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Comment Re:Actaully, it seems pretty accurate (Score 5, Insightful) 141

Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police.

Than means that for approx 80% of the people they initially suspected, they were right!

No, that means that 80% of those have had some form of criminal conviction or caution at any point in their life, which could be for a large array of fairly minor things.

Cautions can be given out for petty vandalism or fairly minor crime, lots of things that people may have done during their younger years. Not the sort of crimes that i think DNA should be kept on a database for.

Comment Re:Well yes... (Score 1) 645

When I treat the European Union as a single united government under a single president (because that's what they are now that Lisbon Treaty has passed), I see this:

Yeah, except for the fact that we're not. The Lisbon Treaty, apart from being controversial in its own right, doesn't make the EU a "United States of Europe". Each country still has its own laws, government and healthcare.

Just because the position of "European President" has been created, which is apparently a rather figurehead position, does not mean that we're all now one country. The UK still has its NHS, the French have their compulsory insurance system and they're all self contained. So no, you can't just bundle all EU countries together to suit your statistics.

Comment Re:And because of piracy... (Score 1) 261

To be honest, i use this feature all the time to share media with my mates.

Your account can be on 5 machines at once (and deactivated at will), so my account, my brother's and a couple of mates have done this with our consoles. Any time i purchase from the online store, they get it too. Sony probably know this thing happens, but yet it's one of the many reasons i happily use their download service, it's pretty damned open as online market places go.

Infact, they've got a lot of purchases because their online store is actually good. I purchase in my local currency (not MS Points), the minimum amount they charge my card at a time is £5 (fair enough, it costs them money to do this), but if the game is more than that, they only charge me that and not in increments of £5. This means i don't have strange quantities of "Points" left over because they sell them in quantities you can't use like MS!

How are they meant to regulate online downloads like this? I think Sony have actually been pretty fair with their policy. I mean, who actually has 5 PS3s they need to have their content on?

Comment Re:Calling BS (Score 1) 206

The NewScientist i was reading a few days ago was talking about planes going wireless (that's right, WIRELESS) to save weight on copper wiring. They call it fly-by-wireless.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327245.300-flybywireless-set-for-takeoff.html

They also claim it has other benefits, such as not having to worry about wires snapping and redundancy. I'd still feel a bit weird flying in a plane with no physical connection to the engines/wings/other.

Comment Re:government serves wealthy business (Score 1) 267

You realise this has nothing to do with the BBC being a government organisation (which it isn't)? It's because the BBC has massive problems getting content providers (mostly US ones) to allow them to broadcast their content, especially in HD.

I believe this is one of the several reasons used to stop the BBC getting the rights to 24 after the first season, they didn't want it aired on the BBC in the UK as it affected their ability to sell it to Europe (as BBC signals can be picked up quite easily over there). Instead they managed to launch their show on the BBC and get a huge following, then move it to Sky. Fox and Sky TV are owned by the same guy...

Comment Re:Ok, I don't see how this works practically... (Score 1) 267

Channel 4 is not a "public service" broadcaster in the same way the BBC is, you seem to imply that it's a Govt. controlled channel with commercial advertising.

Infact, all terrestrial broadcasters have a "public service remit" which requires them to have certain amounts of public service content such as religious programming, regional programming (such as Welsh language TV) and a variety of culture and arts.

All channels but the BBC are commercial channels, the main 5 also have this public service remit.

Comment Re:You're obliged to pay for it (Score 1) 267

Or is there some way to shut off whatever part of the TV is devoted to picking up broadcast signals, so that you can legally have a TV without paying this "optional" fee?

Yes, you can. If you use your TV for watching pre-recorded videos, games consoles, CCTV etc. but do not watch broadcast TV, you don't need a TV Licence. In a strange loophole (because the licence covers live broadcasts etc.) you don't need a licence to watch any BBC iPlayer content, except for items being streamed live (like BBC News).

Technically you're meant to disable the tuner, but as far as i'm aware if they do check your house an untuned telly and no aerial is enough proof.

To check your TV they need to gain a warrant allowing them entry to your house. To get the warrant they need to have a reasonable suspision of your household watching broadcast TV, usually they aren't able to do that. So typically, no warrant and no checks.

Comment Re:GUI Guidelines. (Score 1) 314

I've managed to erase all my apps on iTunes by accident. I re-installed my machine, fresh copy of iTunes with my podcasts set up, plug in, sync.

In that bar up the top "Erasing application xyz...". All my apps, gone, because i didn't re-auth the computer first. Problem is i can't find any form of "Download all my apps from my account again" option. I think i'm going to have to go through my iTunes purchase history, then try to find all my apps individually!

My biggest problem with iTunes is how laggy it's UI is on Windows. Click on it, does nothing, click again and it responds. Did it do nothing because i was selecting the iTunes window from another one, then clicking again on the actual iTunes UI button? Or, if it does work first time, i've double clicked and it's launched another window! Argh!

How about multi-tasking? I'm afraid to do anything else with iTunes if it's syncing, it'll lag / crash / i don't know what but i have to kill it. It's been syncing, i've clicked to browse podcasts, whole thing freezes.

Final gripe, when using an iPod / iPhone you get a drop-down of Photos, Music, Podcasts below the iPod item on the left hand menu. If i select these i get a list of the stuff on my iPod, great. If i click on the iPod link itself i also get the same items as tabs on the top of the main view. Named the same, appear in the same order and seem like they should be the same items, but yet they have different functionality. Why?!

I'd also say Apple has no idea how a File or Right-click menu works. Why do they have both "Authorise" and "Deauthorise" on the same menu? Can a machine be in some unknown middle ground?

I've had an iPod Touch for quite a while, i really do love it and it made me want the iPhone. However, working with iTunes has made me realise i don't want an iPhone, it's going to be such a horrible thing to manage and it's so locked down. I might have a look at the HTC Hero instead now.

Comment Re:Do both Masters + work experience (Score 1) 834

Indeed, i'm currently posting from my Industrial Placement and it's a great way to get a foot in the door. The University is able to open doors to places you wouldn't normally look at and you can often get an offer after the placement.

I'm currently working for a large investment bank, wouldn't have thought about this level of work before. The placement takes a bit of time out of my term and erases my Summer holiday, but i do get 6 months of paid work experience.

(I am currently fixing last year's intern's project, i'm thinking of scrapping it and starting from scratch!)

Comment Re:There's already proof that this can't work (Score 1) 310

No, all it states is that it cannot prove the program is bug free. It can, however, keep running and finding as many bugs as possible.

If you get to a stage where you don't find bugs after a long enough period of time, you've probably reached the limits of that particular testing method's ability to provide any useful data about the application. That or the bugs are now awkward to find and probably won't be found by the majority of user input either.

On the halting problem basis, users will never find every bug in an application either, so lets not fix them!

PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Hits the UK, with a free HDTV

aslate writes: "After the recent bad publicity over terrible backwards compatibility and a huge £425 ($835) price tag, the PS3 has hit the UK and Europe. To help get their sales up the first 100 customers at the launch at Virgin Megastores on Oxford Street got a nice shiny £2,500 HDTV set absolutely free, courtesy of Sony. The article covers the launch where 'Oxford Street has seen its fair share of console launches in the last five years and typically they follow a pre-ordained pattern — fans queue up in the cold, laser lights and spotlights criss-cross the sky, a highly-paid celebrity starts the sales and a few hundred gamers troop onto the shop floor. But this time there was no celebrity-injected glamour or son et lumiere. Sony still needs to convince the mass market that the PS3 is the console of choice. And it cannot give away a free HDTV as an incentive to everyone who buys the console'"
Space

Submission + - BBC launches Space Shuttle based on car

David Off writes: "Last summer BBC Television decided to launch a space shuttle shaped motorcar, the Reliant Robin, into very very low earth orbit! Now this may not be the X-prize but it is a very very cool hack that harks back to era of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club. Now a shuttle launch costs hundreds of millions of dollars. The Beeb built a very convincing shuttle from the Robin, a main fuel tank and two SRBs in an industrial unit in Manchester. There was very little money but all the tea the team could manage to dring. The rockets develop 8.5 tonnes of thrust and this was the most powerful private launch in Europe to date. The Robin had to be stripped from 750kg to 250kg and avionics fitted for the flight back to earth. All doesn't quite go to plan as you can see in the 20 minute film which was broadcast yesterday. It would be nice to know more about the tech behind the launch, the film is thin on details."

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