Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/let-my-wi-fi-go-fcc-rules-verizon-cant-charge-for-wi-fi-tethering-7000001916/ <comment><USER3> The most important reason why this is a no-brainer is because of the 700Mhz spectrum auction. The open device restriction (or lack of restrictions really) was a key provision that google pushed for.

I'm sure some people are going to say the government is overstepping their authority, but in fact, they aren't. Verizon was overstepping their authority in this case.

Everybody has google to thank for this.

<comment><USER4> I guess this is nice to see, but with Verizon's new data plans they are eager for you to use as much bandwidth as possible.

Thankfully and at the moment there are carriers that provide unlimited data like Sprint. We need more of them!

<comment><USER5> Doesn't Sprint also throttle you over a certain GB limit?

I have a hard time deciding if I want unlimited or not. I certainly don't need unlimited. I know there are people who use 50-100+ GB a month but I don't come anywhere near that and don't want to subsidize those people. I'm perfectly fine with a per GB charge or a decent sized base plan and a reasonable per GB overage. OTOH those caps need to grow every year because in a few years 100 GB a month will probably be today's 200 MB plan. So in that case "unlimited" has some futureproofing to it.

<comment><USER6> I had a Sprint 4G hotspot with unlimited data. Until one month they decided to change my plan to 5GB with big overage charges. They "announced" this change by slipping a notice in the PDF ebills I never once downloaded. After $200 in overage charges (which I disputed for hours, only to be repeatedly told I was given "valid" notice) I cancelled the service. Fuck Sprint.

I should mention this occurred right at the same time they were making a big advertising push about how their unlimited data plans were truly unlimited. The fine print was that _only_ phones got unlimited data. Hotspots and other data devices were pushed onto a limited plan even if you started out unlimited. Fuck Sprint some more.

<comment><USER7> :) The sad part is they got a "free" $200 from you. I don't think they mind losing you as a customer!

<comment><USER8> Oh they should. Word-of-mouth will cost more than $200 in potential customers from Sprint because of this person and their experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While this is wondeful, ZDNet misses something _huge_ picked up on Ars.

"The FCC concedes that Verizon may charge $20 per month for customers who retain grandfathered unlimited data plans." [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/07/tethering-apps- must-b...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/07/tethering-apps-must-be- allowed-fcc-tells-verizon/)

So I won't be benefitting from this. The most ridiculous, bullshit part of all of this is that _unlimited plans aren't unlimited anyway_. They have "Fair Access Policy" data caps (5GB for Verizon IIRC) that are just like the modern plans with a tad higher caps. They just advertise differently. It's the _same damn thing_. And I don't get free tethering. Ridiculous.

<comment><USER10> Neither did they require Verizon to refund collected fees. Since this was apparently a clear violation of the licensing agreement (i.e. it was never "correct" or "permitted" under that agreement), I'd argue the FCC should have made them make the affected consumers whole.

Now _that_ might have sent a significant message with respect to ending this kind of bullshit, and to deliberately -- I'd argue, maliciously -- pushing the limits of what they can get away with.

I don't know how many users actually knuckled under to these fees. But even it it didn't represent an enormous amount of revenue, refunding it would have been a nice exercise for their management and administration to undergo. (I don't care how much of a "hassle" it might cause them.)

<comment><USER9> This is an excellent point, and a possible opportunity for class action lawsuit?

<comment><USER11> Sorry, class action lawsuits don't exist any more: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_v._Concepcion>

(That is, if your contract includes an arbitration clause)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Charging for tethering is stupid anyway, as people are just using the bandwidth they are paying for. The only thing I detest more is that AT&T forces me to pay for text messages that I didn't even want.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. So is Apple's charging for media feeds on an iPhone that I read over my own bandwidth, on my own device, from a 3rd party I have a private relationship with. Yet that stands somehow.

<comment><USER14> What stands? If the purchase doesn't originate within an app then Apple doesn't get a cut. They have put rules in place basically saying that the private relationship must have formed outside the app (no linking to buy pages), but that is different than what you're complaining about.

<comment><USER13> What difference does it make that the purchase originated in an app? That MY app, using my bandwidth on my device etc. Same argument.

The reason they do it is, of course, that they can. I call it a shakedown, but lawyers may have another name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One small step for man...

The next would be to somehow abolish the per-device data fee structure. We have seven iOS devices. Only three are actively online. Even at that, when at home, office or near wifi cellular data does not get used much if a all. Still, we have to pay 3x the cellular data monthly fee, which is insanity. I do understand the technical and business issues here, but this cuts both ways: I know that we are not using these connections anywhere near capacity. And, I also know that ATT is double charging us because our DSL services (office and home) are with them...yet we don't get a discount when the iOS devices use the network for data as opposed to cellular. In other words, they get to charge us for something that we don't use or, seen another way, we pay twice for the same data capacity.

Not sure what the solution might look like, but today's plans are starting to smell bad.

<comment><USER16> Do you also complain that your cable TV isn't used to capacity because you're not watching all channels 24 hours a day? It seems so peculiar that people complain that they're not using their internet account to saturation when they don't make the same complaint about other things.

<comment><USER15> I am having trouble finding where in my post I said anything about using a service to saturation. Not that the cable TV analogy holds up.

If you are using an iOS device to download a 100MB game app over WiFi via AT&T DSL --that you pay for-- while, at the same time paying for a cellular data plan, AT&T is making making more money on you because their cellular data bandwidth is not being utilized by they still charge you.

I would venture to say that most iOS devices spend the bulk of their time within WiFi zones (AT&T or not). This means that a portion of what AT&T charges for cellular data is never actually used and that is pure profit for them.

As I said in my post: I don't know what the right solution is, but the current setup is starting to smell pretty bad.

If the above example doesn't do it for you, think about this. Twenty people working at a company. The company pays (maybe through AT&T) for Internet access and provides WiFi to all employees. Every single one of them has a personal iPhone. Every single one of them pays for a cellular data plan. And, while at work, every single one of them is using the WiFi access point for the bulk of the data traffic on their devices. AT&T is making a nice profit on data bandwidth they never have to deliver over the cellular network.

Later on, those same people go home and are likely to transfer data over their own (paid) DSL connection rather than use cellular data. Again, double charging by the telcos, if you will.

Once you do the math past a single iPhone the effect starts to become obvious very quickly.

Maybe what I am saying is that if I am paying AT&T for cellular data as well as DSL I should receive a credit on my cellular data plan for the data moved over DSL as opposed to the cell network. Again, I don't know the first thing about their business equation, so I'll be the first one to admit that this proposal could be beyond ridiculous for a hundred and one reasons.

<comment><USER16> The actual cost of the data itself is trivial in comparison to the cost of connectivity in the first place.

If you really hate it that much, and claim that you effectively never use it, then get a phone plan without data and just use your wifi. Problem solved.

The thing is, you _do_ use your cellular data, and maintaining that service is more than just pushing a few ones and zeros.

 _I am having trouble finding where in my post I said anything about using a service to saturation._

Your post is complaining about paying for unused data, and why can't you just pay for the data you're actually using - in short, you want a plan that you saturate and just want to pay for that.

<comment><USER15> > Your post is complaining about paying for unused data, and why can't you > just pay for the data you're actually using - in short, you want a plan that > you saturate and just want to pay for that.

Nope. Sorry. Didn't say that. This is your interpretation and nothing more. And that's OK.

All I am saying is that I a starting to think that we are over-paying for connectivity. I don't know exactly where or how, but something about it just feels wrong. I can't point to it directly because in order to do that I'd have to know more about the internal numbers of a telco. I don't have that data. For all I know we are getting a deal. I am more than willing to concede that. But I need data.

Right now, without said data it feels very much that paying $250 per month for connectivity when most of the data is going over DSL is not quite a good fit.

Obviously we all (or most) have a need for cellular data outside WiFi zones. The question is how much and whether or not pricing is fair. I don't have the answers, just an overall feeling of rotten tomatoes somewhere.

Your suggestion that I personally drop cellular data has nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that cellular data might not be priced correctly in the context of multiple devices and the availability (and payment for) parallel connectivity over DSL/WiFi.

In other words, whether I personally drop cellular data service or not has no effect over whether or not cellular data is correctly priced.

So, I guess I am not getting your point. Does cellular data service become fairly priced for everyone else if I -single handedly- drop my service?

<comment><USER16> You're hung up on the flow of data, rather than my point which is having the connectivity in the first place. Pure data costs really are trivial - <USER2> with different caps are simply a way of segmenting customers.

I'm also not understanding the difference between "wanting to pay for a group plan that's only big enough to avoid saturation" and "paying too much for data we're not using over multiple devices". They seem to be two different ways of referring to the same thing.

 _Does cellular data service become fairly priced for everyone else if I -single handedly- drop my service?_ I wasn't saying that. I was saying that since you were implying that you don't use cellular data, just drop the plan and move wholly to wifi. It was a solution to your _stated_ problem.

I also said that of course that wasn't the case - which was why I then talked about connectivity rather then simple ones and zeroes.

Is wireless data priced correctly? How long is a piece of string?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >> Telecom companies are government-granted monopolies. Why not acknowledge that it's already not a free market situation and cap the profit margin

Why not remove the monopoly?

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_management>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_allocation>

<comment><USER18> My understanding is that the finite bandwidth of the spectrum puts a limit (for a given level of technology) on the total data capacity of the network, not on the number of service providers. Could we not have more providers for the same number of users by divvying the spectrum into more chunks? Instead, I think the number of providers is limited by the huge entry costs of building towers. It's the low marginal cost of operating these towers (compared to their build costs) which leads to monopolies.

I would love clarification.

<comment><USER19> Entry is also limited by multi-billion dollar spectrum auctions. Evenid. Google couldnt win with their $pi B bid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm on the fence on this one because it doesn't prevent going up on all data plans. Which will just increase Verizon's revenue and probably not cost them much. However, I'm not advocating price controls.

But I know how to solve this. Someone needs to become the defacto wireless network that focuses on the network (reliability, bandwidth) and doesn't deal with consumers. Instead they resell to companies who deal with consumers.

Wonder if I could do a KS campaign...

<comment><USER21> Has a Kickstarter campaign ever raised $4 billion? Because I suspect that's what it would take to begin building a network from scratch.

There are resellers that focus on data, however...Clear is one. They aren't great (they share the Sprint Network, which is very bad in some places, and fair to middling in most), and they reportedly throttle some high usage customers (I've not run into this, though the times when I've needed a lot of data, Clear couldn't provide it anyway, even without throttling), but they don't regulate what you run on the network. All my devices, including phone, connect through it when I'm on the road.

<comment><USER22> I've had pretty good experience with Clear everywhere except Manhattan, where the service is horrible.

<comment><USER21> It's pretty good/fast along highways, but not in cities. It's also got much broader 2G and 3G, in middle of nowhere places, than T-mobile, which is my cell provider. Since I can't work without some kind of connectivity, I'm willing to pay for both. T-Mobile is really fast in bigger cities, but it's easy to find places with not data at all. Clear in Austin is horrible, in particular, but T-Mobile is crazy fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What about AT&T? Will the FCC force them to stop charging too, or is there some reason why it's different?

<comment><USER24> It seems like the ruling was based off of particular regulations for the 4G (LTE) spectrum. I have a feeling it would not apply to 3G spectrum.

<comment><USER25> Right - Thank Google for this one. This was one of the conditions Google received from the FCC in exchange for placing their bid.

[http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMbsPSv2vatAVvbz_8n0xU3M...](http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMbsPSv2vatAVvbz_8n0xU3Mfvnw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> When I try to activate tethering on my Verizon Android, it's still telling me it wants the $30/month. I suppose it's a little soon for this change to already be implemented, but I'm sure ready!

<comment><USER27> I'm guessing they'd have to send out an OTA update to the OS to remove that message. Depending on your device, as we've seen, that could take years.

Install the Foxfi app, it's free and gives you wifi tethering on Verizon Android devices.

<comment><USER28> I expect so, because, IIRC, they had to send out an OTA update to enable the restriction.

> Depending on your device, as we've seen, that could take years.

The FCC should decide on a reasonable timeframe, and fine them for every day over that that they still charge for it. Verizon can argue that the updates come from the handset manufacturers, but the restriction was put there at Verizon's behest, so they can really only blame themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I read the order and press release ([http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0731/DOC-315501A1.pdf) and [http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0731/DA-12-1228A1.pdf)) , and I don't see how it says what zdnet claims. What it really says is:

1\. They can't block devices that offer free tethering

2\. They can't block free tethering applications

This doesn't say "they can't charge for wi-fi tethering".

Just that they can't stop others from offering it for free.

In fact, it specifically allows them to continue to charge folks on unlimited usage plans for tethering (though folks can terminate that plan without a termination fee)

The zdnet quote that says verizon no longer charges is just a note in the order.

</comment><comment><USER30> Don't all of the new Verizon "Share Everything" plans include tethering? I suppose this is only relevant for archaic data plans (pre June 2012)?

<comment><USER31> Does being older than 2 months really make something archaic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is the sort of price/service regulation that superficially appears beneficial to consumers... but might not be pro-consumer in its total effects.

In particular, it could mean customers who would never use tethering wind up paying incrementally more, because all plans now include that capability, and Verizon still has sufficient pricing power make up the loss from tethering fees with other incremental fee increases.

<comment><USER33> This analysis holds up to "unlimited" plans where "tethering" is really a (poor) proxy for "using a lot of data."

But if you have usage-based pricing (which Verizon does), it doesn't matter whether that 4GB originates from an iPhone or a MBP. A packet is a packet and it costs the same to route.

I suppose you could argue that Verizon incurs some additional support burden for tethering. I question whether or not this support burden outweighs the costs of supporting people who call in expecting to be able to tether now.

<comment><USER32> Almost no business charges strictly by commodity packet, because it would be disastrous for their long-term future: their margins, their ability to learn from their customers, and their ability to dynamically improve over time.

So any criticism of differentiated pricing based solely on the idea that "a packet is a packet and it costs the same to route" may be astute in the static, technical dimension -- but naive in the ultimately more-important dynamic economic and business dimensions.

<comment><USER33> It may very well be disastrous to Verizon's margins. I do not understand why protecting those margins are my responsibility, or anyone's responsibility other than Verizon's.

We're not talking about some cable in the ground upon which Verizon exerts a legal property interest. We're talking about the airwaves that are the permanent heritage of the taxpayer (or arguably land owner), which we as a landlord collectively and temporarily rent out for our sole benefit, in an adversarial negotiation. The _whole point_ of a negotiation is to increase your own margins, often at the expense of the other party's. To say our analysis does this is to say it represents our interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Thank god the government is here to tell private companies what they can and cannot do. The FCC spent $336M of your money last year on such activities.

> During the last two decades, the FCC has manufactured the idea that the > electromagnetic spectrum used by wireless devices is scarce. Spectrum > auctions became another way to restrain trade. Deep pocket operators, like > AT&T and Verizon Wireless, overbid for spectrum and then pass along high > costs to the consumer in the form of $40 monthly fees and cryptic calling > plans. It's a longer conversation, but with the right network architecture, > smart devices can be programmed to share huge swaths of spectrum without > interfering with other users. If we do it with Wi-Fi for data, we can > certainly do it for phone calls.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704594804575649141727853232.html

</comment><comment><USER35> I was unaware that Verizon couldn't charge for tethering over LTE, but I did find it strange that the Verizon iPad has tethering included in any data plan and the AT&T version does not. I ended up canceling my AT&T order and ordering a Verizon iPad once I discovered that fact.

That said, it's been almost six months since the new iPad came out and AT&T has yet to include tethering, so I don't think they see tethering to iPad that huge a selling point. (in fact, I don't think they even have a way of letting you pay for tethering if you're on an iPad's prepaid data).

</comment><comment><USER36> I've just noticed on my iPhone 4S on Verizon I can enable personal hotspot and not get some warning about being charged anymore. But I very much doubt any changes have gone into effect this quickly.

Some questions:

Has anyone contacted Verizon Wireless to get official word if the free tethering has gone into effect?

Has anyone gotten official word from Verizon Wireless if CDMA tethering will be free, also?

Note: I am aware these are 700mhz restrictions. Note my use of "official word" above.

</comment><comment><USER37> First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is so funny. I just moved into my new place today; downloaded a tethering android application and got online by tethering through my Verizon phone. First website I open? HN. First article I see (on top)? This one. The point is that I wasn't quite sure if I would be charged for this or not -- guess not!

</comment><comment><USER39> I genuinely do wonder whether or not this will change anything for (current) Apple customers.

As the iPhone/iPad are non-LTE, CDMA-only devices; I don't foresee this ruling impacting the current restrictions that bar the entry-level 2GB data plans from having tethering support.

<comment><USER40> For the most part, you're right. There is one exception: The Verizon 3rd-gen iPads have LTE. The cheapest prepaid plan is $20/month for 1GB of data, and it comes with tethering.

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So why are they still allowed to do this: [https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ash3/620389_397825864...](https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ash3/620389_3978258648735_1903704690_o.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER42> Great. So now they'll just raise their data prices. Woohoo!

</comment><comment><USER43> What about the other carriers like Spring and AT&T?

</comment><comment><USER44> The amount of utter bullshit US phone companies get away with is staggering. How and why did they think this would fly?

</comment><comment><USER45> Does this mean that they can simply charge more for the base fee instead?

<comment><USER46> Probably, but since tethering is probably a feature 10% of their data subscribers are interested in, they would also raise the data price on the 90% that don't need it (who are also be more likely to walk away if prices go up.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> So will Verizon just disallow tethering instead of allowing it for free?

</comment><comment><USER48> Thank goodness for some sense around telecom companies. Finally!

</comment><comment><USER49> Woot!

</comment><comment><USER50> but do we geta refund??? Doesn't look likely.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is a no-brainer. As others have pointed out, this is a wholly artificial fee. You still have to pay for the data. They're just charging you for how you access the data.

Basically it's extortion.

Here's something that congress should do. Telecom companies are government- granted monopolies. Why not acknowledge that it's already not a free market situation and cap the profit margin that these companies are allowed to operate at (like they're doing with health insurance now)?

It's insane that 5GB bandwidth/month is $50. It's insane that text messages are so expensive. It's insane that the fee to enter into a new 2-year discounted phone contract isn't proportional to the amount of money the company has recouped on the original phone.

<comment><USER52> They do it to segment their customers. A lot of us startups do it too when we offer one plan for $9 per month, another for $19 per month. The delta isn't necessarily because our _costs_ are different, but rather because the value to the consumer is different.

You could argue that cellular networks should only be allowed to be dumb pipes because they are a government-granted monopoly (of spectrum). That would put them in a similar place as a utility like your electric company, sort of quasi-private but heavily regulated.

That makes sense, but OTOH utilities are notorious for stupid bureaucracy and being slow to evolve... So would they still deploy new stuff like LTE quickly? Would they still subsidize phones?

I'm not sure of the answer, but I think that's what the real debate should be if you don't want them creating "artificial fees", ie segmenting customers by value.

<comment><USER53> > Would they still subsidize phones?

Is subsidizing phones actually a good idea?

To me, it is one features of the US mobile phone market that looks particularly unhealthy. For instance, the subsidy is biggest reason cellular networks can start messing around with what you can and can't run on your phone in the first place. Otherwise, if you didn't like how your carrier crippled your phone, you'd wouldn't buy your phone from them (at least for AT&T and T-Mobile, though I suspect competitive pressure would drag Verizon, Sprint and the rest along, for the most part).

<comment><USER52> I agree it's probably not a good thing to have subsidies "baked in" by the carriers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> In 2006, one Verizon store tried to charge me for tethering. Another confirmed that at that time, there was no extra ($19.99) charge for tethering.

I've been sent to credit agencies for bills I had paid on more than one occasion for the same paid bills and my accounts have been switched with other family members by Verizon on purpose taking over 20 calls and hours to resolve.

tl;dr: Verizon's service has always been shit. The FCC and our government need to step it up. Hard to do when you're in Verizon's pockets.</comment>


Recovering SpaceX's Falcon 9 Ocean Landing Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/06/recovering-falcon-9-ocean-landing-video-done/

<comment><USER2> Raw video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8H8OlJ3o8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8H8OlJ3o8)

Recovered video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjZ33C9JZTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjZ33C9JZTM)

<comment><USER3> Wow, looking at the original, that recovery is pretty amazing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "SpaceX improvised, sending CEO Elon Musk's private jet out to the landing area with a small satellite dish affixed behind a window. The plane kept a safe distance from the re-entering stage, but managed to retrieve telemetry confirming that the landing had been completed successfully.

...

On April 28, SpaceX published both the original and the partially repaired video stream on their web site, and asked the world for help.

...

The main response came from the NASASpaceFlight.com forum, with several skilled programmers and computer experts willing to take up the challenge. The first results came surprisingly quickly."

So, it would be more accurate to say that people from NASA forums figured it out. In particular special version of FFMPEG decoder was written for the task.

<comment><USER5> It's NASASpaceFlight.com forums, not NASA forums. AFAIK, they're not associated with NASA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love these post mortem write-ups. Also, the idea of Elon sending out his private jet with a satellite dish pointing out the window is duct-tape-fixes- everything Engineer-solution as hell. I love it :D

<comment><USER7> Even better, it wasn't a satellite dish. It was a _pizza dish._

Source: [http://youtu.be/F3Hoz7_s6pQ](http://youtu.be/F3Hoz7_s6pQ) (about 2:40)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> God damn. The recovered video is an _amazing_ improvement. I hope the special FFMpeg version finds some more use in the future - that seems like a massively beneficial spin off tool.

<comment><USER9> Sadly recovery was mostly manual guess work. There was some talk of modelling distortions, but manual process was too advanced at that point.

Most of this could of been avoided if SpaceX used SDR to receive that video signal. Its vastly easier to recover when you have original distorted I/Q than trying to guess what went wrong in hardware black box receiver. Original Video transport stream is encapsulated, encoded and modulated using one of the DVB- something schemes. Those provide robust FEC (error correction).

SpaceX provided file was a result of radio stream badly interpreted inside some black box receiver, there was no FEC any more to help automated recovery.

Lets hope SpaceX learned a lesson and will use SDR in the future (and bump up FEC rate to 1/2 in bad weather)

<comment><USER10> And don't use interlaced video!

<comment><USER11> I think they've learnt that one the latest F9R-dev flight looked like it wasn't interlaced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> just an observation to put Musk's achievements in perspective - Russia failed today to perform maiden launch of its new Angara rocket design. The design is the first new design since USSR times, has been 20+ years in development and its main feature is the Unified Module architecture. Basically the same module approach as Falcon 9/Heavy. Musk took half the time to successfully develop and put his system to use and has very real and plausible chance of getting it into man-rated flights (this may be very-very far plans for Angara, well after [and if] Russia makes unmanned Angara flights successful)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious what happened to damage the video in the first place? Did the vehicle record a normal quality video, and then it got corrupted over transmission? Wouldn't corruption like that be random though, and not within the encoding?

<comment><USER14> The vehicle transmitted MPEG4 video, that then had byte level corruption due to transmission issues. MPEG4 really doesn't like corruption.

<comment><USER13> Ok so it was fine before transmission? But the article was talking about early blocks messing up the encoding on following blocks. I'm thinking if there are transmission errors it would be more like incorrect or flipped bits? Why would that affect encoding?

Or is the transmission streaming, or is the receiver re-encoding it?

<comment><USER15> The earlier blocks being corrupted would affect later blocks because the later blocks are encoded as the difference from the previous block, hence the error of the previous block propagates even if the later blocks are correct.

<comment><USER13> Ok, I get it now. Thanks jreimers and smackfu!

<comment><USER16> Jumping on this comment because HN won't allow me to respond to a prior comment of yours (link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878923)):

> how can you have a current in a single wire without a loop?

There are ions always wandering around in the ionosphere - the ionosphere is partly-ionized plasma. Low-density, but there. When you have a generator that produces an electric potential bias across the top/bottom of the craft, you end up with electrons being emitted into space from and positive ions being attracted to the side biased negative, and electrons in the ionosphere being attracted to the side biased positive. Effectively: the plasma completes the circuit. There are bunches of additional optimizations (electron guns, etc) but that's the basic idea.

<comment><USER13> Wow that makes sense. I thought the spacecraft would be above the atmosphere but maybes there are still a few ions in LEO?

Also how could such a generator work? That makes a potential on the two ends?

<comment><USER16> There's a surprising amount of atmosphere up where we would consider it to be at orbital heights. People think of the atmosphere as suddenly ending, but it doesn't.

For example, one of the major considerations for how the ISS orients its solar panels is minimizing drag.

And that's what an electrical generator does. It produces an electric potential difference between its two terminals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> People on /r/spacex were posting a bunch of progressions of the video as it was being reconstructed. Very interesting all the way.

</comment><comment><USER18> There was also video written to on-board storage that has yet to be extracted yet, isn't there? If not, why?

<comment><USER19> Due to rough seas the rocket stage sank before they were able to recover it.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-27166780](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27166780)

<comment><USER18> That article is about the previous landing.

The recent vertical landing should have been much closer to shore and was planned to have a much better chance of recovery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some nice info about FFmpeg compression

</comment><comment><USER21> Damn, that's very nice. I guess they won't be using MPEG anymore though :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome, great effort by the folks at NASASpaceflight.com.

</comment><comment><USER23> so no more MPEG?

</comment><comment><USER24> Slight correction - it wasn't NASA that recovered the video, rather NASASpaceflight.com, an independent community of spaceflight fans.

</comment><comment><USER25> Incorrect title. It was the NASA Space Flight forum (or rather some members thereof). NASA had nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER26> Thanks. We reverted the title. (Submitted title was "How NASA recovered SpaceX's Falcon 9 Ocean Landing Video".)</comment></comment>


The Abilene Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox I learned recently there's a term for when everyone agrees to something that nobody actually wants: The Abilene Paradox.  Any good examples from your lives? <comment><USER2> I would have never thought that I would read a reference to Coleman, Texas in a link from YC. For what it's worth I've been there a few times and it's a nice town.

I think one example of this happening is in deed restrictions and HOA rules in modern subdivisions. The vast majority of residents do not worry that their neighbor's kids leave tricyles out on the front lawn, dry clothes from a line in the back, leave the garage door open other than when moving a car in or out, let the lawn get over four inches high, etc. But they do fear that most everyone else does care about those things, and the paranoia associated by their over-extended housing finances drives them to support the enforcement of rules they would blush to describe otherwise.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any good examples of this paradox from your lives?</comment>


82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding - <AUTHOR> https://www.aarp.org/work/working-at-50-plus/info-2018/worlds-oldest-app-developer-fd.html <comment><USER3> I just moved to Japan, and it's fascinating that connotations (including my previous) with Japan are "High tech, futuristic, efficient" when in reality it is, "slow moving, traditional, and (frequently) inefficient." I can comment more as to why / how.

This woman is not only fighting cultural norms of the _world_, but also Japan. Software engineering, in general, lags so far behind the rest of the world, save robotics. It's starting to change, and I'm glad that people like Wakamiya-san are preventing the creation of a 'conventional software engineer'. Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc.

<comment><USER4> I attended a Microsoft developer event in Tokyo today and was surprised that all of the keynote engineer speakers were female.

Might have been a bit of a marketing exercise, but nonetheless it's a really good thing to see.

<comment><USER5> If gender doesn't matter, why is it a good thing to see more of a specific one?

<comment><USER6> If 100% of their engineers are women then yes they still have a problem. If it's a sign that they have a more even balance then it's a good thing because they're not wasting/ignoring 50% of the potential pool of people, and because diversity of backgrounds leads to better decision making and more innovation[1] which presumably as a tech company is a desirable outcome.

[1] See references to papers in this blog posting: [http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...](http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity- trumps-ability.html) and also [https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can- drive-innovation](https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation)

<comment><USER7> It might be a sign of exactly the opposite. Unless we know the method used to pick the speakers, it's all speculation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very inspiring, this is her website: [http://marchan.travel.coocan.jp](http://marchan.travel.coocan.jp)

Also previous discussion and video: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14995333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14995333)

<comment><USER9> Kind of off topic, but I've always found Japanese domain names to weird. They always seem to be subdomains of someone else's site. Why is this?

<comment><USER10> She is probably using some hosting service provided by Japaneses company. edit: the company hp is cocan.jp a lot of personal home page are host by them. since normal Japanese don't exactly know how to use heroku and AWS.

<comment><USER11> In case you're not aware, you're being downvoted for "Jap". Perhaps you were just abbreviating "Japanese", but it's considered offensive.

<comment><USER10> That is good to know, I am not from the states. I thought Jap was abbreviate for Japanese what have the internet done to me lol.

<comment><USER12> "Jap" only became an ethnic slur in American English during/due to World War II.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a video at the end of the article where Tim Cook is discussing with Masako Wakamiya,

Tim asks specific questions on accessibility & she enthusiastically answers all of them precisely.She definitely knows what she's doing.

I wish, Tim asked her what difficulty she faced while porting to iPad as she said so.

Nevertheless, the video made me happy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how much of brain elasticity in as adults is just due to attitude. I generally find kids more eager to jump into new things, while adults are more stubborn and complacent towards new experiences. Once you have money or kids it's a lot easier to just have someone else do it for you. Still, at 82 I imagine most people will start developing issues with memory so it probably isn't an easy feat, and she's found more success than I have...

<comment><USER15> I think that openness and confidence are major factors. Having taught older adults to use computers, one of the major difficulties is getting them past the fear that they might "break" the computer and the need to memorise rote instructions rather than experiment with the interface.

The body language is quite distinctive - tentatively pressing keys with an outstretched index finger as if the keyboard might jump up and bite them, pushing around the mouse with their fingertips rather than grasping it with their whole hand, leaning away from the screen as if it might explode in their face.

Some older people just can't internalise the idea of _looking at the screen_ for clues as to how to proceed. No matter how many times they're told and shown, they just don't get the idea that computing is interactive. They try to memorise every interaction as a series of rote steps, so if something unexpected happens they're completely lost. They are completely incapable of navigating a UI without very explicit instruction, even if it's broadly similar to UIs they know how to navigate. Something as trivial as accidentally scrolling down a few lines on a website is a complete showstopper. I don't understand it, but I find it endlessly fascinating.

<comment><USER16> I've seen these exact behaviors countless times, ever since I was the "kid who knows computers" (in the 90's) trying to walk adults through using them.

Oh, and when you ask them to "look at the screen", they're only mentally able to process a 2-square-inch "window area" at any given moment. So you first have to direct their gaze, very specifically, before you can actually expect them to read and process anything. (Of course it doesn't help that many of them used bifocals that made it difficult to actually see anything up close, except maybe a book, without squinting at a weird angle. Not sure if that's still an issue today.)

<comment><USER17> As much as I'd agree with the symptoms you guys are describing when it comes to my parents and grandparents, I don't think this is much of an age problem at all.

The same thing happens to my kids when I present them with a bash shell. They don't understand how to read the instructions, and they're uncomfortable with text commands. They don't want to type 'man' or 'help', and they give up very quickly. Everything they use on computers and game consoles are GUIs, most of them extremely easy to use by the standards of text interfaces like bash & vi.

This is a familiarity problem. You have years and years of experience with your OSes, which is what allows you to see outside the 2-inch window when you use a new application. You know exactly what you can ignore, and exactly what you need to pay attention to. They don't. Being unfamiliar with all of it and not having any idea how any of it works is what makes it seem like they're not learning quickly, but it's more because they're trying to learn everything at once, and are overwhelmed, not because they're not learning at all.

<comment><USER18> > The same thing happens to my kids when I present them with a bash shell. > They don't understand how to read the instructions

Uhm, the issue here is squarely on Bash's end, not your kid's. Even the Windows command prompt is _far_ more intuitive to learn. I know because I vividly remember how much more confused I got when learning the former.

In Windows, when you type "help", it _actually_ gives you helpful commands: COPY, MOVE, DEL, REN/RENAME, etc. and at least the basic commands _are actually what you 'd expect_. At least you have a foothold somewhere that you can ground yourself, and you start learning a bit more every time.

Try that in Bash, and good luck learning out how to do _anything_ in Bash on your own. Oh, you want _help_? I gotchu! I'm guessing you're looking for job_spec, bg, compopt, coproc, disown, shopt, or trap? Oh I'm _so sorry_ , you said all you wanted was to just _copy_ a file? Haha I'm just a _shell_! You can't expect me to know how know what it means to "copy" a file! I can't even find that command! But if you need help, type "man -k" (what kind of a name is that??) to find out more about other commands. Oh, so you typed "man -k"? Okay, _" apropos what?"_??? (You, thinking to yourself: _is 'apropos' even an English word?? I literally just typed in man -k like they told me to, and I got back a question I don't understand..._) And on and on and on, until weeks later you realize the darn command was helpfully named 'cp' and not 'copy'...

<comment><USER19> > _In Windows, when you type "help", it actually gives you helpful commands: > COPY, MOVE, DEL, REN/RENAME, etc. and at least the basic commands are > actually what you'd expect. At least you have a foothold somewhere that you > can ground yourself, and you start learning a bit more every time._

Yes, this. I recall back in the MS-DOS days that I frequently used a text-GUI help menu that showed all the commands you could do and what each one did.

Personally, this is what I struggle with on *nix shells - I can do the very basics but there's little guidance showing you a broad overview of what is possible. Granted, the world is bigger now but if you asked me how to do a random task I'd probably google it first instead of reading a man page.

<comment><USER20> > Personally, this is what I struggle with on *nix shells

Once you learn the 8000 or so commands, it becomes incredibly intuitive.

<comment><USER21> Don't forget all the little tricks in chaining them! And all the magic you can do with pipes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If I understand correctly, she started out with Swift as her first language?

 _Wakamiya soon bought programming books and learned Apple's Swift programming language through lessons with a programmer, nearly 200 miles away from her home in Japan 's Kanagawa Prefecture, via Facebook Messenger and Skype._

<comment><USER23> Looks like she has been interested for many years

"This wasn't the first time that Wakamiya took on a challenge. She's been dabbling in the tech field since the age of 60."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What does it mean "oriented to old people"? Old people can play anything, they just have slower reflexes. Silver Snipers are 60-80 years old and play Counter Strike:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800924/silver- snipers-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800924/silver-snipers- senior-counter-strike-team)

<comment><USER25> When I was a teenager playing Starcraft, I learned that one of the guys who regularly played with us was in his 50s. At the time it seemed weird anyone that old would be able to keep up in this game, or even know what it's about.

<comment><USER26> I find lots of players in Overwatch are surprised to find I'm 46 with an above average SR whenever it comes up. Though I typically don't snipe, I seem to still have some twitch reflexes left!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I still find it hard to get a php ajax form to work despite tinkering with code for over 10 years. I can;t imagine trying to code an entire app when getting a form to work takes hours. guess some people learn faster than others

<comment><USER28> Things are a lot less painful than they used to be.

fetch()/promises/async/await and better browser support.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/FormData](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/FormData)

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API)

Also promises (coupled with async/await) make things a great deal more pleasant and I'm old enough to remember the old days.

<comment><USER29> How does javascript async/await solve form handling (presumably pure html) and basic PHP?

<comment><USER28> He said ajax, the asynchronous part can be handled cleanly with async/await particularly if doing more complex field validation/rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Very inspiring. Made me happy - to know that after programming for 28 years, I might only be half-way through my career.

</comment><comment><USER31> I know Masako and I think what she has accomplished is pretty remarkable. Her story goes to show that people can accomplish anything they want, regardless of age, if they take joy from it.

<comment><USER32> I'm 60 years old. I'm teaching myself node.js and related tools. I find great joy in learning anyway but networked computers are still as amazing to me now as they were when I first encountered them in the 70s.

If you ever speak to Masako, please tell her she inspired an old geek in America.

<comment><USER31> I will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There's a 78 year old man enrolled in Computer Information Systems at Clemson right now. Great story and amazing life too.

[https://newsstand.clemson.edu/78-year-old-sophomore- everythi...](https://newsstand.clemson.edu/78-year-old-sophomore-everything- ive-done-in-life-ive-done-late/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Quite a feat!

I think her success as a marketer shouldn't be overlooked: many of the app store reviews focus mainly on her unique backstory (plenty of them posted before this article was even published). Very nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER35> A point of clarification: "She's been dabbling in the tech field since the age of 60." Still impressive though!

Also, the app isn't described until 3/4 into the article: "The app, based on the annual Japanese doll festival of Hina Matsuri, invites players to arrange 12 ornamental dolls --- representing the country's emperor, family and guests --- in a specific order."

<comment><USER36> The article goes on to define "dabbling in the tech field" as buying a computer and creating Excel art.

<comment><USER37> and also CODING A PHONE APP IN SWIFT

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There's been quite a few studies that learning things like new languages forges new neuron pathways and helps fight off dementia and other age related brain diseases.

I wonder if there's been any studies to the cognitive benefits of teaching the elderly to code?

</comment><comment><USER39> twice I have worked with colleagues in Japan on non-trivial things.. patience, skill and conflict-averse were my direct experience.. regarding the age topic.. it is rampant in the Bay Area, and in my opinion is a flimsy mask over an even greater list of ugly management practices

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Since I posted it I feel compelled to add: its irrelevant that this person was a woman of Japanese decent.

We all know gender and nationality is irrelevant when it comes to skill of coding, but I wanted to keep it intact in the title as the article goes.

As of her age, I do think its quite unique skills to be so laser-focused at something as tedious as coding, even more in CamelType structured language as Apple forces on you.

I only code for last 30 years but I do hope to have such clarity of my mind when I reach her age, hopefully :)

<comment><USER40> She's a Japanese person making a Japanese app about a Japanese cultural topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I made an app for 2 older folks (~75) who connected with me over the web. The high level idea and functional spec was provided by them. One of the main reason i helped them was because it was interesting to see someone at their age trying to change the world (a bit) positively through the use of software..

<comment><AUTHOR> share the app!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This reminds me of the story about the 81 year old woman who uses an Amiga, AmigaBASIC and C to create programmatic visual art: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfIkXf3uzA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfIkXf3uzA)

</comment><comment><USER43> Most of the people over 70s I knew have had their sight degraded or lost pretty much all of it. Her eyes (from the picture) look in a pretty healthy condition.

I mean degraded in a bad way that they can't read normal text and require assistance. I think they'll have trouble reading code on a normal computer screen.

What your experiences in your surrounding are? I don't really hang with older people when I travel so mine is limited to my family. I'm wondering if it is a genetic thing.

Given that I'm planning to retire by my very early 30s, and guessing an average age of 75-80. I still have around 40 years. Plenty of time and I like computers.

<comment><USER44> Depends a lot on the lifestyle. A few of my relatives managed to stay relatively fit over 70 with a relatively active lifestyle and probably some luck in the genetic makeup (they do need vision aids, but can manage fairly OK with them). I'm from Europe, but I heard that Japanese have a comparably high life expectancy, which likely results in better overall health in all age groups.

I'm sitting in front of a computer all day, so my chances are probably not as good in this regard if I don't change things. But I guess this kind of insight is news for few people around here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customers, largely speaking, doesn't know your age or gender or whether or not you went to an ivy league school or anything else. Some career directions certainly do depend on that stuff, but that's mostly because they depend on other people for advancement. But building products is only a competition against forces that pull down quality, not a game of gatekeeper-signaling. If you want to succeed in business, you can either let that stuff affect you, or you can just build something that people buy and prove everyone who says there are fundamental barriers wrong.

<comment><USER46> My hat goes to the old lady, but frankly, if you feel the need to code and market something at age 82 then the odds are you're either struggling to make ends meet, which might warrant giving a cold hard look at the pension system in place, or you don't have and never have had much of a life outside of work - no kids or grand-(grand-)children, no hobbies, etc.

<comment><USER47> ouch, that's kind of harsh. You make a lot of assumptions.

<comment><USER48> The idea that someone would do work because they enjoy it seems entirely foreign to the parent. Although I suppose that is a more western perspective as well. Sure we have that whole "do what you love" bit, but there seems to be an appreciation of "craftsmanship" for lack of a better term that the Japanese have and we seem to have largely forgotten.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > Wakamiya bought her first computer, then moved on to a Microsoft PC, and > later a Mac and iPhones.

So what was her first computer?? :) The article says she bought her first computer after retiring from a 43-year career, which would be around 1997 (year 2018 - age 82 + 18 years + 43 years).

<comment><USER50> _So what was her first computer??_

Probably a super-cool Japanese machine that never made it to the West like [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_NEWS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_NEWS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I saw another such woman on (Japanese) TV some time ago, also octagenarian, I think. She made a virtual koto. You know, pluck the strings on the mobile device's screen, and koto tones come out. Maybe it's the same person.

</comment><comment><USER52> Not really up to that level, but a 96yo neighbor rang on my bell for some tech support. The dude was sharper than a lot of 50yo persons.

Humans are weird

</comment><comment><USER53> There are a lot of threads here comparing learning a "foreign" language with learning a computer "language".

C is C and English is odd.

</comment><comment><USER54> I like how the design of her personal page look so outdated but still very very neat.

</comment><comment><USER55> Made my day! Thanks for this.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER57> I feel it is kind of sad to see old people in the casinos. They are mindless spending time. They don't even seem to enjoy it. There must be games that are more enjoyable than that. no skill needed, no creativity being developed.

<comment><USER58> I actually stepped foot into a depressing casino some years ago and actually saw slot machines, and was amazed that would appeal to anyone. they're full blown video games but only have one button. super boring! and dumb - <USER2> here's our hotel and restaurant, but to pay for your stay, instead of paying at the desk, you have to spend your whole vacation in a dark smoky room buying tokens to feed into a machine and pushing a button for days on end. sign me up.

I predict that current generations who have grown up with technology and video games are going to be much less interested in really dumb machines like this. But this is total armchair conjecture and I'm probably totally wrong.

<comment><USER54> I think that simplicity is actually part of the addiction. You have to only press that one button, and "exciting" stuff automatically happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Another great example where an open mind of any age will learn new things. My neighbour is in her 90's always seems to relish the challenge of learning new things, and it does seem to keep her brain sharp.</comment>


Apple enters the augmented reality fray with ARKit for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/apple-enters-the-augmented-reality-fray-with-arkit-for-ios/ <comment><USER3> They're paving the way for their revolutionary consumer AR eyewear (which may be delayed now apparently). Although maybe we'll see tech from some of their recent AR acquisitions (PrimeSense/Metaio) integrated into the upcoming iPhone, possibly in the form of an advanced depth/surface mapping sensor of sorts.

What's fascinating is Apple has a large team focusing on HCI & AR - <USER2> "pinch-to-zoom" and multitouch did for smartphones is what Apple will need to successfully pull off the "big bang" for consumer AR.

<comment><USER4> > which may be delayed now apparently

I'm curious, what have you read/seen that makes you think this unknown product is delayed before being announced?

<comment><USER5> There was an AMA on Reddit from a Foxconn employee who looks to be pretty spot on about other products:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/6ezhwm/iama_foxconn_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/6ezhwm/iama_foxconn_insider_with_information_on_next_12/)

Rough bill of materials of Project Mirrorshades - Apple Iris. Note Iris is Siri backwards. Kopin NED Acetate frame Polarisized or prescription lens with Zeiss smart optics Bone conduction modules Microphones (noise cancellation) Light sensor Accelerometer for step tracking and head movement app navigation Magnetometer for navigation Capacitive Pavel Ceramic battery Apple chipset Charging circuit BL5 Induction module

Crystal, champagne and black. We only saw transparent reader lens but I understand they can procure polarised or prescription lenses Cellulose acetate Injection mold frames into an aluminum mold. Colors are added and tumbled for finish. P3 frame design

Two sizes, men's and woman's

Usually 4x the BOM cost; it would indicate around $600 mark. Crystal is just clear. But clear without artefacts is difficult.

<comment><USER6> I've heard about this being real from someone who works in a very very large corp. They are working with Apple building the first apps for the device. He said it was not much better than Hololens at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Studied the market for AR development solutions recently. A few thoughts:

\- Probably using a lot of Metaio tech, a leading AR dev solutions provider Apple acquired/shuttered in May 2015

\- Unfortunate naming. Sounds extremely similar to ARToolkit [1], the leading open source/free AR dev solution.

\- Markerless is the future of AR, so good on Apple for getting this markerless tech out to compete with Google Tango and Microsoft Hololens. The status quo is currently marker-based recognition using "tags" or QR codes. It's also much harder than marker-based, or "on body" (Snapchat, Facebook AR Studio) recognition. I'd say Google Tango has some of the most impressive SDKs out there for tracking, area learning, and depth perception, but it does require specialized smartphone hardware from Lenovo or Asus, which significantly limits its utility and mkt penetration at this point. Google was just too early with Glass and got burned, but it needs a stronger hardware platform, which is something that Apple can deliver.

\- The Unreal-engine AR video demo was cool and the graphics seemed decent for real-time rendering on an iPad, but the real future of AR applications (read: $$$) will come from industrial applications on wearable devices or head mounted displays such as the Hololens, Vuzix, Daqri, or Epson Moverio devices. Examples of industrial/enterprise AR applications: Remote help, complex assembly, pick & pack, line monitoring, materials handling, systems training, etc. This is the market Microsoft and PTC (Vuforia, ThingWorx) are targeting, not the consumer gaming/advertising markets, which use more "basic" forms of AR. This is not to say Pokemon Go/Snapchat do not generate a lot of revenue, but it's very debatable if they can be considered true AR applications.

\- Other vendors in the AR development solutions space include: Aurasma (HPE), Blippar, Catchoom, EON Reality, Kudan, Pikkart, Wikitude, among others.

\- In conclusion, Apple is currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's somewhat late to market with ARKit, will have to compete with Facebook, Google, and Snapchat for consumer AR-oriented developer mindshare, and will have no play at the industrial/enterprise market if it limits its tools to development for the iOS family.

\- The best way for Apple to alleviate this jam is to release its own AR glasses/headset, which it is widely rumored to be developing.

[1] [https://artoolkit.org/](https://artoolkit.org/)

<comment><USER8> For AR, to win, you do not have to be the first one to market to win, its who can make the best platform for developers will win. As an AR developer, previous platforms like Vuforia, ARToolkit, and even Tango are either limiting or very hard to work with.

<comment><USER9> What? Vuforia is extremely easy to work with. Are you sure your difficulty issues weren't just Unity being a garbage heap of bad UI and poorly documented processes?

<comment><USER8> Lol, I mean building a native ios swift app with vuforia was a pain in the butt, since they have NO documentation on their code or any tutorials. Github link here: [https://github.com/interactivetech/VuforiaScenekit](https://github.com/interactivetech/VuforiaScenekit)

I have been avoiding building AR for Unity for the reasons you described xD!

<comment><USER9> If you can get someone to walk you through it a few times, point out the major parts, it's the easiest way I know of to get 3D apps up and running. And it's in very high demand.

The only problem is that I very much believe in the web application model as a means of reaching a wide audience with the fewest resources, but Unity's WebGL export is functionally useless.

<comment><USER8> That would of been great to have mentorship, but I ended up doing it the harder way, Struggling and reading code like a book. I learned a ton though, and its taken a while.I hope to soon provide people with tutorial/walkthrough with 3D apps.

You should take a look at AR.js, its a cool project that will hopefully provide that wider accessibility. The challenge with Apple's ARKit is that its AR technology( is much more challenging than Vuforia, and tricker to implement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More information and docs here [https://developer.apple.com/arkit/](https://developer.apple.com/arkit/)

<comment><USER11> .

<comment><USER12> I thought 6S+ ran A9?

<comment><USER13> It does

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought we might be seeing an AR app built into the Camera or Map app.

Nope just a kit for developers to build games only or does the ARkit allow access to the camera app? I'm dying to see innovation from Apple like in the camera app when you open it there's an option to view how things look in the past(100 years ago what did this spot in New York City look like.. where you can take a pic of yourself in the past).

I'm sure there's oodles that can be done with an AR Camera.

Apple and the others to me seem to be slow to innovate.

<comment><USER15> I might be wrong but it sounds like 3rd party devs can build those things using ARKit.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, and that's the whole point of it. There's too many applications of AR for Apple to build alone.

<comment><USER14> Hmmm but their actual camera app?

What will happen is a developer will build the app I mentioned above (could exist already) and then Apple will later build it into the camera app. I've never seen an app maker build functionality into any of the iPhone built in apps.

<comment><USER17> I don't think Apple offers support to extend their camera app (there is support for extending the photos app, however).

What you _can_ do, (and it's quite easy), is to create your own app, capturing video from the camera. Then you can overlay any AR content you wish onto it.

<comment><USER14> Yeah that's what I was saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> ARKit was one of the most interesting features announced this WWDC. Can't wait to play around with some demo code and see what it's like.

</comment><comment><USER19> As a developer, this was the most exciting thing for me from today's WWDC opening speech. Can't wait to try this out myself. The demo they did with the AR game was really neat.

<comment><USER20> It seemed quite mature for a v1 release. Then again it is hard to judge from an Apple demo but it did look nice.

<comment><USER19> I think there must have always been some way to do AR (Pokemon GO and other games) but I believe it always required a team to accomplish this and possibly work with engineers at Apple.

As an independent developer, I hope the AR kit will make it much easier for me to create something fun and possibly integrate with Siri and other kits. This is what I'm hoping for :D

I know VR is hot right now, but I've always had the thought AR > VR.

<comment><USER21> Wasn't Pokemon GO more like pseudo-AR? Like it just superimposed an animation with an alpha channel shadow but which otherwise had nothing to do with whatever the camera was looking at?

<comment><USER22> Yes. It's AR in that they overlaid something over the real world.

That's why the little bit during the demo was interesting. They showed Pokémon go using AR but it was actually doing it correctly, where the Pokémon stayed in position as they moved the camera around.

I was wondering what Pokémon Go would do on android. Will this feature be iOS only or will they implement their own version on android?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I find it funny that Apple is just now releasing an AR SDK as when the iPhone first came out there were a lot of AR apps available. Most of them were pretty boring, just games like shooting spaceships or POI explorers, but they didn't look that much more primitive than the apps demoed today. I wonder why they didn't jump on AR back then.

<comment><USER22> I remember playing with those on my 3G or my 4. It was pretty impressive what people were able to do with those little phones.

I'm sure part of it is just the ability to do useful things, part of it may simply be that they have such had room on the chips that they can do it without draining battery life horribly. I remember those old apps clearly used a lot of processing power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> How does it compare to Google Tango? Tango needs special hardware, but ARKit is not. Even if it required, there would be a definitely device (iPhone or iPad). Traction wise Apple could win, but what about performance and accuracy wise?

<comment><USER25> For now it's more like how Snapchat's latest world filters work (try them out). Basic environment tracking, good enough for a smooth experience, considering you keep your camera steady.

Tango takes the tracking to the next level. Maybe future iPhones will have that kind of IMU and other sensors, allowing Apple to expand their AR API.

<comment><USER26> I was pretty impressed with their live demo.

I tried Pokemon Go briefly, and their "AR" was a complete joke compared to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Barely related but what happened to HealthKit ? are ambitious Apple Kits failing ?

<comment><USER28> HealthKit is still going. They announced some big wins with HealthKit on the Apple Watch but they weren't included in the keynote. More than likely, there wasn't enough time considering the keynote without any HealthKit announcements was already longer than normal.

<comment><USER27> Thanks. Last month some medtech guy reported about different efforts and said HealthKit vanished. The fact Apple didn't mention made me think he was right. Now I'll wait for more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does anyone have resources for "State of the art" algorithms and research that is used to do the sensor fusion (camera frames + motion sensor data)? I found this but not sure its the most up to date. I'm also looking for more detail in terms of code:

[http://user.it.uu.se/~thosc112/pubpdf/holsgs2006.pdf](http://user.it.uu.se/~thosc112/pubpdf/holsgs2006.pdf)

<comment><USER30> It seems that ARkit is actually using SLAM as the core technology (in parts, the same technology is being used in autonomous cars and navigating drones). Getting it to work on mobile phones is quite challenging and had been the subject of much research in recent years, some good starting points (with code): ORB-SLAM - [https://github.com/raulmur/ORB_SLAM2](https://github.com/raulmur/ORB_SLAM2), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9PYCKhDLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9PYCKhDLM) DSO - [https://github.com/JakobEngel/dso](https://github.com/JakobEngel/dso), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6-xwSOOdqQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6-xwSOOdqQ) VINS - [https://github.com/HKUST-Aerial-Robotics/VINS- Mobile](https://github.com/HKUST-Aerial-Robotics/VINS-Mobile), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mTXnIfFisI&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mTXnIfFisI&feature=youtu.be)

(the last one being released just a few days ago...)

Of course there are a lot more resources out there and a lot of the cutting edge research is involved with deep learning techniques (starting with e.g. [https://github.com/alexgkendall/caffe- posenet](https://github.com/alexgkendall/caffe-posenet)).

You may also want to watch out for this conference [http://cvpr2017.thecvf.com/](http://cvpr2017.thecvf.com/) scheduled for the end of this month and is usually a good source of cutting edge research...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> There was also a very brief mention of a "depth api" before they started talking about the actual ARKit. is that endpoint documented anywhere?

<comment><USER19> here? [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit)

<comment><USER31> nah I think its something for normal photos, not immersive content.

> Camera: Updated video and image compression, improved Portrait Mode with > support for low light, plus a new Depth API for developers.

from [https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/05/apple-announces- ios-11/](https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/05/apple-announces-ios-11/)

<comment><USER32> I had a look at the documentation at [1], which says "The AVCaptureDepthDataOutput class captures and delivers depth data in a stream (similar to how the AVCaptureVideoDataOutput delivers video data)."

So you can now access a stream of depth data. I'd put money on ARToolkit using this stream when it's available. For now, it would only be from the iPhone 7+.

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avdep...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avdepthdata)

<comment><USER22> AR kit isn't limited to the 7+ ( they demoed it on an iPad) space so clearly that's not REQUIRED. I wonder if they're using the second camera for depth on the 7+ when it's available.

Perhaps that data isn't granular enough (or fast enough) to be useful when doing AR compared to the normal camera picture plus the motion sensor data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is anyone able to find the ARKit sample code that was mentioned during the keynote?

<comment><USER34> You can download the beta iOS 11 and xCode 9 and test it out. It is pretty impressive

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There's an AR fray? Google threw their weight behind VR on mobile, who else is in the AR space?

<comment><USER16> Microsoft, Snapchat, Google, Facebook.

Facebook made a big deal in F8 out of adding cameras to all its applications. They're in the AR game big time.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/technology/mark- zuckerber...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/technology/mark-zuckerberg- sees-augmented-reality-ecosystem-in-facebook.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER36> Magic Leap is conspicuously but rightly missing from your list, because they're a fraud that's nowhere near releasing a real product, and whose bullshit is besmirching and dragging down the reputation of AR.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY)</comment></comment></comment>


Editor wars. Ugh. - <AUTHOR> http://peterevjan.com/posts/editor-wars-ugh/

<comment><USER2> Actualy, I love flamewars like this. You always find new tools, new gems, new tricks and features. Moreover, maybe I am weird but I also like when people argue for their way of doing thing, that's fun.

<comment><USER3> Ed is the standard text editor![1]

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt](http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed- msg.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me, and I may be alone on this, editors are strictly a tool used to express thought. I'm going to choose an editor that I enjoy using, not necessarily because it's possible to type and navigate faster. Using tools that I enjoy gives me one less thing to think about when doing what matters: making things.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand the psychology behind complaining about "pointless HN discussions" while submitting a link to that complaint, which, coincidentally, is on the submitters website. Maybe someone can enlighten me...

</comment><comment><USER6> In this job, what really makes our car go faster to its destination (using the metaphorical conceit) is the expressiveness of the language, although that is a hard thing to measure.

Editors all have their own language to them, the set of bindings they provide, which can be combined to do what we have in mind. Programmatically re- formatting text (through the use of macros) is one way for an editor to be really expressive. Then, giving an API and a language to actually statefully program your actions can give you even more expressiveness.

My point: language wars and editor wars are one and the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> "sometimes all the energy and time put into editor discussions dishearten me"

And he wrote a post about it. That's putting a lot of energy, isn't it?

It's interesting how one can feel attached to a sophisticated tool being it just a mean for obtaining something else. It's like these "vim powered" buttons back in the 90s web. Why is that relevant?

</comment><comment><USER8> What makes you choose a car are your previous habits of interfacing with a car.

I could have the best car in the world on all points, if the driving wheel is a bit too big or a bit too small for my habits and the speed lever is on the left side, I won't even entertain the thought of using it and will commute by skateboard.

</comment><comment><USER9> What a shitty article. This is the level of discussion it deserves.</comment>


Indian doctors puzzle over amputee's transplanted hands that adapted to her body - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3075074/indian-doctors-puzzle-over-amputees-transplanted-hands-adapted <comment><AUTHOR> Morphic resonance?</comment>


Ask HN: Does your company intercept HTTPS? What are alternatives? - <AUTHOR> As the title says, I am curious whether this is usual and what are alternatives to HTTPS traffic interception to protect a company and for doing incident response & analysis. <comment><USER2> I've worked for customers in the past who did this. For the most part it was a huge hassle and didn't really help with incident response and analysis.

You have to install company root certificates on clients, perhaps even merely self-signed ones if they've been particularly cheap and lazy. Then traffic needs to be routed through a firewall / proxy as well.

This in turn can lead to issues with tools such as Maven or NPM. These issues can be hard to debug.

Besides, if you don't know what you're doing - and most companies don't specialise in network security - it's easy to get the setup wrong and create major security problems.

Sometimes the motivation isn't so much protection against malware but rather a petty desire to know what employees are doing.

For these reasons I'd strongly advise against this practice.

As for alternatives:

Follow and encourage the use of accepted best practices.

Educate and trust your employees about security.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yep, we have proxy servers with SSL decryption/inspection. Root CA installed on all company devices.

There are a number of whitelisted URLs (banks, and services that refuse to work with a MITM'ed cert) but other than the initial headache during implementation, it is pretty seamless now.

</comment><comment><USER4> My current company doesn't do this but I'm curious how it is supposed to help with incident response and analysis. Are you talking about server traffic or employee laptop's traffic?

<comment><USER5> I can't speak to how common the practice is but it's often an option on firewalls. My understanding of the reasoning behind it is that it allows the company to monitor employees usage of the network to protect from data exfiltration and malware that uses HTTPS.

It's usually done as part of a firewall that will MITM traffic on the network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a terrible practice with major security and privacy impacts.

And easily defeated by certificate pinning.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does this require installing a company cert?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, a root certificate afaik.</comment></comment>


Amazon Is All Set to Disrupt the PaaS Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/janakirammsv/2015/07/16/paas-vendors-watch-out-amazon-is-all-set-to-disrupt-the-market/ <comment><USER2> Disrupt? Are there any other players in the Amazon league?

Forgetting for the moment vendor lock-in, the learning onramp to AWS generally requires a heavy foot on the accelerator pedal.

The article's Acronym Rich Environment invites an ecosystem of Amazon specific development professionals.

Would someone with far richer experience in this space reference a comparison resource?</comment>


Judge rejects lawsuit over Yelp reviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/29/BUP61LNQFT.DTL&type=tech <comment><USER2> This is a sad fact of law that it's constantly lagging behind the evolution of business, technology and ethics at the cost of businesses and people in general</comment>


How San Francisco Broke America's Heart - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-san-francisco-broke-americas-heart/2019/05/21/ef9a0ac0-70ea-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html <comment><USER2> People complain that prices are so high that none of the restaurant staff, waiters, etc can live in the city. NY is also as costly as SF. You see foodcarts which earn lesser than SF restaurants, right in the Financial District. How does NY manage this? People live somewhere away and commute. It's going to get difficult for workers, but we're definitely not in any kind of crisis here. NY has been managing it since ages. Several other cities are. SF too can.

<comment><USER3> > [service workers] live somewhere away and commute.

How is that acceptable morally? Americans believe they have a meritocracy and look down their noses at societies like India with caste systems, but in reality America has a caste system too, even if somewhat better.

<comment><USER4> Having to commute because the real estate market prices you out is the same as a caste system?

<comment><USER3> Yes, because one class of people, determined predominantly by birth (race, gender, genetic advantages at skills in short supply), get to choose where they live, and are served by another class of people who have to live far away and spend their already discounted time commuting, who can't afford the very thing they work to provide the upper castes.

Not caste advantages but earned? That's like saying a 7 foot tall athletically gifted person earned the wealth those innate attributes gave him in an NBA career.

<comment><USER4> But isn't the caste system marked by lack of mobility, in terms of the ability to transcend your caste?

<comment><USER3> That's why I said "somewhat better". But ask 100 black persons how much mobility they have, and see how many say "I have completed mobility, race doesn't matter. White supremacy is a myth." Or the brown people who wash your restaurant dishes, mow yours SV lawns and clean your SV office toilets. Sure, many are immigrants who come here because they have more opportunities than where they came from, but that's moving up a rung in the caste system, not escaping it. Even the liberal essays I read advocating more immigration or amnesty say things like "Who else will pick our fruit?". I cringe and am ashamed for us every time I read something like that.

Even in India in theory you have mobility, as the country has tried to address it the same way America has tied to correct a history of racism: caste-based discrimination is illegal, and there is affirmative action / quotas to correct imbalances. But just as here, where 150 years after the Civil War and 50 years after MLK we have a racially stratified society, so the problem persists in India.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "This is unregulated capitalism, unbridled capitalism, capitalism run amok."

Um, what? California, and specifically San Francisco, has some of the most regulated and restricted development on the planet. This is not unregulated capitalism.

<comment><USER6> Seriously. It is hard to imagine a much less capitalistic housing market than SF without every building being owned by a government entity.

 _Who can live on $15 an hour in this city transformed by innovation?_

It's a city transformed by bad zoning policy, not "innovation:" [https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf- housing](https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing)

<comment><USER7> In Singapore, a poster child of modern capitalism, the vast majority of residents live in government-built apartment buildings. In many cases the tenants _own_ their apartment and can resell at market rate after a certain period, but the land (if not the apartment itself) is generally on a 50-year or 99-year lease from the government.

Government regulation isn't binary. Conservatives and liberals in America are blinded by their own prejudices, most of which are _shared_ prejudices :(

<comment><USER5> Singapore is the poster child for benevolent/effective authoritarianism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And yet the Bay Area has the worst-rated road maintenance of any American metropolitan area. I still can't understand how that happens in a region with the most billionaires per capita on Earth.

<comment><USER3> That the most upvoted comment right now, in reply to an article about socioeconomic injustice, in a forum read by people who benefit from the status quo, is complaining about the roads not being good enough is rather telling.

<comment><USER9> While I get and agree with your point, coming from the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum you reference I must say, our roads in the Bay Area are seriously broken. Dangerous for motorcyclists and drivers the same.

I had moved away for a couple years and when I came back they were a mess.

Yes, we could put more money other places, but the roads would be a decent place to put some money to have a lasting impact.

Better public transit with expanded routes would be pretty nice too. It still blows me away that some higher city public officials make a quarter million or more.

They're suppose to be public servants yet they forget what it's like to live on the lower rungs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Living in the Rust Belt, I play the world's tiniest violin for people who say it's too expensive in San Francisco, yet are themselves transplants who chose to live there.

If you're disgusted with the rampant inflation of SF, come to Iowa, or Michigan, or Indiana, or Ohio. You can live like a king on wages that barely keep you in the middle class on the West Coast.

Bring us the economic value of your startups and the well-educated workers they draw. Give smart, ambitious local kids a reason to stay instead of moving away forever to some coastal city. Spreading the opportunity and wealth of the tech economy outside a handful of the biggest cities will do a lot to calm the political anger that's led to Donald Trump.

<comment><USER11> I'm from the Midwest and feel the same way. SF and the like are for people looking to ladder climb. If people just want to survive, it's almost too easy in the Midwest. Struggling in Cali is a choice.

Pack a U-Haul and go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My heart is broken.

I grew up an hour to the southeast of the Bay, and went to high school school in Atherton and college at Berkeley (both in the 80s, long before many HN readers were born). I used to be so proud that my home was the most progressive place in the country. Now I am embarrassed. My old home is now emblematic of much that is wrong with our culture.

What the Bay says (We're so liberal! We're anti-Trump!) so deeply contradicts what it does.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps this is naive, but also as someone who grew up in the bay (south bay specifically) it feels like after the crash of 2001, and the resurgence of tech after that, the culture took on a markedly different tone. I guess perhaps in the transition from silicon dominance to web dominance something felt like it was lost in the valley.

<comment><USER13> I think it's more that prior to 2001, investors gave web companies a free hand to figure out how to make money. We saw how that went -- both in the giddy highs and crash.

Afterwards, the MBAs came in and decided that ads and saas were the ways to make money, and if you diverged they needed to understand it. Which makes sense, and I think it's why we haven't had exactly a 2001 repeat. But it's making tech work far less of a giddy job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand why it's always new residents who get blamed for high rents / legacy businesses getting priced out and not property owners (many of whom are "lifelong" residents) who set the rents.

</comment><comment><USER15> I largely agree with the article. San Francisco used to be one of my favorite places. Now, I try to avoid it when at all possible.</comment>


Dropbox – A nebulous future - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/12/dropbox <comment><USER2> I am no expert in online synchronized storage. I am merely a consumer who has used ICloud, Dropbox and Google Drive. From my perspective iCloud has been a disappointment, Google Drive has been ok (we also use Google Apps in my company) and Dropbox seems to be the easier and more popular setup with my staff. The only issue I have is with their pricing (I find their company plans confusing), but we all know that is a new landing page away if they decide to change it.

The equation is not about $dollars per Gb storage per year, it is more about $/Gb/MyPain which is a more subtle equation. If my employees like Dropbox better than Drive, the few dollars in cost difference is inconsequential. The employees time costs many multiples more than the storage.

I think the article fails to acknowledge this.

<comment><USER3> I really like iCloud, but it's not a competitor to Dropbox/Google Drive or even a feature itself. I have and iPohone, 2 iPads, and 2 Macs. (Home/Work) I really like how everything is just synced without thinking about it.

We use Dropbox at work a company of about 10. We don't have any servers or IT. Everything just goes it Dropbox shared folders. Works very well and never have to think about it.

Since Dropbox is for work, I moved all my personal files to Google Drive. On feature lists it should be the same or better, but I find it just never works reliably. A lot of times I find it just sitting there unable to connect and there seems to be no option to reconnect other than exit and restart. The UI on Dropbox seems a lot more polished.

<comment><USER4> > Since Dropbox is for work, I moved all my personal files to Google Drive. On > feature lists it should be the same or better, but I find it just never > works reliably

Three months ago I decided to put all my pictures on a cloud provider. I really liked Dropbox but I chose G. Drive, because of the price. I put my 15k photos on my G. Drive and then the client went crazy. My old (2007) MacBook couldn't cope with it, it rapidly used 100% of my computer's 2GB of RAM and my CPU was also at full capacity. Thus, I decided to try the same exercice on Dropbox. I moved the whole pictures folder and Dropbox handled it perfectly using a few MB of RAM.

Since then, I'm a happy paying Dropbox user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dropbox's price problem has nothing to do with the price per GB. The problem is that the lowest non-free tier is a whopping 100GB.

There is just no way I'm going to use anywhere close to 100GB. There is no way I'm going to use even a quarter of that space. With the bandwidth I have access to is just to inconvenient.

I'm probably going to switch to an alternative next may when my subscription runs out, it's annoying because I like dropbox but their prices are getting too inconvenient.

<comment><USER6> Are you saying $10/mo is too much for how much you use Dropbox? Or that you would feel better if they gave you less space...

<comment><USER7> Well for Google Drive you pay almost $30 annually for extra 25GB space. $10 per year for 20GB if you use SkyDrive. Plus both Google Drive and SkyDrive support online doc editing. So yes it is really too much for paying $10/month for 100GB space which I may not use fully for foreseeable future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's "nebulous", not "nebolous", dear submitter :) BTW "nebulous" comes from Latin "nebula", i.e. "cloud". No pun intended, The Economist!

<comment><USER9> In the case of the Economist, you can absolutely assume that the pun was intended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jobs had it right.

Dropbox is obscenely overvalued, and has no place in the future.

<comment><USER11> I take your point, but while it is here, it is _very_ useful!

The phasing out of direct links to the 'public' folder for new users recently suggests a need to find revenue streams.

A possible alternative...

" _I'm funded by a Kickstarter project in 2012-2013 to build something not unlike DropBox, based on git-annex, that automatically version controls and syncs files between computers._ "

<http://joey.hess.usesthis.com/>

<comment><USER10> Sure, but a $5-10bn valuation for a freemium file hosting service with ~100m users, 96% of which pay nothing?

Someone let me out of this bubble.

<comment><USER12> 4m * $10/mo is about $500MM/year or 10x-20x valuation, or 8x the valuation in the article $4bn. Is that so out of whack?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Remember when you needed to pay for email storage? Competition drove that price to zero as companies used it as a loss leader for other revenue streams (eg, advertising).

I suspect a similar outcome. The question is when, of course.

<comment><USER14> Email is free if you like to be targeted by ads and want to contribute to advertisement research. Also, next to no customer service and no choice regarding you contract.

Which is still a great bargain. But not one I choose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "If you are sharing files with a dozen other people on Dropbox, a move to Google or Microsoft would require all 12 to move with you."

I don't get what. I'm just sharing a link anyone can access from Google Drive. Why would they need to "move" to Google Drive? I don't see this as a problem. If anything it's just the mind share momentum that Dropbox has. Everyone keeps recommending Dropbox because they know it's the most popular. But I don't see any technical lock-in. The others can beat it through higher integration with their own operating systems and others as well, therefore higher convenience, through better functionality, and through better/more marketing.

I'm not saying it's going to be easy, as it's usually very hard to beat an established market leader, but it should be possible. I'm not sure why Google hasn't integrated Google Drive as a core app of Android. It seems like the logical move to do, especially with Apple already doing it. Same goes for Google Wallet.

<comment><USER3> I assume they are referring to sharing a folder with read / write access, which requires everybody to use Dropbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think their future might be brighter than painted. I work at large corporation (50,000+ employees) and they _love_ box. The reason: the company has very stringent security requirements, and box lets them store files on their own servers but using the box UI - it is a very big deal for the enterprise market.

<comment><USER3> How do you get this feature? I don't see it advertised anywhere.

<comment><USER16> That's a good question - I wonder if they have enterprise sales people that handle that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >A bigger long-term worry is the plummeting price of digital storage.

They mention that Google offers their service cheaper. But not the fact that you can have your own personal terabyte cloud for a couple hundred bucks, one you personally own and control, and never have to pay a subscription for. _That_ is what threatens Dropbox and friends the most. Once storage becomes cheap enough to price personal NAS clouds below $100 (and upstream bandwidth gets faster than molasses), why would anybody trust a DMCA/FISA-encumbered, subscription-based business with their data?

<comment><USER3> I've wondered why nobody has done a good Dropbox clone where you run the server yourself. I'm guessing there is no business model.

<comment><USER18> Aerofs is something like that <https://www.aerofs.com/>

It is a really nice product, somehow I keep falling back on Dropbox in actual use though.

<comment><USER19> I wonder when they're launching. They've been invite only for a really long time now.

<comment><USER20> I've been using it for a year (I know some people there); it is by far my favorite of the cloud storage products.

Pretty much my needs are something like AeroFS, PLUS some kind of local SAN/NAS (big, fast), PLUS something like Sharepoint, Kerio Workspace, or Atlassian Confluence. None of them really cover all my needs alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What still amazes me is that people (around the world) are willing to let these US companies store their personal data, email, etc. I'm not trying to be a troll but I think it's worth pointing out that many non-US citizens would have a BIG problem with this. Or so I thought. The other thing that surprises me is that so many techies use these services, where most of the functionality can be easily achieved using existing tools, which would be under your personal control. If its a choice between giving up freedom and having the responsibility to backup my own data, I choose the latter. Sure my grandma may choose the former but I would try to convince her otherwise.

<comment><USER22> It amazes me too. I hardly view Dropbox as a stalwart company. But good on them for hitting the jackpot in the short term.

Amazon AWS, upon which Dropbox relies, is open to all, not just Dropbox. Even Xen, upon which Amazon relies, is open to all, not just Amazon. Things are still very primitive and there's ample room, and plenty of motivation (e.g. data privacy), for experimentation.

Besides prgmr, who else is offering Xen-based "cloud" (=hosting)? Are there a wealth of Xen-based alternatives (that could support "Dropbox" like functionality)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The original title: "Dropbox - A nebulous future"

The title of this thread: "Dropbox - A nebolous future"

Moral: For God's sake, either learn how to spell or COPY your titles, don't presume to type them in.

Since spelling is beyond you, here's a copying primer:

1\. Use your mouse to select the title from the original page.

2\. Press Ctrl+C (Copy).

3\. Open a new HN submission form.

4\. Press Ctrl+V (Paste).

Very simple. Apparently simpler than learning to spell.

A quibble? Not at all. A misspelled word in the title of an HN submission prevents searching by keyword and therefore consigns the entire submission to the great bit-bucket in the sky.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've said it before - Dropbox to Apple would have been an amazing fit since iCloud is meh. Damn you Internet over-valuations.

<comment><USER19> Had Apple bought dropbox, they would've made support for other platforms secondary. Dropbox is still the only cloud storage service that works beautifully on both linux and mac (and windows).

<comment><USER24> This is true. It's actually in my interest they didn't in a way as I'm on a bunch of platforms - iOS, Windows, Linux and Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "...a feature, not a company," is high praise. That's how it should be, as long as that feature can be combined with other such features to create new things.

Very few users are well served by being locked into a single vendor's constellation of hastily slapped together aquihires.

</comment><comment><USER26> I thought you were coining a neologism in the title.

"cloudy + flesheating?!?!?"

Clicked just for that and was disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft swept in and replaced their SkyDrive with Dropbox?</comment>