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Isn’t that the truth. You would think UI designers would have learned by now that “one size fits all” is not the best approach to UI. For a general purpose device like a phone or tablet, a totally configurable touchscreen you have to look at to operate is fine. For special purpose devices like car radios or TV remotes, having physical buttons you can operate by feel while you look at the important thing (the road or the TV) is far better.

Maybe a mix is the right approach. But please don’t put simple functions like volume and channel control on a touch screen I have to look at.

2 days ago on Ford to bring back physical radio controls for frustrated touchscreen users

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3 days ago on Mysterious death of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, possibly solved after 45 years 1 recommend

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It’s easy to construct illegal or prurient reasons in your head someone might want privacy. It’s also easy to construct reasonable ones. Battered wife doesn’t want ex-husband at the FBI to know the number of her new boyfriend. Your old high school friend gets on a suspected terrorist list for who knows what, and then you do too because he calls you asking for money. You butt-dial a wrong number, only to find yourself on a no-fly list since it was a “suspicious” number.

If our government / law enforcement was a perfect all-knowing 100% accurate highly efficient machine as it’s shown on TV, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s really an inept bloated bureaucracy prone to byzantine rules and next to impossible to correct errors. If privacy laws can keep me somewhat out of that mess, I’m all for them,

6 days ago on FBI director: phone surveillance data can only be used for terror investigations

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his magnetic consternation as Krypton’s would-be savior lends the character a melancholy authority that dovetails nicely into Superman’s ascendant self-actualization

Do wha…? Man, that review reads like a thesaurus. Nice! Sounds like a good movie, though, I can’t wait to see it!

9 days ago on 'Man of Steel' review: finally, the Superman we deserve 3 replies 10 recommends

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You’ve played an uncompressed 50GB bluray HD stream over a busy 100mbps LAN with no stuttering?

12 days ago on Comcast says Americans don't need superfast gigabit internet service

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Even when streaming multiple HD videos at once, you still would be fine with 100mbps internet. Gigabit internet is just not necessary for 99% of people.

Don’t confuse bandwidth with max transfer rate in the real world. I have a couple 100mbps devices on my internal LAN that can not stream high bit rate (6GB/hour average) HD video. In theory 20 mbps should handle this. In practice, between all sorts of added latency and overhead at each end, and the fact that most video codecs vary from average substantially at different points in the stream, 100mbps doesn’t do it. And forget streaming a non-recompressed bluray (4X that rate).

AND, don’t forget all those folks who want to record 3 shows and watch two simultaneously (all in 3D bluray quality). AND, that’s JUST video, there’s a lot of other traffic that needs to go in there too.

GB internet enables all this. Don’t repeat comcasts idiocy and say “people don’t need it because they won’t be able to use it.”

13 days ago on Comcast says Americans don't need superfast gigabit internet service 2 replies 1 recommend

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Oh, and the answer to the live TV / DVR functions can’t be “you just get a STB DVR from your cable company and use that IN ADDITION to our great product!” X-Box One or Google TV. Sorry, that isn’t going to cut it either.

20 days ago on Fan TV revealed: is this the set-top box we’ve been waiting for? 3 recommends

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I agree. I can answer the headline: “NO.” Here’s some tests for any “answer to the future of TV” product: How do you play the local news affiliate channels? How do I watch live sports with your product? How do I DVR both of those when I don’t want to watch them live? How do I watch my home videos I took on a camcorder? How do I watch that blu-ray I just bought?

If you can’t answer all those questions, or if your answer is “we hope to work with a cable company somewhere to maybe solve this problem” then your product can go in the dust bin with a million other media streamer wannabees (Roku, Boxee, X-Box, Popcorn Hour, WD LiveTV, the list goes on and on).

I am getting really tired of seeing the endless parade of similar functioning media streamers that trot out the list of online services they can stream as their only differentiating feature. At least this one has a cool remote.

20 days ago on Fan TV revealed: is this the set-top box we’ve been waiting for? 1 reply

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I’m sad to hear of his passing. He was a great author from the golden age of SF, and his Dying Earth series is wonderful in its humor and imagination. Cugel is the quintessential anti-hero, a cross between Ash from Army of Darkness and The Dude from the Big Lebowski (maybe a little more the former than the latter!).

21 days ago on Prolific science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance dies at 96

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I wondered the same thing. My first reaction was “why does wheelchair-guy have a hook for a hand?” before I realized she was painting over it. Couldn’t the Verge find an unobscured picture of the logo?

23 days ago on New York City planning to use a new, more progressive handicapped symbol

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Keep the precious bodily fluids pure.

Why don’t they have pure grain alcohol come out of the taps instead?

28 days ago on After heated battle, Portland residents reject bid to fluoridate city drinking water 1 recommend

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this

29 days ago on Live TV on the Xbox One: Microsoft learns nothing from Google TV's mistakes

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Actually, the Xbox 360 is the best extender out there for Windows Media Center. From trying a lot of media center type products, the WMC extender experience is one of the best experiences you can find, especially for live / DVR TV.

Unfortunately, “best extender out there” is critically crippled because it is limited to codec support and multi-channel audio support from 5 years ago. I would hope MS has updated it for the XBO, but I have this feeling since they’ve all but given up on WMC, they probably even took the function out.

It’s amazing how close they have been to ruling home media for YEARS with the release of WMC and the Xbox 360 extender, and yet here they are releasing a “next generation” product with an IR blaster. Way to whiff the ball, MS.

29 days ago on Live TV on the Xbox One: Microsoft learns nothing from Google TV's mistakes 2 replies 1 recommend

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I had a Google TV and this is right on. I have Verizon FIOS, and it has a reasonably robust STB interface. Why would I use the XBO interface instead, especially if I have to return to the STB for my DVR programs, which is 75% of what I watch?

Why oh why couldn’t the XBO have supported networked cable card turners like Ceton and HD Homerun? Then it could truly have been the center of the media world. The saddest thing is Windows Media Center, a technology MS developed years ago, is ALMOST there!!

29 days ago on Live TV on the Xbox One: Microsoft learns nothing from Google TV's mistakes 3 replies 12 recommends