Comment Re:No audio here thank god (Score 2, Informative) 321
They do on Vista and Windows 7. In fact, every application has its own volume control.
See this link on MSDN
Comment Re:The future is USB (Score 1) 711
My Fiat 500 has a USB socket. What's really annoying is that it doesn't seem possible to use it to charge anything that's not recognised as a mass storage device by on the embedded media player software - which is made by Microsoft.
It definitely doesn't work with my iPhone (although I hear Fiat make a special adapter to remedy this), my previous Nokia phone or my SatNav. It does work with my friend's USB MP3 player though.
Seems like a missed opportunity - basically you can plug a USB Drive with MP3's on into the port and listen to them through the car stereo, or use it to download driving statistics... but that's it!
Comment Re:Good thing. If done right. (Score 1) 252
On the other hand, the public-private partnerships to manage the nation's motorways (more analogous to broadband) have worked out quite well and saved the country money overall.
The Highways Agency, which is responsible for trunk (strategic) roads in England, has said that it expects to procure about 25% by value of current and new major schemes using private finance contracts. Under the Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) method of procuring road improvements and maintenance, value-for-money savings averaging 15% have been delivered. The National Audit Office report on the first four projects concluded that they were likely to deliver savings of about £100m with two of the projects delivering savings of around 20% compared with conventionally procured alternatives. The Highways Agency has invited and received tenders for its largest DBFO project yet, which provides for the improvement and maintenance of the M25 London orbital motorway.
Source: www.public-admin.co.uk (there's probably a better source on the National Audit Office site, but I can't find it right now)
Comment Re:Interesting (Score 1) 254
Wouldn't most people sign up for 1 month, download everything they want, and then cancel?
I think the minimum contract with Virgin Media is one year for broadband service, so that wouldn't be possible. Or rather, it wouldn't be possible to cancel after a month unless you paid the remainder of the monthly fees.
In theory it might be worth doing that - you could download the entire Universal catalogue in month 1 then buy out the remainder of your contract and go somewhere else. However, there will probably be limits on the amount of music you can download each month, as well as the usual Virgin Media limits on the amount of bandwidth you can use at peak times each day before throttling kicks in.
Comment Re:A new low (Score 1) 305
It's probably part of the tenancy agreement, "you agree not to break the law within these premises" etc. He could probably go to court to claim his innocence, but since he's just delcared on slashdot that he did indeed download the film illegally using P2P I somehow doubt that's the route he'll be taking.
Comment Re:What else did we expect? (Score 1) 821
Not sure who has marked this as "Troll", Joe U is entitled to his opinion and I for one agree with him, for me Vista in its current incarnation is a much better OS than XP.
Sure there were some teething troubles with Vista, but those were related to hardware manufacturers and software developers not pulling their fingers out on the compatibility front as much as anything else.
Sure there were some teething troubles with Vista, but those were related to hardware manufacturers and software developers not pulling their fingers out on the compatibility front as much as anything else.
Comment Re:Stop it! (Score 1) 179
I moved to Virgin (10Mb) after being a long-time BT subscriber and I can honestly say I have no regrets.
I lived fairly close to the exchange when I was on BT and could manage about 6.5Mb/s over ADSL, but only at non-peak times. The rest of the time I was lucky to get 1.5Mb/s due to contention.
On Virgin, my download speeds are extremely consistent at close to the theoretical maximum in many cases and I haven't lost my connection once in over 9 months, whereas I had to reset my connection several times a week with BT.
Sure, there are caps, but I've hardly noticed them to be honest. I just set up my bittorrent downloads to run overnight, which I tended to do anyway to avoid impacting on my online gaming and general web browsing.
It's true that the upload bandwidth could do with being a bit higher though; uploading a bunch of photos to Flickr at 1-2MB per file can be painful.
Oh and Virgin's IPTV service (movies on demand, iPlayer etc) is vastly superior to the crappy BT Vision service I used to have.
Comment Basic Nokia phones may be the best option (Score 1) 2
We have the same situation at work, where we regularly work with government material under reasonably high level protective markings. We're not even allowed mobile phones in some areas, and all laptops etc must be free of WiFi and Bluetooth.
So far all company phones have been camera free, which generally means company phones are very basic Nokia models that allow little more than phone calls and SMS - no 3G, no email or web browsing (ok so maybe they can do basic web/wap stuff).
So far all company phones have been camera free, which generally means company phones are very basic Nokia models that allow little more than phone calls and SMS - no 3G, no email or web browsing (ok so maybe they can do basic web/wap stuff).
IE8 Update Forces IE As Default Browser 311
We discussed Microsoft making IE8 a critical update a while back; but then the indication was that the update gave users a chance to choose whether or not to install it. Now I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes in with word that the update not only does not ask, but it makes IE the default browser. "Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They're having the 'critical' IE8 update make IE the default browser without asking. Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn't ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you. Opera might have a few more complaints to make to the EU antitrust board after this, but Microsoft will probably be able to drag out the proceedings for years, only to end up paying a small fine. If you have anyone you've set up with a more secure alternative browser, you might want to help check their settings after this."
Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking 415
explosivejared writes "Humans don't always make the most rational decisions. As studies have shown, even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply 'wishful thinking.' This paradoxical human behavior has resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. But now, scientists have shown that a quantum probability model can provide a simple explanation for human decision-making — and may eventually help explain the success of human cognition overall."
Comment Re:You're Starting at the Wrong End (Score 1) 140
The European Commission has described the technology as an "interception" of user data and wants UK law to reflect more explicitly the need for consent from users in order for the service to be implemented.
Actually, I'm not sure that's quite true. The European Commission described the unauthorised trials that BT carried out with Phorm last year as unauthorised interception of user data; I'm not sure they have a problem with the proposed webwise service as such, although that may change.
Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 1077
I'm from the UK and although it certainly helps that syntax etc is in English I find I have to memorise certain keywords as though they were a foreign language anyway since everything is spelt the American way - so many compilation errors in the days before syntax highlighting due to things like "Color", "Synchronize" etc
The History of the Ghostbusters Game 54
Ars Technica takes a look at the development of the Ghostbusters game due out later this year. They go through the promising early demonstrations, the subsequent relegation to developmental limbo, and the project's eventual resurrection. Quoting:
"Everyone involved with the game was extremely enthusiastic about its progress, as evidenced both by Sierra's heavy promotion of the title, as well as by how genuinely excited a number of the company's PR team were about it. Now, it isn't all that uncommon to talk with PR folk and be fed a line about how great whatever product they're promoting is, but even after several hours of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, the enthusiasm never waned; this definitely wasn't the case when we discussed some of the other titles that had been on display during the day's event. Even the members of the press corps, as we huddled together and compared notes, generally agreed that Ghostbusters had been the most impressive thing we'd gotten to see at the event. All in all, it looked like Sierra was going to deliver a game that finally gave the Ghostbusters franchise the respect it deserved, and none of us could wait to get our hands on it."
XKCD Invited To New Yorker "Cartoon-Off" 231
UnknowingFool writes "Farley Katz, who draws for New Yorker magazine, ran into xkcd.com's Randall Munroe in a grocery store. He challenged Munroe to a cartoon-off — each cartoonist to produce drawings about the Internet as envisioned by the elderly, String Theory, 1999, and one's favorite animal eating one's favorite food. In the ensuing short interview, Munroe describes XKCD as 'a webcomic about stick figures who do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It's about three-fourths autobiographical.'"
Comment Re:Phone? (Score 2, Interesting) 701
I work for a contractor who does work for the Ministry of Defence and some of our buildings require SC/DV clearance. Taking a phone in any of those would be a disciplinary offence, and may even get the person fired.
The risk to my company of losing it's List-X status (and hence 40% of our work) if there's a breach is too high to be flexible in this regard.
The risk to my company of losing it's List-X status (and hence 40% of our work) if there's a breach is too high to be flexible in this regard.
