The EU is in self-congratulatory mood today, declaring that its clampdown on mobile roaming charges means “the roaming rip-off is now coming to an end”.
While the EU has indeed made progress, we’re a long way from popping the champagne corks and declaring a famous consumer victory.
Look, for example, at the data rates. The EU’s new rules still allow mobile networks to charge up to 1 Euro (86p) per MB for data downloads when roaming. That’s £880 per GB! To put that in perspective, BT charges £15.65 per month for a 10GB data download allowance on its Option 1 package; mobile networks can theoretically charge £8,806 for the same amount of data! And I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence that the costs associated with mobile data are an order of magnitude higher than they are for fixed line providers.
Firefox 3.5 - the browser that’s suffered more delays than an NHS IT project - has finally arrived. You can download a copy from the Get Firefox site.
As Matthew Sparkes noted in his preview of Firefox 3.5, not much has changed on the surface, with the exception of a rather clumsily implemented Private Browsing mode.
However, one issue I’ve noticed after installing the browser this afternoon is that my Google Gears Add-on has been disabled, because it isn’t compatible with this latest build. That’s a significant issue for anyone who uses Firefox to access services such as GMail and Google Reader offline.
Why hasn’t Google got its Gears Add-on ready for the launch of 3.5? Is this the first sign that cracks are beginning to appear in the once harmonious Google/Mozilla relationship, now that Google has its own browser to worry about?
If there’s one PC peripheral that’s seen about as much change as the Queen’s hairdo over the past 20 years, it’s the keyboard. Sure there have been attempts to jazz it up with ergonomic layouts, wireless transmitters and models with flashy shortcut buttons, but by and large, if someone plugged a 1989 model keyboard into your PC you’d barely notice the difference.
The deathly pace of keyboard evolution is actually a barrier to progress, according to HP vice president Phil McKinley, who I met last week. “The keyboard is still a hugely intimidating factor for users,” he told me, referring especially to users in developing countries who haven’t grown up with computers. “It still has a System Request and Break key on the keyboard. When was the last time you touched the Break key?” he asked.
If there’s one thing you could never accuse Microsoft of lacking, it’s good old-fashioned Chutzpah.
The world’s favourite monopolist has launched a new “Get The Facts” campaign for Internet Explorer 8, that seems remarkably short on fact and a bit top-heavy on the codswallop.
You can see Microsoft’s version of the facts running down the left-hand side of the page, where the company has decided to compare Internet Explorer 8 against Firefox and Chrome. Yes, that’s right. Internet Explorer 8 wins in every single category, apart from a couple where it generously shares the honours with its rivals.
We could spend a couple of hours demolishing the argument for almost each and every one of those Microsoft ticks. Then again, we could spend a couple of hours shooting fish in a barrel or stealing sweets from children with only one arm, but we’ve got better things to do, so we’re just going to deal with the most blatant of Microsoft’s whoppers.
And so the EU’s pointless vendetta against Microsoft reaches its ridiculous conclusion:Microsoft will now ship Windows 7 in Europe without any web browser whatsoever. Â The pathetic gripes of a vastly inferior competitor - yes, I’m talking about you Opera - have concluded with the EU making life harder for consumers, PC manufacturers and, ironically, Opera itself.
PC manufacturers will of course bundle a browser with any new Windows 7 PC, and I wouldn’t mind betting that the only browser the vast majority will choose to bundle is Internet Explorer.
And what about people who buy Windows 7 off the shelf? A spokesperson for Microsoft Europe said the company will provide a free IE8 CD-ROM with every retail copy of Windows 7. So the company’s still effectively bundling IE8 - it’s just making consumers jump through a few more hoops to install the browser. Utterly, utterly pointless.
We’ve been playing with the Create a Collection tool and it really is gobsmackingly well designed. Once registered, you merely give your collection a name, a brief description and pick your favourite Add-ons. The Add-ons are, well, added simply by typing the name into the search box and selecting from the drop-down menu that appears as you type.
Once you’ve selected all your Add-ons, you can twiddle with advanced features, such as creating a bespoke URL for your collection and uploading an image.
And so, we present the PC Pro Firefox Essentials - ten brilliant add-ons that have been hand-picked by the PC Pro editorial team.
If you think we’ve missed a brilliant add-on, let us know on comments below and we’ll consider them for future inclusion. Subscribers to our Collection will be alerted whenever we add a new extension.
Alternatively, if you create any fantastic Collections of your own, provide a link in comments so that others can follow.
Things move incredibly quickly in technology. Back in the March 1999 issue of PC Pro, for example, our news section was bemoaning the fact NT4 was as “secure as a piece of Swiss cheese” and marvelling at the prospect of some blue-sky BT technology called ADSL.
Why the sudden flashback to 1999? Because that, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s website, was the last time the ICT National Curriculum for 5 to 11-year-olds was updated. Scan right down to the bottom of the page, and there you’ll find: “This content relates to the 1999 programmes of study and attainment targets.”
Much like Wolfram Alpha, Google Squared - the company’s stab at “automatically fetching and organising facts from across the web” - has split opinion in the PC Pro office.
However, if there’s one thing we’re all agreed upon, it’s that there’s plenty of work to do on accuracy.
Search for “British royals” for example, and top of the shop is Prince William. Born on 21 June 1982 and (ahem) died on “28 August 1972 (aged 30) Halfpenny Green, Wolverhampton”. So not only did he die before he was born, but he somehow reached the ripe old age of 30. Perhaps there’s a time machine in the Midlands?
Directly beneath Wills is Prince Michael of Kent. Born on 4 July 1942, died on 25 August 1942. How he managed to grow that beard during that blessedly short life is a mystery.
The BBC is getting positively hot under the collar about BT’s “iPlayer throttling”. It’s nice to see the big broadcasters finally paying attention to the hidden chokes applied to our broadband connections, although readers of the Smash Your Broadband Limits feature on the cover of this month’s PC Pro would already have been well aware that BT Option 1 customers were restricted to only 896Kbits/sec for streaming video.
BT Option 1 isn’t the worst service when it comes to strangling connections, however. Not by a long chalk. Take BT-owned PlusNet example. Its “Unlimited” account offers a maximum bandwidth of only 256Kbits/sec from download sites during peak hours (6pm-11pm) while peer-to-peer traffic is granted a paltry maximum of 128Kbits/sec from 6pm-10pm. Try downloading a 1.5GB HD show from iPlayer during peak hours on that connection and it will probably arrive a couple of hours after you’ve gone to bed.
Other ISPs pull similar ruses (you can find out what your ISP is up to in this month’s mag). Perhaps now the BBC has taken an interest, we’ll get a frank and open debate about the murky practice of traffic shaping.
Asus - the company that started the netbook phenomenon with the Linux-based Eee PC 701 - has apparently decided that the open-source OS isn’t so spiffing after all.
The company has teamed up with Microsoft to create the rather prosaic It’s Better With Windows website.
“Windows helps you quickly and easily get online and connect to your devices and services - without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues,” the site proclaims. It then shows a series of videos, with Eee PC-wielding people going about their lives in blissful harmony.
The EU is in self-congratulatory mood today, declaring that its clampdown on mobile roaming charges means “the roaming rip-off is now coming to an end”.
