Posts by Dave 126

Re: Is it just me......

D'Oh! I knew I missed an important one!

Re: Is it just me......

What, things like Tyrell Corp, Weylan Yutani, Ono Sendai, Omni Consumer Products, Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, General Forge and Foundry, General Products...

Re: Good luck Microsoft...

>It'll be interesting to see if their vision becomes a reality; merging the fondle tablet and keyboad/mouse desktop genres. Time will tell weather it flops or flies.

Throw in the wildcard of touchless human input- MS have researched this, LeapMotion are gathering interest (and have just signed a deal with Asus to incorporate it into laptops).

I say wildcard, cos it might be that people don't want to wave their hands in the air. Time will tell, as you say.

Re: ECT

'Strewth DestroyAM, that's pretty dense. You seemed to have compressed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Enquiry into Values into the first paragraph, and it's follow-up Lila: An Enquiry into Morals into the second.

Re: Again, sort of want

And again:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000.69168.0.html

Compared to the Intel HD Graphics 3000 in Sandy Bridge CPUs, the HD 4000 card was completely redesigned and offers improved DirectX 11 capable shaders, Hardware Tessellation, a dedicated level 3 cache... ...In the slower i7-3610QM and a dual core i5 it was on a similar level as the Radeon 6620G. Therefore, casual gamers that wont mind reducing the quality settings in high end games, may be happy with the performance of the HD Graphics 4000.

Due to the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate production process, the power consumption should be relatively low (the development was focused on performance per Watt).

Things do change, you know.

Re: Too fookin' heavy

The HD4000 integrated graphics allows most games at lower settings, decode 4K video and run up to three monitors... should be fine for most people other than gamers, modellers and CUDA-abusers, no?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000.69168.0.html

>What happens when the system becomes so cripplingly slow that you have to nuke and pave? Will it reinstall all >your apps or is it going to be a PITA?

You make a disk image (clone) to an external disk (or network resource) once you have your system as you like it- settings, software installed, nice wallpaper etc. In the event of registry clog, theft, a nasty virus or an act of dog, you recover your system from that image.

What do you currently use?

Re: How can Microsoft get this stuff so wrong

> the kind of apps which need 8GB are not the kind of thing you should be running on a tablet.

>But then why bother with an Intel processor?

The quantity of software that requires Windows on an x86 processor but is very happy on 4GB or less:

Shitloads.

I've rarely come close to that limit, with multi-layered high res Photoshop documents, CAD, a rendering package and far more Chrome tabs open than I need.

Re: Doomed from the start

>utensil porn.

"Ohh-err, I don't half fancy that vibrating fork I saw at CES"

Re: Missing the point of 3d printing...

It might be worth looking at a material called Kydex for phone holders... it most common hobbyist application is for gun holsters and knife sheaves- the sheet of Kydex is heated and formed around the object it will house. When cooled it retains flexibility and can be sanded etc.

Re: Interesting Pre-cept

>There will be resurgence when the off the shelf tech gets to an affordable price point, but to me this is a cliche headline marketing bumpf.

Agreed, when the Nokia rep put out the idea, he suggested the user making "a waterproof, glow in the dark case with a bottle opener". No.

The home user is often better off with some epoxy for making little things that. Kydex is a handy formable sheet material- well suited for making dashboard cradles for phones etc. Loving Sikaflex at the moment- a very strong adhesive and sealant, remains permanently flexible after curing.

I'm still assuming that no more people will own a 3D printer than currently own that hobbyist's favourite, a Dremel hand drill. I can currently see more practical uses for a desktop laser cutter for thin materials than a 3D printer in the home- larger functional objects, stencils, jigs... and yes, bottle openers.

Re: Now that's real innovation.

>Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?

Just found someone has done just that and implemented it. His blog is here:

http://srimech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/chorded-keyboard-for-mobile-phones.html

He wouldn't need the external battery if he owned an Android phone with USB OTG support...

Re: Now that's real innovation.

>To give you a hint, it'll be several orders of magnitude higher than buying a moulded, third party case, via eBay.

That's very true, if thousands of other people buy the same case. Which they probably will- I can't imagine someone having case requirements that are so off-the-wall that they are thy only person who have them.

Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?

Re: Hardware Piracy

>"How long 'till we see knock off lego."

You'd have a helluva job... Lego is injection moulded to very high tolerances. I did stumble across a tech website recently that plotted the standard deviation for Lego bricks made in different decades. Making Lego bricks is the very opposite of what you'd want a 3D printer for.

Re: You have got to be kidding

Doesn't have to be a ring... this person has a chip implanted (but then so does my dog) to give him quick instant access top a child-proof gun safe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxNjqN4Gdc0

Bit too far for my taste. It could easily be retrofitted to a wristwatch (or its strap) though. Yeah, I know that American commentards don't think that anyone wears a watch these days, but many of us in the rest of the world do.

With a ring, the logical conclusion is that any device you pick up temporarily becomes 'yours'. Pick up any phone, and it will be your contacts and emails displayed.

Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

>You can criticize Ballmer for many things but "award themselves" isn't one of them. His salary's the lowest of any tech CEO (including stock options and other cheats) by his own choice.

Fair enough. Obviously the programme wasn't speaking about Ballmer, it was more generic than that... but the mention of acquisitions being a way way to be seen to be doing something did chime with a few tech firms in recent years. For all I know, Ballmer may be competent, but if so then it isn't communicated well... the message isn't as clear. And then all you have to do is throw a couple of chairs and it's all people talk about.

MS have had products that have been premature, or late to the game, or else haven't set the world on fire. Media Centre Extenders, the Courier (Sony have since used the form factor, Samsung the finger+stylus combo), using the Windows brand in a confusing way (8, 8 Phone, 8 RT etc), using the Surface brand for first a coffee table then a tablet, killing off HomeServer...

Re: Innovation

>"the tech world's lurch into tablets and smartphones, "

>How many times have Microsoft been in denial about the potential success of a technology only to finally produce their own (much) later on

MS have been doing smartphone and tablet OSs for years... they just weren't great. [XP Tablet Edition, 2002] [Windows Pocket PC]

Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

There was a good programme on the radio yesterday, In Business. Basically, the conclusion was that people get to the level of CEO by a mixture of politics and good luck, and sometimes by displaying a tiny pinch of good judgement. Once near the top, they come to believe that they deserve their status, and award themselves. They feel that they must be seen to be 'dynamic', and therefore indulge in things like acquisitions- which rarely add value but do make a lot of noise, cause a distraction and make them look like they are doing something.

Re: Well blended

>I work that out as 1020.83 swimming pools.

That looks like false precision to me, unless you have data on the volume of all Reg readers! Have you installed sensors in our bath tubs? Eureka! : D

False precision:

"A guide in the museum tells visitors that this dinosaur fossil is 200 million and 4 years old... when asked, he says "Well, when I started working here they told me it was 200 million years old, and I've been working here for four years..."

Re: Right on Commander!

Piracy only works if there are some successful miners to rob first. Otherwise you're just in it for the rum, shanties and buggery.

Re: Space exploration is the only hope

Yeah, expanding into the solar system is our current economic model reductio ad absurdum.

Even then we would run out of habitable space eventually, though we could postpone that time a little more by reconfiguring our available matter into forms that have a higher surface area than rocks and planets - ie Ringworlds (AKA, Orbitals, Halos) or Dyson Spheres...

Hmm, it might be easier to just adopt a different economic system instead.

Re: JMC

>Wouldn't you rather contract out to Weyland Yutani?

No, I wouldn't. Red Dwarf looked more fun. Besides:

"Priority one

Insure return of organism for analysis.

All other considerations secondary.

Crew expendable."

-MOTHER

Re: hard to argue with what the anon guy said

>I'd agree that tablets are rubbish input devices,

Before eInk readers were cheap enough for consumers, they were used by pilots who are required to have a large quantity of documentation on board. This documentation was heavy and also subject to frequent updates, so justifying the cost of the device ($1,500 at launch).

From 2006:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/27/hands-on-with-arincs-iliad-based-eflybook/

Re: stop abusing and exploiting their student body

If Anon had been around in the eighties:

"It is scandalous that schools have bought overpriced BBCs when everyone knows Spectrums are better!"

Re: Best alternative is a Chromebook

ditto an Apple eMate 300! (Joking!)

A 1997 Apple Newton PDA with keyboard in a pre-iMac translucent clamshell, for schools only. Only saw one, my Design and Technology teacher had one to play with in an all Mac school - though a room adjoining the workshop in which we used drawing boards is now full of Windows SolidWorks workstations

Re: The problem with Jobs?

I remember Bill Gates reacting to Jobs accusation that he stole the Windows GUI from Apple. Gate's used an analogy along the lines of 'Imagine you had a friend who stole a TV set from his neighbour... now you go to the same neighbour and steal his other TV set, but your friend says you stole it from him...'

Re: >"rectangles with rounded corners [...] were “everywhere”."

An invention that exists only on paper is of no good to anybody (except patent trolls). Look at how much tech has been invented in the UK, and then look at how successfully they have been turned into money to reward the inventors. That observation alone should tell you that people who aren't inventors are required to turn ideas into products and money. That was Jobs' role.

What's yours, AC?

Even obvious and clearly superior ideas need to be championed, sadly. If you live the UK, look at the light switch on your wall- chances are that it is an inch-long switch with sharp corners sitting in the middle of a 4" plate, and it requires a firm press. Nasty. Now, look at the light switches that are commonly used on the continent- the switch is that same size as the plate, it has round corners and it can be easily tapped to switch between on and off.