Huck's Journal of Sorts

I know this may verge on being political or social, but upon reading about the Desert Bus game I was reminded of how companies are on a tightrope when it comes to not offending people.   The Grand Tour for example sparked a bit of controversy when they nicknamed their test track the "Eboladrome" after the virus. It may sound like in poor taste considering the epidemic's casualties, but some rebutted that it wasn't to make fun of the victims but rather to mock at the virus itself , kind of like how Downfall parodies mock Hitler but not Holocaust victims.   Same goes for C. & J. Clark getting angry reactions from salty mums who were for some reason incensed at a particular pair of Mary Jane shoes whom the company gave the name "Dolly Babe". A number of reviews state that the shoes get trashed by some wearers and as such they weren't worth the asking price, but what's egregious is the name being a target of unwarranted criti...

So, you’ve heard that right: Emuparadise is gone, or at least shuttered its ROM operations. And so are the likes of LoveROMs whom the Big N slapped a hefty fine on. Is it a good thing? Yes if you really are strict about copyright, but what if you put things like preservation, cultural heritage, accessibility and fan or customer relations to account? As a bit of a background, Nintendo has gained quite a notoriety for being the litigious firm that is known and scorned for. It won a case against Universal Studios over whether Donkey Kong was a parody of King Kong , sued Galoob for the Game Genie, which turned to be in vain as the courts decided that no derivative works were made from games being hacked by the cheat device, banned Japanese stores from offering video games for rent (because they need to PRINT MONEY!!!1!), and sued a Taiwanese bootlegging operation named NTDEC to certain death, not to mention that the bootlegging outfit’s name stood for N in T en D o E lectronic C o. Pirac...

Pun intended, that is. Lately I've noticed that tablets from certain vendors such as RCA, Nextbook and LeapFrog have implemented a security feature by Singapore-based Digital Safety , also known as DiSA. According to the Digital Safety website, it "is designed to offer complete supply chain and in-store protection against shrink." Fig. 1: A DiSA-protected device being activated That is, it does away with physical anti-theft locks wrapped on the device's box prior to being sold to the end-user, and replaces it with an activation system that prompts for a code to be given by the sales person by way of a receipt. As mentioned earlier, this has been implemented by a number of manufacturers, though I don't think they've done so with Apple considering they already have a system that's already effective enough as it is. And I don't think that it has rolled out on all retail outlets either, especially with e-commerce and online stores displacin...

OK, this isn't to say that I have anything against those who maintain "GSM" repair sites and such, nor am I going to be too sour at them either. It's that if there's anything that truly grinds my gears when it comes to smart device servicing, it's the practise of locking down most if not all firmware RAR/ZIP files with a password, and charging people a fee to have that particular SP Flash Tool package unlocked. Let's say you, or your client, has an obscure Xperia clone bought off some flea market stall or on DHGate (assuming you managed to troll the Customs bureau or DHL). You, or that client of yours, forgot to back up the stock firmware, and out of haste managed to mess it up royally and ended up with a non-functional device. In the case of a name-brand, legitimate handset, it's only the matter of googling for "Lenovo A369i stock ROM" or something like that. Some lesser-known phones or tabs would understandably be harder to find firmwa...