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myryamaChip designer ARM announced this week new dual core Cortex-A9 processors capable of breaking the 2GHz barrier, perhaps foreshadowing the muscle behind Apple's future mobile devices.
A 2GHz multi-core chip in a phone? I'm pretty sure that was on my wish-list for the super phone of the future. If they can squeeze this beast into an iPhone case without roasting the hands of its user then things could get quite interesting.
myryamamyryamaHow neat is this? A very nice piece of design work.
myryamamyryamaThere is "no danger" of mass power cuts in the UK during the next decade, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said.
The energy shortage has been averted, praise be, much relief all round. Except that the Governments own energy adviser seems to be concerned. And The Economist's analysis (http://www.economist.com/opinion/display
So who do we believe? I think I'd like the Government to make a more convincing case; list the power stations being built, their capacities and their completion dates. On the same page, list the current power stations, their capacities and their decommisioning dates. Graph electricity consumption predictions, publish the underlying data and methods of calculation, and explain exactly why Miliband is so confident.
From outside Government, it looks like Miliband is complacent because he knows it won't be his problem for much longer, but that's no comfort to the rest of us.
myryamaThe government's new energy adviser says the UK could face blackouts by 2016 because green energy is not coming on stream fast enough.
More good news on the energy front. I wonder if now might be a good time to invest in the companies that build nuclear power plants and wind turbines? It's either that or turn off the lights and move to France.
myryamaThe download (247Mb) took longer than I'd expected, so I went to bed. At 3am, having visited the bathroom, I stopped at the desktop, found the download complete, and triggered the update, then went back to bed. At 3:40, unable to sleep, I checked on the phone to find that it hadn't charged during the previous five hours (some weird USB conflict or problem) and the battery had expired halfway through the update. So, charge the phone (and install iTunes 9.0) then try again.
Two more failed update attempts, and I'm getting a little testy. At about 4:20 I restarted the PC and, at last, the update went through. Back to bed.
At 6:30, on my way to work, I stopped to collect the phone expecting to find it fully synced and ready to go. Instead, nothing was synced except the basic system settings (so I could get email and contacts) and after fifteen minutes of fiddling I gave up and left for work without Apps, music, movies or podcasts. Not ideal.
Now, as I sit on the train, 3.1 definitely feels snappier than 3.0, but I can't really be sure without testing a few apps. It's surprising just how much additional functionality the third-party apps add, and how far the iPhone experience is degraded when they're suddenly unavailable; I really miss them.
myryamaSo for me, the big news from Apple's Rock and Roll event today is the release of OS 3.1 for the iPhone. The release notes in full:
myryamaI've just logged on and opened iTunes, and what should I find but a iTunes 9.0 and an iPhone Configuration Utility:
iPhone Configuration Utility lets you easily create, maintain, encrypt, and install configuration profiles, track and install provisioning profiles and authorized applications, and capture device information including console logs.
Downloading now.
myryamaReplacing it ought to be easy. Turn off at the water meter, remove the faulty stop cock, replace with a new one, turn the water back on. Very simple, very quick, no problem. Reality, of course, has other ideas and this allegedly easy job has now joined the list of "I'll do it next weekend" tasks that remain incomplete for a marriage-damaging amount of time.
The problem is that I can't find a replacement part that fits the existing pipework and I'm now thinking that I'll have to get a plumber in to do it for me. That's a bit annoying, but sooner or later the wife will want the cupboard back and the water-catching bowl will have to move. Anyone know a decent tradesman?
myryamaStatoil has constructed the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine a couple of hours by catamaran from the oil town Stavanger, in the hope that one day vast wind farms could be constructed far offshore in water depths of up to 700m.
One of the problems with the plan to build loads of offshore wind turbines is that there are very few ships capable of building the towers upon which they sit. Statoil have addressed this shortage (and the fact that seabed mounting is difficult and expensive) by developing a floating wind turbine. Interesting stuff, and very neat.
myryamaLast weekend we decided that we really didn't want to live with the basin taps in our en-suite shower room any longer so we picked up a replacement pair at B&Q for me to fit, thus breaking my second DIY rule (thou shalt not plumb).
It's a fiddly job, replacing taps, because everything happens in the restricted space behind the basin where you can't really see what's going on and there isn't enough space for either tools or hands. Wrapping PTFE tape around the threads of a pipe you can barely see without going barking mad through frustration is quite an achievement (although there is doubtless some super-easy method known only to plumbers and not passed beyond their elite ranks) although it seems to cost quite a lot in terms of knuckle skin. Having the right tools definitely makes life easier; being able to get the right tools into position behind the basin would have been even better.
Anyway. It took a while, but it's done and the en-suite is now free of the tyranny of rubber tap washers forever. Tap-turning bliss.
Just need to replace two pairs in the bathroom and the mixer tap in the kitchen for total washer-free operation.
myryamaThe creationist "museum" in Portsmouth isn't new (they've been going at least a couple of years) but I've ignored them, partly because I don't want to fund their faith by visiting their "museum", and partly because I think they're a bit strange. Nothing has really changed, except that I followed a link to their website from a blog I was reading and I couldn't help sniggering on the train.
There site includes a few strange things, like:
Greeting the visitors in the entrance hall is "Boris", a giant 20 ft. long model of a dinosaur.
"Boris", to judge from the photos, is a weird-looking dinosaur, reminiscent of Barney, the purple children's TV character; I think this is deliberate and says a lot about the curator's knowledge of paleontology.
One of the topics covered by the "museum's" displays is:
The impossibility of life forming from chemicals.
I imagine this relates to the origins of life, but it's hard to see what they might contribute to the debate, especially given their initial assumptions. I wonder if they know that water is a chemical? I'm tempted to drop in next time I'm in Portsmouth, but I know it would just make me angry.
myryamaHappily, BB seems to be pretty good and, five months after opening, seems to have established itself as one of, if not the, best restaurant in Portsmouth. We ate there on Sunday evening with friends, taking a window seat overlooking one of the larger pedestrian entrances to the Gunwharf complex. The food was tasty and imaginative (see photo below of fillet steak) without being extortionately expensive or weird, and we'll be going back at some point. Repeat business; can any restaurant ask for more?
myryamaDon't get me wrong; 3.0 is definitely better than 2.x, but I seem to remember that 2.0 suffered some performance issues (they were rather more serious) that were fixed, I think, in 2.2; I'm hoping that 3.1 will deliver similar snap and crackle.
And when do we now expect to see 3.1? There hasn't been a new beta for a while, so I think it will appear either this week ahead of Apple's iPod event on September 9th, or shortly after, possibly because an earlier release would scoop new features yet to be announced.
myryamaThis past Friday, Apple said that, in all cases, the iPhones in question were damaged by an "external force," not a faulty battery or glass screen
Ok, so Apple are denying the explosion stories, but there are quite a few of them floating around and, with several million iPhones in circulation, it would be a bit odd if some of them didn't suffer catastrophic manufacturing or component failures.
myryamaA HUNDRED years ago, summer day-trippers were lured on to London Underground’s Bakerloo line with the promise that, at a refreshing 15 degrees centigrade, its tunnels were the coolest place in the capital.
It's been a while since the underground was cool. It's fairly chic, I suppose, sometimes, but mostly it's just unpleasantly hot, humid, sweaty and crowded.
myryamaI have been waiting for Logos for Mac, the Bible research application suite, for over a year.
What? A Bible research application suite? Does anyone really need this, I wonder, except priests (who, one assumes, would already be fairly familiar with their favourite magic book) and RE teachers? And who would pay $260 for the introductory version, let alone the $1,379 for the Gold licence? Weird stuff.
myryamaEngineers say a forest of 100,000 "artificial trees" could be deployed within 10 to 20 years to help soak up the world's carbon emissions.
Fantastic idea. And I like the accompanying image, showing lines of wind turbines and 'trees' at the side of a motorway, a motorway from which lighting appears to have been removed.
myryamaSony has launched a wireless e-reader which allows users to download electronic books on the go.
I haven't been tempted by the current crop of e-book readers; I like printed books and I don't want another electronic device to charge and carry (convergence, that's the thing I'm looking for). That said, Sony's new device does look rather neat, and they've finally implemented a touch screen rather than the rather naff mechanical buttons on earlier incarnations.
There are two remaining impediments to joining this particular technological revolution:
1) Cost. £250 buys a lot of paperbacks and the electronic books aren't much cheaper than their physical counterparts so there's little financial incentive.
2) iPhone. It isn't perfect, but I can (and do) read books on my iPhone, and I don't really want to carry another device just for reading text.
So, basically, I'm lazy and stuck in my ways, and the incentive to change (a little extra convenience) isn't great enough to overcome my objections. Yet. So what would it take? Here's my list:
1) Induction charging; I don't want to have to think about charging my 'book' - make it super-easy so that it ceases to be a problem.
2) Cost. I don't want to pay as much for ebooks as I do for paperbacks. In fact, I want to pay a lot less.
3) Weight. It needs to be forgettably light.
Would that be enough? Possibly, but probably I'll stick with my phone for the rare occasions that I want to read on the move. Also, iPhone does colour.
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