Posts by Darren Coleman

Not processed, now deleted

"stated they did not use or process the phone numbers and have deleted them from their servers"

If they didn't use or process them, why do they need to delete them? Not processing them would imply the data was just lost in transmission, but needing to delete them means they did something with that data - i.e. stored it - thus processed it.

Will Microsoft's hubris allow them to backpeddle?

Microsoft will surely have to backtrack now on their used game / online activation policies, but the question is whether their hubris will allow them to?

Usually with game expos and the console wars in general it's six of one, half a dozen of the other in terms of which one is best. Opinions are usually partisan and rarely objective. This time around though there is a palpable feeling that Sony won E3, and perhaps even the console war if the status quo is maintained.

It's tough to imagine how Microsoft could've planned it any worse than it ended up being - from the initial misguided focus on entertainment and TV (which won't even work outside of the US) over games to a retrograde used games and "always on" DRM policy.

Sony, no strangers to questionable DRM snafus, came out looking like consumer champions who could walk on water. I'm not surprised SCEA CEO Jack Tretton was beaming for the last 20 minutes of the keynote.

As an aside it's somewhat amusing, telling and depressing in equal measure that there was rapturous applause at the annoucement that Sony would be letting consumers continue having what they're already used to having. For now at least.

Calm down

It's ok, William Hague was on The Andrew Marr Show today to tell us all that "law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear". Crisis averted!

Bias

Multi-millionaires don't tend to make their money by spending it unnecessarily.

Utter shambles

The more I see it written what a great bargain this phone is SIM free compared to the rest of the market the more I find myself gnashing my teeth.

That the Nexus 4 is half the price of an iPhone 5, or a good £100 cheaper than via O2/CPW, is all for naught when it's simply impossible to get a hold of one of them for this price. You can't even backorder them from Google, nor is there any way of being told when they're likely to be back in stock. LG and Google are completely silent on the debacle, and observers would be forgiven for thinking that it has been managed this way deliberately.

I tend to think now that the ground swell of opinion is turning against LG/Google with this phone. Whatever goodwill they earned from people believing that they were subsidising the phone is rapidly disappearing in the face of consumers who just want to buy the damn thing suffering LG/Googles inaction and silence over the supply issues, and being at the mercy of vultures and carriers gouging the price if they still want to get their hands on the handset. The true cost of the Nexus 4 for the apparent forseeable future is closer to £400 than £300, and taken in that context its appeal is greatly diminished.

As an iPhone owner looking to move to Android I'm bitterly disappointed, and Google have failed to convert me with their utterly useless management of the selling of this device.

Wasted talent

I found it quite amusing that her command of English was clearly far greater than her superior.

Great idea in principal

...but as stated already in practice there are far more metrics than just how fast you travel and how harshly you corner and brake.

There are many very capable drivers who drive in a spirited manner (i.e. not necessarily adhering to every speed limit). Likewise there are some ridiculously unobservant drivers who routinely drive below the limits.

The above said any step towards more granular assessments (the roads you travel on and times of day you travel are significant) is a good thing really. I'd be interested to know how you pay for this sort of premium - is it calculated monthly with rises and decreases according to your driving style over the course of that month? Are you penalised for driving in colder weather? Is it fully itemised so you can see what contributed towards a price rise/decrease?

If they just say "this is how much your premium is" then that's not good enough in my opinion, especially if they're basing it upon data which you've given to them willingly.

+1

Rainbow Islands for show.

Bubble Bobble for a pro.

Non-story

If the Met have enough evidence to prosecute the person they have in custody they will do so. If they don't, they won't. Smoke and mirrors isn't going to make them suddenly go "hold on lads, we better check the evidence *even more closely*"

Given time off to ...apply for another job?

Anyone else find this a bit peculiar? I mean I know it's a show but ultimately the objective is still to resign from your current job and take up a new one. It's not like it's time off to appear on Big Brother or something.

I guess Greggs figured it would be worth it in publicity (somehow?), together with this public promotion?

/me confused

As a guy...

.. I really don't understand this judgement.

It won't make premiums any cheaper for men.

If women are *statistically* less likely to make insurance claims, be they medical, motor or otherwise, then surely logic dictates they should pay a commensurately lower premium.

Insurance isn't a science, it's an calculated assessment of risk. If you remove a key variable from this calculation then all you're going to get is inaccurate output. You aren't going to magically make men better drivers or have them live longer just by saying "take gender out of the equation".

Anyone who thinks this will lead to men's premiums coming down is deluding themselves. The likely conclusion is that women's premiums will go up, and everyone pays a more vaguely calculated premium due to the fact the insurance companies - who still have to assess risk irrespective of any judgement - have less data to work with.

Peerless pre-CU

Before the Combat Update the game was imo peerless. It had an exceptional skill tree system where people could choose their own specialism instead of being forced down arbitrary "you are a Bounty Hunter, you can do nothing else" paths. Then the CU hit and dumbed down the combat, and the NGE followed which made Jedi ubiquitous (and thus neutered - can't have a starting class be any more powerful than anything else).

Raph Koster's original vision for the game was awesome, it's a shame SOE didn't have the guts to perservere with it and instead tried - as many others have - to emulate the WoW model.

Phew

Perfect for all those Linux ISOs and free-to-distribute eBooks that apparently everyone on a 50Mb connection is endlessly downloading at all hours these days.

Needs more options

Need a £25 p/a option to allow us to delete other peoples comments.

Also, £35 p/a option to allow us to edit other peoples comments to misrepresent their position or call them silly poo-heads, or something.

That old chestnut

The old "my small child pressed a button on my PC/iPhone, it's definitely not me having second thoughts and/or seeing the same item listed elsewhere for cheaper" excuse. A classic.

iPhone lasted 3 days between charges? Cmon..

I find it hard to believe his iPhone lasted 3 days between charges... my 2G barely lasts 1.5 days if I actually use it.

Blisteringly quick

I bought one of these exact drives to replace a pair of Western Digital Raptors (widely regarded as the fastest regular HDDs around) in RAID0 configuration and there is definitely a perceptible speed boost from the SSD.

The best part is that the Crucial drives come with a 5 year warranty which is great peace of mind when you consider SSD tech is still relatively new and the drives themselves have a limited shelf life.

The only downside I've had is that the most recent firmware that was made available for the drive was withdrawn shortly after being released (not before many including myself installed it) due to reports of corruption issues in Windows 7. There is talk of a new firmware coming soon to fix this but it apparently involves a destructive reformat of the drive. Personally I just consider this par for the course for cutting edge technology but others might be put off.

Revelation

How is it a revelation that a guy who buys out his mobile contract is entitled to get his phone unlocked? That's the case with *any* phone with *any* operator in the UK as well.

"I paid £600+ and I got a legally unlocked iPhone. Boy I showed them!"

Hell called, they said "send coats"

Something is cheaper in the UK than the US, from a US-based company? Don't they normally just drop the dollar sign and replace it with the pound sign?

What's going on? I'm scared :(

@Buck Futter

"What the hell does it take to reach a 100%"

An unashamed Apple fanboy for a reviewer I guess?

An interesting gamble

I was surprised at how few of the rumours that had been circulating prior to the WWDC actually made it into the revised iPhone, and conversely how features noone had even thought of did.

A compass? I really don't know how relevant this is. If you're somewhere remote enough where you would actually need a compass to find where you're going then arguably an iPhone is probably not the most robust nor long-lasting life-saving device to have on your person. You could just have, I dunno, an actual £5 compass.

Most of the improvements are - as stated - in the software. We finally get copy/paste, native MMS, video recording and even voice control.... unless you own one of the obsolete models like the 2G and the 3G. 2G can't do MMS, 3G can't do video recording. Neither can do voice control despite the conspicuous lack of the "necessary DSP chip" in the 3GS.

It will be interesting over the coming months to see how the competitors respond. Apple still reign supreme in the UI department and their fanbase is partisan enough to provide a certain amount of momentum. As for the enterprise crowd though, this new revision is another dose of "meh".

Whether or not Apple will be able to keep the competition at bay for another ~12 months until the next WWDC where the real iPhone upgrade (OLED, different form factor, etc) is announced remains to be seen....

Cuckoo Land

Of course whilst the idea of a watchphone sounds awesome on paper, when you actually put it into practice and find yourself having to walk around with your wrist against your ear to answer calls, then it all goes wrong.

Wow

To me this is a bigger success story in terms of perceived value vs actual subtance than Facebook, Skype and other similar overhyped, underachieving, virtually impossible to monetize websites. At least with all of those technologies there is a great wealth of effort gone behind the scenes.

Friends Reunited is basically just a registry of people that are associated with one or more entities (schools, companies, etc). In terms of complexity I can't see how the database or the code can be anything that couldn't be recreated in about a week by a single developer. There is some run-of-the-mill fluff like messaging people & payment processing but again nothing that is particularly onerous.

I can only surmise therefore that approximately £174,999,000 of the valuation was for the brand itself - which in percentage terms must surely make it one of the most successful dotcom enterprises ever?

Royal Mail website b0rked on Linux too

Curiously the Royal Mail website (www.royalmail.co.uk) is totally b0rked for me on Linux + Firefox, yet on Windows + Firefox it is fine. It's almost as if they are specifically breaking Linux support or something. Or maybe I've seen too many X-Files. Or maybe it's just my PC.

Hmmm

I like watching Top Gear and particularly like the irreverent mannerisms and attitudes of the presenters, I think they compliment eachother well. That said I think this is perhaps worse than the whole "Lorry drivers murder prostitutes" furore.

Whilst I don't imagine anyone would necessarily base a purchasing decision entirely on a TG review, stating something which is patently untrue about the car *would* influence peoples perceptions of it negatively. Stating that the car runs out of power before it really does is in my mind as bad as stating that the "brakes stop working after some spirited driving" on any other car they've reviewed.

I don't really understand why they would "show what happens when the car runs out of fuel" (in this case electricity), I don't buy that at all.

For shame TG! (I'll be tuning in as per usual though)

3mp camera

As God awful a ripoff as these things are - did anyone else stifle a giggle at how they come with a better camera (3mp) than the actual iPhone (2mp) ?

Discrimination vs ostracisation

From the MET post listed above:

"We also have a policy of prohibiting any of our officers, staff and volunteers from becoming members of the BNP or similar organisations whose aims or pronouncements may contradict the duty to promote race equality."

I'm sure that statement is legally "ok", therefore I don't think it is as black-and-white (hurr) as saying "legally you can't be discriminated against on the basis of your beliefs". If your beliefs, activities or whatever are in direct opposition with the ethos, well-being or whatever of your company then I would expect them to disapprove of it.

At the very least this information being in the public domain would most likely result in these people being ostracised at work (rightfully so?) and would as a consequence affect their ability to do their job, particularly if they are in a position of authority over others, etc.

In short - there are many ways in which information like this could result in someone losing their job, either as a direct consequence of breaking terms of employment (MET) or "company well-being". Frankly whilst IANAL I could imagine people being fired for "bringing company into disrepute" with this information in the public domain.

70% of a big pie > 100% of a tiny one

I'm all for bashing Apple where it is appropriate to do so (let's face it there are plenty of other aspects of their business & practices that are open to criticism) but in this instance I don't think the App Store is as big an issue as the article makes out.

For one thing whilst the 30% charge has nothing to do with "system upkeep" it isn't a wholly unreasonable price to pay given what you are given access to as a developer. Think about it: you publish an app and it's available at the press of an icon to a worldwide market - instantly. There's no real need for publicity, Google Adwords or any other setup costs. The ease and speed at which apps can be installed via the App Store translates directly to more people trying out your apps on a whim.

A friend of mine who developed an app for the store which I didn't consider particularly ground-breaking is making quite a healthy sum of money from it (I believe it is priced at around £2). When I last spoke to him he told me he had about 120 downloads. Now, imagine publishing an app on a website - first off you have all of the aggro of setting up payment gateways to take payments (which will take their own fees from you), then you have to hope that people will even come across your website to buy it (advertising costs), and that when they do find your app they don't go off looking for a cracked copy somewhere. Does that headache add up to 30% revenue? Quite possibly.

Bottom line - I'd much rather have 70% of a huge pie than 100% of a small one, or more accurately - 70% of a known-to-be-huge pie than 100% of a possibly-tending-towards-zero sized pie.

Nice marketing

Wow talk about coincidences! A senior employee of a security firm apparently finds a piece of insecure hardware on eBay which actively when plugged in proactively creates a tunnel to its previous network (never mind that the peer IP and local network subnet wouldve changed).

What are the chances?

It's all about the experience

Apple's problem with the iPhone is that they treat it like one of their Macs - a fixed spec with authorised upgrades.

Apple don't want iPhone users to have the sort of freedom that regular Bluetooth support provides. Some might argue that the userbase is better off for it, and I'm sure plenty of apologists will point out that Bluetooth is "insecure", or some other contrived excuse to explain away the unjustifiable crippling.

"Users can't brick their phones if they don't have filesystem access". True, but when has filesystem access ever allowed a user to brick their phones? Files marked as "system" is nothing new, I have full access to the "C" drive on my Nokia N95 - and try as I might I can't do anything that would irreparably damage it. The worst I could do in fact would be to wipe or otherwise corrupt the system settings and end up returning the phone to factory spec.

On the flip side of course if you stop users from being able to do things like this at all then it means less support queries. Again, is Nokia inundated with people who keep factory resetting their phones over and over? I doubt it. Therein lies the rub - Apple treats its users like children who simply cannot be given the keys to the kingdom lest they inevitably end up bricking their hardware. This is a false economy though - security through obscurity - a secure device should stand up to full access to the filesystem and implement appropriate safeguards to stop people from doing bad things inadvertently. Nokia manage it, as do Symbian, Microsoft (Windows Mobile) et al - so why can't Apple?

The scary part about things like this is how people rationalise their freedom being taken away so easily, "Apple knows whats best" is a common attitude it seems. That notion scares me. Whilst I can appreciate companies denying access for the good of the user, or to protect trademarks, or whatever, but denying access just because it doesn't fit in with a business model - and for no other justifiable reason - is not good. The irony of course is that often the same people who talk about DRM taking away peoples freedom to do what they choose with things they've legitimately bought wlil defend Apple to the death seemingly only because Apple has a "feel good" aura about it.

Apple is in my mind at least just as crafty and conniving as any of the "usual suspects" like Micro$oft (lol), Sony, RIAA, MPAA et al - the only difference is the Apple PR machine and the legion of cultists have managed to achieve what the others can only dream of: imposing draconian restrictions on their customer base and leaving them smiling.

(I own a MacBook Pro and - soon - an iPhone, before anyone chimes in about anti-Apple attitude. The difference is I see the devices (and Apple) for what they are rather than as life-changing products)

Re: pctechxp

"Tell me folks, if Apple launched a brand of teabags/cofee that was 3-5 times more expensive than your regular brand would you buy just on the basis that it carries your beloved logo?"

Only if you could see the logo at the top of the cup after you'd made it, otherwise how else would you be able to make sure your colleagues knew you were drinking it?

Shock horror! iPhone owners dont believe MMS is relevant

MMS not relevant to iPhone owners - news at 11. If you've already bought an iPhone, or just happen to be a rabid Apple fanboy (see Ty's posts), then chances are MMS isn't relevant to you. This is no great surprise really - why would anyone who is a fan or owner of a device be sympathetic to features that they don't even have?

MMS isn't usually a make-or-break decision for people, but it is something which is industry standard and has been for years. Arguing about the cost of sending them, the quality of the image/video or whatever is a diversionary argument. The fact is - MMS is an instant delivery, guaranteed service which is supported by every phone I've ever seen since 2002. Email is not a guaranteed service, nor is it typically instant, and it relies upon the recipient actually proactively reading their email on their phone. There have been countless examples that people have made in these comments about where MMS *is* relevant in their lives, you can't just dismiss them out of hand because it doesn't fit with your/Apple "vision".

MMS *just works*, which - bizarrely enough - is why it is an industry standard. As I said previously - if you're going to argue against MMS by posting a whole host of contrived arguments about cost, relevance in the modern world, etc then you might as well make the exact same arguments for doing away with SMS as well and just use email for everything. I mean if some random friend can read their email and see your picture messages that way, why bother sending archaic 160-character limit txts to them either?

The big issue I have with MMS being absent on the iPhone is not so much my desire for it personally but the fact that it is something that could so easily be implemented in software. There is no excuse whatsoever for MMS not to be supported officially by Apple already on iPhones. The attitude towards MMS, copy and paste (don't tell me a company the size of Apple with the experience it has in the industry can't design or tweak a UI to support something so simple), etc is at best arrogant and at worst insulting.

It's true that people can (and should) vote with their wallet, no one is being forced to buy an iPhone. This is a review however, and an review would be remiss if it didn't point out the shortcomings in the thing it was reviewing. That's what having an objective opinion is all about - not just swallowing whatever Apple Inc put in front of you as the gospel truth without question, reason or logic.