Sears reports $748M net loss [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://searsholdings.com/docs/investor/eap/q3-2016-shc-earnings-release.pdf <comment><USER2> They raced to the bottom with their hallowed store brands, cut corners to make margins and in the end shattered the value of the name of appliances like Kenmore or tools like Craftsman.

If you've built a brand on the idea of durability and reliability, and then build shoddy products that coast on the reputation, that reputation goes away and leaves you with a brand that no one wants to buy.

I've been looking at a new fridge, and I'd consider a Chinese Haier over a Sears Kenmore, ceteris paribus.

It used to be that Sears was mighty because of the catalog; then they were mighty because of logistics; then they were mighty because of the iron-clad house brands. Now Amazon is the new catalog, Walmart beats them on logistics, and their brands are mud. Sears has nothing. You'll see a Sears bankruptcy within 5 years.

<comment><USER3> I picked up some craftsman metric/SAE box and open's the other day from the discount section, the build quality is not bad at all. I would not compare it to Snap-On, but a whole other tier than that of HF.

<comment><USER4> Recently I've given up on craftsman all together. Harbor freight owns up to being Chinese junk, but still gives a life time guarantee on and hand tools now. So if they're half the cost of craftsman but break and replace the same, why buy their name brand Chinese junk when I can buy generic stuff from probably the same factory?

<comment><USER5> My tool buying methodolty is

1\. Buy Harbor Freight Version....

2\. If a break the Harbor Freight tool, then I will look at a SnapOn, Dewalt, Ridged, or other Contractor/Professional Brand

I have very fews tools in the #2 category...

<comment><USER6> Though waiting for number 2 might give you frustration in the mean time. There's more to a tool than whether or not it breaks. When that steel bolt has cold welded itself to the aluminum engine head, you're going to want the most precision-machined socket you can find. Because if you bugger it up, your day is about to get a lot worse while you ponder whether you can burn the bolt out with an acetelyne torch before you melt the aluminum. Granted, I don't run into that a lot now that I no longer turn wrenches for a living.

That said, I've got a lot of HF in my toolbox and can't say I've been unhappy with them. When I'm 100 miles from nowhere and my motorcycle breaks, it'll be HF sockets and Torx bits that get me back on the road.

<comment><USER5> I am mainly a Woodworker as a hobby and IT has a Profession

My Cars are worked on by Professionals so I do not have alot of Automotive tools or needs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Buffett Curse: Any comparisons to Warren Buffett will immediately result in disastrous investment performance.

In this case, hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert took control of Sears about 10 years ago, merged it with K-Mart, and 3 years ago installed himself as chairman and CEO. He's been selling off assets left and right to keep it afloat (real estate, Lands End, etc.)

Prior to this he had been compared to and called "the new Buffett" due to similar investment styles (if you squint real hard). Since then Sears has lost over 90% of its market value. Yikes.

For another example, see Bill Ackman, who has been absolutely slaughtered, and seems to be asking for more. It started almost immediately after Fortune put him on the cover with the slug line "Baby Buffett".

<comment><USER8> Wasn't this also a case of pretty spectacular mismanagement on CEO's part? I remember reading stuff like this: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at- sears-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie- lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles), it was rather fascinating. It seems from that that it wasn't just a case of overly rosy expectations.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, definitely. Smart investors with no management or operations experience install capable people as CEO, as Buffett has done on several occasions.

Arrogant investors seem to think, "running a business can't be _that_ hard..."

<comment><USER9> > Arrogant investors seem to think, "running a business can't be that hard..."

Running a country can't be that hard...oh my god.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> disclaimer (both my sister and my mom worked for sears at one time)

I think Sears has lost its way because a new generation of shoppers don't see Sears as vital. Back in the late 1800' when it was founded the idea that you could look in a catalog and order something, only to pick it up at the store a week later was nothing short of a revolution. And as a result Sears because _exquisitely_ good at logistics. For decades the ability to move product where it needed to be, when it needed to be there, at scale allowed Sears department stores to dominate the retail market. It was rare to go to Sear's and discover what you wanted was out of stock, and even then they could tell you to either come back in 1 or 2 days to pick it up, or they would deliver it to you. That service, that experience, was enabled and powered by logistics.

Old companies can get senile though and Sears did. They forgot they were a logistics company and started trying to compete with Internet retailers as a retail company. If instead they has offered white label logistics service for internet merchants Amazon wouldn't be Amazon, instead it would be a buying consortium that was shipping everything through to consumers through Sear's logistics infrastructure. Instead you've got Amazon of today re-creating what Sear's had 20 years ago but using more advanced technology.

<comment><USER11> > They forgot they were a logistics company

Sears was the Amazon of 80's. Peering through the lens of time, the concept of a mail order catalog was no different from the convenience of today's Amazon e-commerce experience. They are both points on an evolutionary timeline of the retail distribution experience. Sears disrupted retail, just like Amazon has disrupted Sears.

What's interesting about companies like today's Amazon is that they are scared shitless they'll end up becoming another Sears and eventually dead in the water, so they are constantly investing their own profits into re-inventing themselves (see Amazon Go and drone delivery for example). And hence why the PE ratios of these companies (Amazon, Google, Apple, etc) are catastrophically high.

<comment><USER12> The PE ratio of Amazon is catastrophically high (175.8) but Google & Apple are not.

The S&P 500's average PE ratio is currently 24.22 [1]. Google/Alphabet is a little higher than average at 27.9, and Apple is solidly in blue-chip territory 13.6

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-peyield.html](http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-peyield.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anecdote: Recently I had a sears gift card number but not the actual gift card. Tried to buy vacuum in store with just the number not the card, and they said no way, even said they should call corporate security to investigate my scam. I went online to sears.com in the store, paid for my vacuum with the gift card number and selected in store pickup. Left with the vacuum.

<comment><USER14> For fun, you could buy a few more cards like that and see what kind of mess happens. Like what Steve Wozniak's does with his $2 bills ([http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html](http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html)).

<comment><USER15> If you showed up to Cheesecake Factory and for the bill wrote your credit card number, expiration, and CVV on a napkin, do you think they would accept that? In all seriousness, how was that fun for you?

<comment><USER14> Straw man argument? Doing that doesn't sound fun at all, and is totally different than what OP was talking about in Sears. Trying to use the giftcard number to see how high their staff will escalate to deal with this "scam" is hilarious, otoh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I see articles about how sears is now, I always think of this

[http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys- Decline...](http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys- Decline#1742245)

Sears could have been what Amazon is today.

<comment><USER17> 20/20 hindsight and all. Amazon still has practically no retail footprint. Sears' big business was bricks-and-mortar retailing, not catalog retailing. The catalog was shrinking and dying. Under the circumstances it was perfectly reasonable for Sears to shut down the catalog and focus on stores.

Also, Amazon did not start out being anything like what it is today. For years it was just books. I remember as they added departments, they would tack an extra tab onto the homepage--"CDs", "Video", etc. So what was Sears going to do? Instantly transport the entirety of a dying catalog business to a non- existing consumer Internet? That wouldn't parallel Amazon at all. Not to mention that Sears did not have access to a bunch of giddy investors who were willing to pump in money despite no sign of profitability.

Only under a superficial analysis could Sears have been what Amazon is today.

<comment><USER18> Many other large brick-and-mortar retailers have spun up relatively successful eComm businesses (Target, Walmart, Macy's). While those aren't to the scale of Amazon, I really don't think this is an excuse.

<comment><USER17> > While those aren't to the scale of Amazon

Since OP's point was

> Sears could have been what Amazon is today

it's quite relevant that Target, Walmart, Macy's are not nearly to the scale of Amazon.

<comment><USER19> Similarly (and probably off topic), Amazon is not nearly to the scale of Walmart when you look at overall sales. Walmart's overall revenue is about 5x.

It may seem like Walmart is following the footsteps of Sears, but they are not out of the game yet. They need to face the innovator's dilemma head on and do it quickly because the broader issue is their e-commerce growth rate is declining instead of accelerating and the way people shop is fundamentally changing. They need to be dominant in e-commerce to be a dominant retailer in the future.

Walmart is better positioned than anyone to take on Amazon online. Their massive distribution footprint is a huge asset they are not leveraging. They need to morph into a logistics company and announce an all-encompassing same- day delivery service. They also need to completely re-haul their web/mobile UX.

I would gladly buy from Walmart. Amazon is just a lot easier right now. In the end, Amazon is not all that differentiated and if Walmart had some strong technological leadership, they could certainly close the e-commerce gap.

<comment><USER20> walmart has a 2 day delivery program similar to prime for 40 dollars a year. they need to advertise better..no one knows (you didnt did you?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Every time I read something about Sears troubles, it makes me remember this metafilter comment from 2007: [http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record- Industrys-Decline...](http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys- Decline#1742245)

Excerpt:

"...In 1984 [Sears] starts a joint venture with IBM called Prodigy, an online computer service, sort of a prototype AOL. In 1985, Sears launches a new major credit card, the Discover card. For the next eight years, the only credit card you can use at Sears is Discover.

At this time, the early 80's Sears is the largest retailer in the U.S.

By 1993, the 100th anniversary of the Sears Catalog, Sears had built up considerable goodwill in the mind of consumers. They weren't the lowest price, but they had what you needed at good prices and the service was second to none. […]

This is 1993. In quite possibly the greatest example of corporate shortsightedness, Sears shut down it's mail-order business in a cost cutting measure. It spins off Allstate that same year, and soon dumps Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker.

In 1993, Sears had the most extensive and sophisticated mail-order retail operation on the planet and they closed it.

Two years later, Amazon.com launched, and was soon selling everything that sears sold through it's catalog. By the late-90's Walmart's push of low-cost China imports killed Sears retailing. Online banking takes off. Credit card use surges as mail order and retail purchases are shifted online.

Sears had its own computer network in 1993. They had access to IBM, they should have understood the power of the internet. All they had to do was shift the catalog online instead of killing it off, promising in store returns and the same Sears satisfaction guaranteed. Discover could have been the credit card of choice for security and protection online. Dean Witter could have been what Schwab, E-Trade and Ameritrade became. Back in the mid-late 90s when many people were hesitant to use credit cards online, Sears could have been a familiar face online."

</comment><comment><USER22> When sears killed their lifetime guarantee on wrenches, the local competition put an aquarium in their tool section. Throw in a "useless" sears wrench and you could pick up a free replacement with a life time guarantee. Seemed pretty effective, the clerk claimed they had to empty the aquarium every week or so for the first year.

</comment><comment><USER23> Recently shopped at Sears in Vancouver. Zero to no customer activity. No good deals but also virtually no one helping me check the fuck out of there.

Waited hours only to see the fucking cashier or staff chatting it up with each other with a line queue forming.

Same experience in The Bay. I think these traditional marts are on their way out. I have zero sympathy, kill this fucking monstrosity.

<comment><USER24> Shopping at Sears was a depressing experience for years. They really let the stores fall apart, employees clearly didn't care, the products were crap, etc. I think they made most of their money off Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances.

<comment><USER25> Think Sears is bad, try KMart.

<comment><USER26> It's like something out of Mad Max. I had the misfortune of popping into one on the way to the airport for a vacation, after I realized I hadn't brought a watch. I swear there were tumbleweeds blowing down the aisles. While I was waiting to check out, I watched a toothless young lady harangue the cashier into selling her several sets of Boston Bruins towels that were clearly marked as $19.99 for $5 apiece. The cashier brought her manager over to doublecheck, shoulders were shrugged, and zero fucks were given. As I was leaving, a befuddled elderly lady was trying to return items she'd bought at a TJ Maxx. There was no TJ Maxx in this strip mall, nor within five miles. I got the hell out of there with my cheap wristwatch and resolved never to return.

<comment><USER27> The most anachronistic part of this comment is the wristwatch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> You know things are bad when this is the type of news that boosts your stock price by 5%.

</comment><comment><USER29> I kinda forgot they were still in business. What does Sears offer that no one else does?

<comment><USER30> Maybe Craftsman hand tools, but that's it. Those are well made, and the socket wrenches are lifetime warrantied (they will fail, but they will just give you a new one). Craftsman power tools are garbage; might as well get them at Harbor Freight.

We always bought appliances from sears, but recently the refrigerator was from Lowes, and the microwave and oven from Amazon.

They don't stock appliances (very long waits for refrigerators) and the sales people can be horrible. The fridge we bought recently sight unseen, online.

The checkout process at Sears is fully fucked up. A convoluted connection of iPads, credit card swipers, and ancient IBM registers.

Best Buy also sucks, so it's not like they have much local competition.

I swore I'd never buy a large appliance from Amazon, but the in-wall oven was just fine, and I installed it no problem. If you can do your own appliance installations, I suppose online is the way to go.

<comment><USER31> Sears is a jack of all trades store that doesn't have much value these days. Before Home Depot and Lowes were everywhere, Sears was a good option for appliances, lawn care, power tools, etc. They were good for fitness equipment before Dicks. They were good for electronics before Best Buy. I suspect a place like Kohls took over their clothing audience as well.

Of course the internet didn't help them much either.

I'm sure someone will gladly buy up Craftsmen when it goes up for sale but I agree with you that it's their only exclusive asset that sets them apart.

<comment> this-dang-guy Sears died for me when the internet replaced the catalog.

As a kid, we'd spend literally _hours_ pouring over the Sears Catalog to circle christmas/b-day gifts (each kid with a different color pen), and we'd actually fight each other to get to it first.

That culture doesn't really exist anymore, and Sears really didn't adapt to it. Amazon would be the modern version, I guess.

<comment><USER32> The Sears catalog and the JC Penney Christmas catalogs. Such an amazing time of year.

<comment> this-dang-guy I still get a bit of a thrill from the Quadratec and Cabelas catalogs, but nothing on par with that. It was really the best.

My first Nintendo came from that Sears Christmas Catalog :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> They need to streamline the stupid checkout process where you get hammered with incessant questions and wait for 3-feet of receipts to print out.

<comment><USER34> _incessant questions_

You mean like "do you want to apply for a credit card?"?

There's a reason for that. The associate gets $2 for every store credit card and $4 for every bank credit card sign-up. It's a big deal to a kid making $10/hr. But it certainly doesn't help the overall experience for those people who don't want another credit card.

<comment><USER35> I'm glad they get a commission on those. Unlike the poor folks at Best Buy who get nothing for upselling the worthless warranty extensions. I last asked a few years ago so this may have changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> And they phased out their catalog. If they had waited a few years, they could have put it online and been Amazon. Reminds me of a smaller chain called Service Merchandise. You could order from an electronic kiosk in the store, and your product would come out on a conveyor belt a few minutes later. If they had hung in a bit longer, they could have phased the kiosk ordering to the internet.

<comment><USER37> Astonishingly: [https://www.servicemerchandise.com](https://www.servicemerchandise.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sears mostly has a big marketing issue. I almost never see them online. No online advertising. No social media. Nothing to show they are at all connected to the real world. My guess is they are still doing TV adverts and I think a lot of people do not watch traditional TV anymore and it is costing them mind share.

<comment><USER10> They are waiting for you to come to the mall so they can engage in personal face to face selling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Isn't this that CEO who actually believes in Ayn Rand?

<comment><USER40> He is.

I remember reading that article some times ago : [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at- sears-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie- lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles)

It has been posted a few time to HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Such a shame really. I get how they were blind to it, but sears ran a successful mail order business for decades before the Internet was widely available. What a missed opportunity, usurped by a clever computer tech from the fincial industry. Even when it was clear books were working, sears sat on the sidelines with their print catalog oblivious to the online world.

</comment><comment><USER42> It breaks my heart what this guy Eddie Lampert did to this company. I used to work as a consultant for Sears and have fond memories of my time then.

Sears was, for as long as I know them, been mismanaged by their executives. They would spend insane money to hire consultants and developers, only to change direction after less then a year and fire everyone.

</comment><comment><USER43> I didn't know for sure they were still in business.

Who shops at Sears? For what reason?

</comment><comment><USER44> This is genius! They won't have to pay taxes for the next 20 years! Brilliant!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If I had a crystal ball and could look into Amazon and Sears's respective C-Suites, this is what I imagine I'd see:

Amazon Manager to subordinate: How is the progress going on our new jet and drone fleets?

Sears Manager to subordinate: Why the HELL aren't our website sales up?!?!

<comment><USER45> All you're describing here is how effective Amazon's marketing department is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they bought a fleet of jets for marketing. My point is about their respective cultures. Amazon's culture is just flat out better.

Amazon just entered the retail grocery business. When they did it, they looked at the process and noticed that in the existing process everyone was double handling merchandise. Once when they select it, and once when they checkout. So Amazon decided to make it a single handling process, making life a bunch easier for consumers. That also decreases purchase friction, which is great for Amazon.

That thought process illustrates why Amazon is the leader and will continue to humble it's rivals. It will take a huge culture change, and a probable industry consolidation before the likes of Sears will become competitive again.

<comment><USER46> Underestimating on the grocery thing. Handle each can of beans

       taking from the shelf to the cart
       from cart to checkout belt
       from belt to bag (ok they help with this one)
       from bag to car (several at once)
       from car to counter in pantry
       from bag to shelf

and later

       from pantry shelf to kitchen counter
       from kitchen counter to trash/recycle bin
       from bin to curb

Taking just one of those out is not much benefit, marginally?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


iPhone 5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/iphone/ <comment><USER4> To talk about the software, I've been using Apple Maps in beta for the past couple of months, and having no transit directions while living in NYC is enough for me to consider a switch to android.

Trying to take the subway to unfamiliar parts of the city forces me to use google maps in the browser. Addresses seem to be hit or miss -- I've often spent time searching for an establishment or address just to give up and use google maps in the browser.

I've basically had to revert to how I got around the city prior to having a smartphone -- use my computer and remember how I need to get there before I leave.

Apple Maps is potentially a huge fail for anyone living in a major city.

<comment><USER5> So let me get this straight. A single app on iOS, which doesn't live up to expectations or desires AND is still in BETA (re: unfinished, unready) and this makes you consider buying an entirely new phone?

You sound like those soccer moms I make house calls for who just think it's easier to throw away a working system and buy something else.

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's correct. Out of curiosity, do you live in NYC? The subway is part of the life blood of this city, and not being able to navigate from A -> B using maps is a major loss.

Normal situational example: I'm in a neighborhood, say Fort Greene, and I'm meeting a friend for dinner at a restaurant I've never heard of in the East Village. First, I need to be able to find that restaurant by searching for it in Maps -- this largely doesn't work anymore. I often get results that are totally incorrect.

But say I do find the location, I then need to figure out how to get there from a neighborhood I don't actively live in. Do I take the A train and transfer to the F and walk from the lower east side? Maybe it's faster to walk to the Q and get off at Union Square. Or maybe the manhattan bridge is under construction, and it actually would be faster to take the G to north Brooklyn and transfer to the L. This subway system is so massive that even native New Yorkers get turned around and need directions.

If you don't actively live in NYC I think it might be hard to realize how significant losing transit directions is, not to mention useful location search.

<comment><USER6> It's a little easier in Chicago due to our more boring grid layout (Lincoln Park? I'll take the Red north and transfer to the Brown. Logan Square? I'll take a westbound bus and get on the Blue), but iOS 6 has still given me exactly the same thought of switching to Android for the transit navigation.

<comment><USER4> Totally, I was in Chicago for work earlier this summer and Apple Maps was completely useless. Luckily I still remember the transit from when I lived in Chicago a while back, but had I not had that prior knowledge I would have gotten myself lost many times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How is the 'biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone' simply a taller screen and newer processor? What about NFC? Wireless charging? Sorry Apple, but this just isn't that impressive.

<comment><USER8> Plus, "simply a taller screen and newer processor", really? New screen, new processor, new innards, new machining and construction, new connector, new iOS, new camera, improved battery life AND lighter.

NFC and wireless charging? Who promised you that? And who delivers those at the moment?

You might want to see this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk>

<comment><USER9> Name for me one brand new feature. This is a product update, this isn't deserving of a new version number, and it certainly isn't "the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since iphone".

This isn't to say it's a bad device, just infinite hype for zero payoff.

<comment><USER10> Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution? It's a better phone than the last one. If you're not impressed, don't buy one.

<comment><USER11>
      > Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution?

I completely agree.

But Apple has a habit of making it seem like everything they do is revolutionary. It's very good marketing.

      > Apple reinvents the phone [1]

      > This changes everything. Again.

      > The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone

      > A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price

      > Resolutionary

Again, I agree with you. But what I'm getting at is that Apple's brand of marketing creates a lot of hype and I'm sure they like it that way.

[1] <http://web.archive.org/web/20070113215301/http://apple.com>

<comment><USER12> Dear Mister Obvious,

Every marketing team ever has created hype. Ever.

<comment><USER13> Right. And when Apple creates hype, people for some reason buy into it. In droves.

I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this.

<comment><USER11>
      > people for some reason buy into it

It's not just "some" reason. They have one of the best marketing departments in the world who do an excellent job.

      > I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this.

I'm blaming Apple for doing a damn good job of marketing their products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember when the 4 was 'The' phone to have, and two iterations later, Apple are now seemingly playing me-too with Android/WP7-based handsets.

Especially the odd approach they're taking with NFC & Passbook in iOS 6. Why make a product perfectly suited for NFC, then just not use it in your newest products?

I was holding off on a new handset until the iPhone 5, but the Nokia's Lumina series seems to do more.

<comment><USER10> "Apple are now seemingly playing me-too with Android/WP7-based handsets"

This seems like it must be a joke, but I read a lot of people saying things like this. The sum of a phone are the features that come with it right out of the box, like little checkboxes to look for, without regard for the quality of their implementations or their usefulness in general. And here of all places, Hacker News, to show such complete disregard for the 3rd party app market (and the quality of their apps). iOS has much, much higher quality apps available in general than either Android or WP7. And while iPhone may not yet have NFC capabilities that the average user probably has little or no use for right now anyway, it does have things like a very nice music player that stomps on Android's. A fucking music player, that's like the first app that both iPhone and Android had, and the one in iOS has always been superior. But somehow iOS is the one playing catch-up.

I just don't understand this new mindset that iOS has fallen behind Android, much less WP7.

<comment><USER15> _iOS has much, much higher quality apps available_

iOS has visually slicker apps, but they are less functional, because iOS is more locked down. With Android, I use a custom home screen and a whole bunch of widgets that make the device far more useful to me than iOS devices which seem like toys in comparison. For example, the 3G Watchdog's widget showing quota usage, and calendar and weather displays. The fact I can use rsync to sync folders between my phone, tablet and home NAS without storing my files in the cloud somewhere or having the files siloed in a specific application or generic "photos, movies or music" buckets is a game changer for me.

The only time I use my iPad these days is on transatlantic flights when I want to watch my own movies or play some slick games. But that's even being transplanted by my Nexus 7, which is much nicer to use owing to lower weight - and bonus, I get most of the apps that also work on my phone.

iOS reminds me a little of DOS circa 1993, while Android feels a bit like Windows 3.1 of the same era. DOS apps were typically silos using custom graphics libraries, while Windows apps were drab but more consistent and had some pretense at integration (early OLE).

<comment><USER10> Okay, point taken. But I guess I spend so much time around a computer, I carry my laptop with me most places, that I honestly don't ever find myself with a desire to do things like rsync files and folders.

For me, a mobile phone is not a replacement for a computer. There are a number of things that I can do on a phone now that I couldn't do 10 years ago.. but there are a ton more things that I hope I never have to do on a phone. There are already plenty of things that phones do now, in their race to out-feature one another, that I think are just plain retarded as fuck. Do I want to watch a movie on a 4" screen? Fuck no. That sounds like the most awful cinematic experience imaginable.

I own a Galaxy Nexus right now, and I think it's a really nice phone except for a few things that drive me nuts (like the music player being awful). I used to use an iPhone 3GS, and everyone at work has iPhone 4 or 4S, and I think the iPhones just feel like nicer phones. Better quality cameras, generally nicer apps with it (with the obvious exception of maps.. Android's navigation feature has been the one thing I loved better about it for years), nicer designs in general, etc.

It's all about what you get out of the phone though. The two apps that I use the most are music and maps/navigation. That's been kind of an issue for me since Android has had the nicer maps app, but iPhone had the nicer music app.

<comment><USER15> Re movie watching, I used to watch movies on my 3rd gen iPod Nano - <USER2> sitting in an aircraft for 11 hours with nothing else to do. On a phone, way nicer. You have to consider the visual angle rather than absolute screen size. My Galaxy Nexus has a 12cm diagonal; at 30cm from my eyes, that's over 22 degrees of viewing angle measured diagonally. At a distance of 9 feet, that's around a 42 inch screen. It's better than the setup I use to watch movies with my girlfriend (we don't own a TV) - and that works fine, it's a lot better than the 13-odd inch TV my family had in the 80s.

I'd love to own an iPhone - but only the hardware. I'd want to run Android on it.

<comment><USER10> Holding a 12cm phone 30cm from my eyes sounds like an _awful_ cinematic experience. On a plane. Holding a device up. Focusing your eyes on this little thing right in front of you. None of this sounds like the way to watch a movie.

But maybe I just put too much value in the experience of watching a movie. I love live concerts, but I don't refuse to listen to pre-recorded albums so maybe I'm just being absurd about demanding to watch a movie under certain conditions.

<comment><USER15> You don't hold the device up. You prop it on the fold-down table and look down at it at a fairly comfortable angle. BTW, around 30cm distance is pretty normal for lots of things - e.g. books, in use for centuries.

On planes with seat rear screens are probably even closer than 30cm to your eyes when the guy in front is leaned back and you're not.

(Not a fan of live concerts; sound is much better on studio recorded albums in any case.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thinner, lighter, faster, better battery life, and it has a bigger screen. I will take these over NFC and wireless charging any day. Sometimes they are ahead in raw specs (screen ppi), sometimes they are behind (LTE), but everything they include, or don't include, is well thought out. (e.g., at the time of the 4s release 4G LTE phones suffered from terrible battery life)

</comment><comment><USER17> This pretty much sums it up : <http://blog.textoo.net/graphics/iphone5/>

<comment><USER18> Not really, it's not actually bigger. Just taller, only 4" not 6.

<comment><USER19> They had to save some things for the iPhone 6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was really hoping for a barometer so I could recruit iOS users to pressureNET. No such luck. Maybe next time.

<comment><USER21> Cool project dude!

But why on Earth does any phone ship with a barometer? Weather is the only application I can think of, and surely it's easier just to pull weather conditions from the network.

<comment><USER22> It's mainly[0] to give the phone/tablet a rough altitude reading to make GPS locks faster.

[0] [https://plus.google.com/112413860260589530492/posts/jVJhPyou...](https://plus.google.com/112413860260589530492/posts/jVJhPyouWDP)

EDIT: relevant thread

<comment><USER23> That makes no sense. My iPhone takes two seconds to get a solid GPS lock and it doesn't have a barometer. My stand-alone TomTom car GPS takes about 30 seconds to get a lock from a cold start, which is entirely attributable to the time required to download the satellite positions over the extremely slow 70s-era channel that they're broadcast over. Actually solving the equations takes no appreciable time on anything resembling modern hardware.

As far as I know, aGPS as found on modern devices is all about getting that almanac faster (which is why my iPhone only requires two seconds), not about using a rough fix to then get a better fix.

I realize that isn't your post, but it seemed appropriate to reply here since you posted the link.

<comment><USER24> Many android devices support actual GPS, not just aGPS, so you can use them in places where you have no cell signal (say, while hiking).

Your iPhone takes 2 seconds because it's never a cold start. You're always connected to at least one cell tower you know the location of, you have several nearby wifi access points, etc. It might not be a feature you need for your limited use case. Cool. Then you won't miss it.

<comment><USER25> >Many android devices support actual GPS, not just aGPS

Every phone with A-GPS support actual GPS. A-GPS is additional feature on top of regular GPS.

<comment><USER23> There are actually two different kinds of A-GPS as best I understand it.

One is the bad kind where GPS only works when you have a cell signal. It offloads a lot of the processing to the cell tower. This is used by cheap phones to comply with FCC requirements for location reporting for 911 calls, and isn't found much elsewhere.

The other is the good kind where it grabs the almanac off the network when possible for faster cold start times. This kind still works fine when you have no connection, it just takes longer to figure out your location when you turn it on, because it has to download the almanac the slow way.

They're basically unrelated except for the name, which is confusing.

<comment><USER26> You are misinformed. Assisted GPS is simply a feature that reduces the time- to-first-fix of GPS. Triangulation from cell towers exists, but nobody calls it A-GPS.

I've used the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, and 4S extensively in the wilderness. Every version since GPS was introduced has been "real" GPS.

<comment><USER23> I'm not talking about cell tower triangulation, I'm talking about offloading computation to more capable hardware located remotely. It exists:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS#Modes_of_operation>

I can't find anything about chipsets that only do that, but I'd be surprised if nobody had ever done it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Lack of NFC makes me sad, but I've been screwing around with Bluetooth 4.0 LE recently, and I think I can do basically all the things I want (in a closed ecosystem -- access control, digital leash, etc.) using 4.0 LE, and then use 2d barcodes on screen for interfacing to existing systems. It fails to mass transit, but I have a car.

The main things I would have liked: * "geofencing" in some security-strong way to let a phone use a 4-digit pin when in home/office, and a longer PIN when outside the home/office. Could ninja this on Android I think (you'd do some kind of low-latency challenge-response on a LAN -- depending on the threat model, even 802.1X might be ok, but wouldn't resist an RF relay over a long tunnel...)

* Biometric authentication on the device

* Integrated credential management ("Passbook for Websites") where SSL client certs, passwords, or something got managed inside the secure element of the phone

And, a real stretch, but a 128 or 256GB "pro" version of the phone, even if it cost 2x as much. Kill the iPod Classic.

<comment><USER28> Can you get bluetooth 4.0 to passively listen to active NFC signals?

<comment><USER29> Unlikely. NFC operates around 13MHz, and Bluetooth is 2.4Ghz, I believe.

<comment><USER27> The least crazy thing old be an iPhone case which does NFC and talks bt 4.0 to the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Amazon Kindle HD press conference was more exciting.

Kindle x-ray is an amazing feature, and the front lit display is really an achievement.

I guess apple doesn't have the same fire to innovate that it used to. This might be proof that Patents don't spur innovation.

<comment><USER31> Really? I found the pacing incredibly slow.

<comment><USER30> but the products were more innovative.

Apple held back calling last year the iPhone 4S, the 5 because it wasn't good enough to bare the name, but this time there are hardly any core feature upgrades, and you get pulled further away from good google services.

the iphone 5 is more about flashy hardware and dumping google than it is about wowing customers.

the iphone 4s had a focusing lens, siri and was twice as fast as the iphone4.

this phone really doesn't wow me at all.

<comment><USER31> How are the kindle products innovative? I guess the "white" page book reader is innovative in the sense of licensing a new generation of the e-ink tech (and I have to say it make the readers more attractive to me; I never liked the gray one gray displays), and the front-lighting is new and useful. Aside from that they're tablets with literally zero features we haven't seen before, indeed nothing over the iPad 3. Apple just needs to cut the iPad 3 price by 25% and they're not even compellingly cheap.

The iPhone 5 may not wow you, but what does that matter? In general each iPhone generation has only really been compelling to owners of _two_ year old iPhones. I thought the iPhone 4S was nice enough but hung onto my iPhone 4. I thought the 3GS looked nice, but held onto my 3G.

(For contrast, I have an original Kindle Fire and the new Kindles do nothing for me. Indeed, having bought a Kindle Fire I probably won't buy another Amazon tablet because they're _far_ more crippled than anything Apple has ever done. E.g. I can't read epubs on it.)

The iPod Touch is a _huge_ upgrade. It's literally an iPhone without the cellular plan (it has a 4S CPU, but an iPhone 5 screen).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> has anybody seen the pricing for this?? outrageous!! [http://static.ips.apple.com.edgekey.net/ipa_preauth/content/...](http://static.ips.apple.com.edgekey.net/ipa_preauth/content/catalog/en_US/index.html)

Look specifically at the data plans

<comment><USER33> !!!

Why is Verizon so popular in the U.S.? I see no (absolutely no) reason why someone should choose Verizon over Sprint... Verizon plans are about a hundred times more expensive.

<comment><USER34> Coverage. Especially in the west.

<comment><USER35> Sprint users get free access to Verizon's network until 2016.

<comment><USER36> I know they have a 3G agreement, but do they use Verizon's LTE network too? That makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER35> The agreement is technology agnostic. I had to escalate up a few times and after some persistance, got a call back from someone who was engineering level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What percentage of people sitting on upgrades are now debating just switching to Android?

<comment><USER38> I had to switch away from Android to iPhone because although there's a lot about Android I prefer, I need my basic apps to run without fucking crashing. I'm talking about _sending sms_ being impossible because the _stock SMS app_ crashes. Being unable to use Maps because typing in the blank caused it to crash. And the thing is, I suspect that there are good Android phones that don't have these problems, but several of my friends have phones from several different vendors that are nearly unusable. It's like a minefield - I want to buy my girlfriend a replacement for her mostly-broken Android phone, but I have no idea how to evaluate whether a given model will be a broken piece of shit. At least iPhone is a known quality - I miss having a decent Maps app, but at least it isn't _broken_.

<comment><USER39> The most recent builds (coupled with decent hardware, of course) have less and less of these problems. The only lingering problems I see are the lack of good apps (there ARE good apps appearing on Android, but the good/bad ratio is still pretty bad) and the always bad battery life (no matter how low end or high end the device is)...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There's a lot of defensive reactions on here. That's interesting.

Where is the feature in this phone which makes you stop and think "wow, how did we not have this before?". There isn't one. That's not good.

Apple set the stage for something revolutionary, and what they unveiled was not. It's boring. Again. Come on Apple.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have always been impressed by Apples products (I use them to earn a living after all) & was planning to upgrade my tired old iphone 3G to an iphone 5...but now I'm having second thoughts.

When a friend handed me his S3 I immediately felt a little wow'd by the screen size, responsiveness & general look / feel of the phone, this new iphone does not look like it will give me the same "wow factor".

I am extremely disappointed that Apple have not worked harder to improve the battery life, it has been & remains pathetic, primarily for this reason I will not be buying an iphone 5.

Come on Apple, I want to give you my money - but please start putting some creative innovations back into your products, if you cannot do that then at least give us a phone with a battery which can last for a full / busy day.

<comment><USER42> i've never had any trouble with my battery life while i have friends with android phones that say the lte drains it in 1.5 hours. I'm not sure what you are hoping for, but i don't think switching from apple is going to help your battery life.

<comment><USER41> My hope is a very simple one, I was hoping that I could buy a phone, charge it and that it would not run out of power within a few hours of heavy usage, my co-worker gets a full day of challenging battery use from his S3, which I have been a little more impressed with.

Impressive screens & faster chips are all well and good but only if their is enough power in the dam thing to actually keep the device powered on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wanted to watch the video on the page, but it told me to install QuickTime. Yeah, sure...

<comment><USER44> No Silverlight I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Solid device, nothing groundbreaking but catching up with the competition..I am not sure about the form factor though

</comment><comment><USER46> The marginal improvements are diminishing...

</comment><comment><USER47> I was hoping for some discussion of the new OS and phone's impact on development instead of a Droid/iPhone flame war since I've just started developing my first iOS app. What's the biggest impact to iOS developers? The only one I can think of is a new aspect ratio.

Update: Discussion on Quora: [http://www.quora.com/iOS-Development/From-a- developers-persp...](http://www.quora.com/iOS-Development/From-a-developers- perspective-what-new-and-interesting-features-and-notable-changes-are-in-the- iOS-6-SDK)

</comment><comment><USER48> New iEverything except iMac. Come on Apple, we know it's imminent. Just announce the damn thing.

<comment><USER24> No new iPad either. Also no new Mac Pros.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> 20% lighter - because that was a big problem lugging around that heavy iphone 4.

slimmer - because that thick fat iphone 4 taking up way too much room in my pocket

faster - because my iphone 4 is too slow?

what I'd upgrade for: screen that is readable in direct sunlight or when wearing polarized sunglasses, camera that takes picture the instant I touch the button, better phone reception

<comment><USER50> _20% lighter_ – Without exception, my $20 t-shirts wear out by failure of the fabric at the upper righthand corner of the pocket[1]. I get a little hole from keeping my iPhone in there. 20% lighter might save me a few t-shirts a year.

 _camera that takes picture the instant I touch the button_ – sounds like you want the 40% faster image capture time.

 _readable in direct sunlight or when wearing polarized sunglasses_ – yeah, me too. Still waiting on OLED to beat LCD.

EOM

[1] that wouldn't stop me from wearing them, but as soon as my wife sees the hole the shirt vanishes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This announcement plays into my theory that Apple will miss Steve Jobs a lot. It was very much a 'gradual improvement' -- and 'routine' announcement.

A few missteps, from my perspective: * Apple Maps -- while this may prove good for mapping technology in the long run, I think the iPhone users will miss Google Maps quite a bit, for now. * Seemingly no fundamental improvement to Siri. "Conversational Searching" is the best way for Apple to bring the fight to Google, because this is the natural evolution of search. Why type queries into a search engine, when you can have a conversation with an AI instead? Google sees this danger and is developing Google Now, leaping ahead quickly. * No signs of trying to get into the emerging mobile payments battle.

All in all I didn't get the feeling of a large vision being played out or of an arc of forward advance, but rather a feeling of slowing momentum.

</comment><comment><USER52> Definitely an interative / evolutionary improvement - but I think they've done a substantial number of things across the board that make it a significant upgrade. I think it's a hard sell though because they have no new "headline" feature to talk about and most of the new things are already in competing forms in other phones, in many cases arguably better. With the 4s they had Siri, past generations had things like Facetime, etc. With this they've got to convince people to get excited about what looks like an incremental improvement, and worse, they have to start doing what they hate - <USER3> about tech specs - the processor is "twice as fast", the phone is thinner, etc. Apple hates competing on tech specs because they know it just sets a bar for all the OEMs to jump over and commoditize the feature. But that is what they have to do with this phone.

</comment><comment><USER31> One of the things that impressed me (we'll see how well it works) is the panorama function. Plenty of cameras have a automatic panoramas but you'd be surprised how cruddy the results tend to be (often very low resolution). It looks like the panorama function generates very high resolution output.

</comment><comment><USER53> Hmm "Lightning to USB Cable".

Doesn't say if it's USB 3, and doesn't say if in the future, it could be Lightning to Thunderbolt.

<comment><USER54> I like that their new cables are reversible. I hate how the micro-usb connectors can only fit one way, and it's not obvious which way the connector is when viewing from a distance. I always have to squint at the hole & cable every time I charge my phone (I have a nexus s)... it's too bad I'll never find an android phone with this kind of connector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> No USB connector, really sad.

<comment><USER56> There is apparently.

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34865/Screenshots/Screen%20Shot%202...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34865/Screenshots/Screen%20Shot%202012-09-12%20at%2011.57.29%20AM.png)

<comment><USER34> To me, "Lightning to USB cable" means something to connect it to a charge brick or your Mac/PC, just like the 30-pin to USB cables they used to include.

<comment><USER56> Yeah. I was thinking for a second there that it was Lightning to Thunderbolt and that I would have to pay extra just to buy the USB adapter to charge the new iPhone. Glad that's not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> No dedicated Camera button. Apple sacrificing usability for design once again.

<comment><USER58> the up volume button controls the shutter when in the camera app.

<comment><USER57> And that's not dedicated, so you have to launch the app any time you want to take a picture, so you miss photo opportunities doing that. Dedicated is like Windows Phone where pressing the button takes a picture, regardless of the app you're in.

<comment><USER31> I'd call this an antifeature. Generally, I want to decide when to use the camera. (Also, I have children.)

<comment><USER59> I guess he misspoke. Regardless of which app you're in or even if the screen is switched off, pressing the camera button for a couple of seconds _opens the camera app_. Whether you take a picture or video is up to you. It's much faster than fiddling around for the power button and then tap the camera button on screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This iteration is for the masses, it's not for you.

It's for my mother (who is taking one-on-one classes in an Apple store), it's for my partner who is just starting to get work done on her phone (she's had an iPhone 4 since they came out) and its for everybody that's just trying to understand mobile.

Apple's network and ecosystem is now mature. Any change has to be so thoroughly considered. Anything at all risky (say NFC) gets binned until its proven because they can't upset what they have.

Unfortunately this isn't about technology, it's about strategy.

</comment><comment><USER61> Yawn. Looks like a taller iPhone 4 with an ugly back. Looks like Apple have stopped innovating, I guess the patent litigation industry is more profitable for them these days.

</comment><comment><USER62> Wow, I can't believe I missed the Apple announcement today. I've caught every other announcement til now.

It's sad but that just shows little hype there are around this new iphone. =\

</comment><comment><USER63> I was watching the video:

<http://www.apple.com/iphone/#video>

And at about 3:35 when they're showing the step-by-step driving directions and I was like WTF:

Super attention to every detail, state-of-the-art everything, and then that scratchy godawful synthesized computer voice comes on and it's sounding slightly worse than my Amiga back in the 1980's... srsly Apple...

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm seeing a lot of surprise by the lack of NFC, but given the lack of market adoption, I can understand why they may not take it as a high priority. Plus, we've all seen the reports of Apple purchasing AuthenTec and its IdAM solutions. Fingerprint + Passbook + NFC and they will have all the pieces in place to create the NFC market with aggressive merchant partnerships.

</comment><comment><USER65> Oh no a bigger screen. I for one am happy with the current screen size. Sure make it faster, slimmer but not wider and longer!

</comment><comment><USER66> I think the fact that this post is about to fall off the front page after less than a day says a lot. Even though it was flagged I still think this post had quite a bit to say <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510356> that's still relevant after the announcement.

</comment><comment><USER67> <http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/>

Why aren't all bandwidths supported by a single GSM model? It seems odd that Apple would create one CDMA model and 2 GSM models, but I'm sure there's a technical/financial reason for that decision. Does anyone know what it is?

</comment><comment><USER68> I don't understand threads like this. What's at stake here, whether Apple is really innovative or not? Whether there should be more features on the phone? Well there aren't. Live with that.

If you don't like the phone don't buy it, it's that simple.

</comment><comment><USER69> I wonder if the CDMA versions are also going to be GSM compatible as the 4S was.

<comment><USER70> The radio is universal CDMA/GSM/LTE.

<comment><USER71> I didn't realize they had the single Qualcomm chip for CDMA/GSM back on the 4S too. That's a nice piece of tech.

<comment><USER54> That's what people in semiconductors do -- they try to take a bunch of features and package it in a single chip to reduce costs. There are chips out there with temperature, accelerometer, and proximity sensors packaged in a single unit. There was a time when an actual quartz crystal was needed as a resonator, and now those are replaced with mems technology so that one can package more into a single silicon chip.

I'm sure we can all remember the time when the cpu & gpu were separate chips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> To sum it all up, were you really expecting Time travel? If so, move on; It's an amazing phone. At time times you need to take little small steps and a little moderate steps, to archive something big ;).

</comment><comment><USER73> Are Apple skipping the keynote altogether now, or did I miss something?

<comment><USER74> You missed it. Engadget's live coverage (for example) is here: <http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/12/apple-iphone-5-liveblog/>

<comment><USER73> Oops. I guess it wasn't that hyped, then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> There is one huge product flaw that will become apparent in about 2 months, it will begin on YouTube.

Vertical video is about to get even worse.

</comment><comment><USER76> Flagged. Because this is on just about every other news site in the world. This phone upgrade has minimal bearing on hackers.

</comment><comment><USER77> I would argue the biggest thing to happen to the iPhone since the iPhone was the retina display, no?

</comment><comment><USER78> When are these actually available?

<comment><USER79> Sept 21st with preorders on sept 14

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Someone has to do it: A cheap copy of the Goophone i5 we had here a couple of days ago!

</comment><comment><USER81> "Bigger, thinner and lighter" as if it was a commercial for period stuff :-/

</comment><comment><USER82> is the screen still made of glass that will shatter if you drop it to the ground? If glass, I hope they have managed to hardend it. Also I dont want those silly bands/rubber rings around the phone.

</comment><comment><USER83> What the fuck kind of retarded vertical resolution is 1136?!

</comment><comment><USER84> There's a css bug for me on the carousel on chrome

</comment><comment><USER85> This changes everything, again.

</comment><comment><USER86> Looks pretty cool to me. As for specs some people love: I don't care much, provided everything works smoothly and seamlessly. (Fine tuning Apache and MySQL has saved me tons of cash by doing a lot more with the same hardware.)

Now replace Redmond with ...<http://farm1.staticflickr.com/29/43356340_36deb98522.jpg> :)

</comment><comment><USER87> facebook integrated - no thank you apple, we want privacy

<comment><USER88> All you have to do is... well nothing. Just don't add your facebook account.</comment></comment>


Go Retro, Convert Any Image to ASCII Art - <AUTHOR> http://www.text-image.com/

<comment><USER2> Nifty, but not particularly retro. I don't remember my C64 having thousands or millions of colors or several hundred by several hundred character display resolution.</comment>


Glasshole - <AUTHOR> http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/14/glasshole <comment><USER2> So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates was working on summarization algorithms (imagine a program that could take 6 hours of continuous footage, and spit out a 1-minute highlight reel). She volunteered to wear a camera for a day to gather data for him, and she asked me permission to do so while we were out & about during a weekend. I agreed (with conditions--blurred faces in the final paper), we took the footage, he published his paper, it was fine.

Like a year later, someone else who is working in a similar field reached out to her labmate to ask for the raw data. Thankfully, he asked us if we were ok with it, because I kind of wasn't. I had agreed to let one person that I kind of knew already to see footage of me. I was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of 6 hours of me conversing with my girlfriend at a brewery being passed around between who knows how many labs, and appearing in who knows how many papers, over a period of who knows how many years. Cuz I mean, once you lose control over who has access to that data, even just a tiny bit, that genie isn't going back into that bottle. Not that there was anything to care about, it was just a brewery and playing with some legos at home, but I didn't like the idea of becoming The Guy, and data sets have a way of becoming institutions in that field.

And it wasn't just me, either. We were in a semi-public space, there were other people in the background. I have no idea if they would be cool with being in an academic paper. Maybe they would be, but they never even knew they were being recorded, so it seemed kind of unfair to make that call for them. We eventually decided to not allow the data to be shared.

So then her labmate asked if he could just send over the audio data. To which our response was "why are we only finding out now that thing was recording audio?" That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

So I don't know if I have a point really, I'm just sharing my experience with this. The big issue for me is loss of awareness and loss of control. I know who or what is seeing me, because I can see them back; I can be aware if someone is setting up a camera, and leave or hide my face or ask them what they're doing. I'm (approximately) aware of who can observe me, and who has or will have access to those observations in the future. The troubling aspect of Glass is that it introduces an asymmetry that I feel is to my disadvantage: if someone observes me with Glass, access to that observation is potentially unbounded. This feels to me like a loss of control, and that's why Glass makes me uncomfortable.

<comment><USER3> Glass is simply paving the way for the future forcing us to deal with the privacy and social issues now. Eventually we will have video recording devices smaller than a grain of rice. What then?

<comment><USER4> These devices will have very poor image quality. It's not like making small lenses is hard; the properties of light mean that anything usable as a camera will be visible to the naked eye. Cameras can be small, but they cannot be arbitrarily small. Your "What then?" will never happen.

<comment><USER3> "the properties of light" probably mean we won't have cameras as small as a speck of dust or a grain of sand. But a grain of rice is pretty big. Can you explain why you think that won't be possible?

<comment><USER4> You can shrink the lens and CCD down that far[0], but adding in a power source and data storage is likely to increase the size. Batteries are not tracking other improvements in technology. Additionally with a lens that small you're almost certainly going to want some form of image processing. You can move the problems of storage and process if you want to radiate or have a wire, but those introduce other concerns. Shrinking the entire package down to a grain of rice seems overly optimistic.

[0] [http://lanmdagigi.en.ec21.com/offer_detail/Sell_The_smallest...](http://lanmdagigi.en.ec21.com/offer_detail/Sell_The_smallest_CCD_camera --7780425.html?gubun=S)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been trying not to get too worked up over the whole NSA/PRISM issue, but the potential success Google Glass changes the magnitude of the issue.

By proxy, every Google Glass owner will be acting as a remote recording device for government agencies. Everyone in the line of site/hearing range of the device forfeits privacy.

<comment><USER6> Everyone is already carrying a remote tracking and recording device called a cell phone, optionally including video (which may or may not be useful). Admittedly Glass gives a much better vantage point for videos, but that's the only added aspect.

<comment><USER7> Cellphones are in people's pockets or purses most of the time, and even when they _are_ being used the camera is mostly pointing at the ground or the person's lap.

Google Glass will show The Watchers exactly what the person is looking at. Even when the person takes it off and puts it on, say, a table surface, it will be showing _something_ , as opposed to a phone which either points downward or up towards the ceiling.

I could go on. The point is that "everyone is already carrying a remote tracking and recording device" is hugely different in terms of both the scope and depth of surveillance that said offers when compared to Google Glass.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the sheer amount of noise (in the intelligence agencies' eyes) produced by Glass make it a fairly useless data source? If I worked for the secret shadowy three initial organizations I rather have access to call logs and email. At least it would have some curation.

<comment><USER9> I think that's the key point here. The sheer amount of data being stored is surely almost completely useless when it comes to preventing crime, but would be invaluable when it comes time to investigate a crime, or if you want to target a specific individual to harass.

<comment><USER10> Noise becomes data when you have the right algorithm.

<comment><USER9> I'm sure there is some useful information they could glean, but in large part key indicators of pre-crime are already blatantly obvious or present too great a risk of false positives.

The latter is what worries me. If they come up with what they believe to be the right algorithm and run it against their data, what then? Are we then in the position where we have to a) prove our innocence in a crime that hasn't even been committed, or b) become the targets of increased scrutiny and restrictions?

<comment><USER10> There's more that can be done than pre-crime, though. For example, statistical analysis/datamining of things like ambient sound levels, vocal stress levels, positive/negative sentiment, etc. could reveal trends even before they reach Twitter, allowing them to be preempted or directed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Kim Stanley Robinson's 1993 sf novel "Red Mars" a member of the first Mars colonization mission also works for news agencies back on Earth and wears "camera glasses". I forget the exact arc of the subplot but as I recall they resign and refuse to wear the 'glasses' anymore because they were ostracized by the rest of the crew.

<comment><USER12> Snowcrash was 1992. People who are thoroughly wired are referred to disparagingly as "gargoyles".

<comment><USER13> Holy shit, you just made me realize Snow Crash is coming to reality (for certain parts of it) faster than expected :)

<comment><USER14> People who work at places like Google have been known, from time to time, read science fiction.

A lot of it comes true because someone says "yes, good idea".

<comment><USER15> If only someone would make real-life versions of those flip-open communicators from Star Trek TOS. Maybe someone at Motorola could do that.

Or, on the subject of Snow Crash, if only someone would make that thing in Snow Crash called Earth. (Though if they did make it and then Motorola bought it, I expect they'd name it Motorola Earth, which sounds dumb. Unless someone bought Motorola first.)

<comment><USER16> On this topic, check out REAMDE - one of the characters makes a reference to ripping off Google Earth, but not feeling bad about it because Google Earth itself was directly inspired by something someone had read in a science fiction novel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was amazed to see this on the front page, assuming it was a link to today's comic, which would possibly have been the first time I witnessed a non-xkcd submitted to HN. That would've been cool, it's a good one.

The fact that this is actually a link to the accompanying article from Tycho is great as his pieces are usually quite interesting but I miss out because they don't come up on the Penny Arcade website until a good few hours after the comic. It's infuriating actually, as the comic frequently makes me want to read what Tycho has to say but it's not there yet. I don't understand why they do that. Anyone?

<comment><USER18> The writing on Penny Arcade has always been insightful and funny. I think being great writers is what makes them great comic artists.

If you're interested in games news, I've found the Penny Arcade Report to be fantastic. It hasn't been around long, but I several articles from it have already hit the front page of HN. [http://penny- arcade.com/report/](http://penny-arcade.com/report/)

<comment><USER19> Gabe's writing has gotten much, much better of the years, though Tycho's has always been good.

But seriously, I remember early Gabe newsposts and they were just full of typos and spelling errors and I honestly lost a little respect for him. Then again, I was an arrogant little shite ten years ago, so don't read much into that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Associated comic strip for the lazy: [http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2013/06/14](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/14)

</comment><comment><USER21> It will take a while before I am comfortable with others wearing Glass around me. The thought of speaking to someone wearing the device makes me a little uncomfortable. I realize that may sound a little luddite-esque to certain members of this community, but there you have it.

This is a resistance that I'm sure is shared by many in the general public. It's something we all may get used to eventually, but I honestly predict a fairly grating and occasionally unpleasant transition period.

<comment><USER22> It's not like CCTVs are pervasive already. Anyways, they'll eventually get Glass down to where it's unnoticeable, then the awkwardness will disappear even if...the problem still exists.

<comment><USER23> _Anyways, they 'll eventually get Glass down to where it's unnoticeable_

I doubt it. The awareness and general resistance to glass has so-far spread faster than glass itself. If a glass that looked exactly like ordinary glasses came out, there would be both a general complaint and general suspicion of anyone wearing ordinary glasses.

It's doubtful that they could make glass invisible without even more complaints and if glass wasn't invisible, it would be noticed because what people expands based on the focus of their attention.

<comment><USER22> Ridiculous. You do realize that you don't need to have your micro-camera and microphone in your glasses if you want to record people unknowingly. A watch could do it, or a belt buckle, or whatever. They already make this stuff, its virtually invisible, and you can buy it today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think there is good discussion to be had here, but _holy shit_ , I have never been able to get over how utterly pretentious Jerry's writing is. The comics are usually fantastic and at strange odds with the accompanying news.

<comment><USER24> It has never occurred to me to call the way Jerry writes "pretentious." Most of the time I would call it "comedic" (specifically, _containing great amounts of bathos_ )--he makes very creative, unexpected, and over-the-top use of the English language to convey relatively normal opinions on relatively boring subjects, in a way that makes me want to read his thoughts on things I couldn't otherwise care less about.

<comment><USER25> It never occurred to me to call the person writing Jerry. I have always thought of the writing as Tycho's. I mean that in the same way I would say Hamlet said "To be or not to be..." rather than Shakespeare said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> He brings up a very good point that a lot the information humans pickup is from each other's faces. The nonverbal feedback facilitates turn-taking in conversation as well as emotional feedback.

Perhaps Glass causes visceral reactions because of the combination of its foreignness (unlike glasses) and proximity to the face.

<comment><USER27> Over and above the privacy issues, you can never have the undivided attention of someone wearing Glass. That's deeply off-putting. Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone as they listened to headphones and stared at their phone the whole time.

<comment><USER28> I think that's going a little too far. Already we've embedded ourselves in a world where many people break open their phone in the middle of a conversation. Yes, it's rude. But it's still a change that's happening in the world. However, Glass isn't always on, at least not right now. You have to manually turn it on, which means it'll be akin to taking out your phone.

<comment><USER27> But can you see if someone else's Glass is displaying them something or whispering them something? At least with a phone it's obvious.

<comment><USER29> Yes, actually. The screen lights up and it's pretty obvious. Most of the people I talk to while wearing glass notice it immediately when it comes on.

<comment><USER30> And I seem to remember something about Google requiring all apps to light up the screen, to avoid the whole "stealth" thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tangential to the actual post's content, but I'm a bit miffed at the "Microsoft is the victim of bad messaging" trope: what distinguishes "bad messaging" from the argument not made (deliberately or not) is, apparently, the existence of an argument deemed better - but that's never been any basis to determine the former. Talk about the potential of Microsoft's system (and we can do so independently of Microsoft) - but the _act_ itself is nothing that deserves pity or accommodation. A policy of taking arguments at face value at the very least allows for consistency.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if the news about Google's participation in PRISM will influence the way we (HN members) think about Glass. It certainly makes me feel less comfortable with passively revealing more of life to Google.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm confused about the transition from Glass (Google product, no?) to discussion of Microsoft's messaging problems. Can someone explain the relationship?

<comment><USER34> It's a gaming comic and Xbox is major in the conversation this week.

The only reason for the Glass diversion is Gabe got one this week as well and they are living with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think I am in the minority when I say I am looking forward to continuous backup of my day to day activities whether it be through sousveillance or from others.

I am not in the "if you don't have anything to hide crowd..." in the least and am certainly aware of the ability of those in power to abuse it. My take on it however is, I am going to just slough off the mores which I would have previously been concerned with privacy about.

Catch me swearing when I shouldn't have? Oh well. Maybe I'll be less inclined to do it next time. What if I whisper a dirty idea to my wife? Well, what's wrong with a happily married couple doing what they like after all?

After you have kids the idea of going to the bathroom in privacy slowly drifts out of the window - and why shouldn't it? It really doesn't make any ethical impact on me for someone to know if I am doing a biological process.

My hope is, all of this will make us much more honest people. You can't embarrass/blackmail me if I cannot be embarrassed/ashamed.

<comment><USER36> I think you and I are privileged to live in relatively open societies, and to fit in well enough such that the worst that can happen is to be embarrassed for things we've done wrong.

But what about people in less open societies, and who don't fit what society thinks should be the norm? For a gay man in a more conservative place, the "honesty policy" may imply great physical harm.

And even if you actually fit in to the stereotype of the Good Citizen, what about misunderstandings? What happens if a clip of a few seconds gets taken out of context of a conversation (even by accident), which makes you sound like you support some terrible thing, helpfully linked to your name by Google's algorithms?

<comment><USER35> As I said in my post this is me being hopeful - I don't actually think it would work that way unfortunately. Ideally in your scenarios people would be able to release their own source data from their glass (or whatever) to provide context. The constant surveillance would be able to debunk all the stupid arguments against being gay, such as they lead deviant lives etc...; someone would be able to show a normal boring day coming home and having dinner with their partner and then falling asleep in the bathtub like everyone else.

The idea is that in a society that is basically completely honest and open no one will hold a "moral high ground" so it would basically be impossible for information asymmetry and thus natural variation would ensure that there is no "norm."

Again this is all hopeful, if doubtful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> see, this is the thing about glass; There's a whole lot of useful stuff you can do with a HUD that doesn't involve a camera, and wearing a HUD would be a hell of a lot more socially acceptable if people didn't assume they always came with cameras.

Or hell, just a 'the camera is on' indicator. a red light, or a bit of plastic you can slide over the lens or something. (I mean, clearly, both of these things can be faked, but there are a thousand other ways to conceal a camera on your person, if you are being deceitful. The important bit is to make a clear way of setting the social expectation that the camera is on/off.) Personally, I'd favor some kind of physical lens block, as it guarantees my privacy (during the times I physically block the camera) even if the firmware is compromised.

</comment><comment><USER38> One day there will be a Google Glass that isn't detectable by the subject of the recording (tapped directly into the sensory system of the wearer). Then a lot of the enforcement mechanisms against "Glassholes" will become redundant.

</comment><comment><USER39> In the morning! Glasshole was used first by Adam Curry on the No Agenda Show, even before it was used by Leo Laporte on TWiT.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm still unsure exactly where the story transitioned into Microsoft...</comment>


The Lawyer, the Addict (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/business/lawyers-addiction-mental-health.html?new=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Well worth reading, considering the Ask HN here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16465762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16465762)</comment>


Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R." premiered in January 1921 - <AUTHOR> https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/origin-word-robot-rur/ <comment><USER2> I've always thought that the word "Robot" comes from Slovak "robota" (regular work, commonly used) instead of Czech word "robota" (forced labor, rarely used). It was explained to me by people from former Czechoslovakia that Karel had his brother Josef recovering from an illness in Tatra region of Slovakia in 1919 where people used the word all the time; Josef then suggested Karel to rename his originally intended "Laboři" (laborers) as "Roboti" (robots). BTW, they both were devastated by Munich Agreement 1938 and Josef later died in a concentration camp, so one could wonder what could have been...

Moreover, Rossum from R.U.R. is a word play on "rozum", which is a Czech/Slovak word for mind/brain. Mind's Universal Robots ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can read a translation here: [https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/karel/rur/](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/karel/rur/)

There's also an audiobook available from LibriVox: [https://librivox.org/rur- rossums-universal-robots-by-karel-c...](https://librivox.org/rur-rossums- universal-robots-by-karel-capek/)

</comment><comment><USER4> R.U.R. is one of my favorite things to reference when people ask, "Why do they call Robots <X> in <Franchise Y>?"

(For example: Omnics in Overwatch, Synths in Fallout.)

<comment><USER5> Pointless nitpick: Synths in Fallout are specifically human-simulant androids. Conventionally mechanical-looking robots are just called robots.

But yeah, there's a lot to say about sci-fi/fantasy settings that give special names to well-worn setting concepts!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Highly recommend Capek's other works, The Insect Play, and War with the Newts.

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absolute_at_Large](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absolute_at_Large)

(The pantheists were right, and the new matter to energy conversion plants liberate "The Absolute". Hilarity ensues.)

<comment><USER8> This looks amazing. Started reading a translation - [https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20180101/html.php](https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20180101/html.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> R.U.R. is a great quick read, and while some aspects are a bit dated, a lot of it is quite ahead of its time. Or perhaps I just feel that way due to way in which so many modern scifi stories (be it in books, tv, movies, games) were clearly influenced by this.

Either way, if you're into scifi, I consider this play required reading.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article hints at this, but I thought it was interesting that Capek's robots, though mass-produced tools, were not mechanical: "There are descriptions of kneading-troughs for robot skin, great vats for liver and brains, and a factory for producing bones. Nerve fibers, arteries, and intestines are spun on factory bobbins, while the Robots themselves are assembled like automobiles." (Wikipedia.)

</comment><comment><USER10> _" The power of man has fallen. By gaining possession of the factory we have become masters of everything. The period of mankind has passed away. A new world has arisen. … Mankind is no more. Mankind gave us too little life. We wanted more life."_

</comment><comment><USER11> I think that the best incarnation yet of RUR's ideas on the silver screen is Blade Runner.

</comment><comment><USER12> Karel Čapek's name is a perfect example of the ridiculous habit of English- speakers to preserve foreign spelling. As you'll notice, 'Čapek' isn't written in English, as 'Č' isn't a letter in English alphabet. Now, how many people in English-speaking countries know how to pronounce Czech letters? I've heard the name pronounced as 'Kahpek' or 'Kaypek' (e.g. right in the Librivox book linked in the thread). But it's actually [tʃapɛk], which would be better represented as 'Chapek'.

Apparently, since English-speakers have no idea how to pronounce English words that they didn't memorize beforehand, they also gave up on the idea of representing foreign words phonemically. But they still keep trying to _read_ them that way if they see vaguely-Latin alphabet.

<comment><USER13> I couldn't disagree more. Literally no one has a problem pronouncing yet another great Czech: Dvořák. And I defy you to turn that into a phonetical spelling that isn't a abomination upon church and Christ.

We shouldn't be afraid of asking too much of people in regards to other cultures and languages. We humans are more intelligent than you're giving us credit for.

<comment><USER12> Dvořák's name is another good example for my point. What's the use of parading around the 'ř' in English texts if the sound can be pronounced only by speakers of Czech, a few nearby dialects and Kobon speakers in Papua New Guinea? Well guess what, every language has a spelling in its own alphabet, for the pronunciation that the speakers adopt for 'Dvořák'—including English, in this case.

At least even with 'ř' it's not as bad as 'Čapek', since 'ř' is likely just replaced with more-or-less-hard 'r' when speaking, and not an unrelated sound.

<comment><USER13> Before I learned Czech, I pronounced it like most English-speakers: da-vor (rhymes with door) zhak (rhymes with shack). Now that I speak pretty decent Czech and can throw down a respectable 'ř'(which is one my great life accomplishments :), I feel that the English pronunciation is absolutely fine, and it requires no change.

You write can write Čapek in any way you want. But, personally, I'm proud that it's spelled that way. People know his great works, they (across all languages) commonly use a word he coined, and they literally make people learn a tiny bit more about the Czech language when they say, "Ah! So in Czech the Č is a CH!"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/53298.aspx

<comment><USER2> The most interesting part is the discussion in the first part of the comments:

"There seems to be a strange belief amongst the open source community that just because you can make a change to the source code, and no one pays you to do so, that the change was free. "-Eric Lippert</comment>


Would you use JSF for your next project? - <AUTHOR> https://www.javabullets.com/is-jsf-still-relevant/ <comment><USER2> No, I thought it was deprecated</comment>


Drunk bees are denied entry to the hive until they're sober - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/dec/13/research.highereducation1 <comment><USER2> Maybe they're drinking because people are promoting pesticides that kill them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah sure, because the honey needs be free of liquor!

</comment><comment><USER4> great read, quite interesting and enjoyable. the love of animals for strong drinks</comment>