Posts by Otto is a bear. 453 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2012
And of course flexible pricing, or example:
For Skoda, 64Gb @ £60
For SEAT, 64Gb @ £70
For VW, 64Gb @ £90
For Audi, 64Gb @ £120
For Bentley, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti @ £500
And you can bet you won't be able to interchange them.
Seriously though, an SD card slot in the dash board is one thing, ad SD card in the EMS is quite another, and vehicles are probably quite noisy EMF environments.
I'm wondering what all these wonderful hands free, always on devices being added to a car do to the battery life, time was you turned you ignition off, and everything turned off with it, now you have to remember to drive your car every now and then to keep the battery charged because god help you if it goes flat. Apparently my ultimate driving machine can't cope with that, and has to be towed to a dealer to restart it. (It's a soft top, I don't drive it in the winter)
The only problem I can foresee is that bureaucracy expands to fill the space available, and that all that will happen is you have to fill in more electronic forms than you ever thought possible to achieve the same end as one paper form accomplished in the first place. You have to remember how politicians and managers think: "Oh we need to know this, so lets make everyone do it and collect the results until they are bored and invent a new set of things to record, but we might need it in future and it only takes 5 minutes"
Hold on, this is a case where there is a wholly lawful and socially necessary request to access the phone data of someone who has committed a criminal act. Do we really want to allow any form of data storage that can never be read by anyone else in any circumstances? They are not asking for a remote back door, only forensic access to the data of a known felon.
Put yourself in the shoes of a victim or relation to a victim, not just of a terrorist act, but of a murder or other serious criminal act, would you really want it made impossible to read their data. Think about the consequences of not allowing the FBI warranted access. If someone murdered me, I'd want the police to access my iPhone, and that of my killers, wouldn't you. Remember in some cases perpetrators actually video their crimes on their smart phone, or take photographs, do you want them not caught, and convicted by their own records.
So if Apple does not give in it could result in every criminal and terrorist buying an iPhone to keep their records on. I would also assume as, in this case it is a terrorist act the NSA would crack the phone for the FBI if they could, and still manage to keep it secret.
It is, and always has been the case that virtually any digital file can be tampered with, however there are a number of balances in that.
1. Why would someone tamper with it?
2. How easy was it to undetectably tamper with in the first place?
3. How much would it cost to undetectably tamper with?
I would suggest that you would need to spend far more money tampering with digital evidence than it would actually be worth. Just think of all those little things you would need to change, undetectably.
Using media tools to massage media files is fairly easy to detect, and would render the use of those files meaningless, although there are legitimate reasons why you might, to enhance say, an Audio file. These can be used as evidence, provided that you retain the original and can show that your enhancement is independently repeatable, and legitimate through the chain of custody.
I'd expect it to happen with intelligence services, for very, very high value targets, but it's beyond the financial ability of normal Law Enforcement. I do wonder what you would have to do to undetectably alter a video or audio file, if it's even possible with some formats.
The NHS CIO/CTO or EIEIO announcing that they will screw the IT suppliers into the ground to get teh best deal for the NHS.
The NHS CIO/CTO or EIEIO realising that actually digitising the paper based records going back n years for the 65+ million NHS Patients will more than take up the budget he has without introducing. It's a big number, but then that represents about £65 per patient.
My paper file which follows me around the various hospitals in my local trust contains my medical history and the reports that the consultants I see write, and the other consultants can read, unlike the on-line system where they can only see the reports written by them,
Only really works in big towns and cities that have multiple practices, if you live in a rural area you get the doctor who's prepared to work out in the sticks and like it, or you get to travel 20 miles to the next surgery. My village doesn't have a doctor, so I have to drive to the nearest town anyway. Mind you I do have two towns to choose from.
Which great world legal minds thought self detention was arbitrary. I wonder what the European Court of Human Rights would have to say about it.
BTW - How much longer would he have to stay in the embassy to exceed any sentence he might have received if he was found guilty in Sweden.
A UN commission is due to say Assange has been arbitrarily detained. Interesting, because he hasn't been detained by anybody other than himself as yet. I wonder who the UN commission was made up of, if it comes to that conclusion, and what kind of precedent it would set, if adhered too. I'm not sure a UN commission is best placed to comment on an allegation of rape.
If the allegations against Assange are with foundation, then his detention is hardly arbitrary, and he needs to answer them. If the US want him that badly, they they could just as easily get him in the UK.
One should also remember that the plaintiffs in this case would need to be security service stooges, which I doubt, very much, and the incidence of women making up rape allegations is very, very low. We should also remember just how many public figures have used their position to flaunt the law.
Is Assange worth it, if the allegation is true, even if the US also want him, should he be allowed to get away with a serious criminal offence.
Most systems used for investigative searches provide a range of results that need to be verified by a human being before accepting the computer's word for it and forcing a life changing event on a completely innocent person.
I believe that some of the images are for missing people or unidentified bodies. For habitual criminals there will also be multiple sets of mug shots.
The likes of Oracle and Microsoft sell to CEOs and CFOs who see diversity as cost. Having been in this game for a long time, I wouldn't put your faith in Red Hat or any other popular Open source vendor either, Oracle & Microsoft behaved very differently 30 years ago, when they had to compete on equal terms with other vendors. Although Oracle tended to sell to CEOs even then, where as the likes of Ingres and Sybase were not quite as good.
Yesterdays Hero, will alway be tomorrow's villain, and the day afters managed decline.
Not really, most self employed "Consultants" have tax avoidance schemes that mean they pay little or no income tax. It's mostly the PAYE employees who get screwed.
Self employed can write off a proportion (up to 100%) of all sorts of stuff against their earnings, including any personal IT, stationary, domestic office space (The spare bedroom). Whilst PAYE get to pay for it all.
BTW. Just wait till the PAC find out which departments have Tower contracts that pay companies to do nothing at all.
You have to remember most senior managers are sociopaths, mostly with poor interpersonal skills who nobody wants to talk too. So because they have no social interaction in the workplace, the assume no one else does either, and see no value in it.
They are also of course control freaks, who want to and think they know everything.
That any solution that applies margin on margin is a good deal for anybody, I wonder how cheaply we could have broadband if we could buy it wholesale ourselves. Mind you that would assume that the monopoly supplier behaved honorably, BT, how likely is that.
Just a note that Talk Talk don't give you a years free broadband and a £50 shopping voucher, you still pay for them eventually, they just dilute their margin for the contract term and hope you stay on. Which speaks volumes about the margin available.
If you need to find a needle in a haystack, you need to look, no matter how big the haystack is, or how many needles and haystacks there are. Not looking won't find the needle.
I doubt the public at large would accept the excuse "It's just too big, so we didn't bother" when things go wrong.
You can never find all the needles, and will always miss some, and there will always be consequences when you miss one. If you fail to look, then the consequences will be much greater. The risk of being caught will deter some, and if there is no risk of being caught, well.......
Initiated by politicians who won't be in post when delivered.
Project specified by consultants who don't have to deliver.
Procured by competitive tender managed by procurement consultants and lawyers, who don't have to deliver.
Implemented by the lowest cost consortium, the prime doesn't deliver it all.
Accepted by consultants incentivised to delay delivery.
Paid for by procurement departments incentivised to cut costs.
What could possibly go wrong.
I've been wondering for some time in my posts just what does a new version of this of that give us, that we really need. In terms of straight functionality, it's been many years since there have been any really significant software innovations for a normal computer user. I pretty sure there's been nothing new in end user functionality since Windows/Office 95, that we really need, not so for serious professional products. With TVs, well, digital and Flat screen, but does 3D really add that much, especially as you have to ware special glasses. With Apple, my iPhone's (6s) still a bit behind the curve, but I can't think of anything I really need to add to it.
Can anyone actually suggest a truly innovative new game? Yes our interfaces are improving, but actual gaming scenarios, not really.
Sure there are things we could add to many consumer products, but most now are replace it when it breaks.
Perhaps we need our innovators to concentrate on making what we have safer, more efficient and cheaper for a while.
I think players like Microsoft have got this, if you can't innovate and sell new product, then convert it into a rental stream through the cloud. You then don't need to market anything, or for that matter invest much in research because who will really notice that a service hasn't changed in 20 years if it does what it needs to.
VW should not get away with breaking the law, nor should any corporation, but the US does have a history of punishing overseas corporations more than their own.
Beggaring VW will serve no one in the US or elsewhere, but then if they do, don't be surprised if GM or Ford decide to buy the remains of the business.
Someone in VW has been very stupid, but punishing everyone associated with VW, be they worker or owner will serve no one. Justice needs to be seen to be done, but I suspect the US justice system will go for vengeance as it always does.
Hmmm, yes but only if you look very hard, the average user won't look further than Microsoft, because they don't see anything out there. And lets face it when was there actually a significant and meaningful change in Office anyway, for the average user that is who uses it to type a few letters now and again.
I know there are other products out there, some good ones, it's my job to know, but the last time I suggested to a client they use something different, I was laughed at, even though I could show them a massive cost saving.
I'm beginning to see resistance to using any other cloud solution that Azure now, with some SIs preferring to resell MS, rather than host themselves, or use a cheaper alternative.
or alternately he's a freedom fighter, depends on your viewpoint, and the circumstances.
Warning - Contains gross simplifications
Adult = A freedom fighter for traditional family values.
Child = Terrorist disrupting their fun.
I can see a ready market in Schools.
And there was me thinking I was the only one who could remember that piece of 1980s crud. It wasn't the only one either, the software house I worked for wrote its own after we found out what happened when you clicked the button that said "Don't click this button" or was it a menu option.
Have an upvote.
The thing about percentages is that you can grow your market share even in a falling market. In fact you can make less product than previously and still grow market share. Not that the tablet market will be falling in five years, now will it.
The trouble with analysts is that they rarely show the base numbers, that these predictions are made on. I'm sure Apple will grow their market share of my domestic tablets by 25% in the next year and that Android's share will drop to 50%. Now guess how many tablets I have in my household.
Percentages are meaningless unless you know the base number, 2 is a 100% increase on 1, and 1 a 50% decrease on 2. Most of us can work out a percentage on the fly, what we can't do is calculate the base from a percentage.
The trivial example shows why, % favour good news and mitigate bad news.
No, but then has any management consultancy or SI, but then McKinsey generally stay well away from actually delivering anything. McKinsey provide gravitas more than anything else, and as a lot of senior politicians have worked for them, they are generally believed.
The sad fact is that the NHS CTO/CIO function should already know that, but most trusts have appalling IT based on cheap and old kit.
Queue some comments on the money wasted by Spine.
There is only one real pro in replacing the posty, and that's reliability. A drone does not get sick, work fixed hours, go on strike, have holidays, spend five minutes talking to old nanny Ogg. Although a drone is bound to be a better driver.
There are an awful lot of cons, a posty is very versatile and can cope with the unexpected, an automated posty will be able to cater for a much smaller number of delivery and collection options, probably needing new collection boxes, possibly even new letter box standards. A posty is not stopped by weather conditions that will render drones useless, or require specialist drones. A drone uses energy when a posty does not. A posty interacts with the community, especially in rural areas.
Back in the 70s when I was at University, the brightest engineering and science graduates were heading towards accounting and finance, rather than research. The banks and accounting firms were prepared to pay far more than the likes of GEC, ICI, BP et. al. The only exception to that was IT, but now even that seems to have fallen back.
The same arguments were used then, but nothing has changed, accountants like to treat everything as a cost that they can cut, or an asset they can realise.
Most forces have built up their IT piecemeal. They also can't decommission old systems because they hold evidence, and refused to pay for the data to be migrated to their new systems. Many systems are built on technology that's over 20 years old, even the shiny new SaaS offerings.
The Home Office hasn't helped either, giving money to one force to develop a new capability, and then, because technology has moved on, asking another force to develop an improved capability.
Even in the back office they don't use common ERP or service providers. Case, HR & Duty systems don't talk to each other, so you can never find out who has the right skills and is actually on duty. Assets are duplicated because no one knows where the existing ones are, or who has them. I could go on.
That speed camera fines are not retained by the police. They could however hold a referendum in Bedfordshire to increase the police precept, but then no PCC has the balls to do that. I suspect the public might be more sympathetic to a few pounds on their council tax to replace the huge cuts some forces are facing.
When an incident occurs that requires investigation, the investigator is faces with many pieces of information which they need to filter to discover their relevance. This is an iterative process which draws the focus onto the correct target. This is true for any investigation, and any source of information, be it internet or otherwise. The difference between public safety investigations and any other is that the targets will not give their consent to be investigated, if they are known at all. The question you need to ask, is, how could it happen if public safety officers can't do this. They are always far too busy to follow up irrelevant leads.
All other investigations carried out for research by public or private organisations is consent driven, you give your consent to have your life examined to determine the colour of your next sock offer through your loyalty card or purchase contract, in effect because, no matter who you are the investigation's outcome is beneficial to both sides. Public safety investigations generally have a winner and a looser.
Yeah, ok, technically you can do this, but actually, who is going to buy it. Really, what's the business case incentive for any company to replace their desks with this, or for that matter home workers to pay the additional costs of an embedded charger. What company purchasing department is ever going to have this on their buy requirements.
I guess it could be a bit of Satya/Larry oneupmanship. @NotWorkAdmin has the right solution.
Now, fit a charging pad to a monitor, or a multipoint socket, you might get some adoption.
We already know that the emissions and fuel data published for every vehicle on the road is misleading because the tests are carried out in "Laboratory" conditions, so really every car manufacturer is economical with reality, when talking about their vehicles performance.
The fact they use specially tuned vehicles means they cheat in one way or another. I'm also not sure how using real world data will pan out, my real world consists of driving around lots of hills with very little driving on divided highways, thus my fuel consumption will never really match the manufacturer's. When you start taking into account tyres, temperature and body work variation, it becomes much more difficult.
Perhaps we need standard figures based on towing a caravan up the side of a mountain, with a fully speced vehicle, including roof rack and cycle carrier which mean that the vehicle will always meet it's emissions and fuel figures.
I suspect that VW will have to fess up to more, but an awful lot of it will be common to all vehicle manufacturers.
That will depend on the Data Protection Act registration for the data, and who the data owner is. I think our government would be upset, if this was done, and it would also be illegal, if not part of your Ts & Cs. I suspect that telcos and ISPs do this anyway, best check your Ts & Cs to find out.
If a company gathers data they must tell you why they are doing it, and what it will be used for, any use outside that is an offence under the DPA.
Poor Andy, had to cope with knowing everything. That must be a first for a senior executive, most seem to get away with knowing bog all about the businesses they run.
Just for the record Andy, it's not you who has to know everything, just who knows, and who can brief you before you speak to the media. That's why you have CFOs, CTOs, VPs of this and that and a whole bunch of Enterprise and Solutions Architects in your company.
Isn't it great to see Cambridgeshire Constabulary embracing modern technology, and where they lead Herts and Beds will surely follow.
A bold initiative of moving their costs on to victims and as ACPO like to term it, reducing the demand on the service by taking control of the public interface.
Next step, only arrest people by appointment at force HQ?
How many people do they think actually use Skype as compared to straight voice calls. Come to think of it, how many police forces actually use their internal video call and conference facilities?
Poundland is taking over Harrods, well not, but EMC likes to be a premium supplier and Dell, not so much. It does seem a strange marriage, but then if EMC needs to be bought, who else, Cisco?, Lenovo?
Maybe a bit of commoditization of the high end storage market will be no bad thing.
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