* Posts by JDX

6847 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2010

$1bn for Instagram? Knock yourself out, Facebook - UK watchdog

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Confused

What jurisdiction does the UK have over two US companies? If they'd said it WASN'T OK, what difference would it make?

BBC gives itself a gold in 700Gbit-a-second Olympic vid sprint

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Re: BBC

I seem to remember pretty decent coverage 4 years ago - the main BBC coverage was similar to this time around.

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Um, BBC have recently (within the last 2 months) moved away from Flash. They trialed this for the "Hackney Weekend" festival - for the first time you can watch live stuff on iPad, etc. It seemed to 'just work' but I don't know what tech is utilized... Flash is still in there somewhere because on my Windows Phone it wanted Flash... I guess they maybe fall back to HTML5 on iOS specifically or something.

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Re: ch 4

Channel 4 has a good track record of their documentaries about the disabled (and anyone challenging the limits of humanity), which feed directly into their "meet the super humans" shows about paralympian athletes. Maybe if you watched them rather than make blanket accusations because C4 invented Big Brother you'd know these things.

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Re: Freeview?

Well firstly you're just plain wrong - Freesat had all 24 SD/HD extra channels and that is a free service like FreeView... it was wonderful.

Secondly, red-button on FreeView does NOT only show content from the existing channels. I don't know what they did at the Olympics but previously they have used it to show F1 practice, alternative tennis matches at Wimbledon and visualised radio shows - for instance when Moyles did the 52-hour show the whole thing was live video on the red button.

Microsoft, Adobe throw fire blanket over blaze of security flaws

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It is said by people who didn't ever study history.

Microsoft halts new apps on Windows Phone Marketplace

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Re: Cockup upon cockup.

Yes it's almost like they're showing some semblance of responsibility.

What options does Apple give? I had to set up a payment option on my iPad recently but put in my card number without looking what the other options were...

Office 2013 to eat own file-format dog food

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Open PDF as a Word file

That in itself makes it seem worth upgrading, if it wasn't for all this online malarkey.

From the brief work I did in this area, ODF and OXML are equally horrific.

Wannabe media barons outed in UK local telly bid list

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Low quality genuine local stuff might be OK but how they'd fill a channel all day I've no idea.

Android spanks Apple iOS in sales as fanbois hold out for iPhone 5

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Re: Sure

Grow up.

Saudi royals seek ban on .virgin, .sex, .catholic, .wtf and 159 MORE

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Re: "Many societies ... consider homosexuality to be contrary to their culture [or] morality"

So in that case you won't be telling them that oppressing women is wrong, because it's their business not yours and you want to set a good example?

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so-called “dot-brand” or “single-registrant” gTLD

I think these are stupid. Being able to own a whole TLD for yourself in the first place just massively ruins the ability of getting a domain that's useful.

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Re: You'd think -

Isn't that the argument in favour of .xxx? People aren't wanting to make it easy for them to block it for themselves, they object the thing is wrong in the first place and we should be working to stop it, not implicitly condone it . Hardly a complex argument, regardless of whether you agree with it.

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remind me what "freedom of speech" is

something which is decided on a nation by nation basis, not some world utopian ideal.

BeBook outs Kindle-beating e-book reader

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I'm confused, if your books are in the Kindle app then surely they will automatically appear on ANY device you sign into with your kindle ID, including an actual Kindle? e.g I have a Kindle, and when I installed the app on my iPad, Windows Phone, Mac and PC, the books were ready to read.

This slickness is one of Kindle's major strengths so I don't follow all the side-load advice, unless I misunderstood your setup?

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Why bother?

Aren't e-readers a sewn-up market right now? Sure the walled-garden zealots are a fervent minority but still a minority - and those people would probably pay the same/more to avoid lock-in. Joe Public is surely going to stick with brand-name security... iPad or Kindle.

Apple granted patent for in-cell touchscreen display tech

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Is this an honest-to-goodness...

...sensible patent for something real? Or is it a generic "patent something thinner" one?

Study shows half of all websites use jQuery

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Facepalm

Jquery itself is an unnecessary layer.

Yeah and the same for STL

Microsoft reveals Windows RT OEMs

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Re: Er, that gesture graphic... unknown object

Well they were IT people presumably, they'd probably never gotten near one.

Curiosity's new OS upgrade ready to go live

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Re: Clearly Fake

What's that got to do with religion? Seems to me you're just looking for excuses to start a secular rant against an argument nobody has made ;)

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Re: Is an OS upgrade not risky at that distance?

Since they are upgrading the software literally the moment it lands, I'm also confused why they didn't do it before take-off, considering how far ahead everything is planned.

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Re: Clearly Fake

Seriously though in a way it's kind of weird just how non-alien it does look. You feel like you could step out and walk around.

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Clearly Fake

I mean it just looks like photos from Earth ;)

They didn't even try and make it look alien by tinting it nice and red!

Microsoft: Gmail rival Outlook.com will 'look good on your iPad' 

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Re: boo

"Unless you're a plumber, people use webmail services to keep home and work lives separate"

Normal people use their home PC for home email and their work PC for work email... Outlook is/was (not sure they even provide it for free now) very widely used with the masses who would struggle to find a webmail. The number of people using the email address provided by their ISP is evidence of this.

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Re: Hmm

I haven't tried outlook.com but Outlook is by far the best desktop email application. However since gmail came along, I'm less and less convinced email needs a dedicated desktop app. I'm not in favour of moving every application into a web app but gmail is a wonderful counter-example.

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Re: Never mind design...

Congratulations on not understanding statistics.

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Re: "the time is right to reimagine email"

gmail was pretty much a re-imagining... when I go back to other web-based email or older versions of Outlook it's just horrible.

In my view, gmail ties with search as Google's best product.

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Sounds nice

Will wait and see though. MS have done a great job integrating social media on WP7 so they could get users by repeating that.

Blinkbox to sell Game of Thrones series 2 by stream

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Crap but a step forward

Even in crummy SD, these services NEED to get content to be better. Netflix is wonderful but lags way behind on US shows, even behind boxsets being released.

As for streaming-only... sorry guys but this is how things are going. Even though my usage isn't limited it feels wrong that I'm downloading Gbs every hour, but it works well and I just have to accept this is the future, and be consoled by the fact I can watch it on any of my devices (at home or anywhere with decent wifi) at the click of a button (or finger) without running a media server.

Hello nasty, don't use my music: Deceased Beastie Boy to admen

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Re: So, what happpens ...

Unless Adam has/had sole rights to the music, then the court case would be dismissed in about 2min.

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Re: Trolls Gotta troll

I'm not sure, possibly Bungle is the troll here. After all while their music has a message it is presented in contemporary popular form, otherwise known as 'pop music'. Most people like listening to it because of how it sounds, not what it says.

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Not legal?

I only recently set up my will and I was told if you leave things to people, you can't put conditions like this on it... you give something to someone and now it's theirs.

Alleged 'Xbox 720' dev box eBay'd for $20,100

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When I worked as a game developer, official PS2/XBox dev-kits like this went for around £10k IIRC.

Privacy snafu as TOPLESS Mark Zuckerberg picture leaks online

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"Mark Zuckerberg should manage his Privacy Settings"

Great job Mr. Anonymous. Except that your privacy settings can't stop someone posting a photo of you, they can only control whether you can be tagged and who can see that you're tagged.

For flock's sake: Scared sheep send SMSes to Swiss shepherds

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The sheep don't voluntarily send the message

Thanks for clearing that up.

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Re: False positives...

By monitoring several animals in a flock you can be more confident, and by using past data you can train your system to the same end.

And no, knowing a predator is attacking is valuable because you can get there when it's only one or two animals, not the whole herd.

Scrunched Street View spymobile spied in India

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Why is every car with a camera automatically a Google car, when other people do the same thing?

God-botherers burst onto IPTV Freeview: The End is Nigh

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Re: Firewall?

I like how you grouped CofE with Atheist.

NASA's nuclear Mars tank prepares for high pucker-factor landing

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Bets

So do we bet it lands OK, or that they stuff it?

Cast your prediction by the vote buttons...

Olympic athletes compete in RAYGUN SHOOTING for the first time

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Re: Outraged!

Wind and gravity don't impact on pistol shooting; it's too short distance. It's only 10m or so unlike rifle shooting over several hundred metres.

Recoil is more relevant but then since they already switched to air pistols...

Ever considered putting a rocket up someone's backside?

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Re: "an unnamed man in Darwin"

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Do we know which end he inserted?

Jackson’s Hobbit becomes a trilogy

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Re: of course it has to be three films.

Isn't Jackson one of the few directors who gets to call the shots and tell Hollywood "I'm doing it how I damn well want"?

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Re: I wonder why...

That was 3 films for 3 long books... each longer than The Hobbit.

On the one hand I'm sad it'll span 3 years to see all the films, on the other it would be nice for a change to see a proper, deep film version that pleases fans - provided they get the extra info from real books and don't just make up a backstory they like.

Maybe I'll wait until all 3 are out and watch them together.

Sony Xperia Go waterproof Android phone review

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Re: ICS fail points docking

When it starts to matter?

Samsung lets slip info on WinPho 8 Odyssey

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@fandom

If you really think lack of SD is a reason WP hasn't dominated, you've even stupider than you appear. As for multi-core... you can't even TELL if a phone has it without getting overly technical, you blithering idiot.

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What a fun thread this is, ACs arguing with each other (or themselves who can tell?) because they're too scared to admit they [dis]like WP.

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Re: A snowballs chance in hell

SD is allowed in WP8, and so are larger resolutions and multi-core. So in that case yes.

And all those things are not seen as deficiencies to mainstream users - WP7 is very solid and WP8 looks like it should be even better.

Netflix scores $1bn own goal after company shoots off mouth

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Re: Who wrote this?

Perhaps since they're tech journalists they don't have degrees in economics.

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Re: Really?

What content they have in the UK and US is very different, you burk. Most of NF's users aren't in the UK and neither are their shareholders.

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Re: completley missed the 2010 Olympics

Hardly anyone watches the winter Olympics though, do they?

Any Yanks here - how big a deal is Olympics (summer or winter) in the USA? Does the country go crazy for it and have massive TV coverage like the BBC does in the UK?