Archive for the 'News' Category

The iPhone 3G

Published
by
Balazs
on Wednesday, June 11, 2008
in News, Technology and Wireless
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

iphone 3g

So Apple announced the iPhone 3G on Monday at WWDC, which was to be expected, to be released on July 11. No-one was really surprised, though they obviously still clapped and cheered for Jobs. I don’t really know what to make of it to be honest. It’s a nice upgrade, but I’m still shocked they haven’t included Cut and Paste yet! I’ll have to try one out in person, but I don’t like the white colour at all, and the curviness of the back is not something that I’m too happy with.

My EDGE iPhone works perfectly fine, and I really don’t see myself upgrading anytime soon. You have to sign the contract at the store this time, obviously they’re trying to get around people jailbreaking it and unlocking it, though it’ll still be done. You could sign the contract and then cancel it, but you’d be charged with the early termination fee, and I doubt that’s cheap.

I can’t however wait for the iPhone 2.0 software. The App store looks great, and some of the games look amazing. Spore and Supermonkey Ball are perhaps the best, and from the others that Jobs demonstrated, it will definitely be worth will. At leasr it’s a free upgrade for iPhone users, $9.99 for the touch (which is due to legal reasons I believe).

I’m sad to see the camera’s still remained the same, and there’s no front facing camera either for 3G. That seems kind of a let down to be honest, the camera is perhaps the worst feature of the iPhone. There is Assisted-GPS in the phone, and TomTom have announced they’ve already got software made for it, so expect to see competing applications soon. This is definitely a feature I’d like in my iPhone, as the cell-tower location is just too flimsy, and it’d be nice to have in the iPhone, especially for walking and stuff. It probably does suck on the battery life quite a bit though.

Overall, it’s a nice device, but there’s still stuff lacking. O2 have priced it at £99 for the lower end contracts and free for the higher end contracts. It’s definitely an improvement over the previous price, but somehow I think they’ll make up that money (due to increased contract price and the contract details).

Black, White and Read All Over

Published
by
Balazs
on Friday, June 6, 2008
in Life, News, Politics and Television
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

my political compass
Political Compass borrowed from politicalcompass.org and adapted by me.

What a busy week it has been, both in my life and politically. Biology and Chemistry revision went pretty well, and we did quite a bit of Topic 7 and 8 in Biology. I’ll be revising SN4 during the weekend as well as the Physics to get me sorted before next weeks exams. I can’t believe they’re already so close! The weather has been a bit shite lately, which doesn’t make for the best motivational tool!

Now, getting onto the politics, I recently retook the political compass test and you can see the results in the graph above. I modified the graph at the website and added some other names, including the current British political parties and the candidates for the US presidency, as well as some others in black. I am fairly liberal on the social scale and a lefty on the economic scale. I was quite surprised to see that the Labour party are so right economically. It seems that I am closer to the Green party than any of the other British parties, hehe, though sadly I doubt they’d ever get in power.

Barack Obama has surpassed the needed delegate counts to be made the presumptive nominee as the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States (link). I always thought that he would beat Hillary, who has lied on many occasions and has really jabbed Obama when he was doing so much better than her. Now we just have to wait and see in Novemember whether it will be McCain or Obama. Meanwhile Clinton didn’t immediately step down after hearing the nomination stories and said that she will think about it and speak to the Senate. Later on this week though, CNN reported that she is expected to suspend her campaign by the end of the week. I don’t see why she doesn’t just concede, it’s not like there’s a point to still officially remain in the race.

She should support Obama, though maybe a Obama-Clinton ticket is not the best idea, nor would it pull many voters. The diehard democrats that voted for Clinton would likely remian with the Democratic candidate anyway, whilst those that were torn between Clinton and McCain with no enthusiasm for Obama will move over to McCain. Essentially all that might come of it is some minor scale swaying with no use, considering it would probably have no effect on the electoral college.

Tomorrow is Saturday which means that the new episode of Doctor Who will be on! Woo, I can’t wait. Though I guess I’ll be doing revision beforehand. I started watching Greek as Callum recommended it to me and I absolutely love it! I have been watching it a bit too religiously and I’ll be dissapointed when the season ends as the next season is not expected to air (in the US that is) until Autumn 2008/Spring 2009. That’s a long time, and everything else on TV seems to be getting to the end of the season, bar House. That and Doctor Who seem to be the only good things still running (oh, and Heroes) on TV. Everything is ending as Summer is near (wooooo!) and not many people will be watching their TVs so closely.

Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology a cult!

Published
by
Balazs
on Tuesday, May 20, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

London Anti-Scientology Protest - Goodge St
Flickr: London Anti-Scientology Protest – Goodge St

This is absolutely outrageous. An unnamed teenager has been served by the City of London police after a peaceful protest in which his poster exclaimed “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult“. The poster was confiscated by the police from the teenager, who is under-18, and have sent the case file to the Crown Prosecution Service. 

Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector

The teenager accurately cited a 1984 high court ruling, where Justice Latey described Scientology as a “cult” that was “corrupt, sinister and dangerous“. If the Judge is allowed to call it a cult, why isn’t he? The policewoman read him Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (pdf), which in part says that a person is guilty of an offence if he “displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting” (sec. 5, 1, b), and strongly recommended that he remove the sign.

What’s even more worrying is that an anonymous demonstrator wrote on the anti-Scientology forums that they “protested outside another Scientology building in Tottenham Court Road which is policed by a separate force, the Metropolitan police, who have never tried to stop us using the word cult“. Where’s the fair and balance the police are supposed to be serving?

I didn’t even know that back in 2006 the City of London police got into some heat because it was found that over twenty officers had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from Scientology. These weren’t all low-ranking officials either, they ranged from Constable to Chief Superintendent. When the new headquarters opened that year the Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley applauded Scientology for “raising the spiritual wealth of society“. Whilst this may not be bribery, it does display some sort of low-level corruption. Gifts in exchange for speaking good about Scientology perhaps? We can only speculate. What is certain is that the Chief Superintendent has clearly lost his head.

What a load of bollocks. If it’s not clear to you that Scientology is a cult, I’m sorry to inform you that your mind has been warped. It was founded by a bloody science-fiction author for Christ’s sake! How un-realistic can you get?

This pretty much amounts to public censorship. This is not threatening or abusive wording at all. Whilst it may be insulting, it’s hardly a reason to confiscate the poster nor face the teenager with prosecution. This all reminds me of V for Vendetta where Steven Fry shows Natalie Portman all the government banned loot he has stashed around. What word will the government ban us from using next? It was a peaceful protest, no property was damaged, lives weren’t lost and perhaps just some egos were bashed.

I honestly hope this kid doesn’t make it to court, or if it does, some ace barrister will offer his counselling pro bono for him. This is a disgrace. I wouldn’t really expect this here in the UK, at least we don’t class Scientology as a church (unlike the USA).

link (guardian.co.uk)