Posts by Dave 126

Re: Fingerprint reader

Eh Hans?

Biometrics is likely enough to prevent you being sued if you're a professional with data about your clients on your phone, should you lose your phone. You can remote wipe before a thief can fake your fingerprint with super glue.

If you're about to enter the USA or go to a protest in Hong Kong then hold down the power button and 'Enter Lockdown' (after enabling Show Lockdown Option under Security settings). On iOS, hold down two buttons for five seconds (newer phones) or tap power button five times (older).

Re: Fingerprint reader

You're best off waiting a few weeks until reviewers and consumers have had a chance to test it with a glass screen protector. In the meantime, you can Google people's experience of using the Galaxy S10 ( another phone with an under the screen finger print scanner) with glass screen protectors - a brief look suggests that some work better than others (though you might want to look a bit more in depth than I have, since some of the top search results read like paid content).

Having an air gap blinds ultrasonic sensors (which is which a gel is applied to the skin for medical ultrasound scans), so it's very plausible that using an optically clear adhesive with a glass screen protector will allow the finger print sensor to work.

Re: How does that make DeX more useful?

I guess DEX allows you to use a borrowed laptop without having to sign the laptop into (and more importantly, out of ) various services such as email. Could be handy, could potentially offer security benefits depending upon how it works.

Of course, throwing in features just because they can has always been Samsung's MO with the Galaxy and Note lines - see my comment about the Note 10+'s 3D laser scanner.

The notification will come from the Monzo app itself, displaying the the Monzo 'M' notificatiin, not via SMS or email.

I haven't heard of a malicious email or text being able to spoof the notification icon of a different app.

Of course there's nothing to stop a bad actor sending out emails purporting to be from Monzo, but they're not likely to fool many users, since they are used to interacting through the Monzo app.

Re: What can a user do ? Use multiple devices ?

The triplication system requires a polling system - i.e if Phone C returns a different answer to the other two, you can hazard a guess that C is wrong and A and B are okay.

If you simply have three different phones, say iOS running on Apple and Intel hardware, Android running on Qualcomm, and BBOS running on Broadcom, then you run the risk of giving an attacker more attack vectors if each phone has access to your email or banking services.

Of course you could have multiple phones, each one only turned on for a specific use. It wouldn't be impractical to have your main bank account tied to one phone, which you keep at home in a safe. Your out and about phone would have access to your secondary back account, which would only contain enough funds for each day - limiting how much a miscreant could take.

Re: Same old

Formally Verified Code has been around as a concept since the 1970s, but it is only recently that people are looking at using it.

It is very hard to do, apparently, but the cost of not doing so ( in this world of internet banking, computer controlled cars and drones etc) is making people look at it again. Tools are being developed to make it easier, bit it remains difficult.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/formal-verification-creates-hacker-proof-code-20160920/

Re: No word on the possible impact on Apple?

See Project Treble, which Google mandated be on all phones that shipped with Android Pie. It is a more modular Android, making updates much easier for OEMs to roll out, potentially removing the need for OEMs to do much at all.

Google did learn from the historical issues with Android that led to a reliance on OEMs. Chromebooks, for example, can be updated on the fly by Google without any ODM input.

Re: I want

Samsung have only just ditched the headphone socket from their flagship phones, so at the time you were choosing your handset you still had that option.

I'm now on the fence about a headphone socket. Whilst I use it often in the car, I can hear noise if I'm charging the phone from the cigarette lighter socket, something impossible through a Bluetooth connection and less likely through an included USB 3 > 3.5mm dongle. My work around is to charge a battery pack from the car and then use that to charge my phone. I suppose I can either buy a better fag lighter charger or buy a dongle, either for around a tenner. Chromecast Audio takes care of audio at home, Bluetooth earphones at work allow me to move around whilst charging my phone. Since I'm now sold on Active Noise Cancelling earphones, were I to buy a wired pair (say for long distance travelling to complement my battery powered wireless earphones) they would be USB 3.

Re: What I dont get is...

£500 bought me a new flagship Samsung only ten months after its release - i.e, waiting until its successor was announced saved a few hundred quid. That's cheerfully between the 600 and 400 cited by the above posters.

I have spent around around £30 on four glass screen protectors in the last eighteen months, but that seems like a bargain compared to a new screen. The phone has also shrugged off three or four accidental dunkungs in water since I've had it too, events that in the past would have meant me buying a new handset.

Re: I'm quite surprised they announced it at all

Microsoft's AR Minecraft and Niantec's Pokémon Go are better examples of efforts to map real life environments - the user is encouraged to point the phone at the wider environment. This short range radar is only focused on the users' hands.

Google's applications for Soli seem limited - music control etc - since the data doesn't leave the dedicated chip ( that just exports a media control trigger or whatever). This keeps the permissions simpler and mitigates a data slurp backlash, but maybe later versions will have an API if 3rd applications seem worthwhile.

From Ars Technica:

"Google promises that its FaceID "image data never leaves your phone" and that the data is "never saved or shared with other Google services." Soli data will get the same on-device treatment."

Just to clarify, the FaceID is done with two IR cameras and projectors, not the radar bit. The radar bit merely tells the phone to scan for a face when the user reaches for the phone.

Some Parkinson's patients today already have have electrical stimulation chips implanted against their spinal column.

Non invasively, electrodes on the outside of the skull can allow, with practice on the part of the patient, crude movement of a mouse cursor. Could be useful for people with motor neuron disabilities.

One should look at science fiction to consider and discuss trends, but one should also look at what is today's technology.

A Swedish friend of mine told me they use wooden knives to spread butter. I don't know why wood is better than stainless steel, but were I to investigate I would start by looking at the friction and thermal conductivity of the knives.

Re: Little will really change

Well, it's been Mission Successful for a while at Apple, if you consider Steve Jobs 1984 talk about the iPad. Seriously.

The low hanging fruit have been plucked.

Re: so his crowning achievement

Fanbois aren't the market for the display or its stand. The clue is in the Pro moniker.

Re: it's the only way he could fulfil his dream

He's not a big computer user in general, preferring to work with materials hands-on. There may well have been a time a decade or so back when members of his team were using Windows workstations for CAD.

HP does have that interesting desktop with a 3D scanner and projector built in, but I haven't heard much of it in professional workflows ( likely because more expensive and capable systems already existed)

Re: Little will really change

> They will continue to use him, because who else is there?

Talented designers are rare, but what are rarer are companies whose upper management really understand the importance of good design.

Re: so his crowning achievement

Design, engineering and tooling costs are spread across every unit sold. So if you're making an accessory for a very expensive monitor that very people will buy (and of them, many will use a VESA solution of some kind), there aren't many units to spread the costs across. Now, a sane person would have thought that because so few people have need of such a monitor stand that any outrage about the price tag would be limited, but no, this is the internet.

Forgive me if I don't feel outraged on behalf of a video production house whose equipment is insured for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Re: Might be beneficial

> phone design that has a screen without a stupid fucking notch and with a bloody headphone jack

Samsung flagships - up to the S9 - have had no notch and a headphone socket, yet have suffered a similar decline in sales to iPhones. Make of that what you will.

Re: Good news ...

You ask for updates to Apple's 'dated' design, but I'm sure you can acknowledge that others here will ask for a return to the iPhone 5 design and the Cheesegrater.

So, faced with the task of appeasing both parties I'd likely just retire and do what I want, especially if it saves me a commute.

Re: Might be beneficial

Seriously?

iPod, very usable.

iPhone, usuable, most phones today resemble it.

Cheesegrater Mac Pro. Very usuable, very serviceable.

Now, do you realky think the decision to charge a large margin on fitting extra RAM to a computer was Jony Ive's? No, nor me. So following that reasoning, what other decisions may have been made by others? Exactly. So why are you blaming one man?

Re: Box, slab, or cylinder; expensive, premium, or ultra elite

>Apple also likes to take industry standard systems, change them so they're not compatible, then drop support.

Apple also help create and / or popularise industry standards - see FireWire, Thunderbolt and USB C, so meh.

> This mentality spilled over into Android cellphones and killed their sales too.

Phones being a mature product and being well built - thus lasting longer - has played a role in falling sales too. Shit, the lack of new technology arriving to make a new phone a must-have is industry wide, so it's bizarre that you blame Jony Ive for a fall in Android sales.

Also, are you sure that it was Ive that killed the original Cheesegrater Mac Pro, or was the decision driven by others at Apple? There are a lot of people, from operations, supply, strategy, who play a role in deciding which product lines to continue.

Re: Little will really change

Apple's internal strategists are too smart to make Jony Ive or any other individual a scapegoat for the company missing quarterly targets, especially when rivals such as Samsung are enduring similar woes.

Ive has been at Apple for 25 years, and has been well payed. He doesn't need the money, and is on record as saying he's tired. It's not hard to imagine why he'd want to leave management behind and get back to his passion of design on a wider range of briefs than Apple require of him (see his side projects with Marc Newson for RED, Leica and others)

The smartphone is a mature product category, with no nascent technology likely to change that anytime soon.

https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-a-Brick#suppressXlink#shopxlink

Lets you order individual parts. They closed a service in 2012 tglhst let you order parts lusts created by other users.

Re: iPadOS?

And yet full featured Photoshop is on iPad and not Android. Ditto many other content creation applications, especially those for music production and live performance.

For sure, multiple windows and file access might be handy for some office tasks, but that's kind of what a laptop is for.

Tool for the job, yeah?

Re: We've seen it all before

I don't care about innovation, it does nothing for my actual user experience. Refinement, on the other hand, is valuable.

One feature that until now has required 3rd party software is the ability to use an iPad as a Mac's secondary monitor and graphics tablet. Leading up to the announcement of the first iPad, I was assuming that Apple would have this feature in from the outset. It is the kind of thing that they - controlling the hardware and OSs - would have an easier time implementing than say Dell or Microsoft.

Re: iPadOS?

Not only Google, but 3rd party Devs never had that much incentive to develop for Android tablets.

Past reports here on the Reg suggested that iPads initially outsold Android tablets by a large margin, and in addition iOS users spent more on apps. Of the Android tablets sold, many were cheap n cheerful, bought chiefly to give to kids to watch videos on. Also, developing for iPads meant catering to a narrower range of hardware and OS versions. In short, a developer wanting to make money was more likely to focus on iPads.

In recent times, it's only Samsung who have tried to make a premium Android tablet (lovely OLED screen) but it costs near as damn it the same as an iPad Pro. Nice hardware, but as you limited in tablet apps (though it does the Dex trick of giving you a mouse and keyboard desktop if you want it)

Re: @AC Yuk

You're right, nobody in the market for this class of machine builds their own, but instead buys a certified workstation from Dell or HP or whoever. The hardware and driver configuration has been tested against the OS and specific application software.

Re: Corporates like idevices?

The article is talking about new features that let employees use their own personal iPhones:

"The key thing here is that the Managed Apple ID co-exists with the user's own personal Apple ID – the two don't interact, and the user can get to personal and work data without worrying that their own data might get wiped.

Under the hood, an entirely separate APFS volume is created for managed accounts, apps and data on the iThing, cryptographically separated from the user's own business."