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Comment Not intuitive (Score 1) 1

When I first picked up an iPhone, I had no idea how to drive it. The only thing that was obvious was how to get back to where I started. There was a button for it. The home button is a 'get me back to the start' route for the uninitiated. If you have to use a non-obvious gesture (and let's face it, most gestures aren't obvious until you know them), new users will not be able to use the phone without some basic tuition.

Comment Re:maybe (Score 1) 336

Nokia's respect for the privacy of its (not it's) customers doesn't extend to allowing you to unsubscribe from their annoying mailing lists. I made the mistake of registering when I had an N95. That went a long time ago but efforts to opt out of mailshots are completely ignored. I don't just get emails but SMSs too. I deleted my Ovi account but they continue to pester me.

Comment Re:Wow. (Score 1) 307

While companies are growing, waxing profitable and don't feel threatened, it is easy for them to be honest and straight forward. It's when they see market share suffering or competition gaining the upper-hand that they tend to resort to deceptions and shady practices. Big media feels threatened by YouTube and the wider copyright violation/pirating issues but are too fat, comfortable and lazy to innovate around it. They'd much rather litigate because it's easy and avoids all that messy thinking.

Comment Current 3D tech is still way short (Score 1) 532

The problem is that while there is now a perception of depth, the viewer isn't able to focus on what takes their attention. If the camera is focused on the foreground and you want to look at something in the background, it will be blurry. Your eye attempts to correct this but it doesn't work. This is confusing to the optical system and it's why a some people come out of 3D viewings with a headache. It's not at all obvious how this can be corrected without a personalised viewing experience that detects the viewers point of interest and brings it into focus.

Comment Give it time (Score 1) 2

Android is still new and until very recently there was only a single handset and it had bit of a geeky reputation. There are a whole bunch of Android phones from a fat handful of manufacturers about to hit the market before the end of this year which is going to change the landscape completely. I've had the HTC Hero for a few weeks. It's a brilliant phone and impresses everyone who sees it. I was showing it to a couple of guys in a shop and before long I had a small crowd who were all saying they wanted one.
Privacy

Submission + - 1,000 London CCTV cameras 'solve one crime' (bbc.co.uk)

SpuriousLogic writes: Only one crime was solved by each 1,000 CCTV cameras in London last year, a report into the city's surveillance network has claimed. The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals. In one month CCTV helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers. David Davis MP, the former shadow home secretary, said: "It should provoke a long overdue rethink on where the crime prevention budget is being spent." He added: "CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. "It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security. "The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV."
Cellphones

Submission + - Why the Google Phone Isn't Taking Off 2

Hugh Pickens writes: "Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate that while the iPhone commands nearly 14 percent of smartphone sales and BlackBerry about 21 percent. Android has only 3 percent and that even though it's far friendlier to developers, Android has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone. Manjoo writes that Google went wrong by giving handset manufacturers and carriers a great deal of control over the design and marketing of Android phones so there is no idealized "Google phone"--instead, Android devices get names like the T-Mobile G1 or the myTouch 3G, and each is marketed separately and comes with its own distinct capabilities and shortcomings. "Outside handset manufacturers lack ambition--none of them even seems to be trying to match the capabilities of the iPhone, let alone to knock us down with features that far surpass those of Apple's device," writes Manjoo. "A smart handset manufacturer could build a top-of-the-line Android device that outshines Apple's phone in at least a few areas--better battery life, a much better Web browser, a brighter or bigger screen, faster or more functional controls ... something that might help Android inspire gadget lust. But so far, that's not happening." John Gruber adds that the goal should be to make a phone that is better than the iPhone. "Carefully select a handful of areas where you can beat the iPhone, and then promote the hell out of these features," writes Gruber. "If your hope is to gain a strong foothold in the market with a sub-par device, you are mistaken. If Apple is BMW, you can be Porsche.""

Comment Re: Duh? (Score 1) 347

Well, I would have modded it funny.

And, while I'm at it, can we stop trying to make things smaller by multiplying them by large numbers? "1000 times less intense" is a nonsense. "A one thousandth as intense" or "a thousandth of the intensity" is what they mean. If you can't handle fractions, then "it would need to be a thousand times brighter to be visible to the naked eye".

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