Posts filed under 'Misc / Humour'
Here at TechSmec.com we use both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. With the recent arrival of OpenOffice 2 we hoped that the performance of the open source (and free) office suite would improve, but were disappointed to find that it still seems a little slow and resource hungry.
Now we have the proof, courtesy of ZDnet who have run a comparison test of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice and the results don’t look good for Bill Gates’ rival.
OpenOffice uses roughly 10 times the resources of Microsoft Office, both in terms of memory usage and CPU time. If you are using the OpenOffice spreadsheet application, Calc, then be prepared for 100 times the CPU usage of Excel. We’d noticed a significant difference in loading times for the same spreadsheet between Calc and Excel and this explains it.
Still, OpenOffice is free and you do get what you pay for. Microsoft’s bloatware image appears to be unjustified, at least in the case of Office.
October 27th, 2005
This may not fit into to the usual repertoire of TechSmec.com interests, but the proposed Rocket Racing League makes it into today’s news on a pure ‘wow’ factor.
10 private rocketeers, or possibly lunatics depending on your point of view, are planning to race aircraft powered by two, 400-pound thrust rocket engines fueled by liquid oxygen and alcohol. They’ll hit a top speed of 218 mph, but don’t expect to see that kind of velocity throughout the race. Each rocket only carries about three minutes of fuel for a race that will last much longer, so pilots will have to continually shut-down and restart their engines depending on the race situation.
How appealing this will be to the public very much depends on how watchable the sport will be and as things stand it’s hard to imagine how something happening at 5000 feet could be a spectacle from the ground. Air racing is still pretty common around the world in turboprop aircraft, but you don’t get people turning out in their tens of thousands to watch that. However, turboprops don’t produce a 20 metre long flame out of their backside or make a noise that rattles your insides, so we’re prepared to give the Rocket Racing League a go.
One exciting proposal is a video game that will run alongside real races allowing gamers to ‘virtually’ race with the competitors.
If the league gets off the ground (no pun intended) then expect to see racing in 2007.
October 4th, 2005
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a way of snooping on typists by analysing the sounds of the keyboard being used. The technique is allegedly 96% accurate (more than enough to get the gist of a document or email) and requires only 10 minutes of calibration.
The technique is simple and familiar to cryptographers everywhere. The sound of a typist hitting the ‘e’ key is different to the ’s’ key and so on. By analysing the different sounds, snoopers can woks out the relative frequency of use for each key. From that point on it’s simply a case of knowing what language the typist would be using and applying a statistical formula along the lines of ‘most common sound must be the e as that is the most common letter’. Think of it as a normal substitution cypher.
Of course, there’s a little more to it than that and the researchers also applied spelling and grammar rules to the text to refine it, however, the technique is apparently easy enough to duplicate with a home set up and for that reason the source code of the software is being kept under wraps.
The researchers are also convinced they that aren’t breaking new ground here. “If you believe the [National Security Agency] hasn’t done this already, you’re naive,” they are quoted as saying in PC World.
September 15th, 2005
Although TechSmec.com condemns violence in all its physical forms, we love violence in a virtual or fictional form, so we’re feeling a guilty excitement about reports that the USA is only a few years away from plane-mounted laser weapons.
Up until now, the potential weight of such a device was prohibitive to its being mounted on an aeroplane, as the cooling systems required are massive. However, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has possibly solved the problem by merging liquid and solid state lasers, producing something much smaller in size. Reports are that it is the size of a small fridge, which still sounds pretty big to us, but is apparently not unusual in the world of airborne munitions.
The HEL weapon, a it is dubbed, currently fires a 1kw beam - hardly enough to heat up a cup of coffee, but the development timescale will see a 150kw version by 2007. That would reportedly knock a missile out of the sky. Whether it would do it a spectacular explosion, or just an electronics-busting fizzle is, disappointingly, not revealed.
August 25th, 2005
AMD may be used to battling with Intel in the stores and in the boardroom of major PC manufacturers, but it is now about to take that battle in the courts by filing and anti-trust complaint.
The filing in a Delaware court claims that Intel has “unlawfully maintained its monopoly” in the market for PC chips by the “coercion” of customers away from AMD, whatever that means.
Presumably AMD is alleging dirty tricks so we are sure to see lots of juicy information come out in the case if it goes as far as court.
Source: Bloomberg
June 28th, 2005
iRobot has introduced the iRobot Roomba Scheduler Robotic Floorvac, a robot that automatically vacuums floors on a schedule you set. The latest addition to iRobot’s popular line of Roomba Discovery Robotic Floorvacs includes built-in scheduling technology that allows people to program the new robot to clean floors at a certain time each day, seven days a week.
The company also announced a new accessory for iRobot Roomba owners. The Scheduler pack updates the software in Roomba Discovery series models, thereby adding new scheduling functionality to their existing robots. With more than 1.2 million units sold since its introduction in 2002, iRobot’s award-winning Roomba Robotic Floorvac is the most successful consumer robot in history.
“The iRobot Roomba revolutionized cleaning and gave people the power to have a cleaner home with just the touch of a button,” said Colin Angle, chief executive officer, iRobot. “With Roomba Scheduler, you program the robot once and the house will be cleaned automatically, without the touch of a button.”
Right out of the box, Roomba Scheduler’s cleaning timetable can be set quickly and easily by choosing a personal schedule on the remote control. Once cleaning times are programmed, the remote is used to beam the schedule wirelessly, via infrared technology, to the Roomba and Virtual Walls, which are now set to switch on and clean right on schedule.
The new Roomba Scheduler, like the Roomba family of robots, is built around AWARETM – iRobot’s unique robot intelligence system. It includes iRobot’s Dirt Detect technology, which senses particularly dirty areas and automatically increases the intensity of its cleaning. The Roomba Scheduler comes with various accessories, including a Scheduler remote control, two special Scheduler Virtual Walls and a self-charging Home Base. When Roomba’s battery runs low, it will drive itself to the Home Base and recharge for its next scheduled cleaning.
The iRobot Scheduler accessory pack works with all Roomba Discovery series models, including Roomba Red, Roomba Pink Ribbon Edition, Roomba Discovery and Roomba Discovery SE. The kit includes a Scheduler remote, two Scheduler Virtual Walls and a software update cord, which is used to transfer the new Scheduler software to your existing Roomba.
iRobot Roomba Scheduler will be available in August for $329.99.
The iRobot Scheduler accessory pack will be available in August for $59.99.
June 25th, 2005
The most underwhelming announcement of the week must have been Yahoo! Search Subscriptions, a new service from the internet giant which it claims allows the user to search previously restricted, subscription-only content from websites such as the Wall Street Journal.
The Yahoo! PR department must really have been struggling for something to talk about this week because Yahoo! Search Subscriptions is neither newsworthy, nor particularly useful.
For a start, Google has been indexing subscription-only content for a long time. TechSmec.com has been involved in some subscription-based sites in the past and Google have always worked closely to ensure that the content is still spidered, usually by allowing the IP of the Google spider to bypass the login stage. Google also encourages the owner of the site to make the results of the search free to view, even though clicking onto another story, or even the next page of the same story, will bring up a login box.
Yahoo!’s offering is restricted to just a few sites and as far as we could tell, it was necessary to subscribe before seeing the content. The quality of search results from Yahoo! (and Google to be fair) has been declining for years, so you won’t find us shelling out for something that might be totally irrelevant. If you’re already a subscriber, to the WSJ say, you won’t use Yahoo! to search the site, you’ll use the built in search engine.
All-in-all, Yahoo! Search subscriptions breaks no new ground, in fact the ground it retreads was never particularly great in the first place.
June 18th, 2005
When disposable cameras first hit the shops they were seen as one of the ultimate manifestations of the throwaway, modern age. Of course, they never were ‘disposable’ but instead should have been thought of as recyclable. The disposed-of camera was simply loaded up with film and sold onto the next shopper. Now we find digital cameras being sold as disposable with the Washington Post reporting that CVS drugstores sell two models in this category, a $10 basic version and one that costs $20 and has a small colour display.
The term disposable is again being stretched to its limits. In this case the cameras are actually rentals. After using up the memory card you return the camera to the store and the photos are loaded onto CD for you while you wait. You don’t get to keep the camera.
The cameras themselves are of such poor specification that you might be better off buying a real cheapo digital camera that you actually get to keep. The resolution is only 2.1 million pixels and you are limited to 25 pictures. The screen is there only to help you compose the shot. You can’t review images or delete any from the card, thereby removing two of the major benefits of digital photography.
TechSmec.com thinks that if you really must buy a disposable stills camera, stick with film. It’s cheaper and the end results are exactly the same.
However, we also have word that CVS are to stock a disposable (there’s that word again) video camera. The $29.99 digital video cameras can capture up to 20 minutes of video and sound. CVS will process the camera for $12.99 and return a DVD. The camera itself even has the ability to review and delete footage which puts it one up on the stills variety. This sounds to TechSmec.com like a much stronger sell.
June 12th, 2005
An email purporting to reveal news of a Michael Jackson suicide attempt contains a virus. Sophos, a UK computer security company, put a warning about the email on its website today.
The email arrives with the subject line “Re: Suicidal aattempt” and the following text.
“Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt. They suggest this attempt follows the last claim was made against the king of pop. 46 years old Michael has left pre-suicid note which describes and interpretes some of his sins. Read more…”
When users click on the ‘read more’ link they are shown a message saying that the website is too busy - not at unreasonable thing to believe if the story was true. Unfortunately while you ponder whether or not to refresh the page a variety of malware is being downloaded onto your PC, including the Trojan Horse Troj/Borobt-Gen.
The advice is obvious - make sure your anti-virus software is up to date and patch Windows as per Microsoft’s instructions.
June 10th, 2005
Internet Explorer 6, the world’s most popular web browser, has finally caught up with the opposition and added tabbed browsing to its feature set.
If you’re one of the millions who have never known anything other than IE6 you won’t know about the delights of tabbed browsing, which allows you to have more than one website open in the same browser window, navigable through a set of tabs at the top of the page.
It’s one of the killer features of Firefox or Safari, and its absence from IE6 is responsible for driving many users away from Microsoft’s aging browser.
The bad news is that it’s not available as a simple upgrade. You have to install the MSN Toolbar to get it, which adds a whole load of other stuff to your browser that is less useful.
Still, if you really must stick with IE, and can’t wait for IE7 to get tabbed browsing built in - give it a try.
June 9th, 2005
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