Zillow faces lawsuit over 'Zestimate' tool that calculates a house's worth - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/zillow-faces-lawsuit-over-zestimate-tool-that-calculates-a-houses-worth/2017/05/09/b22d0318-3410-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html <comment><USER2> The Zillow estimate used to be spot on in our neighborhood, for several years even. Recently they all plunged to 10-20% below market value, even though all sales data puts it at the previous mark. The weird thing is that they also went back and recalculated old "Zestimate" data as well. On April 2nd the estimate for our house was $617,453, which is more or less what it would sell for. It had been above $600k since June, 2016.

This month it was $544k, and there's no sign it ever got above $580k in the historic graph. It claims it was $546k on March 31st.

One thing I did notice was a new button underneath the estimate: "I disagree with my Zestimate" which, surprisingly enough, is a lead gen for realtors, not a method to try and get them to change.

<comment><USER3> I live in a hot real estate market (L.A.), and I've spent about 5 minutes (no exaggeration) looking online at the prices of houses in my neighborhood, knowing the actual closing price of recent sales, and my first thought was that prices were about 10-20% below market value.

It's funny that this is obvious to someone like myself who has spent virtually no time dealing with real estate, let alone people heavily entrenched in the process.

<comment><USER4> This is the same in Seattle, where a house's asking price can be 550, its zestimate (or Redfin estimate) will be around 570, and the price it actually goes for invariably ends up around 700. This has been the case for months, and it can almost seem like some sort of conspiracy between realtors and these meta-agencies to game the market. There are plenty of comps that show prices are WAY above what the 'estimates' show, and yet these professionals are seemingly oblivious. Fear of another 2008? Too much success drumming up bidding wars by underpricing? Whatever the reason, it's pretty infuriating as a buyer because it creates a sort of information asymmetry which makes a major decision really painful.

<comment><USER5> Yes. Some known realtors underprice the property to start bidding war.

The foreign money in the hot markets also doesnt help. It sucks to see a house list for 2.9m and sell for 3.7. it happens quite often here in the bay.

<comment><USER6> In Australia a law was introduced where realtors had to provide realistic values for property that went to auction.

Before that if you were looking at 2 bedroom apartments, around Sydney, you'd just mentally add 400k. Not sure if it's better now or not.

<comment><USER7> The properties in GP's post are not likely to be sold at auction - very few homes are sold that way in the US.

The 'bidding war' referred to is a standard listing/sale that receives multiple offers. If the interest is high enough, the seller may counter all of the offers and reveal the highest price, forcing the bidding.

<comment><USER4> Even without revealing the highest offer, the offers themselves constitute a silent auction, which is where a lot of the information asymmetry comes from. If I could speak to each of the other people and tell them I had X amount to spend we could all agree to walk away or make offers without going through a bunch of hassle and (for 32 of 33 offerers) heartbreak. The process really highlights to me how broken certain types of 'market' can be when there's a monopoly of information.

<comment><USER5> What you are talking is second price auction.

Winner gets the house, but pays the price of the runner-up. I wish this existed.

<comment><USER8> Why would a seller agree to this type of auction?

<comment><USER9> To get people to be more aggressive with their bids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Take a look at the law they're suing under, regarding licensing of real estate appraisers ([http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=02250...](http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=022504580HArt%2E+5&ActID=1368&ChapterID=24&SeqStart=500000&SeqEnd=1900000)).

It makes it illegal to "develop a real estate appraisal" without a license. An appraisal is defined as simply "an opinion of value". So if you are driving down the street and say to your spouse, "Look at that house, it's gotta be worth a million bucks," you just committed a misdemeanor.

This law as it's written has got to be unconstitutional.

<comment><USER11> > nor does this Act apply to the procurement of an automated valuation model. > "Automated valuation model" means an automated system that is used to derive > a property value through the use of publicly available property records and > various analytic methodologies such as comparable sales prices, home > characteristics, and historical home price appreciations.

If that sentence applies, I don't think they really have a case...

<comment><USER12> Good point. But what does "procurement" mean in this context? The plain meaning is "obtain", but that doesn't really make sense here. The word isn't used elsewhere in this document but is presumably defined somewhere.

If it is interpreted to mean "use", then the case is a loser as you say. But I wouldn't want to be the lawyer tasked with arguing to the judge that "the legislature meant 'use' but decided to say 'procurement' instead".

<comment><USER11> Generally in law you use a law dictionary, e.g. [http://thelawdictionary.org/procurement/](http://thelawdictionary.org/procurement/), which defines it as "the entire process of purchasing goods". "Entire" there suggests a broad term, hence interpreted inclusively in the context it appears. So in context it's probably something like "commercial use". But there are other questions of applicability, e.g. whether the legislature intended that sentence to only apply to financial loan decisions. It seems like there's no indicator of legislative intent on the original bill [https://openstates.org/il/bills/96th/HB1015/](https://openstates.org/il/bills/96th/HB1015/), hence it would probably be the plain meaning as an independent clause, but IANAL...

<comment><USER12> In my experience (7 years as a corporate lawyer), a law dictionary would only be consulted for legal terms of art, which "procurement" is not. For most terms, a regular dictionary definition is used.

At any rate, I don't see how the definition cited would clear up the matter. It's a big leap from "the entire process of purchasing goods" to "commercial use". Like "use", which I discuss above, "commercial use" is a common term of art, and it would be strange to say "procurement" if what you mean is "commercial use".

<comment><USER11> Well, I was trying to shift the focus to "automated valuation model". That's used in other places and seems to be a term of the art in finance, e.g. this Kansas consumer bill: [http://kslegislature.com/li_2016/b2015_16/measures/documents...](http://kslegislature.com/li_2016/b2015_16/measures/documents/sb100_00_0000.pdf) Hence Zillow probably doesn't qualify, since it doesn't do loans or banking.

But the courts are so random; I'm guessing this case will be determined primarily by how much the judge that gets assigned likes technology. It'll be interesting to follow up on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Realtors have always hated the Zestimate with a passion [0]. When they publicly called out Zillow CEO for selling his own home for 40% less than the Zestimate on it, Zillow magically released a superior algorithm [2].

[0] Inaccurate Zillow 'Zestimates' a source of conflict over home prices | Feb 8, 2015 | [http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi- harney-2015...](http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi- harney-20150208-story.html)

[1] Zillow CEO sold his home for 40% less than Zestimate | May 18, 2016 | [http://www.inman.com/2016/05/18/zillow-ceo-spencer- rascoff-s...](http://www.inman.com/2016/05/18/zillow-ceo-spencer-rascoff-sold- home-for-much-less-than-zestimate/)

[2] Zillow Boosts Accuracy with Update to Zestimate Algorithm | June 8, 2016 | [http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2016-06-08-Zillow-Boosts- Accurac...](http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2016-06-08-Zillow-Boosts-Accuracy- with-Update-to-Zestimate-Algorithm)

<comment><USER2> [1] reminds of an interview with the founder of Ashley Madison.

He was going on and on about how western cultures were so regressive and prude about adultery and sex in general. The interviewer then asked him if he had ever used his own service. This elicited an uncomfortable non-answer that basically boiled down to "No".

<comment><USER13> "non-answers" are never good, of course, but i can easily see a way he could give a workable answer to that question. for example, he could say that some people are trapped in loveless marriages they can't get out of, but he never has been, so he's not the target customer.

of course i'm just playing devil's advocate, because all evidence points to ashley madison being a scam, with essentially no women on the site.

<comment><USER14> > with essentially no women on the site.

I would have thought that some gold diggers would sign up for that sweet mistress money!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You would think real estate would prove to be one of the few real life fields where machine learning would be able to predict the prices pretty accurately. You have:

1\. List price

2\. "Favorites" on the MLS.

3\. Square footage

4\. Bedrooms

5\. Bathrooms

6\. Sold price for nearby properties

7\. Sold price for nearby properties _relative to their list price_

And the list goes on... Is it that difficult to predict? Literally there are hundreds of other features that have a clear correlation to the sell price (amount of people who attend the open house, crime, proximity to busy street, etc.) that I'm not including. I guess the problem is, there's not any money in having an accurate prediction.

<comment><USER16> If you want to try it, there are a few data sets kicking around, including

a) [https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression- te...](https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression-techniques)

b) [http://www.bis.org/statistics/pp_detailed.htm](http://www.bis.org/statistics/pp_detailed.htm)

c) [https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/housing](https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/housing)

If you had a really great model, you might be able to make some money with it --find underpriced (per the model) houses, buy them, and then try to sell them at the model's price.

<comment><USER17> Real estate markets are rarely liquid. Such models would have to take that into account, of course, and that isn't something I'd think is straightforward at all.

<comment><USER18> > _Such models would have to take that into account_

I believe the liquidity of the asset is inherently taken into account in the price at which the exchange is made.

<comment><USER17> Why do you believe that, out of curiosity?

The reason I think it isn't straightforward to account for is based on several things: it isn't fungible, the purchase date can have little or no relationship to the price, and the means of purchase typically carry other time-based constraints that are also not necessarily related to price (although they can be). Furthermore, the liquidity in a given market may change fairly quickly and without any (apparent) other reason.

I haven't tried to develop a model for this, so this is just sort of a gut feel for how difficult feature engineering to account for how a market behaves in this respect might be. And that "gut feel" is mainly informed by my experience purchasing and selling property (for personal and rental use).

<comment><USER18> > _Why do you believe that, out of curiosity?_

Because the liquidity of an asset is a form of risk.

> _The reason I think it isn 't straightforward_

I don't think it's straightforward either, but that only means individual's valuation might be way off.

<comment><USER17> I'm not convinced that risk as used in this context contributes to price significantly in the residential real estate market. People in this market don't (typically) view transactions as investments and they don't view the home as assets. Lenders do, so the availability of mortgage funds may be linked to price and liquidity but I suspect that relationship is tenuous at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As long as there are already many anecdotes, I'll just add mine (I've always taken the zestimate as Zillow's working model that probably needs lots of tweaking; it's not like the MLS's are eager to give them data).

Anecdote: My folks live in a golf course neighborhood where their house is not on the course, and it's smaller than the rest. However, my folks house is valued based on these extravagant golf-course side properties that are actually quite a bit more $/sqft. Zillow needs to have a human go through manually and adjust for these subtle differences, IMO.

Despite dome shortcommings, Zillow is a godsend compared to the systems local MLS's use, just the listing dates/listing removed dates/ last sold for/ days on market dates are worth a lot. Realtors can give you this info, but it is not nearly as frictionless as it could be.

Zillow is still looking for that disruptive go-to-market strategy (they already have most of the tools). But, the Realtors aren't going to give up their ~$6K per transaction fees easily. They're much more connected than cab drivers.

<comment><USER20> Do you see Redfin eating a traditional realtor's lunch?

<comment><USER19> This is an obsession of mine, but I'm not a professional. I dated/ lived with a Realtor for ~20mo, and I asked lots of questions about the workflow of the business.

I don't think Redfin has much of an edge in go-to-market strategy. Redfin's allows for more comprehensive data (MLS access because of membership), and Zillow's allows for scalability. Sales data sometimes show 3 months lag from time of transaction and entry into the county clerk's records which gives the MLS quite an edge itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how many other tech companies fit into this general category of "providing an equivalent to a regulated service without meeting the regulations". You've got the more obvious "sharing economy" type things which are in the news all over the place lately, but I bet there are a bunch of other companies like Zillow that have been flying under the radar for a while.

<comment><USER22> If a homeowner or homebuyer is paying someone to assess the value of a property, requiring expertise and training in inspection of a house such as materials, build quality, plumbing and whatnot, I could understand needing government approval.

This is just someone saying what they they think something is worth. Do I need a license before I can say "I think a certain car is only worth $25k instead of $30k"?

<comment><USER23> Yeah- also what if you make up a brand new word to ensure people see it's not an estimate. A Pulpstimate or something.

<comment><USER24> Or Zestimate, even.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> People are way too tough on Zillow. The article states that the Zestimate is within 5% of the sale price 54% of the time and within 20% of the sale price 90% of the time. That is pretty damn good considering they do not send anyone to look at the outside of homes and they do not go inside homes like an appraiser does. The problem is that people think the value of their homes is equal to what they paid for it plus some percentage gain every year. In reality, the value is just whatever a buyer is willing to pay for it. You can think your house is worth a million dollars, but it is not worth a million dollars if no one will pay that much for it.

<comment><USER26> _The problem is that people think the value of their homes is equal to what they paid for it plus some percentage gain every year._

How is this the problem when you just stated previously that the price is 20% off from reality for 10% of people.

The real problem is a shitty estimate becoming something that people treat as a real estimate. Zillow obviously state this isn't the intention, but if they act in a way that promotes it as an estimate contrary to what they state they are doing, well, people are going to get angry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> At least in the Bay Area, Zillow et al. are decent for getting a decently accurate ballpark figure in mind. A lot of sale prices are clearly put up below market to grab attention, knowing that the sale price is very likely to exceed it by a wide margin.

Here in many parts of the Bay, you'll get laughed at and promptly ignored if you try and use these "zestimates" to try and put downward pressure on the price. Sellers here have many offers to chose from, leading buyers to compete not just on price, but even dropping certain contingencies to push the deal through.

<comment><USER28> A friend was looking at houses via Redfin. The agent told him on day 1 that he should expect to spend 10%–20% more than the online quote, as a rule of thumb.

Since then I've taken "Zestimates" with ~65,000 to 100,000 grains of salt.

<comment><USER29> I used to work for Z, and I can confirm that the Zestimate is just that: an estimate. It doesn't know things like whether you did renovations or whether the house next door caught on fire and burned down and things like that. If something about your particular house changed in the last few years, the Zestimate is likely to be way off. That said, it's fairly good as far as comps go, and if you have an average house in the hood, the Zestimate is gonna be pretty close.

Regarding the rule of thumb you mentioned, my wife and I have been looking for a house in the Bay Area, and we've determined that the listing price is just a completely made up number. We made an offer on a house that was 100K over asking price, and the sellers countered with 40K on top of that (so 140K over asking). I was like... what? You listed for X, we offered X+100K, you don't get to counter that. lol

We obviously didn't get the house, and they wound up selling for 175K over asking price (+~25%). We've made several other offers, and sometimes the house goes for 50K over asking and sometimes it goes for 250K over asking. It just seems to be totally random. It's absurd. Instead, we actually rely a lot on the Zestimate and Redfin's estimate to figure out what the "real" value of the house is. Z and R tend to be roughly in the right ballpark for the Bay Area.

<comment><USER7> > I was like... what? You listed for X, we offered X+100K, you don't get to > counter that

Apparently they do, because...

>they wound up selling for 175K over asking price

And, as for this:

>Instead, we actually rely a lot on the Zestimate and Redfin's estimate to figure out what the "real" value of the house is

Let me give you a lesson from econ 101 - the 'real' value of something is whatever someone else is willing to pay for it. If multiple people are willing to pay more than Zillow or Redfin estimate, then the 'real' value is higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd also like to know how or why Zillow lists houses that are "pre- foreclosure".

I know it's semi-public record, but that certainly doesn't help the homeowner try and recover maximum value for their property if they decide to sell.

On top of that, it's pretty unnerving when you see this pop up for one of your neighbors and good friends. Nobody should have to go through even more humiliation than they already are.

<comment><USER19> If you ever hover over the URLs, Zillow is using a 3rd-party service for the forclosure potential properties. It's lead gen, and you have to become a customer to get actionable data.

<comment><USER30> If the house goes up for sale, I can lowball the owner without ever having to buy data from that 3rd party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting. I wonder what would her argument be if Zillow simply reported the City/County tax assessors estimates which are usually even lower than Zillow's.

<comment><USER32> >I wonder what would her argument be if Zillow simply reported the City/County tax assessors estimates which are usually even lower than Zillow's.

County assessors for tax purposes are _explicitly_ not trying to determine market price. Zillow should ignore it.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure what you mean.

In Illinois (the state from the article) the assessor is calculating the market value:

Most real property in Illinois must be assessed based on its value on the open market, or its "market value." This value is the amount at which a property would sell in a competitive and open market... [1]

[1][http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/LocalGovernment/PTAX100...](http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/LocalGovernment/PTAX1004.pdf)

<comment><USER32> Then it likely varies from state to state - or county to county.

See [http://www.investopedia.com/articles/tax/09/calculate- proper...](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/tax/09/calculate-property- tax.asp) for different methods used. As an example, some places merely look at the cost of replacing the house if destroyed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Zestimates are within 20 percent 89.7 percent of the time, Zillow claims.

So, for an area where the homes average around $500,000, more than 1 in 10 estimates are off by $100,000 or more? That seems kinda bad.

<comment><USER35> Do humans do any better, I wonder? That seems pretty good for an illiquid market. (But what do I know, I've always rented)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The realtors I talk to hate the Zillow estimate as it typically creates an unrealistic expectation for either the seller or buyer depending on if the algorithm over or under estimates.

Apparently it's rarely correct, though I live in a unique area.

<comment><USER22> If it's not correct, then the sale price will reflect that and Zillow's reputation will take a hit.

Don't understand why the government needs to get involved in what someone says something is worth, it's their opinion and they're entitled to it.

Edit: It would be funny if Zillow also started putting up alerts about problems with government finances which will likely impact future taxes, such as in Illinois.

<comment><USER37> The government's not getting involved, oh you mean the fact that a judge is going to be involved?

Civil courts exist to provide monetary damages if damages can be proved to exist. Yes, they can also compel arbitrary behavior as a part of governing body.

This is independent of any stance on Zillow and a state licensing regime. If the plaintiff can convince that the tool is making her lose money, the judge will award her money.

"but that means < cue completely uninformed legal analogy >" yes you can make a career out of litigation, many people have.

<comment><USER38> It cant just be the plaintiff proving that Zillow's tool makes her lose money, can it? If that argument was true then you could get sued and lose for reporting on facts that put the company in a bad light, like poor hygiene in a restaurant, or for competing with another company with a better product.

<comment><USER37> you have to also show up and defend yourself.

many summary judgements on flaky arguments are made just because the defendant didn't respond. the judgements are collected from you bank in any jurisdiction that will reciprocate

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The estimate for my house dropped by 25% in one month when the market was still rising. I'm assuming that the cause was the house next door which was in poor condition and was sold for about 20% below market value. The buyer put $100k into the house and is now selling it above market value ($200k more). It will be interesting to see what the zestimate for my house will be when the other house sells again. (It will probably sell within a month.)

</comment><comment><USER40> I have had both our homes (we rent one out) independently estimated and both are worth 25-30% more than the Zestimate. I live in IL like the realtor in the article. Zillow is consistently lower than other sites. The most accurate estimates for our home are on Redfin, which is almost perfectly inline with the appraiser's estimates. Zillow has a pretty overfit model IMO.

<comment><USER41> If the estimator didn't offer to buy your house, what makes you think it's accurate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> At's an algorithm based on available data... it may not be accurate, but that doesn't mean it's too wrong. Also, if you put in expensive features, doesn't mean your house will sell for twice as much in a given neighborhood. Pricing is fairly collective with main factors being property size, home size, bedrooms/bathrooms and some influence on features, namely pool, garage(s) etc.

That doesn't mean it's entirely wrong, unless there are manual tweaks happening to shape specific markets, which may be proven/disproven through discovery. Aside from that, there's the legal aspects in different states and counties in terms of what a licensed/unlicensed seller is allowed to do.

I would say that if the market is more than 20% off in terms of actual sales from the Zestimate, then there may be something up... The Phoenix market seems pretty accurate to within 5-10%, which is pretty reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER43> Thing is, all appraisers do a bad job. Evaluating a house is completely up to their opinion, and the artificially increase prices just because houses are selling. They drive prices up and down based no their will. Couldn't their job be legitimately done by a computer and a camera? Probably if the technology was there.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is as ridiculous as suing Nolo for publishing law books without a license.

The only reason why the government needs to have an appraisal license at all is because the government handles the loan for the house. The goal is to mitigate the risk to the government, not to help consumers decide how much they want to pay.

<comment><USER45> Or it is to minimize the number of cases that go to court with people squabling over how much something is worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Sounds like an opportunity for arbitrage that would correct the problem. If "house flippers" start using these low prices to make a quick buck, either Zillow or homeowners are surely going to cotton on and things will settle back down to fairness.

<comment><USER26> But what could a homeowner do about it? If Zillow makes your house look a lot less than what it's worth, so nobody wants to buy it for the proper price, you can't do anything. That's exactly what this lawsuit is about.

They're not even suing for money right now, they just want the price for their house fixed so they have a decent chance at selling it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> You can find estimate calculators from various banks, realtors, etc. I just did a basic google search and checked out estimates from Zillow, Chase, and RE/MAX, and they range from 4% under my home price to 11% over. That's a pretty crazy range of guesses.

My question is: why aren't these other home estimate calculators subject to being sued, then?

(And when I checked out Zillow, I noticed there was a direct link to "I disagree" next to the Zestimate. None of the other calculators had any kind of feedback mechanism.)

Seems like the journalist here forgot to mention that home estimates are pretty common and come from many different sources.

<comment><USER2> The "I disagree" button is a lead gen for realtors, not for you to give them feedback.

<comment><USER48> Is there evidence they do zero tracking of clicks on that link for model eval.? It seems much more likely it's a case of lead gen and feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Here in Australia, underestimating by realty companies is the norm. I watched a friend go through buying a house last year, and some houses were advertised at prices that were below reserve [1]. As in, at auction, the bidding reached the advertised price, but the buyer's floor price hadn't been reached yet, so the house was not 'on the market' yet...

[1] In one case, 80k below reserve. You know you've hit the reserve price, because in my state, the auctioneer is legally required to annouce the house is 'now on the market'

<comment><USER14> why don't they just say what the seller's floor price is, and start from there? seems foolish to auction at a starting price that's lower!

<comment><USER49> Starting at the reserve can spook some bidders and make it hard to start the auction. Starting below the reserve usually gets some momentum going in the bidding, and that tends to carry over to a higher final price.

Advertising a price that's below the reserve is pretty unethical, though it's not illegal (the seller is never locked into a price). People end up wasting time and money (getting reports) for houses that were never actually in their price range in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've mentioned it before on HN, but Zillow is vastly overvaluing my home. I paid $43k for it as a foreclosure in 2009. Today it appraises for about $60k (it's a tiny farmhouse on a half acre lot), yet Zillow constantly values it at over $80k. I believe they do this so they can bring up the average price for the houses in my area. Maybe it's good for me, I don't know, but it's dishonest.

</comment><comment><USER51> Our house is in the hottest part of Portland, OR, with double digit % increases in the last couple years.

Last October when I refinanced, it was appraised at $455k. Zillow had it at $467k-ish.

Not enough to bum me out because I also had a now former neighbor sell recently. Buyers got into a bidding war and he walked off with $15k over asking.

Seems accurate to me! ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> Surely appraisals regulation is just another instance of mortgage regulations. But is it not the over regulated mortgage market that blasted in 2008? Was it because of zestimates? Nope? Well here ya go. Let the people speak their opinion and work on their ML.

</comment><comment><USER53> I would think that Zillow would mainly be punishing themselves by not having a quality algo for home values, given that it the main draw of the site for many people.

</comment><comment><USER54> Its ridiculous here in Florida because it doesn't understand "waterfront". You may as well read tea leaves.

</comment><comment><USER55> It would be great to see how Zillow stacks up to the desktop assessment software used by various mortgage companies and banks.

<comment><USER56> Zillow's estimates are famously unreliable.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we- live/wp/2014/06...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we- live/wp/2014/06/10/how-accurate-is-zillows-zestimate-not-very-says-one- washington-area-agent/?utm_term=.348539c6538e)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't understand how you can sue someone for estimating the price of a home.

Hopefully this gets thrown out

</comment><comment><USER58> Would be interesting to calculate

      P(actual_value_is_near_N | prediction_is_N).

</comment><comment><USER59> If an algo could predict real estate prices (all of which are unique and based on instantaneous human preferences) with 100% accuracy, any arbitrary human thought would be known.

<comment><USER59> A driveby downvote is not a valid argument to the contrary of my claim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Someone fighting back against Silicon's Valley nonsensical idea of ignoring laws?

This will totally end well! /s

<comment><USER61> Zillow is a Seattle company, or are all tech companies just considered to be part of Silicon Valley now?</comment></comment>


How to deal with TSA when you have children - <AUTHOR>

There have been a few disturbing posts about the TSA touching people's children as part of their pat down procedures, and even one case of them taking the child out of the parent's line of site without their permission.  As a parent, I find this incredibly concerning.  Anyone have good ideas how to handle this situation without winding up in prison for assault ?  Granted, this post references an old incident, way before this stuff heated up, but it's a subject that's bound to show up again. Link ---> http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2276029 <comment><USER2> My wife and I have decided that we're just not going to fly at all unless it's really critical that we do so. Anything inside 1,000 miles or so, we'll just drive. Anything outside of that we're just not going to travel. That means that we don't get to see some parts of our family, who live on the other side of the country, and we're not happy about that, but it's a necessary sacrifice.

I'll have to do some traveling for business, but that won't be with my son. Until there are sweeping changes for the better, no airline will have our personal business.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best way to deal with it right now IMO is to opt out of flying altogether and start hammering the bottom line of American airlines. Before someone comments that "the airlines don't have jurisdiction over the TSA", I would simply remind everyone that the airline lobbyists are very powerful in Washington and have been complicit with the new procedures. When the airlines feel the heat financially, they'll see the light. Regarding John Pistole's recent tough talk, I predict that he'll fold by Christmas.

</comment><comment><USER4> The whole TSA taking the child story apparently was half way made up.. at least according to the TSA. [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-tsa- agents-took-my-s...](http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-tsa-agents-took- my-son.html)</comment>


State of Startups - <AUTHOR> http://stateofstartups.firstround.com/2016/ <comment><USER2> "One of the problems with raising money is it teaches you bad habits from the start," said Jason Fried, the co-founder of the software company Basecamp, who has written frequently on the perversions of the venture capital industry. "If you're an entrepreneur and you have a bunch of money in the bank, you get good at spending money."

But if companies are forced to generate revenue from the beginning, "what you get really good at is making money," Mr. Fried said. "And that's a much better habit for a business to work on early on, to survive on their own rather than be dependent on money people."

<comment><USER3> I've worked at startups that have taken no money (0) and those that have taken boat loads (Hundreds of Millions).

I made much more money from the former situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The 2 biggest reasons start ups fail are: 1\. No/not enough market demand for what your building 2\. User acquisition costs exceed LTV.

Those 2 things should be the very top concern of any software entrepreneur/founders. I don't understand why the survey doesn't reflect that.

They say hiring good talent is a primary concern, but if that were really the case, wouldn't start ups be moving to cities where the labor supply was greater than the labor demand? And wouldn't there be a corresponding willingness to hire remote workers (as this greatly increases the pool of candidates)?

Moving to an area where labor is 1/2 as cheap, could double your runway, assuming there aren't other timed restraints.

>Nearly 1 in 5 founders say they're raising a unicorn This is not necessarily optimism. some companies require that kind of scale in order to get the economies of scale required for profitability.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love this one: How confident are you that you're building a billion dollar company? Answers: 1\. I'm certain that we will - 18% 2\. I'm confident we have a decent shot at it - 42%

Thumbs up for the optimism!

<comment><USER6> Well, they are telling this to VCs afterall...

<comment><USER7> Recently on a John Oliver segment, Oliver was speculating on how Trump University received 98% excellent approval ratings from current students. Turns out that the students were asked to give feedback while still enrolled in the course, meaning that giving a bad review could negatively influence their grade or relationship with the teachers, and thus the students were motivated to give more positive answers than they otherwise might have.

I wonder if founders giving answers here had names attached to their answers or if they were anonymous at submission-time.

<comment><USER8> That's how every university course evaluation I've ever done has worked. Though they say data is shielded from the instructor until after final grades are submitted. Not sure if that applies to the Trump thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are we in a bubble answered yes is declining from 73% -> 57%. That means the real probability of being in a bubble just increased ;P Remember the 2008 crisis was only seen by very few in advance...

</comment><comment><USER10> > 9\. Are you optimizing for growth or profitability?

> Profitability - 39%

> Growth - 61%

This is what happens when your business goal is to get acquired and not to have a business sustained by paying customers.

<comment><USER11> Well this is one of the few but key differences between a "startup" and a "business."

A business that isn't profitable is either a hobby or a bad idea. A startup that isn't growing is dead. Personally I'd rather make $5/10/15/25k a month with a _business_ than kill myself trying to get millions in funding, pay myself a $10k/mo in salary and leave with nothing through either failure, dilution or some combination thereof.

<comment><USER12> Given that you can make $5/10/15/25k a month with a cushy 9-5 corporate job where everything's taken care of for you, in most cases the choice is not small-business vs. startup, it's corporate job vs. startup.

The "lifestyle" self-running company that spits out a comfortable amount of cash and is easier to handle than a corporate job is somewhere between a myth and a unicorn. It's _very_ rare. If you want to stay on the legal side of things it takes a great amount of connections, experience, time and effort to build such a company. You might as well invest that time in a "proper" startup and get some funding. Chances of success will be similar in the end.

<comment><USER13> I don't notice that many people making 15/25k a month that think their jobs are cushy. There are usually high expectations at that level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a disconnect between founders who want to build a startup and founders who want to build a business. They think the two are the same but they're really not and this study clearly shows that. There are situations where startups turn into businesses but I'd rather build a profitable business for myself from the start and our team than to build a startup purely focused on "growth".

<comment><USER15> I am very disconnected from the "startup" world, and something in your comment has me asking: What is the difference between a startup and a business? To me, they ought to be one in the same...

<comment><USER16> Paul Graham (and Y Combinator I guess) believe that the difference is the goals.

 _A startup is a company designed to grow fast._ PG, 2012

[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2013/12/16/what-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2013/12/16/what- is-a-startup/#6b2321f14c63)

 _a startup is a company designed to scale very quickly_

Steve Blank believes a startup is determined by the search of a business model. If you have a business model, then you have a small or new company, not a startup.

[https://steveblank.com/2014/03/04/why-companies-are-not- star...](https://steveblank.com/2014/03/04/why-companies-are-not-startups/)

<comment><USER17> Quite right.

Another distinction worth making, almost its own axis really, is the difference between "a tech business" and "a business that uses tech".

Companies like Cisco, Facebook, Apple, Google, Canonical, and so forth are companies that are tech companies--without their technology, they wouldn't be in business at all. They provide a service or product that is IP in its own right.

Companies like Chipotle, Subway, Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, DoorDash, Dollar Shave Club, and so forth are companies that use tech to achieve economies of scale and growth that wouldn't be as easy otherwise but could still be done. You can imagine a way of making something that to the user is substantially like the Uber today without a complicated backend, even just using call centers and massive dispatch. The key part of their business is part-time contractor drivers, which is a business and not tech innovation.

It's easy to assume that all startups are tech startups, but that's not quite true and it also can limit and slow developing a good business model.

<comment><USER18> But then, can't you make the same analogy for early stage Google--basically, a big marketing firm that manually places ads in the yellow pages? Similarly, Facebook can also be executed over a phone system ("Press 1 to hear your friends' updates, press 2 to post an update...")

I'm not sure there's such a strong distinction between a tech business and a business that uses tech nowadays.

<comment><USER17> Google's core beginning was PageRank (under license from Stanford), without which it would've been no better than similar offerings at the time. Additionally, their approach to setting up their equipment and making use of cheap gear and managing said cheap gear probably gave them a leg up...something they still do today at scale. So, no, you can't really make that analogy.

Facebook was a tech company specifically, and not a company using tech, because the entire product was devoted to rapidly filling social profiles and spinning up the microsites that were user accounts, mining those accounts for information, and then integrating as a platform for advertisers and game developers. None of that tech is really stuff they could've outsourced and still had a business--they couldn't have just white-labeled MySpace for example and gotten away with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did anyone else find the constant shifting colors irritating?

<comment><USER20> Yes! Closed the page as soon as I figured out what was going on.

<comment><USER21> That seems like an extreme reaction to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting answers on lack of gender diversity in IT: Most of the men believe the reason is that there just aren't that many women entering the field, while almost all the women blame bias at various stages of education, hiring and promotion. Someone has a cognitive dissonance.

<comment><USER23> there were less than 5 girls on my computer science class, so unless woman are claim that they should have the job without education. I can totally see the reason why there is a gender diversity in IT?

<comment><USER24> Why is a computer science background necessary for an IT career? I know many, many IT professionals who did not study CS in college.

<comment><USER25> "IT Professionals" is a broad label. Maybe we can think of getting a 'degree in a field' as a proxy-variable for 'interest in the field'. What's astonishing to me is through the 60s, 70's and into the mid-80s, computer-tech interest in female cohorts tracked with science, law and medical fields. Then it flattened and fell, while female participation in those other three fields continued to expand at the rates they had before. (So, what happened in 1985?)

<comment><USER26> This Planet Money episode attempted to tackle that question: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when- women-stopped-coding)

Their tl;dr answer is that video games happened, and they were marketed exclusively to boys; that's what created and drove the cultural rift.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for that link. My original sighting of the phenomena used the exact same graph, but made no attempt at being explanatory. I have since then, been searching, but failed to re-find a copy of that graph to stick into my files. Now, thanks you you, I have! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> State of Venture-backed Startups. Just to be clear. It is a specific subset of the larger startup picture.

<comment><USER8> This really depends on your definition of a "startup" vs small business, lifestyle business, etc.

<comment><USER27> I guess that is technically true, but if anyone who is NOT a VC is buying into the idea that VC backing is the only valid definition of a startup... you have drunk too much of the kool-aid.

<comment><USER8> I would say they more just look at it as an easy filter. While there will be some false negatives, you have very few to none false positives i.e., venture- backed companies that turn out to be non-startups but don't close or exit.

The example that comes to mind that breaks this is the failing startup turned dev shop in attempt to revive the startup pattern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Oh yeah, startup founders with venture backing aren't biased about this topic...

</comment><comment><USER29> > And it only gets less balanced with time. Among respondents' companies, the > boards of later-stage startups are almost three times less likely to have a > woman on their board.

If later-stage companies are older (probably correlated, but not perfectly), then this could be a function of the year in which the boards were created.

There's more of a push for diverse boards now than there was 3 years ago, so if a company got funding and formed a board back then, it's not surprising their board would look different.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Now's the time to launch companies and set sail.

> Though the majority of founders say we're in a bubble, 9 out of 10 founders > believe that it's a good time to be starting a company. All aboard!

Wow that's the worst example of sample bias I've ever seen. It betrays the fund's motives behind this post, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think this is a very interesting question to ask when interviewing at a startup: "If you're not successful, why do you think that will be?" And also "what leads the culture" (engineering, sales, design etc).

</comment><comment><USER32> Sector spread (Q51) is very biased; perhaps the method of sourcing respondents was insufficiently broad or random.

</comment><comment><USER33> 1 out of 5 founders thinks they are raising a unicorn ?

<comment><USER34> 1 out of 5 founders want you to think that they think they are raising a unicorn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So 10% of startups give out more than 1% of equity to a mid-level engineer ?

Perhaps this is a small sample, but it sounds odd.

<comment><USER36> What should first and second hire get? 1 or 2% doesn't seem crazy after a seed round.

<comment><USER37> Anyone who puts in sweat equity should get double digits IMO (unless the company has been around for years as a one man band, and maybe even then.)

<comment><USER38> Double digit ownership usually means the person is a cofounder. This question was about engineers.

<comment><USER37> ...who by definition aren't cofounders? Maybe I'm on the wrong site. O.o

<comment><USER36> If you join BEFORE seed money, and do a bunch of work for free, you can be a cofounder.

If you join AFTER seed money, and get something like a market salary, you are an engineer.

The gray area is the in-between places. If you join before seed money, but only work 1 hour a week (say to help out a buddy), are you a cofounder? I would likely vote no.

Or if you join AFTER seed money, but work for 75% of market rate. Or 50%. At what pay do you appear to be a cofounder vs engineer?

<comment><USER37> So you're saying it _is_ a definition issue. Regardless of what work you do at a startup, you are considered a "co-founder" if you put in initial sweat equity (ie. did work for free) but an "engineer" if you only joined after the company was funded and paying wages at market rates?

As for the grey area, it seems as if common-sense should prevail but sadly that doesn't always happen so you always need a contract laying out exactly what each side gets, even for volunteer work. I seem to recall a story earlier this year (can't remember the company involved) where one of the founders' friends had helped out occasionally before they got funded, then the company got funded, ended up with a fairly large valuation, and the 'friend' reappeared and claimed that they were owed a significant share of the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> sigh... Europe does not stand a fucking chance!

<comment><USER40> What does this article have to do with Europe? I know First Round is based in SF, but they don't state where the startups are located - the only mention of the US is when comparing demographics of the workforce with the US itself.

<comment><USER39> What I mean is, Europe generally does not even come close to that level of pay/compensation. So I assumed that these are US based startups. I could be wrong though.

<comment><USER31> Yes but you (generally) get other things like universal healthcare, free or cheap university, retirement plans, no need for a car due to proper urban planning, etc. In the US you have to shell out for all these things, paying into a private 401(k) for retirement, paying back student loan debt, paying for your health insurance etc. And these are at well funded tech firms.

<comment><USER41> While true, that doesn't even come close to filling the gap.

In Berlin "the silicon valley of Europe", as people here like to say, there are pretty much zero engineering jobs paying >$100k/year. There is some magical ceiling of around $90k/year, no matter how senior you are. This isn't only true for startups but pretty much any company.

That's one of the reasons I work remote for Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER42> On the other hand, costs in SV are way higher than Berlin. Berlin has very low living costs, even compared to other European (and German) cities. With $90k/yr you probably have the same living standard as in SV with twice as much. Probably even a higher standard, with $90k/year in Germany you can afford a large appartment, eat out regularly, don't have to worry about retirement or health care.

Of course living in a cheap area and being paid the salary of the high cost area is always better. But that's not specific to Berlin.

<comment><USER41> "$90k/year in Germany you can afford a large appartment, eat out regularly, don't have to worry about retirement or health care" \- That's definitely true. But I'd argue with similar profile you can make at least 2x that in SV at which point I don't think you have to worry about those things either, even if you pay $5k/month for your apartment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> tl;dr because the presentation is super long.

I just picked data which I find interesting and not obvious, there's much more information which I don't cover. Data is in chronological order and often aggregated to less numbers. 700 founders inside and outside of FirstRound were surveyed.

\- 7 of 10 say bitcoin is overhyped

\- cofounder relationship: 5% fired their cofounder, 5% are strained, 40% collegial, 28% best friends

\- 13% sold secondaries

\- 61% optimise on growth, rest on profitability

\- 52% want to fire up to 10 people, 32% up to 50, 10% more than 50 the next 12 months

\- Hardest people to hire: tech, sales and marketing leader

\- 90% of mid-level engineers get <1% equity, 64% <0.4%

\- Most (55%) of mid-level engineers get between $100K and $150K

\- Primary drivers of company culture are tech, sales and design

\- Most (43%) people leave between 6-7pm, 10% work longer than 8pm

\- 75% could close a round in 4 months or less

\- 78% pitched less than 20 investors

\- 76% raise exactly or more compared to what they planned

\- 55% expect that raising gets harder the next 12 months

\- 22% of investors didn't meet expectations

\- 20% <= 30yrs, 32% older than 40yrs, rest inbetween

\- Most popular sectors are enterprise, consumer, fin-tech

\- 43% web, 29% mobile, 1% VR

<comment><USER44> What defines a mid-level engineer?

<comment><USER45> I'd say someone who's not in a senior position like team lead but more than 3 years removed from college.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is a duplicate post.

First post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080477)

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't see that when I posted. Usually HN catches dupes, but I posted this on mobile on the go. My bad.

<comment><USER46> It's not on you. :) HN ought to match on dupes like this.

<comment><USER47> The software allows resubmissions of stories that didn't get significant attention after enough time has past and there's no longer any hope for them. It does this so that those stories have more than one chance, which is often needed before they catch on. Sorry that it wasn't yours that did! Community members have analyzed the submission data to see if there's any way for submitters to do better than random here and it seems like there isn't.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sphinx: Search Outside the Box - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7369

<comment><USER2> If you are using Sphinx on a rails project, I strong recommend Thinking Sphinx(<http://freelancing-god.github.com/ts/en/>). We used to use Ultra sphinx plugin, but thinking sphinx is more flexible.

</comment><comment><USER3> We use Sphinx on <http://esciencenews.com> , and its performance is quite amazing. It powers search and the 'dictionary' (which is really tags) feature. Very easy to configure / deploy, too!

</comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to solr, compass and other "search frameworks"?

I'm currently using Compass (Java wrapper around lucene), but that was just to get something implemented quickly.</comment>


Sony Xperia Z3 Design Tipped in Leaked Images Alongside Specifications - <AUTHOR> http://bestpcinfos.com/sony-xperia-z3/

<comment><USER2> There is not much good improvement

</comment><comment><USER3> when Sony Xperia Z3 will released</comment>


Ask HN: Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals for developers? - <AUTHOR> Where to find good software, subscription, e-books etc for software developers this week? (Similarly, noise cancelling headphones and such items that developers may use every day.) <comment><USER2> Dunno. In fact I hope this celebration of naked consumerism, where the wolfs of marketing feast on our hacked feeble minds, passes by on developer markets. Probably will not, as there is a good buck to be made.</comment>


Biot: Network-aware information pipe for the Internet of Things - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/enbygg3/biot <comment><USER2> link should be to project page: [https://bitbucket.org/enbygg3/biot](https://bitbucket.org/enbygg3/biot)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Changed from [http://wiki.tcl.tk/40961](http://wiki.tcl.tk/40961).</comment></comment>


On Individual Variations of Productivity in Research Laboratories - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/docs/1957-shockley.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Discussion: [http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/william- shock...](http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/william-shockley-on- what-makes-a-person-write-a-lot-of-papers-and-the-superstar-researcher- system/) "William Shockley on what makes a person who publishes a lot of papers (and the superstar researcher system)"</comment>


Best place to find resources to learn GAE? - <AUTHOR>

I've never used Django, I know basic Python. Hit me. What's the best place to start learning modern, efficient Google App Engine (Python preferred)?
I'm working through their documentation, but it's not clear what a framework is and how it relates to GAE (I've never used Rails or anything either.)
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I haven't come across a "GAE for Dummies" book ... yet.

So far I have figured out everything by reading the SDK documentation. I would suggest making sure that you understand how Web App Framework which in turn requires an understanding of CGI and WSGI. The choice is yours whether you write single function Python programs and decode the URL using the app.yaml file or writing "chunkier" programs and doing some of the URL decoding in your program. I prefer to the former because it is easy to change functionality. But of course, your data model may suggest different structuring.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have found the best places to learn (new) things about GAE are Reddit [1] and Github [2].

[1] <http://www.reddit.com/r/AppEngine/.rss> [2] [https://github.com/search?q=appengine&type=Everything...](https://github.com/search?q=appengine&type=Everything&repo=&langOverride=&start_value=1)</comment>


To save the US economy, policymakers need to understand small business 101 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/14/to-save-the-economy-policymakers-need-to-know-small-business-101.html <comment><USER2> There's only one thing to understand about SMBs: They're woefully inefficient. Efficiency comes with scale (which is enabled by automation). This is what turns previously artisan projects (e.g. clothes) into mass-produced items that can be sold cheaply and help improve living standards. SMBs run counter to this: Most of them don't want to grow and most are poorly run. (The ones that are well-run and are founded on interesting concepts have a habit of growing out of the SMB category.) What's left is your local drycleaner, restaurant, independent greengrocer; a lot of them industries that automation hasn't been able to help scale. Yet.</comment>


Hollrback: A Different Business Card For Every Situation - <AUTHOR> http://www.beyondthepedway.com/hollrback-a-different-business-card-for-every-situation

<comment><USER2> That email solicitation popup is rather annoying. I closed the webpage immediately.</comment>


WP7 | Charting on Fire with Visifire Charting Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/mgold/5037/default.aspx

<comment><USER2> I was really looking for Silverlight Charting lib for my WP7 app. Thank you so much...

</comment><comment><USER3> Kudos to the developer for such a fantastic job.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great product!</comment>


Google switches to black background for Earth Hour - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/earthhour/

<comment><USER2> For the rest of you startup guys out there: _Don't do this_ google is _very_ difficult to read and a strain on the eyes. Anything but black text and you will lose users.</comment>


Google Nexus 4 Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review <comment><USER4> I'm glad to see Anand focus so much on the price in the conclusion. A lot of the other reviews talked at length about lack of LTE etc, but that misses the point of this phone.

While it may disappoint many people who just want the best at any price, you can't ignore the fact that the N4 is half the price of other phones in its class. The price really is the killer feature of this phone.

I suspect there is lots of demand out there for this phone amongst regular folk. No want likes being chained to a carrier and everybody likes getting a great deal. I told my sister (non techie) about it and her eyes popped. She's very very excited about it.

<comment><USER5> _While it may disappoint many people who just want the best at any price, you can't ignore the fact that the N4 is half the price of other phones in its class. The price really is the killer feature of this phone._

Ignoring OS, there are other phones that are getting much cheaper. Example is the new Lumia 920 that is $449 on ATT w/o contract. While it is $100 more expensive than the the 16GB Nexus you do get the following in addition:

* 32GB (+16GB)

* LTE

* [Removed]

Is this worth $100? I think probably so, but in any case, I think it shows that phones in this class (flagship like devices) are actually more price competitive than people may think.

Edit: To remove wireless charging per comment.

<comment><USER6> I'll take a lighter device + $100 over 16GB + LTE at least until LTE is widely available in my city (which is probably 2-3 years away).

But again, _ignoring OS_ which is generally not a good idea when making a phone purchase.

<comment><USER5> Ignoring OS is the only way to make a fair comparison, since OS preference probably trumps the feature and price delta ( whether you prefer WP or Android).

<comment><USER7> The only way to fairly compare devices is to ignore the single most important aspect? No, I don't think so.

<comment><USER5> The single most important factor is also the most subjective. I personally dislike Android and wouldn't use this phone if you gave it to me for free, but I can still respect the price for hw. I'm surprised this even needs explaining.

<comment><USER7> Have you ever used Android 4.2? This phone ships with a new OS version that I don't think is out anywhere else yet. How do you know in advance that you will subjectively not like it? I hate Windows Phone 7, but I wouldn't dare say I hate Windows Phone 8 since I've never seen it IRL. How could I make such a judgement? It's not purely subjective, either. What's the point in having more RAM or a bigger screen if the OS doesn't handle those well? Or, if it handles it exceptionally well, that should be noted as well.

<comment><USER8> Android 4.0 is reasonably similar to Android 4.2 for many people. Just as WP7 is reasonably similar to WP8 too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is anyone else slightly concerned about the glass back? Several reviews including The Verge had their back crack while testing it.

For me that is the biggest concern. The nice thing about plastic is that it absorbs some of the energy from a drop or shock. Glass gets cracks and then shatters.

I would have liked to have seen the same "rubber" back the Nexus 7 (by Asus) has. I would have alternatively taken Samsung's "cheap" feeling plastic backs.

<comment><USER10> The Play Store is selling a Nexus 4 Bumper - it's like the iPhone 4 all over again. Why do designers always pick form over function? What's the point in having a great looking phone that needs to be bubble-wrapped?

Still, the good thing about Android is you can choose from many manufacturers. This new Sony phone is waterproof:

[http://www.sonymobile.com/global- en/products/phones/xperia-g...](http://www.sonymobile.com/global- en/products/phones/xperia-go/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've already decided I'm buying this phone, but I have to ask:

Why should I care about wireless charging? I can't see this feature enriching my life in the slightest. Ok, it looks cool sitting there. But docks look cool too. Is it more convenient? I would argue no (saves maybe two seconds of effort per charge). Is it more portable? Definitely not.

Is this only hyped up because of the "coolness" factor?

<comment><USER12> I think the manufacturers are trying to make restaurants, public transport and maybe even office furniture companies to add those charging surfaces everywhere. That way your phone would pick up some power here and there.

<comment><USER13> I wonder how much that would increase lost phones on public transport ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So I've been looking at reviews of Nexus 4 all week. I have had IPhone for the past few years (3g then 4).

I want to switch, but I don't know if Nexus 4 is the one to switch to... I don't quite understand the differences between Android versions of S3 and Note 2, but apparently this has a vanilla android version.

What is the best choice? S3? Note 2? Nexus 4? What advantages do each one have over the other?

<comment><USER15> I will say that I just switched from a iPhone 4 to a S3 and it seriously makes the iPhone feel like a toy.

<comment><USER16> How so?

<comment><USER15> The size really is a big thing. This phone feels like it's the right size. The iPhone just feels...small.

And then the OS. I didn't like the built-in keyboard, so I downloaded and installed another one. Now "keyboard" is just a preference in the settings menu, and I choose which one I want.

But it's a whole lot of small things like that. Android just feels grown up, to me. iOS feels like a sandbox, like something you'd find in a school or something, or "baby's first telephone".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In the US, what's the best kind of cellular service plans to get if you come in with an unlocked phone? I would love to get out of the 2-year contract thing.

But I have this vague understanding that a lot of the prepay, mvno, or non- contract plans don't give access to parts of the big guys networks (like roaming relationships).

<comment><USER18> Straight Talk and Net 10 Sim are both great. You buy a SIM card, and then every month pay $45-50 for unlimited service. I think they use AT&T's network.

<comment><USER19> Wow that's pricy!

Over here in the soviet UK you can get a £10-15 pcm contract that gives you unlimited (not tethered) data and a reasonable about of other stuff, so long as you bring your own phone.

<comment><USER20> There are some subtle differences between the US (actually North America) and the rest of the world. You have probably heard how people in the US pay for incoming calls, which is true.

In the North American Numbering Plan there are no area codes for cell phones as there are in the rest of the world. Consequently a caller doesn't know if they are calling a cell phone. In almost every country in the world, calls to cell phones cost more. In the US the recipient pays the difference. Elsewhere the caller pays the difference. In the US the recipient has bulk bargaining power so those calls are cheaper than elsewhere.

So if you really wanted to compare like with like, you should compare the cost of the US contract to the cost of what callers pay plus what you pay elsewhere. Note that callers can pay _a lot_ more elsewhere - often 10 times as much as a call to a landline. See international phone cards to get an idea.

There are two other factors. One is psychological in that US consumers are very averse to variable billed amounts, and are prepared to pay more in order to have a fixed known bill. (I once read a paper I've never been able to find about this, showing it dated back to the earliest days of phone service in the US.) You may recall hearing how local phone calls are free. They aren't - <USER2> pay a higher base price. When I moved from the UK to the US my baseline phone service price quintupled. The difference is the local calls were "free" in the US while it was a few pence a minute in the UK.

The other factor is that there was no regulation requiring certain radio technology or interoperability. While the original GSM was good, it wasn't very future proof. It divided up frequency usage into time slots which meant you had a fixed number of possible calls. It also meant neighbouring towers couldn't use the same frequency. Qualcomm came up with CDMA which was very future proof - a phone talking to a tower sees all other phones (when they transmit) as background noise. Consequently it doesn't matter how the others talked to the tower so they could advance specifications. You could also put CDMA towers further apart than GSM towers. ("3G" etc are an evolution of CDMA all over the world.)

CDMA was adopted by two of the major carriers, but because almost no one else used CDMA that meant they had to source their own phones. That lead to a model where consumers got used to getting their phones from the carrier with no alternative. New phones were really cheap or free in return for a contract of a fixed monthly amount, which included around $20 per month just to pay the remainder of the cost of the phone.

Consumers are loathe to pay the real price of phones because they have never done so before. And carriers are loathe to have bring your own phone plans because the way their financial performance is measured is by ARPU - <USER3> revenue per user. Additionally because the carrier is bulk buying phones they can squeeze the suppliers, and they can "cripple" the phones to further their own interests. Verizon has been a master at the latter - for example they disabled bluetooth phonebook syncing several years back on a phone so they could push their own over the air backup service, they pull stunts with mapping (they have their own service) and even prevented Google's Wallet from working on the Galaxy Nexus (yup, they have their own too).

So like many things American we have this unwholly complicated mess where no one is paying the real price of anything, and what is actually going on is hidden behind other things.

If you are interested in how GSM and CDMA evolved, this is an excellent article <http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/10/GSM3G.shtml>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anand's new battery test suite gives counter-intuitive real world usage suggestions; I don't turn on LTE to extend usage time on any mobile devices.

</comment><comment><USER7> And it has a barometer!

<comment><USER22> Does anyone have an idea what the use of this might be? Altimeter? Weather forecasting?

<comment><USER7> I collect the barometric readings with pressureNET. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork)

We have about 11,000 total users (half are active) and are VERY excited that the Nexus 4 and 10 both have barometers. We're looking to improve short-term, local weather prediction asap. The project is open source at <http://cumulonimbus.ca>

<comment><USER23> Very appreciative of the tip here, it's installing now on my GNex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The phone with more reviews than stock :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Are there other ways of buying Nexus 4 rather than online in Google Play Store?

<comment><USER26> Yes; TMobile will sell them. The pricing will be much worse than the Play Store pricing, though (I think around $200 on contract and $600 off), so probably not actually a good idea.

<comment><USER25> So the "no contract" or "no carrier" version is only available in the Google Play?

<comment><USER27> It's the same unlocked "no carrier" phone, just at a higher price in-store, or so I've read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have a question here to ask: Why doesn't Google choose Motorola to manufacture its handsets?

<comment><USER29> The official line is there's no special relationship between Motorola and Android beyond a common owner; thus they have to bid on Nexus devices like everyone else (and so far, there's nothing to suggest otherwise). As well, there's restrictions on how companies in the middle of an acquisition can communicate, which would make a Motorola-produced Nexus this cycle particularly difficult.

<comment><USER30> We can also see that there's no connection in the lack of up-to-date Android on Motorola phones.

<comment><USER29> The carriers get as much blame in Android's update SNAFU as the OEMs (and Google, by inaction[0]); the VZW Galaxy Nexus demonstrates this.

[0] While Google could have taken a stronger stance on Android re: updates, I don't think they've ever been in a good position to do so. Early days, carriers would have balked and Android would die; now, they'd just fork and Android becomes the next BREW.

<comment><USER30> In my case the OEM is to blame as it is only company I can associate my phone with (bought it without a contract in a store). So it probably depends from whom you bought the phone and under what conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It does not have a removable battery? I consider this as an important feature me that I spend lots of hours outside the office. Also ejecting some mass when the phone drops is always a good thing. Two broken Iphones on my drawer say so.

<comment><USER32> It's not a "removable" batter, but it is easy to replace with the correct Torx screwdriver. That doesn't help in your two scenarios, but it will be useful if you want to keep your phone significantly longer than the 3 year half-life of lithium batteries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't get it, so I need someone to explain something to me. How can the iPhone consistently blow everything else away in performance AND battery life, despite having a smaller battery and seemingly lesser processor. I understand that Apple had a time advantage by getting into the touchscreen smartphone game first but how has nobody caught up yet? I am a huge Nexus fanboy but it seems that the IPhone is objectively faster and more efficient, even with googles full efforts to keep up.

<comment><USER34> You'll notice they are very strict about background processing in applications and the usage of battery draining things such as GPS or cellular data. This helps battery life significantly. Google didn't start prioritizing view smoothness and efficiency until android 3 or 4.

The OS & apps are pretty much pure C from the ground up, with an objective-c application layer. The entire view system (Core Animation) is GPU accelerated with OpenGL from day one.

Objective-C on iOS does not have a GC, so apps are generally faster and more responsive with manual memory management. Many apps can drop into pure C or C++ to improve performance easily.

All of these performance choices give you a faster phone for less processor.

A slower processor also tends to use less energy too. Battery size is a pure weight/size vs capacity tradeoff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wow, it has about a 50% bigger battery than the iPhone 5 but has considerably worse battery life.

2100 mAH battery vs iPhone 5's 1440 mAH, but iPhone 5 can browse the web for almost twice as long.

How is there such a big difference? Or are these stats not 100% accurate?

<comment><USER36> Yes it is impressive. The iPhone engineers critically have done great work with the performance/power consumption of their CPU and their power management in the OS. They're also using a fantastic baseband which is extremely lower efficient on LTE it seems. Lastly the screen area of the iPhone is quite a lot smaller which does account for some of the iPhones lower power usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have wondered about buying unlocked phones in the United States. Does my monthly bill change when bringing an unlocked phone to Verizon or AT&T?

<comment><USER6> There are both cheaper plans available and you won't be locked in for 2 years. Both, combined, are worth more than the ~$300-$400 phone subsidy over two years that the telco provides.

<comment><USER38> And with T-Mobile you can get the same plan for cheaper if you aren't on a contract.

<comment><USER39> That's changed, unfortunately. Their "Value Plans" now also require a two year contract. They have no contract plans, but they are pricier than the contracted Value Plans. I was pissed to learn of this change when I wanted to switch to a plan that would allow tethering (I have the old G1 plan, which is unlimited data, but won't allow addition of tethering, and they shut down my ability to tether with the native tethering app or third party apps). Since I paid full price for a Sensation 4G less than a year before, in order to avoid a contract, it's pretty darned frustrating. And, let's be honest, T-Mobile is not a great network.

<comment><USER27> How did they shut down third party apps? I'm technically not supposed to be able to tether on Sprint, but I can run PDANet or FoxFi to tether over USB or bluetooth anyway, on a non-rooted phone.

<comment><USER39> They monitor traffic, I assume. I have historically used both PDAnet and FoxFi among others...all get shut down within a few minutes, and I receive a text telling me to sign up for tethering service. I'll try it again after rooting the phone, to rule out simply detecting all the common tethering apps, but I'm guessing they're detecting NATted traffic or similar.

I'm considering picking up a Nexus 4, rather than bothering with rooting and re-imaging the Sensation. I don't really like the Sensation, though all the problems I have with it could be due to software. It's a custom build with Sense, which I really don't like.

Anyway, it's a new phenomenon. I was tethering on T-Mobile for years without trouble. About two months ago, they started shutting it down after a few minutes of use, and redirecting all traffic to their T-Mobile site upgrade page.

<comment><USER27> That's a bummer. The $30/month unlimited data plan plus $15/month for legit hotspot service isn't too bad, though. I'm considering that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sprite3D.js: a javascript library for 3D positionning - <AUTHOR> http://minimal.be/lab/Sprite3D/

<comment><USER2> Nice to see progress being made on libraries to make this easier.

My company just launched a new mobile panorama viewer based on similar ideas, though we did our own super-minimal sprite3D to support our needs.

The really fun thing is that you can wire up the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 gyroscope to it to control the camera, makes for quite a demo :)

<http://www.tourbuzz.net/29288?awesome>

</comment><comment><USER3> Augh! Try not to spend too much time on that slide puzzle :P <http://i.imgur.com/za6IN.png>

<comment><USER4> Well yeah:

      // then scramble
    	var r1, r2;
    	for( i = 0; i < numpieces>>1; i++ )
    	{
    		exchange( Math.random() * numpieces >> 0, Math.random() * numpieces >> 0 );
    	}

Easily enough fixed by just "manually" sliding a random piece adjacent to the hole a couple thousand or so times, but yeah... Making any sort of game, no matter how simple, is harder than you think :\

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great examples. The Canvas demo and the 3D image gallery are impressive. Will try this library in one of my future projects.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the extensive gallery really made an impression and give far more weight to the library. It should serve as inspiration for other library creators to really put time into a wide set of demos of what your lib can help achieve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Excellent presentation of the library. After reading the source, I am struck with how much of the code here is just one or two line wrappers; "convenience" functions that don't really do anything but pass on the arguments to another function or set or get a property.

I'm not a big fan of thin API wrappers like this. Why not dispense will all that code and let your library users access the underlying properties and methods instead? The library would be smaller, simpler, and faster.

<comment><USER8> Please consider this library as an invitation for web devs to dive into html- based multimedia. Its main goal is to highlight the ability to do such things. It is quite clear that Sprite3D will never reach the level of libraries like Three.js or PaperJS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is worth noting that support for CSS 3D Transforms was committed to Firefox this week. See <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505115> for all the gory details.

</comment><comment><USER10> How does this perform with respect to three.js?

</comment><comment><USER11> Works great on iPad.

<comment><USER5> Funnily enough, the performance of the Canvas example on my iPad2 was almost on par with my mid 2010 MBP (i7) running Lion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I haven't done OpenGL programming since college and starting in web development. So glad to have a reason to get back into linear algebra :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Did not really work for Opera.. But I guess that's Opera in a nutshell..</comment>


Good bizdev cannibalizes itself - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/08/28/good-bizdev-cannabilizies-itself/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, interesting. Click through to Hunch's VP Biz Dev blog. [http://shaival.posterous.com/cannabilize-business- developmen...](http://shaival.posterous.com/cannabilize-business-development- by-populariz)

 _For example, Hunch.com is built entirely on our own API. A team of clever and ambitious people could access the Hunch API and attempt to re-create Hunch.com from scratch. The functionality and the value is all there._

Are there other examples of web services built completely on their own API?

<comment><USER3> Twitter is close: <http://t.co/XPZB6Ka>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Huh?

(p.s. Yahoo had nothing to do with Google taking over the search world, talk about reinventing history. It was all to do with the simple homepage and great results)

<comment><USER5> Google made a deal with Yahoo in June of 2000 that gave them a lot of money and a lot of credibility. Google powered Yahoo's Search results from June of 2000 until February of 2004. See <http://www.google.com/googlefriends/alert2_2000.html> and <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1024_3-5160710.html></comment></comment>