute quicker.

US ARMY prepares force of GIGANTIC BOMB RATS

stucs201

For those who grew up in the 80s

Expand their remit to include drugs and you get: Rodent Olfactory Landmine And Narcotic Detection. Or ROLAND rat.

stucs201
Pirate

Rodents of unusual size?

Training them? "Inconceivable!" How do you get them to do "as you wish"?

(Pirate Icon? Dread pirate Roberts obviously)

Nokia X3 Touch and Type

stucs201

Google is your friend

Basically it vibrates to subsitute for the tactile feedback that a keyboard would provide, but a touchscreen doesn't.

stucs201
Thumb Down

Extra 4 buttons?

Nokias normally have 4 buttons above the numeric keypad. Changing the keypad layout and changing the labels of the muti-purpose buttons to a fixed function doesn't make them 'extra'.

How I used Space Shuttle tech to insulate the living room

stucs201
Flame

doesn't burn. What's not to like?

Er, that it doesn't burn?

Of Kuwait and DSLR cameras

stucs201

What about...

...a film SLR? Medium format view cameras?

YES! It's the twists-in-midair FALLING GECKO ROBOT!

stucs201

Alternatively

Is it possible to create butter from nothing by dropping unbuttered toast? Does it hover forever, or simply create butter on one side so it can land?

Apple to give away iPhone tracking tech

stucs201
Joke

What would be more useful

is a more inteligent and accurate location, e.g: "Down the back of the sofa", "Left in car", etc.

Samsung UE55C9000 55in LCD 3D TV

stucs201

Whats with those pictures

Seem to be suffering from some curving of the straight lines near the edges. Does this fancy screen really have the sort of distortion I'd assosiate with a CRT? Or do you just need a new camera?

Windows hits 25

stucs201

Ah Windows...

...possibly the most sucessful of all DOS programs. :)

Top Ten Arcade Classics

stucs201

Hands up

everyone who would like to chuck out their coffee table and replace it with one of these games in cocktail cabinet format...

(Though I doubt many have a girlfriend/wife who would allow such a thing)

stucs201

Not too bad,

but where is Missile Command?

US may disable all in-car mobile phones

stucs201
WTF?

Just switch the engine off before making the call!

I'm assuming that the jammer would operate only with the ignition on. So anyone seeing your accident can pull over and switch their car off and then make a call. Even if you need to make an emergency call yourself I reckon the proportion of accidents in which you'd be able to operate a phone yet unable to switch off the engine in rather small.

Steve Jobs no longer Eggman as Beatles hits iTunes

stucs201
Jobs Horns

re: "get album art"? P'wah / @Mike Flugennock

Thats fine. Except to use it you have to embed the artwork in every file (thus storing the same data many times). Using the 'Get album artwork' feature stores the artwork once, which seems a far more sensible idea.

OK, I'd quite like a feature in iTunes to take an image file and store it in the same way as the 'get album artwork' feature does, but Apple don't seem interested in implementing this.

stucs201
Jobs Horns

Artwork

Have you managed to actually get it? Its refused to download anything for half of them for me.

'Spacetime cloak' could act as 'Star Trek transporter'

stucs201
Coat

"you have to embed the cloak in a non-vacuum medium"

Well thats no use for Star-Trek then is it? Whats the point of a cloaking device that doesn't work on a spaceship?

Mines the red one...

Apple readies iTunes for Beatles juice, says report

stucs201
Go

I'm am interested despite having the CDs...

...but only for the same reasons as anything else - the ability to have *album* artwork stored once, rather than wastefully individually embedding it in every track of an album.

Man cracks open floppy disk, inserts USB Flash drive

stucs201

New computers don't even have floppy drives

My core i7 system is about 10 months old (so not exactly ancient). I'm sure that 3.5" hole is a floppy drive, certainly I ended up at an A> prompt the other day when I shoved a DOS boot disk in it.

(OK, this being a system I built myself is something of an exception. My previous PC even had a 5.25" drive since it took less room installed in the case than stored in the parts drawer).

stucs201
WTF?

Is that...

...an IBM disc and an Apple keyboard?

Pure One Mi portable DAB/FM radio

stucs201
FAIL

To: Peter Gathercole

Well add a big fat FAIL for DAB as a portable technology as whole then, not just for this particular unit :)

stucs201
FAIL

No excuse

for proprietry batteries in a radio. They should run off AAs or similar.

Our PARIS becomes GLOBAL MEDIA SENSATION

stucs201
Paris Hilton

Wikipedia

Does somone who knows what they're doing with such things fancy updating the Wikipedia entry? Its whinging about a lack of non-primary references, a few links to the above articles should fix this nicely.

Needs linking to Playmobil too :)

Paris? Well duh!

Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

stucs201

Does it cope with twins?

Identical ones?

Steelie Neelie calls for 'every vehicle digital'

stucs201

OK, I'll agree to an extent

But even if slowing down by taking your foot off the accelerator there is (as my instructor pointed out) some merit to putting your foot on the brake pedal a little bit - it lights up those funky red lights on the back of the car that in turn can improve the reaction time of the person behind you.

stucs201

Obsolete advice

"I learnt to drive over a quarter of a century ago and my instructor told me "Brakes are for stopping and correcting mistakes. Not for adjusting your speed"."

I learnt more recently. My instrutor told me such advice was obsolete and from the days of less effective brakes. He also pointed out brake pads are cheap, engines and gear boxes are expensive.

Hacker unshackles Kinect from Xbox

stucs201

Whats the problem

So, the market for this glorified web-cam is now potentially increased from xbox owners only to xbox and pc owners. As long as the hardware isn't cloned this is surely a good thing for microsoft.

USB fanboys teased with 16-port hub

stucs201

Better than the alternative extreme

When I first heard of daisy chaining USB my first thought was how long before someone puts a hub in a mouse...

Top Ten Retro PC Games

stucs201
WTF?

Tetris?!

See title

stucs201
Pirate

which version

I think the later VGA Elite+ may have been 90s, however the original CGA version would be 80s.

(Pirate: I must have shot thousands of them to finish both versions)

Microsoft's Office ribbon hits Mac fans

stucs201
FAIL

Bad example

Windows 95 *did* let you revert to the old option for the most changed bit of UI (starting programs). Program manager was still shipped and could be configured as an alternative to the start menu.

Which kind of disproves the point you were trying to make, using your own example to do so.

DARPA fashions miracle robotic attachment from balloon, coffee

stucs201
Thumb Up

Dalek!

Looks like Davros' idea for a fingerless manipulator arm wasn't so daft after all. I'm sure Darpa are already working on the other arm...

Apple bolts chastity belt on super svelte MacBook Air

stucs201

er, I meant

replacing the keyboard with touchscreen. Which should make the DS comments make more sense. doh!

stucs201
Jobs Horns

I suspect the 'keyboard' will light up

when they decide they can make it even thinner by eliminating what little key travel there is by replacing the screen with a touchscreen. They'll then claim this as a 'magical and revoluionary' innovation; with a lawsuit against Nintendo for the DS for patent infringement being the only acknowledgment that the DS has a similar arrangement.

Mobe operators foresee SIM-based contactless payment

stucs201
Thumb Down

I'm no more interested...

...in paying for things with my phone than I am in making a call with my bank card (*).

If they keep adding irrelevant features to phones like this its only a matter of time before Victorinox enter the handset market.

(*) Actually the later can sort of be done, but I can't remember the last time I found the need for a pay-phone.

Alternative iPhone 4 nears end of test phase, claims insider

stucs201
Joke

Isn't this just....

....the white version?

Jobs savages 7-inch tablet competition

stucs201
FAIL

Doh!

"He did, however, make one suggestion that might mitigate the challenge of a smaller screen — albeit a painful one: "While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.""

So, never heard of a stylus steve?

Powermat iPhone 4 wireless charging kit

stucs201

but what about those of us who dock our phones into speaker units

Er, how about forget about this device altogether and just plonk your phone into the dock to charge?

Angry Birds addicts crash GetJar site

stucs201
Terminator

only remaining platform?

Can't seem to find the PC version. Or are computers (and consoles?) suddenly not gaming platforms?

Ah well, back to stomping Giant Death Robots over Japan in CIV5 then...

(terminator, death robot - if not a particularly giant one.)

Tablets? Pah! Netbooks still selling well, says analyst...

stucs201

Because not all laptops don't spend time there

Some are just used to be moved between desktops, and are still a lot smaller than the non-laptop portable PCs that used to exist.

I'll maybe agree if the size of laptops gets to the 24" size of my desktop screen.

stucs201

"Proper keyboard"?

No you get a physical keyboard, but not a proper one. A proper one is something like a Model M :)

Digital Stream DHR8203U Freeview HD DVR

stucs201

Er Freeview HD and a *DVD* drive?!

I think people buying a HD box might be a tad more interested in a Blu-Ray drive...

High-speed asteroid pile-up prompts X-File

stucs201

Buy Jupiter it has been done before

Well the concept of space based advertising at least. See the story "Buy Jupiter", by Asimov.

Sony Reader PRS-350 Pocket Edition

stucs201

I've looked at one

It looked exactly like the old (*non* backlit) mono lcd screens I've seen. The sort that reviewers used to critisise for being readable only in bright light. I'm not (as some of the people replying seem to think) comparing with a modern backlit lcd.

stucs201

very noticeable lag that reminded me of passive matrix LCDs of old

Not just the lag. The whole appearance of these e-ink screens reminds me of them (and the reasons we got rid of them!). Which makes me wonder what the point of e-ink is, even the low-power advantage isn't as great when compared to a passive mono lcd and as a brightly backlit colour one.

KeyCase iPad Folio Deluxe

stucs201
Jobs Horns

I really should have gone to the patent office.

I expected to see this produced sooner or later as soon as I saw the iPad. Really should have patented the idea (though I'd probably have suggested connecting via the dock connector and not having a separate battery at all...)

As for (in)compatibility with future iPads I suspect it won't take much to make it incompatible. Sure the bluetooth connection is likely to work, but I'd be amazed if Apple don't make some change to dimensions or styling that break the more basic requirement of the case physically fitting.

stucs201

Does whinging about the crappy feel make much sense?

While I might prefer something based on cherry blues or buckling springs, any keys with any feedback has to be better than bashing a flat piece of glass.