* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: But what about..

I think the Caves of Steel would be more fun as film than the later Foundation series. The sequel to the Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, featured a cover by Chris Foss that was more Arakis than Solaris. Of course, The Naked Sun wouldn't feature much more than a beautiful woman on a lovely planet... a challange for any cinematographer for sure.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: SciFi Channel version

Just to be clear - Jackson never wanted to make the Hobbit movie, but Guillermo del Toro pulled of directing during pre-production. The nature of the studio contract was that Jackson had to take on the reins, and couldn't put back the release date, forcing him to write the script as he filmed.

As for LotR, Jackson celebrated the landscape of NZ, just as Tolkien used a lot of words to describe Middle Earth.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Please, no more 'easter eggs' for geeks... Such things scratch at the forth wall.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Chris Foss's artwork and a little known fact

Foss also did a book called Diaries of a Spacegirl, combining b&w line drawings of naked women on some pages, and his full colour airbrushed work (as seen on many an Asimov paperback) on others.

I believe he also paints steam trains. Last i checked, he's still alive. Some contempory conceptual artist copied a Foss painting wholesale but made it much bigger. Weird.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: No Giger

Well some of the Jodowosky Dune team - including Giger, Foss and Bannon - went on to make Alien with Scott. The French artist Mobius was also part of the Dune project, and he's to have his Valerian work brought properly to the silver screen by Luc Besson this summer - though he got a credit on Besson's 5th Element to settle an IP dispute.

Whilst Giger might have been a good match for Jodowsky's Dune, I never saw the biomech aesthetic in Herbert's Dune - but thats just my opinion!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I thought Arrival was decent.

>yes, all that was evident in the movie. Still comes of as "bam, time travel, done"

IMO.

Most time travel movies have the plot: "Find or invent time machine. Travel in time. Mess with something. Discover bad unintended consequences. Try to fix it. Fix it. The End.*" Arrival was not like that.

*Of course we get themes and variations, where multiple time loops get invoked, or the bad stuff can't be undone. Perhaps the best of these is Primer.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Lynch's Dune was good, lots of people agree

> Can you see them advertising a film with a protagonist called Mua'dib leading a group of fanatical warriors in an almost-accidental jihad against the entire rest of the human universe?

The film is called Lawrence of Arabia and it received huge critical acclaim.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Lynch's Dune was good, lots of people agree

>is Decker a replicant? Well no coz he's in the new film and he's aged. Fuck you Hollywood.

So, someone turned off Decker's DRM - big deal.

Replicants were built with a finite lifespan as a form of security, that is to say that the finite lifespan was a human creation and not an inherent property of Replicants. Not only does it seem plausible that this limitation could be removed (either because someone found a backdoor or other security hole, or the company that built him had its own reason for removing it - or not actually implementing it in the first place), but it seems implausible that such a security measure could never be circumvented.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Make something new

> There comes a point where you've seen all future films before they are made.

And some people think that we humans only tell five or so basic stories.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I am obviously alone in this.

There are some brilliant aspects to Lynch's Dune - especially set and costume design. The noble houses were well differentiated. I also liked some aspects of the special effects, such as the Navigator. However, the special effects in some of the exterior scenes let it down a bit. Imagine if it boasted David Lean's cinematography from Lawrence of Arabia....

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Terrorists

Dune does have a lot of what is now called Asymmetric Warfare, but then so does Lawrence of Arabia.

The list of contents from Dune's Wikpedia page make's a good summery of themes that are as relevant today as they ever have been:

4.1 Environmentalism and ecology

4.2 Declining empires

4.3 Middle Eastern references

4.4 Gender dynamics

4.5 Heroism

4.6 Zen

Watch: MIT's terrifying invisible gel robo-eels snatch live fish

Dave 126 Silver badge

Reg headline

The Reg headline invites us to watch something invisible.

Impressive!

Apple weans itself off Intel with 'more ARM chips' for future Macs

Dave 126 Silver badge

Just to clarify the article a little (by quoting from the source material, the bold emphasis is mine):

The current ARM-based chip for Macs is independent from the computer’s other components, focusing on the Touch Bar’s functionality itself. The new version in development would go further by connecting to other parts of a Mac’s system, including storage and wireless components, in order to take on the additional responsibilities. Given that a low-power mode already exists, Apple may choose to not highlight the advancement, much like it has not marketed the significance of its current Mac chip, one of the people said.

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-01/apple-developing-new-mac-chip-in-test-of-intel-independence

In China, Apple's gegenpress doesn't scare the locals

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Movie studio branding

Cable Chanel branding might be a better analogy - the term 'HBO-style drama' is an accepted shorthand. AMC and Netflix have caught up perhaps, and even channels such as USA, known for police procedural series, will take a punt on the likes of Mr Robot.

Back in the days of buying CD albums (and without being able to listen to it first on YouTube), one could to an extent go by what record label the album was on.

Still, AO's point stands; Apple's core strengths don't translate to creating original content.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Movie studio branding

Pixar... formed from the stuff that was sold off to fund the making of Howard the Duck. Pretty sure there's an Apple connection here, too ;)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: April iPhone fatigue?

>This phone is sure to be able to do everything including wipe your backside after doing No 2's.

Since Japanese toilet vendors have recently agreed to standardise the symbols they use to mark the buttons for Bidet, Dry etc, they might even incorporate a Bluetooth or NFC-based API for controlling the crapper with a phone. Stranger things etc.

I don't know if the Koreans have similarly high tech bogs.

LG's $1,300 5K monitor foiled by Wi-Fi: Screens go blank near hotspots

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "LG's space-age monitors..."

"These are the days of miracle and wonder

This is a long distance call

The way the camera follows us in slo-mo

The way we look to a star

The way we look to a distant constellation

That's dying in a corner of the sky

These are the days of miracle and wonder

And don't cry baby, don't cry"

- From an album that begins with a description of an Improvised Explosive Device. It was a slow day...

Dave 126 Silver badge

"LG's space-age monitors..."

Isn't any post-CRT monitor 'space age'? Heck, even the Sony Trinitron CRT was only released in 1968, after man in had been in space and not long before man set foot on the moon.

So, let's have some suggestions for a phrase to replace 'space-age'. Please leave them below!

Mars age?

Reusable rocket age?

Twitbook age?

Apple CEO: 'Best ever' numbers would be better if we'd not fscked up our iPhone supply

Dave 126 Silver badge

Nah, he meant supply of iPhones.

It appears that the iPhone 6 is still available (including from such high street stores as John Lewis), so people have still had the option of buying a iPhone with headphone jack if they really want one. Apple's iPhone 7 sales resulats (as per article) suggest that many people haven't been that bothered about just leaving a Lightning dongle attached to their favourite headphones (or using the earbuds supplied with the iPhone 7).

Boeing's 747 to fly off the production line for the foreseeable future

Dave 126 Silver badge

Interesting:

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/how-qantas-ferried-an-engine-on-the-wing-of-a-747/

Baird is the word: Netflix's grandaddy gets bronze London landmark

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Bandwidth?

>Uh, I wonder how he planned to transmit it? HDTV did not really become practical until sufficiently effective digital compression was available.

Curiously enough, Baird wasn't working with digital video! And even if he was, each pixel would require very few bits because of the narrow colour gamut the system used. Telechrome didn't render blues or greens very well, but produced acceptable pink skin tones.

Dave 126 Silver badge

microgravity film processing

>Film was never processed in space, just way to tricky to do that in zero gravity.

Film was developed in space, on the Luna 3 probe which provided humans with their first ever images of the moon's far side:

After photography was complete, the film was moved to an on-board processor where it was developed, fixed, and dried. Commands from the Earth were then given to move the film into a flying spot scanner where a spot produced by a cathode ray tube was projected through the film onto a photoelectric multiplier. The spot was scanned across the film and the photomultiplier converted the intensity of the light passing through the film into an electric signal which was transmitted to the Earth (via frequency-modulated analog video, similar to a facsimile).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_3#Lunar_photography

Interestingly, the temperature resistant and rad-hardened film used by the Soviets for this mission was salvaged from USA spy balloons.

So jabuzz, never say never! :)

EDIT: a good link here: https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side/

Apple eats itself as iPhone fatigue spreads

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Adapters

>No. All it does is increase cost for the headphone.

If your headphones outlive your phone (which they should) that's not an issue. I don't know if you've noticed, but the cost of silicon gets cheaper over time.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Well....

Whilst Apple makes most of its money from phones, it has a history of making money by stealing the lunch of of others, including Sony (iPod), HMV (iTunes), Nokia (iPhone) etc. The idea that a smartphone is so good that the user has no need to upgrade was foreseen by Apple years ago. Apple knows what its history is. And it has a shitload of money to spend on acquisitions and R&D.

The above does not guarantee them success if they choose to break into new sectors. However, it does give them the benefit if the doubt before writing them off.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Innovation?

>What about... ... five SEPARATE connectors for charge, HDMI, data master, data slave and analogue audio/ear/mic.

Or you could just use a headless computer, ARM, x86 or otherwise, to achieve the tasks you need. Shit, Raspberry Pis and the like cost next to faff-all, so why not have one in addition to your phone? That way, you can work at your tiny computer AND answer a call or pop down the shop without having to unplug the half dozen cables you've just outlined.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Thank you for playing! :)

>For innovation there's companies sticking heat cameras and molecular scanners in handsets.

Good on 'em. Those features (which really are using the base phone for it's screen and CPU/GPUasCPU power) might be better as add-on modules, no? Even if your day job is an insulation technician, do you really want o carry the extra bulk when you're in the pub?

>We could do with some decent optical zoom

That will usually add to the bulk of the camera. You could envisage snap-on lenses, or else there is the Nokia 1020 approach which assumes most zoom photography is in the day time and most low light photography is social and wide angle. Apple's approach is reasonable - just add a second camera with a zoom lens. Then there is that project on Kickstarter which uses about a dozen sensors and lenses, and does cunning stuff in software (one gets the idea their end-game is to sell to phone vendors). Then of course is the zoom approach used by Panasonic et al in their 'rugged' cameras: a mirror at 45º is used to increase the distance from lens to sensor. Oh, I nearly forgot - the Samsung cameras with real 10x optical zoom that also happen to be Android phones. Oh oh oh, one more - Sony took their brilliant RX100 camera and pared it down to just the lens and sensor and called it the QX 100, to be paired with Android phones. Dang, neglected those DSLRs with phone controls. So: You have options. (Phones aside, even on dedicated cameras low light performance is usually traded against zoom range)

>and quality audio.

Has been done plenty already. The Sabre DACs from ESS are considered the dogs bollocks, and are in in phones from LG (G2, V10, V20) as well as from one of the recent Chinese upstarts. In time, the DAC could be supplied by Sennheiser et al in their headphones, by Google in their Chromecast Audio, or by Sonos in their speakers, or by Yamaha in their AV receivers etc etc. Some version of the Galaxy S III had Wolfson DACs.

>Project Tango might be a thing.

Maybe, but not for everybody yet - there is no 'killer app' yet for Joe public to justify the RAM requirements and cost of extra sensors, though of course in time those costs will fall to negligible. There might be scope for using Project Tango to sell clothes online ('scan' your body, and let M&S online show you what their shirt looks like on you). Possibly a candidate as a modular 'add-on'

>I'm a fan of any upcoming device that may offer a degree of ruggedness married to some decent specs (not achieved by sticking an iPhone in a rubber sleeve).

But easily achieved by sticking an iPhone in an Otter case. Next!

>Maybe we could do with a different shape that's not so razor-thin that if gives me cramp after holding for a while.

Again, stick it in a case of your choosing. Otter for the building site, fine leather for the ambassador's party. The point is, the slimness of the phone allows you a choice of 3rd party cases.

>Or build in one of those ring things on the back that are trending (yet ridiculous).

You've lost me. Genuinely, I don't know to what you are referring to. The fault is probably mine because I'm not down with the kids.

>What would be truly innovative would be some crazy new battery technology.

Yes, but the market for those (and thus the investment in their development) is not exclusively mobile phones. Maybe LG will develop such a battery, maybe Panasonic, maybe some unheard of university spin-off. We haven't got such wonder batteries yet, but rest assured it is not for want of throwing money at the problem. You can't blame mobile phone vendors for not speccing a technology that doesn't exist yet - it's like saying Toyota isn't being innovative because their cars don't fly and aren't fuelled by banana skins, and whilst they can reach 88Mph they don't travel in time.

>Heck, even stick a solar panel in the back so those of us in sunnier climes can charge up on the windowsill sans cable.

Again, probably best suited to a modular add-on. I mean, if the solar panel was useful for 6 months a year, why would you want to carry the bulk of the device around with you in winter? Efficiency aside, wouldn't you rather the solar panel charge a battery pack, so it can continue to accumulate solar rays when you're actually using the phone? And if you're not using the phone that much, why the hell are you needing to charge it so much? Also, you'd want your solar panel to be bigger than your phone. Because physics.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Dunno, Man

If you had a blank slate - i.e there were no existing 3.5mm devices on the market - would you use the same format today?

I've had MiniDisc players that have developed faults with the 3.5mm jack (fortunately they had a second audio-out 3.5mm port at line level). I've had an early-ish Creative Labs MP3 jukebox fail for the same reason, because the port was soldered directly onto the main PCB. I've broken lots of headphone cables by snagging them on things - the failure occurs by the plug. I've had a Sony Xperiaphone where the Tip Ring Ring Collar was not sufficient for them ('cos you only get mono in) so a TRRRC 3.5mm port was used in order to support stereo in (for noise-cancelling headphones that used the phone's silicon, and for stereo microphones).

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Adapters

I tend to lose or break ear buds. Most of the breaks come from the cable being yanked, and the failure occurs near the 3.5mm plug - so a MagSafe style breakaway adaptor would be preferable for me.

My headphones can break, again near the 3.5mm plug. I have even looked into buying or making a short 3.5m Male to Female adaptor, with the male bit being L shaped. This would reduce the mechanical load in the cable. So yeah, I wanted a dongle even before a dongle is necessary! Sometimes I have been known to apply some Sugru or SikaFlex to the cables of new earphones if their cable gland doesn't look up to the job. Some Sennheisers had replaceable cables, but the replacements weren't cheap, and the current models seem to have abandoned this.

In time, this fuss will die down. Adaptors for older headphones will be dirt cheap (and in the process protect the cables of the headphones from mechanical strain). The advantages of having the DAC chosen and tuned for specific headphones will improve sound quality (or make the same sound quality cheaper to achieve), and noise cancelling headphones will be cheaper and easier to use (because they won't contain a battery that needs charging).

Dave 126 Silver badge

>If that's true, then why are more and more Android phones also dropping the headphone jack?

Because you have a huge choice of Android phones available to you. Those people who have already found wireless headphones to their liking (joggers and gym bunnies?) won't mind a phone without a 3.5mm port.

In any case, I haven't heard of any of the big names dropping the 3.5mm socket wholesale.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I got my first ever iPhone in 2016

>It was the iPhone SE, I begrudgingly have to say I like it a lot

Indeed, my mate is still on the iPhone 4S, after replacing its battery himself. It's just a really well designed little thing, slips in his pocket easily, looks sturdy.

I had the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, which was a cracking little phone, but the official Sony case was rubbish as it left one edge exposed. Sod's law dictated that it was this unprotected edge that fell against a sharp ridge and shattered the screen. Had the Xperia had an aluminium bezel like the iPhone 4 instead of it's ABS bezel, the drop would have left its screen unscathed.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: (users needed to use a phone one-handed, Apple argued)

It amused me to observe that 4" iPhones are roughly the size of playing cards - objects that evolved over decades to be helf easily in one hand, and sonvey a small amount of information very clearly.

In contrast, 5-6" phones are roughly the size of postcards, objects that have for decades been used to display nice pictures.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Apple shouldn't have continued with the Lightning connector

>Personally I don't think Apple will ever adopt USB-C on the iPhone. In a few years when inexpensive but reliable wireless earphones can be made, they'll add wireless charging and drop Lightning.

I can't see that happening until all airlines allow Bluetooth (or similar) to be used in flight. I have no idea as to how feasible that is.

Also, wireless charging is inefficient - no biggie if you're at home, but it is unsuitable for external battery packs and cases.

Personally, I don't think the 3.5mm headphone socket is perfect - because I have an active job, the cable can catch on things so I'd rather a MagSafe-style connector.

As for Apple abandoning the 3.5mm socket, it really depends upon how quickly you get through headphones, earbuds and phones. For me, I lose and break earbuds regularly, my quality headphones usually outlive my phones, and some of my phones have had better quality sound output than others. If my current Sennheissers had a DAC built in, it wouldn't matter which phone, tablet or laptop I used them with.

Dave 126 Silver badge

@DougS

Hehe, we've just posted much the same comment! However, I did note that James wasn't singling Apple out here!

There are things I would like from a phone that aren't currently provided - but hey, I'm a fussy bugger and a product designer! Hell, I'm the sort of weirdo who might get some genuine use out of a Project Tango (real-time 3D environment mapping) phone. The point about being a product designer is that you have to consider how people who are not like yourself will use something. The fun thing about product design is that it sits across disciplines, such as the science of materials (which can be tested, stretched, squashed, simulated) and people (who are surprising, and strangely resistant to being stretched and squashed)

Dave 126 Silver badge

>It is isn't happening now it is going to happen sooner or later. Here's hoping the phone and IT industry in general can focus on genuine innovation now rather than 'ohh it's 0.1mm thinner than last year with even roundier corners!'.

Yet nobody who has commented about the industry's lack of innovation in the last few years has said what their idea of an innovative smartphone would look like. I suspect that this is because current smartphones already do what people want them to do.

For nearly a decade, most of my mates had 'candybar' mobile phones, primarily for texts and calls, and even the later models with colour screens didn't really add much functionality. The style of phone everybody uses these days - oblong slabs composed mostly of a touchscreen roughly 5" in the diagonal - could not have arrived earlier, no matter how 'innovative' LG or Apple had been - because chips weren't quite efficient enough. As it was, the first iPhone was pushing at the limits of what people would bear in terms of price and battery life.

In the future, we might expect silicon to be yet more power efficient, and batteries to store more energy- that's when you can expect more obvious innovation. There is plenty of time and money being spent on achieving just that. Or when LG make OLED screens that can be rolled up. But hey, obvious innovation is overrated. There is a lot to be said for refinement. For around a century, bicycles have been three triangles made of welded metal tubes attached to a couple of pneumatic tyres. The design is a good un!

I'm deadly serious about megatunnels, vows Elon Musk

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: All related to Mars

Hydroponic technologies are advancing quite nicely - Japan already boasts indoor multistorey lettuce farms. Not only can they grow more lettuces per square foot, but the plants are raised so that (the ageing workforce of Japan) don't have to stoop down to harvest them. Labour on Mars will be expensive, and your humans puny - so make food production as easy for them as possible.

Then there is the legalisation of marijuana in several US states, which means that the development of some hydroponic kit is more in the open, developing LED lighting sources that emit different frequencies at different times (some wavelengths work for photosynthesis*, other wavelengths influence the plant's budding cycles).

* There are different types photosynthesis pathways found in nature, some pathways being more efficient, some more tolerant of temperatures, some require a leaf to have particular structures. This is why we currently have botanists and geneticists working in this area to improve crop yields, and develop crops for the climatic conditions that might be expected in a few years time.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Anyone buying the LA earthquake argument?

I seem to recall watching a documentary about a Silicon Valley tech billionaire deliberately causing an earthquake... Wait! Sorry, it was a James Bond film, A View to a Kill. Hmmm, best forgotten.

WTF? Francis Ford Coppola crowdsources Apocalypse Now game

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Tom Clancy Games @ Dave 126

Del Toro was working with Kojima on game that Konami cancelled, which is why he tweeted "Fuck Konami" as a Christmas message. Seems Kojima might have some sympathy for Coppola's attitude towards big film studios.

There is spoof photo of a Powerpoint slide doing the rounds on the internet, purported to have been revealed by the infamous Sony leak:

KONAMI - INTERNAL USE ONLY

2015 STRATEGY AND PLANNING

- Fuck Hideo Kojima

- Fuck Metal Gear

- Fuck Silent Hill

- Fuck It

- Fuck You

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Tom Clancy Games

On the subject of Metal Gear and its creator:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38737220/hideo-kojima-says-games-and-films-will-merge-together

His latest game will feature the director Guillermo del Toro.

Bloke launches twinkly range of BBC Micro:bit accessory boards

Dave 126 Silver badge

Haha, nice work there Mattel! But now, seriously, where the hell's my hoverboard?

Modular dud drags LG to first loss in six years

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Modular was always a silly idea

>If people can buy your brand and NOT buy your brand next, you lose long-term because there's no brand loyalty, and brand loyalty is what they want and, frankly, what they NEED to compete with Apple.

Add-ons that are proprietary to your brand (and thus give the consumer no reason to believe the system will be supported in future) are not that great an inducement to buy your brand. The only way that add-ons can be an inducement is if the consumer knows they can be used across handsets in the future.

It only works for Apple because users are already invested in iOS (through apps, and familiarity with iOS, etc) and the selection of 3rd party iPhone peripherals is of a critical size (and the user sees no downside in an add-on only working with iPhones). Apple's market share doesn't fluctuate wildly year-on-year, so developers and users know where they are.

Let's take apps as an analogy. Android phone vendors benefit from their being a large selection of apps that attract or tie the user to Android, but not to HTC, Sony or LG specifically. Whilst some people do exhibit brand loyalty, many Android users simply pick the best phone from any vendor for their needs every couple of years - and much can change in two years.

It is better to have a small chance a will buy your brand than no chance at all.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Modular was always a silly idea

>Practical reason #1: Dimensions differ too much.

That's not an insurmountable problem, engineering wise. The add-on doesn't have to be the exact same size as the host phone. The Moto system uses magnets to connect, and doesn't require the add-on to clamp onto the side of the phone, so size isn't critical.

>"Political" reason #1: Because the brands are competing with each other, they feel they need to be the next Apple and be in control of the walled garden.

Agreed, it ain't easy to get them to cooperate. In countries where Apple has a large market share though, the Android vendors have scope for growing their shared pie. A vibrant ecosystem of pop-on batteries, ports, cameras, keyboards, speakers etc would give the customer another reason not to buy Apple. So even if the consumer has gone with your rival Samsung this time, they might consider your phone next time because it will work with their modules. Seriously, the fact that you walk into any supermarket or electronics store and see a range of 'Made for iPhone' headphones can't have hurt Apple. As an Android user, I found it frustrating that cable-mounted buttons never worked as they should, and that there has never been an agreed way of doing Android headsets. It was just a poorer user experience.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: @Dave 126

>No, what puts people off it is that it is a stupid fucking idea.

Well, it works quite well for cameras! But seriously, do you mean the idea of modular designs are stupid, or the implementations that you have seen?

The Moto Mod system uses magnets to attach add-ons, so attached mod wouldn't have to be the exact same size as the phone. That said, most phones I see are roughly the same size these days.

I've seen a lot of comments of The Reg over the years about wanting physical phone keyboards - a magnetic connector would be a good way of delivering such a thing. Physical keyboards can fail, so having it replaceable would be a good idea. Also, having it 'pop-off' if dropped will save the phone and keyboard some stress. And hey, maybe you have the keyboard attached when your work expects you to return emails, but you leave the keyboard off when you're wearing jeans. Further more, you could have a QWERTY, or a Blackberry style keyboard, or heck, even a chorded keyboard.

It would appear that people (not necessarily Reg readers!) at large do like docks (I've seen shitloads for iPhones and iPods over the years, though fewer now that people use Chromecast or Sonos) and a common connector would allow for docking when at a desk, as well as speakers, extended batteries when on the move.

There have also been inelegant ways of attaching game controllers to mobile phones... a magnetic data/power connector would help that. Again, there is no one single reason, no 'killer' app, for an standard connector, just lots of useful ones to suit individual people in different ways.

Google's Project Ara never struck me as a sensible consumer product. LG's G5 always struck me as a little inelegant and unnecessary.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Modular was always a silly idea

>I don't think maybe modular is a to bad idea, although I do struggle to think what it could be used for, it looks like motorola have a projector add on for theirs.

Moto have a projector, a battery pack, a loudspeaker add-on and a camera with zoom lens. If other phone and add-on makers could use the same system, the appeal of each module to limited number of people would be less of an issue.

Personally, I'd like to attach a speaker to the back of my phone for when I'm pottering around the house listening to a podcast. However, many people wouldn't bother. Some people would have a genuine use for a thermal-imaging camera, or a high quality microphone set-up.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Modular was always a silly idea

It seems to me that what puts people off buying a modular system is their lack of faith that the system will be supported in the future, and the limited number of modules available.

Both doubts could be answered by Android phone vendors getting together and agreeing on a standard connector that serves power, data and means of securing the module to the phone / tablet (some hope though - they never worked to the same spec for headsets with wired buttons, FFS). LG had a DAC module and a camera module... the market for either was limited, even more so if owning a particular model of phone was a prerequisite. The market is far bigger if a module fits most Android phones.

Phones today are already modular to a degree - you can connect an external DAC / amp to the phone's USB socket. Sony had a line of screen-less cameras that worked with phones, as well as a stereo condenser microphone that only worked with some Sony models. What these add-ons are not is elegant. For some add-ons (a battery case, a bigger speaker, a specialist camera) it would be better for them to add only to the phone's thickness and not add to its length or width - which any module using a USB connector would do. I like the look (I haven't tried it in person) of Moto's phone module connector on the rear of their handsets.

Nokia of course implemented a mechanical fixing system years ago - on both sides of their phones were two triangular indentations. These were used for car docks, and also for 3rd party joysticks for getting better Snake high scores. The 6210 had exposed rails for data and power at the base of the handset, and they continued inside the battery compartment so that a new battery module could also add Bluetooth.

AI eggheads: Our cancer-spotting code rivals dermatologists

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: If the algorithm can be easily used on mobile phones,

>Last time I checked tensor flow used python. So unless you are running a BlackBerry (they did have a python runtime), the answer is no.

Um...?

TensorFlow was designed with mobile and embedded platforms in mind. We have sample code and build support you can try now for these platforms: Android, iOS, Raspberry Pi

- https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Nude selfies

I came here to seriously propose folk take nude selfies periodically. If doctor (or machine) can see that you have a mole that is bigger than it was last year / month, they can investigate further.

HP Inc recalls 101,000 laptop batteries before they halt and catch fire

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: At least they can swap the battery

>devices get thinner (for no reason)

We would expect to see more Li-ion battery fires because there are more devices with li-ion batteries. We have seen fires and mass recalls in the past due to manufacturing costs being squeezed. We have also seen fires because the ODMs didn't know how to charge them properly.

The thinness of a device is only tangential to this issue - squeezing a battery into too small a space is not good for it, whether it is 4mm thick or 20mm. For what it is worth, if I had a flaming battery in a device of mine, I would rather it be a small flaming battery.

Devices get thinner because we carry them around or have to hold them. Ergonomic considerations, though having to be balanced with other considerations, are not "no reason".

>The next time this happens to something with an irreplaceable battery, will the company survive?

You've evidently not seen Samsung's recent financial reports this last week, have you? They're doing just fine.

I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the API key

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Swarm tractors

>In wet years it might take a couple weeks from start to finish to plant a typical (half square mile) sized field around here,

So then your crops on one side of the field would be ready for harvest a week or two before crops on the other side. Hmmm...

Still, your drone wouldn't have to return to the seed hopper to reload... seed could be shot through the air and intercepted by the drone!

Still not convinced, but some fun ideas. I don't doubt that farmers will be innovative when it comes to using drones.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: IoT or not-

Such as?

I've just re-read the article, and the man from John Deere only used buzzwords in order to provide examples of buzzwords.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>Not sure IoT is a good analogy for tractors, given that most farms I know have no Internet connectivity due to the fact that they are by definition rural places.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? However, the term 'Internet' in 'Internet of Things' doesn't necessarily refer to The Internet per se. 'IoT' been a deliberately broad term since it was coined in the 1980s because it was it referring to broad concepts.