Posts by Gavin Nottage

Apple might have it right for car audio

Besides the speakers, another place where I think the IPod with dock blazed a trail with the dock connector was for in-car entertainment connectivity. You could get a box to connect your iPod to the head unit and be controlled remotely, pretneding to be an OEM CD changer. With Android not having a common dock, there is no chance of any box to wire in your phone to the stereo. Of course bluetooth is all well and good for calls, but you need a seperate charger or run down your battery even more when driving and listening to music using it.

Where the new dock might succeed is that it has digital audio output (presumably on the S/PDIF standard), which is great - car head units have this (mine requires conversion from analogue of iPod to S/PDIF). However the control and data over serial is useful for this purpose, so if that's been dropped in favour of USB then any car audio converter isn't going to get easier to build.

Managed to leave

Not in Q1, but recently I managed to leave TalkTalk Business (simply because I wanted a fixed IP address). The service had descended from 2Mbit to ~600kbit since TalkTalk took over Pipex, and weren't able to offer FTTC. I went with a leading FTTC provider and saw immense improvments in bandwidth (but no fixed IP address).

I think that TalkTalk (non business) offer FTTC, but their website was so confusing for me (upgrade pack for FTTC - huh?) that I couldn't get a "what it will cost me each month" price. The provider I went with for FFTC hass substantially lower price than my old ADSL too, which means I could afford a hosted site for Emails etc.

@Anonymous Coward

0-60 in 6 seconds? Where did you read that? I read 0 to 30mph in the same 6 seconds, which is reasonable for a city car. I say well done Fiat, for a good show car. Now get something for the real world...

Killing mobile telephony

Should this termination fee come in, then I would turn on my mobile phones only when I need to make a call, or am explicitly expecting a call. Which would mean it's not usually worth bothering to carry them around. So then the operators are going to fast-track themselves out of business!

@ H2Nick, seatbelts

"Seatbelts came in 31.01.1983"

Wasn't that the day they became compulsory to wear if fitted to the car? So intelligent people who wanted the safety they afford in the event of an accident hadn't been using them before that? The uptake of seatbelt usage was never a step change, it was much more gradual - some people still don't like to wear them...

Travel Supermarket

Thought I'd check out the site with the poor TV adverts, just to see what all the fuss is about, comparing prices of flights I have already booked direct with BA for later this year (at the time easyjet were more expensive!). The site asks me how many travellers, so I respond 3 since there's 2 adults and an infant who'll sit on our laps- clicking through to easyjet there's no where to actually specify ages! I doubt I'll go back there...

I've flown Easyjet in the past, but the prices are just not low enough to put up with all the long queues, extra charges to check in baggage, seating (non assigned & squashed in). They should welcome any other site that generates them some traffic!

Re: Old paradigm ...

"They can choose Open Source (no viruses, oversight of thousands of skilled programmers) which is free - in both senses of the word - or they can pay Microsoft (the convicted, predatory US monopolist that refuses to obey the law in Europe) a licence fee for cruddy, badly-written software for which no source code is available (just as well, from Microsoft's point of view)..."

It's not as straightforward as downloading the code and then compiling it for the target hardware, loading it in and it all just works. There would be a complete software development cycle, with loads of testing to make sure it was up to scratch. Open source may be great for some things, but in the embedded world most manufacturers want a company to be responsible for such things. It's more a co-operation than a EULA. And it means that if it goes wrong, M$ engineers will be sorting it out at a cost to M$.

Also, if you don't want to line the pockets of M$, then don't chose the option on your new car. There will be enough competitors soon enough for OEMs, and you can retrofit this kind of technology anyway.

re: One time pads now practical

Cars come with two keys, so would they have separate sequences, or try and sync up somehow? I guess they'd go for separate. It would mean if you lost a key, the stealership would just need to reprogram the car's part for a new key - or more likely open up some module and replace the corresponding chip/board for the new one - pretty expensive, but then people shouldn't lose keys!

Re: Router firmware

"What I want to know is whether companies such as Netgear will put out new IPv6-compatible firmware for their routers and, if so, how many of their older products will they support? If it wasn't for the recent trend of using very small, purpose-built software such as VxWorks over more generic, memory-hungry software such as Linux, I would flash my router with OpenWRT. Sadly, they really skimped on the RAM for this particular model. My older router has much more."

You do know that it works out cheaper to use an OS that requires less hardware resources (flash, RAM, CPU) at the expense of licenses for the volume that routers are made now. VxWorks supports IPv6 from 6.x, so the router manufacturer should be able to offer firmware upgrades, if they want to. Whether they bother is another question, (my guess being that they won't unless forced to as the wont see any return on the extra work).

@ Anne van der Bom

"I own a Prius, and with careful driving I manage about 4.7 l/ 100 km on average (summer & winter). This is better than a 1.2 l Corsa. Don't forget that the Prius offers more room and comfort than a Corsa. A Corsa-sized Prius would defnitely be more economical. Be careful with comparisons!"

I'm running a diesel Megane estate with 1.5 dCi engine, achieving the same 4.7 l/100km (which is 60mpg). I have even more room than the Prius, and it's cheaper to buy and maintain. It wouldn't get me into London for free, but I don't go there anyway. If you look at smaller cars with good diesel engines then the economy is even better.

To me, the world needs to use less fossil fuels. They're a finite resource, so will run out.

Another recall

Crikey! This will be the third recall for our 54 plate Corsa in under 2 years of ownership and 7k miles. It's at the garage almost as much as out 307 was, except Vauxhall pick up the tab rather than us. Still, nice semi-auto gearbox for town driving, and it fits through smallish gaps. I bet sales of hatchback Astra's have plummeted since the new Corsa 'D' arrived - they're the same size!

@SImon, was the 1.4CDTI mis-badged, or an old one? Vauxhall these days do their own 1.7 100bhp, and a Fiat 1.3 (really 1248cc) with 90bhp. I think they used to use a 1.5 as well before GM's Italian affair.

Microsoft on a plane?

I know that the Navy now use M$ on some warships, but aeroplanes would not be running Microsoft OSes for anything remotely critical. And although it could be fairly standard Intel type hardware, it's unlikely to boot from USB by nature of a locked down BIOS and lack of accessible physical ports.

Of course it's only in the dream of the BOFH that he fixed the "system" and saved the plane etc...

Re: Going Green

David, I totally agree that F1 needs to look towards the future, which is why the FIA are introducing regenerative braking (I think it's for 2011, but can be voted in earlier by the teams) and other such technologies, hopefully along with a 1.2 litre 4 cylinder turbo engine that is comparatively fuel efficient.

Biofuels as we know them today don't seem to be the answer, but from what the comments are here, the world already knows better solutions, and with the right permissions and financing from governments can significantly aid their countries reliance on fossil fuels. Of course some leaders would rather go to war to secure easy oil than pump the money into a longer term objective.

Developing both the technology and infrastructure, together with reducing the amount of fuel required seems the best way forward.

CU57ARD

So I guess Ambrosia or Birds-Eye etc will start a bidding war for CU57ARD

No doubt that FA57CAR will go quick, and twin girls will want to be seen driving around in SI57ERS.

What if...

Rather than the Con-swerve-atives pandering to the record companies, what if the UK voted in a party that took nationalisation seriously (no idea if any party exists). What if they said there are no more record companies, that it's all state owned. That from everyone's tax all musicians/bands get paid according the number of downloads/streams/physical sales (which would be a lot cheaper). No barriers for anyone to become a musician with a "recording contract", but leave the gigging/merchandise side for private companies. The current A&R men can hype up acts for their salary. the big studios would hopefully still get used by the big stars who will use the facilities. Once the 50 years copyright is up no more royalties on each recording, but obviously the publishing would be a bit different. Just an idea...

Just a moment

You do know that Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan worked together at Benetton and Ferrari, and are thus friends. So if they met up in April, and Nigel says take a look at this aero on the new Ferrari, and Mike says thanks, it doesn't mean that McLaren suddenly have used that information. A simple FIA check through the changes to the car from April will reveal if the info has been used, and by whom. Seeing that it takes time to actually fabricate parts, test them and find them beneficial and thus make some more to go into use for a race, McLaren's upturn in form is highly unlikely to have come from this source (IMHO, but I await the official verdict). This years cars are now only using Bridgestones, and McLaren seem to have worked out how to get them working well on their car for Canada/USA. Now Ferrari with their longer wheelbase car are getting a benefit in France, and possibly the British GP this weekend. Just like Honda improved in France, at least with Button.

F1 is very technical, to me it should stay at the cutting edge. A1GP is there, GP2 is there for those who don't want to see so much decided by engineers. But the best drivers will get into F1, although not always into the team of the moment. If you think lower formulae are without technical input, then recall how Senna was annoyed that Brundle had been given a better tune of engine in Formula Ford (I think), and was thus leading the championship. Ayrton made sure he got the same engine and then could beat Martin.