Posts by Dave 126 10660 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010
> doesn't really have any design to it what so ever
It is because so many wrongly take 'design' to only refer to the appearance of things that Dieter Rams prefers the the term (translated into English) 'Form Engineering'.
'Design' should mean no less than the consideration of every aspect of the product, from engineering, ergonomics, aesthetics, storage, disposal, marketing.... the works.
>Never understood why the iMac G4 design didn't last - was it a flop, unreliable, etc.?
The article cited a dodgy power switch and production problems with the case.... but it was also said that some people (pointy-haired bosses?) would place paperwork on top of it and thus block its vents.
Another reason is that it was pricer than the Mac Pros at the time, and less upgradable.
I liked the way the Cube was designed around the thermal considerations- having the motherboard arranged to form a chimney to encourage air convection was a good idea. The other obviously good idea (even to tech-illiterate PHBs, who shout 'Who will rid me of this snake's nest of cables on my desk?!") was the single cable from the Cube to the monitor, carrying video signal, power, audio and USB- the latter daisy-chained to the keyboard and onto the mouse.
>The mac stuff looks nice but it's form over function - fewer ports, non removable batteries etc.
When Apple did do removable batteries, they did them well (each had a little button that showed its charge level through some LEDs).
Anyway, replacing a battery is not a weekly operation - some greater inconvenience every four years is for some a fair trade-off if it means the thing is lighter to carry every day. Design, like engineering, is a succession of compromises.
Okay, your point holds- you can connect a mouse, keyboard, local storage and an external monitor to both the PS3 and SG3 to satisfy some definition of 'computer', but personally I find the SGS3 to be a little generic-looking to be featured in a 'top ten sexy' list.
Curiously, the original Playstation was a deliberate homage by the Sony Design Centre to Frog Design's work for Apple... especially the use of grill-like lines in the casing. Frog have worked with Sony in the past though, since they worked with Wega before Sony bought it. And having just looked at their site, I see they designed my first ever mouse, a Logitech that came with an Olivetti 8086.
I visited their NY studio once, and on display was a 90s-era black cast-magnesium PC case with the same ridges... only this time more functional as the case itself would act as a heatsink. I can't remember who the client was, I think I just assumed it was IBM.
I'd forgotten about all those Cray advertisements that were in the piles of old National Geographic magazines I was bought up with. The adverts stated that they were supercomputers, but they always looked like modernist furniture.
There are a range of products and brands I'll always associate with that magazine and era: Rolex, SLRs (usually pictured next to a marble chess set and a whisky glass), Seiko digital watches, Datsun, Betamax VCRs, Wildlife as Canon sees it, BMW, various airlines...
>Re: Why would anyone want this?
Convenience. Not everybody has got around to collecting telephone numbers and email addresses from everybody they might wish to contact- Facebook often serves as a glorified addresses book and messaging system. Even from people who have my email address, I regularly receive messages sent through Facebook (forwarded to my Gmail)- which is annoying since replying to them is a long-winded processes for me (because I refuse to activate my phone's FB integration, and keep it at arms-length in the browser).
No, its just another Android phone with this FB skin pre-loaded.
Anyways, I use the Ice Cream Sandwich 'battery saver' mode, which means that my phone doesn't use its data connection when in standby to receive live email / instant messages etc- so even if I wanted my lock-screen to be constantly updated with a succession of baby/puppy/comedy images (I don't), it would be too much of a power drain.
The Sony skin on my handset has some sort of FB integration pre-loaded- exactly what I don't know, as I have never logged in to it for fear of Bad Things happening (like my contacts' email addresses being replaced with @Facebook). If I ever get around to rooting the phone, I'll get rid of it, along with a currently unremovable McAfee trial.
The same chip being reviewed in a different convertablet:
"Beyond our scripted test, we spent some time actually using Photoshop and found it to be impressively responsive, both with a mouse and the digitizer pen. It's really only when you tax the 500T's limited resources that they buckle."
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ativ-smart-pc-500t-windows-8-atom,3360-8.html
>false advertising?
'Pro' doesn't mean anything... the requirements of a video production professional differ from that of, say, an event organiser.
>You can get 3 points on your licence in Britain for using a hand-held mobile phone,
As several papers pointed out at the time that legislation came in, it seems only to refer to mobile phones, with 'similar device' being a fuzzy term. There have been successful defences on the premise the driver was using their phone to record a voice memo.
However, as the Gov guidance notes, it is what the police officer at the time thinks is distracting. Like that driver who was prosecuted for holding an apple (the fruit) whilst driving.
>It is far more likely to boost sales of the PS4 than the console it's designed for.
Yep, and given that there would appear to be less difference between the next generation of XBOX and PlayStation than between their current models, silly decisions like this on MS's part could have more of a negative impact on them.
>I think it is hilarious that they tried to patent the "detection of a a microphone or other device is plugged into a device's input jack"
They haven't. They've tried to patent a METHOD of doing so... the merits of which are a different question. You've confused means for end.
Shimano didn't try to patent the idea of putting brakes on a bicycle, but they did patent the idea of using a cam to increase the mechanical advantage throughout the travel of the brake lever so that the brake pads initially move quickly.
>They have nuclear devices capable of creating a detonation. That's not the same as a nuclear weapon. They could still be the size of a truck and not in any way weaponised.
An ICBM, it is true, does allow you to place the 'kaboom!' on your enemies and not on yourself (a rough and ready definition of weapon), but a boat would do the trick as well- albeit slower and open to interception.
If a bloody large wooden horse is off-loaded in a US port with a tag reading "To honour our victorious enemies, love and kisses, Kim Jong Un"....
>El Reg has nukes?!
Yeah they do, but for peaceful purposes. The SPB has yet to finish proof-reading their report on their efforts, though:
Having sourced material from smoke alarms processed on a conventional gas hob, they intend to put a plymobilenaut into orbit by launching a succession of bombs behind the launch vehicle.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) for more details of this principle.
> another is that the consumer will often be part of a family
Good point, and it has given me an idea- with more devices capable as acting as a remote control (traditional IR, phones and tablets over Blutooth, WiFi, whatever) there is more scope for conflicting instructions being issued to the TV/Set Top Box. My solution? When a multi-user command conflict is detected, the users are thrown into a quick bout of Tetris/Tekken to decide who has 'the power' for the next half hour.
I use the word 'solution' in the broadest sense etc...
>Rechargeable, so it needs to spend time on an induction pad every few hours?
You missed the Reg article on Apple's patents on selective wireless charging with a range of around a metre
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/02/apple_wireless_charging_patent/
Besides, it might be the size of a wedding band, or it might be more like one of those little ring mice people use for presentations, or it might be complete bunkum.
>found buried in dust inside a heating vent or deep in the crack between dishwasher and drawers.
Losing it seems only of the chief issues. The best remote controller I saw was the size of a house brick and painted hi-vis orange - a remote for a overhead gantry in a factory. That looks great, I told the fitter, no way that can get easily lost like a TV remote.
"You'd have thought so," he replied "but some cnut always manages to hide it in his toolbox"
>Consider it.. ...a badge of ownership.
A little bit like the Bang and Olufsen key-fob remote control:
" With it you are able to turn on the radio, TV and lights as you step through the door and switch everything off again as you leave! " though it strikes me, for the same functionality, you'd be better off with a wall-mounted unit next to your front door.
-http://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=734
>What is the obsession with everything having to be online and interconnected?
The argument for the fridges being connected is that they could be instructed to turn itself off during events such as the proverbial "millions of kettles put on during the Coronation Street advert break", thus reducing the load on the National Grid. The thermal mass of a fridge or freezer is such that being turned off for five minute would not result in any appreciable change in temperature.
Most of the time the grid functions well below its maximum capacity, and only approaches it for short peaks. Which means it has to be engineered to cope with loads that are rarely required. To cope with spikes in demand, things such as gas turbine generators have long been used, since a conventional power station can't react quickly enough to meet them.
Of course there are security concerns, but having simple measure in the end device - such as only responding to power-off commands for ten minutes in any hour, for example - would go a long way to limit any malicious intent.
Apple only switched to Intel after it had demonstrated its advantages over rivals for a few years- AMD was a bit hot at the time, Power chips more so - and their hand was forced. Besides, not all of the ARM architecture's power savings currently translate for desktop/laptop purposes, certainly not enough to go through all the bother of causing 3rd party developers loads of work. So, I would image Apple will continue with a 'wait and see' bet-hedging strategy, using this new ARM in one of their more niche products first (like an Apple TV) first, if at all.
Or I'm completely wrong, and Apple will appeal to their traditional power users (those whose tools often emulate pens, knobs and sliders - i.e graphics, video and music) and bring out a Wacom-threatening iOS super iPad designed more for productivity than consumption (I don't really think so... such people can already tether their pad and use it as a control surface if they want to).
Personal websites...
In the days before mobile phones were totally ubiquitous (yet WAP was beginning to rear its monochrome head), I was tempted to create a site to let people know what pubs I would be in at various times that evening. Back then, it wasn't uncommon for a group of people to say "We'll be in the Red Lion 7.30 til 8.30, then the Tavern til 11, then the Parrot Club" and stick to it, so the idea had some legs. As it turned out, I was too busy drinking to be bothered.
There must have been thousands of people around the world at the time who had similar 'social networking' concepts, but were too busy socialising to do anything about it.
By the time I had graduated, sites skin to Myspace but for product designers had appeared, so there didn't seem to be much point.
I would recommend reading this transcript to a lecture given by Mike Lazaridis, a co-founder of RIM, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/mike-lazaridis----the-power-of-ideas/4053180
An excerpt:
"Over 90% of the time on the venture capitalist model you'd be losing your bet. But a few percent of the time you'd be making breakthroughs, because that's the other thing trailblazers do, they discover things that are utterly new. We need a system for scientific research that allows researchers to get lost exploring, maybe even encourage them to get lost exploring, because you know what? It's worth it. It's the path to breakthroughs. That is the kind of science that will give us the next generation of truly fundamental breakthroughs, things on the order of Maxwell's unification of electricity and magnetism, or Einstein's notion of space-time, or quantum mechanics.
"I'm talking about physics because physics is my passion, but of course we need breakthroughs in every major scientific area. And the impact of breakthroughs? History has taught us that it's impossible to say, even the discoverers can't say it. Brattain, Shockley and Bardeen came up with the transistor while trying to figure out how quantum mechanics worked in solids. They figured their new invention would probably be important to, say, the hearing aid industry. They had no idea what their discoveries would mean to the world."
And he is putting his own money into it.
>From the very inception of the "Pin Code" we have been laughing at how insecure this system is.
That's all well and good, but the risk has to be compared to the alternatives. I haven't done the sums on the risk of losing money through card fraud versus the risk of losing money through losing your wallet, or having a £20 slip from your pocket.
We were told on our product design course that car manufacturers would have several design teams; working on the cars to be released in one, three and five years time. The constraints for phones are different, and the time-scales probably shorter, but yeah, there's nothing surprising here.
>If Apple allowed other app stores, then that is fine, but as its a locked down ecosystem, it is pure censorship...If Apple allowed other app stores, then that is fine, but as its a locked down ecosystem, it is pure censorship...
Er, the thing has a web browser, y'know. You might want to reserve that phrase for when iDevices only connect to a limited number of websites on an Apple whitelist. Another solution for you would be to transfer a load of pictures from your computer to the iDevice- and saving your data allowance, too. Unlike news and emails, it matters not if the playmate picture is a month old (the picture, not the playmate).
If the owner has the know-how, they can 'jailbreak' the iDevice and use the Cydia app store. If they don't have the know-how, then maybe it isn't the worst thing that the device limits what the user can do to it.
I knew they used to publish a lot of stories. The following list of writers published in Playboy between 1960 and 1990 is from Wikipedia, but it appears realistic enough:
Saul Bellow, Sean O'Faolain, John Updike, James Dickey, John Cheever, Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Crichton, John LeCarre, Irwin Shaw, Jean Shepherd, Arthur Koestler, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, John Irving, Anne Sexton, Nadine Gordimer, Kurt Vonnegut and J. P. Donleavy, as well as poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
I was going to ask the same (though I'd have to take a soldering iron to a spare Sennheiser cable to really make it worth while)- what's the audio quality like with modern Bluetooth standards/dongles? I read somewhere that some protocols can just punt your source mp3 file to the 'phones, without transcoding to a different format on the way... An Idiot's Guide To wireless audio would be handy : D
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