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Comment: Re:Patent from when exactly? (Score 1) 323

by ndixon (#38085220) Attached to: Apple's New Patent Weapon &mdash; Location Services
Okay, maybe the Palm VII didn't use GPS, but:

The first commercial LBS service in Japan was launched by DoCoMo, based on triangulation for pre-GPS handsets in July 2001, and by KDDI for the first mobile phones equipped with GPS in December 2001.

What was Xerox doing in the cellphone market around then? Nix.

...and of course Apple was violating, er, Apple's patent too, before Apple re-issued it.

Comment: Patent from when exactly? (Score 3, Interesting) 323

by ndixon (#38085138) Attached to: Apple's New Patent Weapon &mdash; Location Services

According to the patent, it's a reissue filed in 2010 of an earlier patent application which was was filed in 1998 and issued in 2000.

Why reissue it? Because it's under new ownership?

The reissued patent cites earlier patents going right up to 2009, and Apple didn't get into location-based services (i.e. iPhone) until 2007, after the LG Prada appeared. Meanwhile this happened:

The first consumer LBS-capable mobile web device was the Palm VII, released in 1999. Two of the in-the-box applications made use of the ZIP code-level positioning information and share the title for first consumer LBS application: the Weather.com app from The Weather Channel, and the TrafficTouch app from Sony-Etak / Metro Traffic.

Since Palm had a LBS product out before the original patent was issued, and Xerox never really turned their patent into a product, how the f**k is this new patent enforceable?

Comment: Re:At the risk of my nerd card... (Score 1) 655

by ndixon (#35609330) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How/Where To Start Watching Dr. Who?
As someone from the UK who was watching Dr Who in the seventies and eighties, the old seasons peaked with Tom Baker.

The later seasons with Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy seemed weaker; maybe that's because it was still aimed at a young age group that I was growing out of, or maybe it's because by then I'd seen enough US Sci Fi movies and TV shows that Dr Who looked distinctly low-budget.

The new series' have much higher production values, and seem to be pitched at an older audience - my kids can enjoy it, but there's something there for adults too.
David Tennant made a better Doctor than Christopher Eccleston though.

Best candidate for Twelfth Doctor: Benedict Cumberbatch.

Comment: Re:Part of the bluetooth voice dialing (Score 1) 271

by ndixon (#33236964) Attached to: Google Introduces New Android Features

The Motorola Droid does "Voice Dialing", in that you select the voice dial app by hand, speak a command, then acknowledge any prompts by hand. It does not do hands free voice dialing (wired or bluetooth) in the manner that many phones have been doing for 5 years and more: Touch button on hands-free kit and interact totally by voice.

This is one of the main reasons why I'm not going near Android yet: "all with only a single touch of your phone." is not hands-free.

When Android phones appear with true hands-free voice dialing (through a Bluetooth headset) and can run for 3-4 days on a single charge, I'll be interested.
Until then, I'm sticking with dumb-phones.

(Samsung phones like my S7220 don't have hands-free voice-dialing either, any of them as far as I can tell - the market-led engineering at Samsung dictates that smile detection and "fake calls" are more important - but I can go six days on a single charge *)

I don't expect to see that longevity on Android until 2012, if at all.

* But only because I have no friends

Comment: Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score 2, Funny) 435

by ndixon (#33187578) Attached to: The 'Net Generation' Isn't


We had to type in our games by hand, in hexadecimal, for two whole hours. And fix the bugs introduced by printing errors in the magazine. Then after playing for five minutes, we'd switch off, and next time we'd have to type in the whole thing again.


Scary thing is: I still have the Yorkshire accent.

Comment: Cheap cars, cheap marketing (Score 1) 144

by ndixon (#33054596) Attached to: Scientists Create Equation For a Perfect Handshake

Also reported by the Daily Mail, the Belfast Telegraph, Daily Star, and a whole bunch of other sh*trags that can't be bothered to report real stories. Even Fox News got in on the act.

This "research" was revealed in a press release published by Chevrolet UK (that's GM's rebadged Daewoo division), who are desperate to get people to buy their cars without paying for a full-page ad.

Amusingly though, Fox News and The Independent (which are poles apart in editorial views) reported this without even mentioning the company behind the press release; this thwarts GM's efforts, but also suggests that they think this is real news about real research, and not just a cheap marketing stunt.

Comment: Re:Expensive (Score 0, Troll) 638

by ndixon (#32587692) Attached to: Updated Mac Mini Aims For the Living Room


2GB RAM and 320GB disk is the spec I bought (admittedly in a generic Dell PC) three years ago, for £450. Now Apple would like me to pay £649 for much the same thing.

Yes, I know Apple hardware is better built (ignoring for a moment the more serious design mistakes) but that Apple price premium always keeps me away from their products - I consider it a tax on stupidity.
