Posts by Mike Taylor

Re: So the logic is

Yup. The day my 1520 died was truly horrid. No device I've had since, whether Android or iPhone, has come near it.

Re: Microsoft FAIL

Sadly I had to bail in the summer too. Had a work iPhone, which I loathed. Got a high end Samsung. Dear god android is clunky compared with wp8.

Re: WFT

I'm not sure they have a test track, as it sounds. They have a large private road network, with junctions, roundabouts etc.

Re: Out of interest...

Right, and given the vapor like qualities of this product, the demos etc are an intrinsic way in which the values and ambitions of a product are communicated. Weight balance, whether the design is knowing macho / militaristic etc, the use cases down in promotion, all help when trying to engage in communities more diverse than a subset of mostly male gamers / first adopters

Re: EE and PAYG vermin

Quite. I have both 3 and EE sims in my 950xl and use them wisely. Cheaper and better.

Re: MS Band

I could use a 'gardening' option on my band. Otherwise, I use it and I like it.

Re: Is Julian even news-worthy anymore?

Not just to avoid prosecution, he appears to have run rather than face questioning.

Re: The report is here

Stupidly, a word got cut of the URL

https://www.digital-science.com/resources/digital-research-report-examining-implications-of-brexit-for-the-uk-research-base/

Quite. The 'special relationship' relationship may have existed once. In the last twenty years when I've been traveling to the US a lot, it is chimeric. Out of the EU, we'd be somewhere south of the EU, BRIC comes, and other Latino countries in terms of Specialness. I've had many non-US colleagues in the US, only a couple are British (and my company is based in the UK and NL)

Re: OOh missus! - engineers carry tool cases

That is more interesting than I care at admit at this stage of the day. I need a Franzose to complete my set.

Re: Another one bites the dust

The down votes are a bit silly. The Maps app doesn't quite have the UI that HERE drive has, but other than that, it's a first rate tool that does a good job with directions.

Re: @Mike Taylor It is indeed peculiar.

Good for keeping my hands warm on a cold day too!

Re: One at-fault accident in > 10^6 miles

It'll be interesting to see how the cars fare in Italy and Portugal. There are roads that are definitely classified as good for vehicles that are ... a challenge to drive on.

Re: at least the 1020 tried something

The camera on the 950 / 950xl is great.

I took a wild punt on buying a 950xl couple of weeks ago - I pretty much had to get a new camera, and I thought I'd try it, despite the negative review from AO here. In fact, it's pretty damn good. No glitches that I've noticed, battery lasts well, as fast as you like.

I'm gutted about them going. While I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I like intelligent journalism.

Re: Hash list

I wonder whether the people who do this research (and I am seriously glad I am not one of them) has looked at using the 'bag of vectors' approach - I saw some work a few years ago, very impressive at identifying the same types of features - matching objects taken at different angles. Computationally expensive, of course, but that's always something that can be dealt with. I have to say that I'm not surprised to hear of the hashes (from a technical perspective), but it's in contrast with what I heard on the radio the other day about how long it takes the police in the UK to search through devices. I would be interested in looking at the accuracy of taking a cluster of approaches (whole image hashes, partial hashes, feature hashes, even key word analysis).

Longer pieces

The longer pieces were a particular joy of mine. I think there's something inherently geeky in appreciating good writing by an expert extolling the virtues of their field, and showing it off. Although I can't do bugger all with a car apart from drive it, and will probably never buy a new one, I love reading good motoring journalism, and some of the expert pieces you've had about building cars have really chimed for me. No doubt there are plenty of places to read that kind of thing, but - for me at least - El Reg's reputation tells me that an article is going to be worth reading. And I'll add to that your coverage of science (noted elsewhere) - I really appreciate that your journos stay sober long enough to write a subject up properly, and not just re-vamp the press release. Also noted elsewhere - for various reasons - linking to the DOI of an article would drive traffic in your direction.

Re: Just give up already, Microsoft

I have an iphone as well as a variety of winphones. I think you'd find it a huge step back - certainly I do. The almost complete lack of information on the home pages is disturbing - not being able to do anything about drag those damn, dead icons around is pretty sad. It doesn't have the homeliness that I'm used to. The text input is abysmal compared to swiping around. Can't pin particular contacts on the home page, apparently. Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't. The controls seem to be one more click away than is strictly necessary. Siri is not as well integrated as Cortana. I keep finding little things that you just can't do, which is really aggrevating.

The physical feel is good though, the local search works well. Nice to have lots of apps - although I find I keep installing then uninstalling gimicky ones. Shiny, but boring on the surface and overly complicated below the surface.

Weirdly my windowsphone skype seems to take longer to sync than the iphone one (although my current windows phone is bargain basement, as I'm waiting for the 950xl)

Re: And what about standard sip video phones?

I don't know about standards per se. However the cop on the radio said they have google+, whatsapp, messenger etc on their roadmap. The more ways to contact them the better

Re: Abandonment issues

I think that's a slightly misleading sentence in the article. It sounds as if Continuum works, but the display issue is slightly compromised (ie, doesn't power two displays at two resolutions on existing phones). I think the writer's view that you need to abandon your phone is overstated - especially since it seems that WM10 works on most recent bits of hardware.

Re: Epic Fail

No problem on my 1520 either. I rather like the ui changes

mi.taylor@elsevier.com

Absolutely - I get loads of emails purporting to be from dating sites, and I spam them. Nothing from "Established Man" though, I guess because I work in IT...

Re: Not sure on Android....

Settings > Back-up > Turn photos off, could hardly be easier on WP!

Re: Not abandoned

And frankly: thank goodness for that. I'm dangerously close to being a WP fanboi (as much as I am a *nix fanboi at least) - there are far too many models. Three tiers is good. Big/small. I am hanging on for a dual SIM version of my 1520

mi.taylor@elsevier.com

Precisely the conclusion I took from the heading; and half the reason I clicked, was to see why Cali's judiciary was going to have the effect

Re: I glad I saw this

I unsubscribed from both Change and 38voices when I got mine. If I could have unsubscribed from a topic / topics when I could do so, then I would, as usually I'm at least critically interested. The increasingly hysterical subject lines / text visible in emails - particular in relation to GM / food tech - has finally got to me.

Quite, it doesn't sound good. On the other hand, we have to remember that in most parts of the world, and for most species, only the pregnant queens survive winter, so all colonies are created from scratch every year.

Re: NOT suitable for enterprise.

Did you try the Nokia move data app? Supposedly that works :(

Maps.bing.com do have ordnance survey maps at two resolutions, presumably as a consequence of multimap

Re: Stuck in the past?

There's no relationship between the British and US scouting organisations, other than fraternal. In the UK, it's a modern movement of growing popularity. Kit is certainly not the heavy damp canvas of my childhood, can't speak to the IT though

mi.taylor@elsevier.com

I'll second that. Nearly shat myself when I was overtaken by an electric TNT can last year. Too Dan close anyway - but with no notice it was coming, potentially very dangerous. (NB not being an arse, I don't listen to any device while cycling)

Re: Windows-as-a-Service

I find myself in slightly odd position of having an Office subscription now. The fact that Office is now considerably better than Libre was an issue, but getting 5T one drive storage space for a few quid a month was the thing closed the deal for me

mi.taylor@elsevier.com

If that was the map app that included the historic 1920s layer, than it is sorely missed. Yes, used for hiking. Also for sniffing out archaeological relics - I found so many things using that layer! Also quite enjoyed watching my planes at Heathrow taxiing through a farm, an orchard and a duck pond

Re: The most screamingly obvious use for augmented reality...

Wordament is awesome, but - for the most part - you can click away the ads on the newer windowsphone wwf almost immediately.