Apple buys autonomous driving company Drive.ai - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/apple-buy-driveai-753da17d-60fe-44f9-84ff-1d2d82cd0b81.html <comment><USER2> Apple pretty consistently pays bottom dollar for acquisitions, and typically does an acquihire which results in the former company's product being deep sixed. So this looks like an autonomous driving skill acquisition, but for all we know the remaining team will be purposed to guessing where you are by dead- reckoning on your phone, or improving Photos' judgement or who knows.

In fact the only case I can remember when they _didn 't_ do this was with the liquid metal company, and that one didn't pan out. (there are presumably others but I don't recall any off the top of my head.).

They have bought a few products, like iTunes, without buying the company.

<comment><USER3> Siri, TestFlight, Workflow, Shazam, Beats, FoundationDB, SoundJam ( iTunes ), FileMaker, P.A Semi, PrimeSense, and of course the biggest one that is still going strong, NeXT. ( Well technically it was NeXT acquired Apple and changed its name to Apple /s )

And I don't think they acquired Liquidmetal the company, they only signed a deal for Consumer electronics exclusive use up to a period of time, and my guess was LiquidMetal were too expensive and they could not figure out a way to hit High Volume Production.

Although I generally do agree Apple pays bottom dollar for acquisitions. One reason why I am not hopeful of them buying the Intel Modem business along with all the 3G - 5G Patents.

<comment><USER4> Can anyone explain why you wouldn't pay the lowest price you could for an acquisition?

<comment><USER5> If you want to buy some cheap metalworking equipment, buying from a small metalworking company on the cusp of bankruptcy can get you a great price.

But if you want to buy a business that makes a lot of money, you'll be hard pressed to find one if you only look at small companies on the cusp of bankruptcy.

<comment><USER6> What Apple does is buy companies with fantastic technology, but a very limited ability to bring that to the market as a compelling product on their own.

Siri had limited value as a standalone app interfacing only to public APIs and services, but huge value as a deeply integrated platform interface with links into all the platform services. The original company could never realise that sort of enhanced value, so as a standalone player it's value was limited and Apple could buy it (relatively) cheap.

PA Semi as a small independent chip designer could eke out a decent living doing small bespoke designs for companies here or there. That has value, but it's limited. However as the designers of the undisputed heavyweight champion mobile CPUs, in the most successful consumer product of all time, providing significant product differentiating performance and features, they have enormous value but _only_ if Apple buys them.

User ksec gave a great list of successful Apple acquisitions for which their core products still exist and are thriving and the above pattern applies just as well to all of them. That's the primary model for Apple. I'm sure there are cases where they buy teams for talent, but it's usually talent in a specific area Apple can directly leverage somewhere in their products.

EDIT: I would into be at all surprised if Apple went into these negotiations saying "We love your technology, it;s great. Here's an offer. BTW here's the brochure of another similar company with almost as good technology we could buy instead, integrate into our products and kill you with.".

<comment><USER7> > *What Apple does is buy companies with fantastic technology, but a very > limited ability to bring that to the market as a compelling product on their > own.

Not always, Beats headphones was them buying a company producing complimentary products, most of the value was in the brand, marketing and the distinct visual design of the products. There's nothing special about the technology and the company was very effective in bringing their product to market.

<comment><USER8> Beats Music is the basis for Apple Music and was absolutely worth the purchase for the technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Why it matters: The deal and hires confirm that Apple hasn't given up its > autonomous driving project.

I think the first sign was the near continuous sightings of Apple's self driving cars in Cupertino. At one point i literally saw four of them at the intersection of Homestead and Wolfe (next to the spaceship), one going in each direction.

<comment><USER10> That almost sounds like a set-piece, making sure they don't interfere with each other (assuming they're using LIDAR).

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure about this. This kind of integration test would almost certainly be performed in a closed course (parking lot / garage).

<comment><USER12> Well, as an initial test, sure, but you have to do the same test in an open road once you know it works in isolation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Personally, I'm happy to see multiple strong techcos getting involved in autonomous driving. Apple especially, considering their non-standard MO.

Uber & Tesla are showing us that just because a company is culturally SV/startup, it doesn't necessarily mean that their business becomes a (taking Thiel's definition) monopoly in the Google/FB sense.

If/when autonomous driving starts living up to predictions, it will be a massive crucial industry. Hopefully every part of it will be a competitive market. An Airbnb of autonomous trucking or a Microsoft of autonomous taxis would be disturbing.

<comment><USER14> I think it'll roll out in different geographic areas at different times, depending on regulations and mapping data of each company. Waymo is clearly going to be first in Arizona, Tesla may be first to a wide roll-out, and let's be real, probably Waymo will be first in California too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Andrew ng was a board member at Drive.ai and also posted some very promising videos like driving in rain etc. Not sure what lead to this lukewarm exit.

<comment><USER16> Because every automotive company already has a self driving division and they have realized it's not a realistic dream to work on for at least a decade?

<comment><USER17> How is it "not realistic to work on"?

Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market, and a quick youtube research will show you that it blows the competition right off, they are better by an order of a magnitude.

Now, it is nowhere near full (level 5 or whatever) self-driving, but noone says that it has to be. The point is that you bring up all other car manufacturers, and they all have obviously inferior products compared to Tesla's (if we are looking at commercially available general personal vechicles). The self-driving as it is right now (even though not level 5) is obviously very useful to many people, it is a good product, the market is right there. And yet these Every Automotive Companies have failed to produce something that Tesla already has on the market. So the problem is not that it is not an "unrealistic dream",(if it exists already), the problem is that other automotive companies are basically behind on this.

My guess is that they are not software companies, they have never had to develop really complicated software, and while having expertise on the mechanical side of things, they are ways behind on the software.

<comment><USER18> > Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market

It's semi-autonomous, requiring constant attention from the driver and operating in an extremely limited set of conditions.

Truly autonomous cars are decades away.

<comment><USER17> Which is exactly what I wrote if you read the complete message. The point is, how does a new company produce this good product (which many people find very useful, even if it sounds like you don't) - when all the other major manufacturers with their experience and budgets are failing in this regard?

<comment><USER18> Other manufacturers are not failing, you're just blinded by Tesla's flashy marketing.

For example, Volvo's current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. However, their approach is "no person killed by Volvo by 2020", so their tech is rightly called assisted driving. Other manufacturers have similar tech and approaches.

A few years back European truck manufacturers even had a competition that involved autonomous driving on general roads across multiple state borders in Europe.

However, Tesla's marketing keeps insisting that their tech is full autonomous driving, and their lawyers correctly insist that its not.

Now, back to the "not realistic to work on". Because it's not realistic. Real autonomous driving is decades away. And "state-of-the-art" is barely semi- autonomous (requires driver's attention _at all times_ ), barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), can barely handle a very restricted set of road and weather conditions etc. etc.

<comment><USER17> > For example, Volvo's current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to > offer.

Have you actually tried it or did you just read it off some anti-tesla rant on the Internet? I desperately want to believe that statement because Teslas are very overpriced for the amount of comfort they provide, but every time I test any other car, the "lane assist" and similar things are nowhere near what Tesla offers. They are all "just as good" on paper, and then you activate lane assist and smallest problem like one small segment of the road line being off makes a Volvo or something else scream in panic and force you to take the wheel while Tesla gracefully doesn't even notices at as a problem and keeps driving. Just because the other manufacturers say on paper "we also have lane assist" does not mean it's the same function.

Look at this latest Audi e-tron. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM)

When you say that other manufacturers are not doing as much marketing for this, you are right. But you got it the other way around: it's not that they are behind on the marketing, and that's why they are failing. They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in great quality on the mass-market, - and that's why they don't have the audacity to market those features, because they know that if they forced people to actually take their "lane assist" seriously, they would be scrutinized by the market even more and all those flaws would be brought to light.

Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive, and then go actually test a Volvo, VW, BMW, etc lane assist -and then come back and review your statement. Your mind will be changed.

> barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with > good roads, signs and road markings),

Watch more of videos on that channel. Many rain situations are fine, and barely some visible road markings is all that is needed. Yes level 5 might be a decade away, but even as it is - that's like 80% of driving time covered. What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?

<comment><USER18> > Have you actually tried it or did you just read it off some anti-tesla rant > on the Internet?

I have.

> They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in > great quality on the mass-market

> Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive

You keep buying into Tesla's marketing.

Here's a riddle for you: every time a Tesla fails and kills a person, Tesla quickly blames _the driver_. They say that the driver _has to always keep watch and grab the wheel at the first sign of trouble_.

Here's an official statement by Tesla in such an accident: "We _also ask our customers_ to exercise safe behavior when using our vehicles, including following the car's instructions for _remaining alert and present when using Autopilot and to be prepared to take control at all times_ " [1]

Why is that, do you think?

Other companies are just less careless about human lives. They don't pretend it's a full autopilot. They don't pretend that the system can handle 100% of situations. They don't pretend that you can safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and nothing will happen. They call it what it is and introduce the features gradually because they are _fully aware_ of the current capabilities of autonomous systems.

Tesla is fully aware of that as well, but their marketing is willfully engaged in deception tactics.

> What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?

The part where it doesn't exist. In all cases _it requires the driver to be fully engaged and alert at all times_.

[1] [https://abcnews.go.com/US/teslas-autopilot-blamed-driver- acc...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/teslas-autopilot-blamed-driver-accident- police/story?id=60994610)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ex drive.ai employee here. I got $0 for my stocks.

<comment><USER20> Were you employee at a time of acquisition?

<comment><USER19> why would it matter? I had vested a good chunk of my stocks. And it's hard to define since they did not buy my shares.

<comment><USER21> So Apple did not actually buy all of drive.ai?

<comment><USER19> I honestly have no idea of what I can say and what I can't say.

I think it's reasonable to think that I can share that nobody bought my shares. I can't talk for any other employee or anybody else.

<comment><USER22> The crunchbase story title "Apple Said To Have Bought Assets Of Struggling Drive.ai" perhaps indicates what happened. [https://news.crunchbase.com/news/drive-ai-reportedly- closing...](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/drive-ai-reportedly-closing-down- after-raising-77m/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "The backdrop: Drive.ai's highlighter-orange vans ferried workers around a business park in Frisco, Tex., and shuttled fans in nearby Arlington to Cowboys games."

This sounds more impressive than the Cruise cars I see with one driver- engineer at the wheel. Has anyone been shuttled in one and can comment on the experience?

<comment><USER9> I've been in a rival company's car that drives in SF. It was truly amazing. On the short drive it dealt with a garbage bag in the street, a truck driving the wrong way on a one way street, a jaywalker, and a double parked car, all with no issues whatsoever.

I know some cruise guys, and they say it's a similar experience. They basically run a free, autonomous Uber for employees. They'll be full in the morning and afternoon and then drive around the city alone midday to build up miles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can confirm that they didn't stop their self driving car project. I see their Lexus driving around Sunnyvale all the time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Feel bad for the employees, not sure how much their options would be worthy of right now...

<comment><USER26> The employees are all machine learning engineers with a focus on autonomous vehicles (aka, the current hot shit in machine learning), which means they're probably all making $300k+ per year at the low end. They'll be fine.

<comment><USER27> Lol if you think that they make that much at a failing startup

<comment><USER28> But they're no longer at a failing startup. They're at Apple.

<comment><USER29> Apple can and does fire people in their acquisitions, including engineers and other skilled positions.

<comment><USER28> And those people were never at Apple.

<comment><USER29> There's a bit of tautology - They are at Apple because if they were fired in the acquisition they were never at Apple.

<comment><USER28> As someone who has been through an acquisition, it's a liminal space. You remain the employee of the company being purchased, right up until the purchase goes through, which is _after_ the offers from the purchaser are extended to people. The amount of people coming over can be part of the due dillegence and terms of the deal. (e.g. n engineers are to be purchased, but all the engineers suck, so the deal is off, or the price is reduced.)

Apple never extended an offer, or an offer was not accepted. Either way, they were not at any point an employee of Apple, or any other company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Apple shows up to Drive.ai liquidation sale" would be more informative. A small number of employees and some assets were brought over.

<comment><USER31> Well, at least Drive.ai's creditors have a good chance of being paid. It's not yet clear if the "mass layoffs" planned for Friday will still happen.[1]

Does anybody, anywhere, have a reliable self-driving car in use on public streets without a "safety driver"? Waymo did briefly, but backed off.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/25/18758820/drive-ai-self- dr...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/25/18758820/drive-ai-self-driving- startup-shutting-down-apple)

<comment><USER32> Is Waymo not driving fully autonomous in Phoenix still?

Edit: It looks like they aren't [1]

1: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18536003/waymo-lyft- self-d...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18536003/waymo-lyft-self-driving- ride-hail-app-phoenix)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ironically, I wonder how many of the folks that were laid off recently ([http://fortune.com/2016/09/11/apple-self-driving-car- layoffs...](http://fortune.com/2016/09/11/apple-self-driving-car-layoffs/)) landed a position at Drive.ai only to be brought back into the clan?

</comment><comment><USER34> The price is interesting. An awful lot of the self-driving companies are hoping for a big acquisition. It reminds me of the SDN market just before VMware bought Nicira. And there wasn't a second Nicira, not really.

<comment><USER35> This wasn't really a acquisition though. More like Apple buying some assets as Drive.ai gets liquidated.

<comment><USER34> That distinction is mostly not real. Startups that are losing altitude start looking for an acquirer no less than 6 months before they know they're done. The very likely ran the gamut of every acquirer they could get connected to.

The case where companies run into the wall at full speed (a funding round fell through) mostly were very mismanaged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Apple should just buy Tesla. What a story, helping the world with energy, driving safety, etc. Seeing Elon Musk as the CEO of Apple would be interesting to say the least. Beats somewhat lead the way for them to have different brands under their umbrella.

<comment><USER37> Musk as the CEO of Apple would be an unmitigated disaster.

<comment><USER38> Musk as the CEO of anything has been less than great. At PayPal e was forced out, at Tesla <no comment take your own conclusions> and at SpaceX my understand is he is at arm's length and has someone else administer the company - which appears to be just about the smartest thing he's done.

<comment><USER39> Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. He could use a Shotwell for Tesla and focus on his strength: being outrageous and running his useful cult of personality. I'm not sure his behavior helps fundraising anymore.

<comment><USER38> Yeah pretty much. It's fascinating why he hasn't arrived at the same conclusion. The man has his strengths but the actual nuts and bolts of running a company day to day does not appear to be his sharpest edge. Surely even he can see that, sometimes? Makes me wonder how blind we can be to our own flaws...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how happy GeoHotz is about this development?

<comment><USER41> Is comma.ai interesting to other companies at all? They have a system for integrating into existing cruise control, which Apple doesn't need (they can drop money to get cars made for them). They also have a vision system which is not very secret - throw lots of video footage into a NN - which should be possible to replicate relatively easily. Apart from aquihire, why would anyone buy comma.ai?

<comment><USER35> Is comma.ai's driving system at all realistic in terms of actual capability? I don't own a compatiable car (nor have the knowledge or courage) otherwise I would love to install and try to use it.

<comment><USER42> A couple of years ago the founder was super confident that he would have a fully self driving car soon, and definitely before Tesla.

A couple of months ago I read that he decided the problem is basically unsolvable and a human will always need to be involved.

He's still right about being "before Tesla" as long as Tesla never figures it out either.

<comment><USER43> > A couple of months ago I read that he decided the problem is basically > unsolvable and a human will always need to be involved.

Are you referring to the Engadget article? I understood him differently.

<comment><USER44> The copy on [https://comma.ai/](https://comma.ai/) has certainly changed tone from what it once was.

Now it is clearing pushing a driver-assist angle ("improves your stock ACC and LKAS," "copilot," "augment"). No mention of "self-driving," "autonomous," or the like.

Previously, it was clearly marketing a full-self-driving, no human involved system: "ghostriding for the masses," "software to make your car self driving."

<comment><USER43> It could be for liability reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> awesome

</comment><comment><USER46> Real old news

</comment><comment><USER47> Personally, I will never let a machine take over controlling a automobile I'm in. Never.

They may be good enough some decades from now, but they are not now and we are a long, long way from getting to the point where they are.

This has been proven too many times already to trust my life in a machine doing highway speeds, and I trust them even less on streets and roads.

For the record, I've never caused an accident in my 46 years of driving. The only accident I've been in was with a dumbass who turned left in front of me at an intersection I'd already entered and I was able to minimize the impact by slowing down before they did that and steering into the least damaging hit for me because I was watching the driver's eyes and body and could see they were thinking about it and then decided to do it.

No self driving car can do that now and it will be a very long time before they can.

<comment><USER48> No self-driving car will turn left in front of you either. Pendulum swings both ways.

The self-driving car could very well have reacted faster than you ever could have, saving your life even in the many crash situations where you wouldn't have had any idea of the other driver's intention.

<comment><USER28> Or a self driving car, would have plowed ahead and never hit the brake.

There's an assumption that self driving will be safer, but it's not necessary (there's very little public data with any reasonable detail), and plenty of anecdotes where the car did something very abnormal. Furthermore, you have self-driving backers like Andrew No, publicly moving the goal posts to justify the investments.

My point is, in 2019, self driving cars don't work very well, and there's little expectation that they will work well in the near to medium future, so it's silly to sing their praises now.

<comment><USER49> My car saved my ass.

Southern Illinois, destination Niagara. Going through one small town after another. Flat. Boring. Autopilot is on. Highway is 4 lane divided, no service road. Occasional farmers market roads.

Driving for a couple of hours, not much to see (and smell) but farmland. Southern Illinois is incredibly boring. Start to pass an 18-wheeler on my right.

Not paying 100% attention because... boring.

Car starts freaking out, loud warning signals. Engages the brakes, hard. Some old lady had pulled out to cross the highway, so that she was halfway in my lane. Couldn't see her because of 18-wheeler. She couldn't see me for the same reason. Stupid.

Car saw her before I did, took appropriate measures. I would have been in a nasty wreck if if I hadn't had it. She probably would have died, because I would have hit her driver's side. Would have been nasty regardless.

So three cheers for autopilot from this driver. Saved the day.

More. Please.

<comment><USER50> What the hell was the 18 wheeler doing in the left lane?

Note that you didn't need autopilot here, just collision avoidance system.

<comment><USER49> "on my right."

He was in the right lane.

<comment><USER50> Oh, my bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I know tons of developers clinging onto their old Macbooks who refuse to buy the new generation and many are changing to PC's.

My GoPro has a USB-C port on it. My USB-C to USB-C data cable won't recognise it on my MBP. Have to use USB-C > USB-A -> Dongle -> USB-C.

My left arrow key sticks after my keyboard replacement.

I still keep ghost tapping that damn escape key on the touchbar after 3 years.

Apple: Forget all that, let's invest in self driving cars and new watch bands.

<comment><USER52> The USB-C thing is a nightmare because you can't extend Thunderbolt and every Thunderbolt accessory comes with some arbitrary length someone decided (usually about 20cm) that barely allows you to reorient the device next to the laptop where your hand is supposed to be.

There literally exists no male to female thunderbolt extenders in the usb-c form factor. I tried buying a non Intel approved one and hesitantly, after weighing the risks of even plugging it in, found it would power the Thunderbolt device but couldn't move data.

(For the information of the reader, Thunderbolt exists above USB-C and USB-C connectors lack Thunderbolt data pins and hence downgrade Thunderbolt back to just regular USB-C)

<comment><USER53> The Lenovo 40AC0135US acts as a male to female extender (+ port replicator). I have one on a 6' 40GBPS 100W cable to my laptop, and the 40AC0135US has a female port allowing you to daisy chain X, has been working great the last 18 months with no issues, mac or PC.

<comment><USER52> In my case I did something like this (used an ALOGIC part) but glued the extender upside-down under the laptop stand with araldite since there was no easy way of mounting it out the way of my hands but close enough that the 15cm cable would reach.

Voided quite a few warranties working around the awkwardness</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Music Service - <AUTHOR> http://music.google.com/music <comment><USER2> From the screenshot, it looks even less useful than Amazon's player.

You have to upload all of your own music yourself, which would take forever for anyone who has a collection big enough that they can't carry on their phone or ipod. Also, there is absolutely no conceivable benefit to musicians. At least amazon allows you to easily buy albums.

There doesn't appear to be any useful additional functionality either. Social interaction, concert ticket listings, artist info, last.fm tag data, lyrics and all the other things I'd want from a google music service don't look like they're going to be available.

<comment><USER3> I think you forget the core value: listen to your music everywhere.

That isn't compelling?

<comment><USER4> Cool, I'll just upload all my music, turn on my car radio, and ... hey wait a minute.

<comment><USER5> 1\. Upload music. 2\. Turn on car radio 3\. Connect smartphone to car radio

<comment><USER6> This is what I do.

Now I just need my phone to auto-realize it's in the car and start playing music over Bluetooth or something to the car stereo. Too bad I have an iPhone - if I had an Android I'd be tempted to implement this myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are interested in this problem but can't get into the beta yet, check out my app: <http://www.audiogalaxy.com>.

You have to leave your home computer running, but it is totally free, available outside of the US, and has both Android and iOS apps.

<comment><USER8> Oh my... did you guys (Audiogalaxy) have P2P file downloading waaay back in the day, like 2001-2002?

I want to say the first or second thing I was told by roommates to install when I booted up my first computer in college was an Audiogalaxy client.

Logo looks familiar... name sounds familiar... say it's so?

<comment><USER7> Yup, that is us. We were out of the music biz for a while (<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/foldershare>) but are back now with a slightly different business model.

<comment><USER9> _Audiogalaxy doesn't support Linux natively. However, you can run it under Wine._

:(

I'll give it a shot using Wine, but a real client would be so much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States_

It bothers me when this happens... I end giving up to find proxies or other ways to reach the site.

<comment><USER11> Same here. This happen so often that I might consider renting a VPS in the US to use it as a proxy. I found some at $5/mo with 250GB/mo for bandwidth, I even think it's enough to share and pay only $2.5/mo...

<comment><USER12> That's what I did - I got a cheapest VPS for $5 so that I can stream stuff from Hulu/CrunchyRoll/and few other services.

Plus - it's always useful to have a VPS anyway.

<comment><USER13> Do you just port forward with SSH via -D? Or do you use some sort of VPN solution?

<comment><USER11> Yep what I would do is just `ssh -C -N -D <port> <host>` and then tell my browser to use the SOCKS proxy at localhost:<port>.

(BTW, -D create a SOCKS proxy, port fowarding is done using -L :-).)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Requires Flash; no Linux manager available.

<comment><USER2> Where's the HTML5 love? :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is not what I thought they would be releasing at all. I was hoping that it would just introspect your personal music collection and allow you access to any track that it found that had a match in their music catalog. I really don't want to upload my entire music collection somewhere else as it would take forever and while it's free now there may be usage fees on transfer in the future.

<comment><USER16> i drool to what you thought they would be releasing.

EDIT: by drool i mean salivate. that certainly sounds like an amazing service.

<comment><USER17> The frustrating thing is that's how lala worked. The upside is that maybe possibly Apple will keep that feature for their version of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing that I have been thinking about in relation to all these new streaming services coming out is that one thing that I am really keen on seeing is if the service will allow exporting of your listens, to last.fm for scrobling or just general export of listen analytics. I am hoping it is in the pipe line for Amazon & Google and whatever Apple delivers - however I am not holding my breath. I think google has the best shot of allowing the data captured out but for people like myself who really enjoying sending that info into other people's suggestion algos I hope with this new line of services I am not put in a box and forced to only use on the suggestion features of the provider (which usually only ends up being from record companies whom they have deals with). Don't fail me Google ;) !

<comment><USER19> Audiogalaxy scrobbles to Last.fm, FWIW

<comment><USER18> as does rdio.com (pure streaming service). One of the features I like about both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Note: music.google.cn is available in China for years now.

<comment><USER2> Can you explain very briefly what it does? The only part I can read is "Music streaming/download services are not available in your region"

Is it the same product they're rolling out in the US?

<comment><USER21> It is not the same. It is free for search, download and stream, and Google China actually has a deal with big Chinese Record Labels. But from what learned years ago, it cannot stream music to mobile devices.

<comment><USER20> > a deal with big Chinese Record Labels

Are you sure?

music.google.cn is cooperated with YaoMing's top100.cn, here is the list of labels

<http://www.top100.cn/corparation/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is the service called "Music Beta"? Or is it just that the Music service is currently in a beta release?

The logo is pretty confusing with equal size given to both 'music' and 'beta'. While I'm excited to try the service, I find the logo a bit awkward and underwhelming.

<comment><USER23> Google has decided that music in general is still in the beta stage. I don't see them ever removing that label.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks like they're finally putting the Simplify Media technology to use. That was my favorite app on iPhone and I used it at work constantly too.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would love for them to integrate podcasts with this. Google Listen is great, but is definitely showing its age.

</comment><comment><USER26> The look and feel somehow looks inconsistent with other google products

<comment><USER27> Could you explain a little more? The web interface is just like the Android Market. The Android phone player is a different UI though.

<comment><USER28> I think that's precisely what parent comment is referencing; the Music design scheme may be familiar to Android users, but non-Android users likely see it as a bit surprising/inconsistent. Two quick examples: button styling and top account-bar background.

This is also somewhat revealing of how Google wants this app perceived. I see it as leaning _heavily_ toward a native experience on Android devices, and a push from that mobile experience into the browser. It's interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's the help page that might provide some extra information: <http://www.google.com/support/music/>

<comment><USER29> The "about" page is also slightly more interesting: <http://music.google.com/about/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This would be compelling with an iOS client. Until then...

</comment><comment><USER31> Screenshots for those of us outside the US please!

<comment><USER32> Here's a YouTube demo (I don't know if it's US-only): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrNhKcxBbZo>

And here's a screenshot of the page: [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12299925/About%20Music%20Beta%20by%2...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12299925/About%20Music%20Beta%20by%20Google.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm getting the 'only available in the United States error' could someone let us know how much this service will cost?

</comment><comment><USER34> I can't imagine Google is thrilled about using Flash. How long before Chrome gets DRM?

</comment><comment><USER35> I would have thought Google had learned their lesson about doing limited roll- outs: that artificially limiting the network effect kills your product. What worked for GMail hasn't worked anywhere else.

<comment><USER36> Seemed to do nothing but the opposite when they rolled out gmail.

<comment><USER35> My argument would be that GMail didn't need network effects since it was just email and you could easily use GMail while your friends still used whatever they used to use. Contrast to Wave where limited invites kept your friends from using it which kept you from using it.

<comment><USER37> this music thing isn't a social thing at all really though, it's pure utility and convenience. In this form anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> i wonder how much space we'll be given. i can't seem to find it on any of the screens

<comment><USER38> They had a slide that said "20,000 songs".

<comment><USER39> If you were to go for a (really) conservative estimate of 3MB/mp3, that tops out at 7.5GB. I'd be interested in hearing what their pricing would be for more space. I jumped the gun and bought 50gb worth of space on Amazon Cloud Drive. Their player and lack of linux support both suck so if Google can beat them on either front and price, I might switch. At this point I trust Google alot more than Amazon at developing a good software product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why would I pay for this over a service I already pay for and love (Rdio)? Looking for some thoughts

<comment><USER41> Looking at your comment history I have to wonder if this is a genuine question or random negative grumpy rhetoric trolling.

Rdio seems to have a selected catalogue, while you could upload your own collection to this Google Music service.</comment></comment>


Joe Biden 2020 Plan Sets Tax Penalties for Companies' Offshore Hiring - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-09/biden-plan-sets-tax-penalties-for-companies-offshore-profits <comment><USER2> > Biden will propose a 28% corporate tax rate plus a 10% penalty surtax on the > profits from any production by a U.S. company overseas for sale on American > soil, making the overall tax rate on those profits 30.8%.

Don't do a percent of a percent.

Biden will propose corporate tax rate of 28%, plus an additional 2.8% on profits from any production by a U.S. company overseas for sale on American soil.</comment>


30 Days of Cold Showers: Not What I Was Expecting - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/lifetizr/i-took-a-cold-shower-everyday-for-30-days-393d9f99138e <comment><USER2> My water heater was out of service for a few weeks (long story) and so I was taking cold showers every day and/or night for the better part of a month.

They were refreshing. I'm not sure I'm willing to bet the farm on their medicinal properties, but they jolted me awake and I felt good afterwords.

The cold shower itself pretty much sucked, and so I would do everything I could to minimize the amount of time in there. Which probably isn't great hygiene-wise.

Nowadays I'll take a cold shower here and there, but most of the time I go with lukewarm-to-warm temp showers.

</comment><comment><USER3> >"For me, that was all I needed. Understanding that the

 _ability to do things you don't want to do is "the biggest generator of long term results_ ".

[...]

"I think the biggest factor in long term success is the ability to follow your plan, do the next thing you have to do today and overcome the inevitable feeling of not wanting to do certain things.

So I decided to

 _consider the ability to do things I don't want to do but have to do as a skill I could improve_

, and to me, a morning cold shower was the single best way to train it."

</comment><comment><USER4> About twice a year I have to remind myself that I will feel much better after overexertion (eg, sweaty chores) if I shower and then finish by turning the water about as cold as I can take it.

<comment> im3w1l-alt The article literally says not to do this.

<comment><USER4> Where the article describes an entirely different scenario _and_ protocol is that what you mean by 'literally'?

I'm not doing this to become big and strong. I'm doing it so I don't feel overheated for the next couple hours, sweating into my clean clothes and feeling like this was a mistake and I shouldn't do it again.

Technically correct but demotivating strategies are a Pyrrhic victory.</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 52 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.0/releasenotes/ <comment><USER2> Firefox is the first major browser to support CSS Grids out of the box.

[https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/01/css- grid](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/01/css-grid) is a simple introduction to it.

[http://gridbyexample.com/](http://gridbyexample.com/) is probably the best reference site.

[https://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/grid/](https://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/grid/) is another very nice single-page reference.

Some technical examples from Igalia, who have been implementing Grid in Blink and Webkit: [http://igalia.github.io/css-grid- layout/](http://igalia.github.io/css-grid-layout/)

Some lovely creative examples from Mozilla's Jen Simmons:

[http://labs.jensimmons.com/](http://labs.jensimmons.com/)

[http://labs.jensimmons.com/2016/](http://labs.jensimmons.com/2016/)

<comment><USER3> What's the difference between grids and flexbox? To the untrained eye, they look like two alternate layout systems where one should suffice.

<comment><USER4> I wrote up an explanation here: [https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2016/03/30/should-i- use-...](https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2016/03/30/should-i-use-grid-or- flexbox/)

<comment><USER5> Very nice. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Firefox is one of those projects that just keeps on giving, and it's all thanks to the hard work put in by all the contributors. It's easy to forget that sometimes. We use Firefox headlessly to render videos at [https://www.musicvideodispenser.com](https://www.musicvideodispenser.com) , a task that certainly wasn't the initial intended use-case for that browser, but it still works, and we have the Firefox team to thank for that!

<comment><USER7> Can you elaborate on the "using Firefox headlessly" ?

I recently had to deal with WebRTC on a headless machine and managed to hack up something with some Python scripting and GStreamer. I didn't know it was possible to run Firefox headlessly and now you got me wondering whether that would have been preferable to my stitched up solution.

<comment><USER8> Firefox is basically the first port of call for running web tests on buildservers. Run Firefox headlessly in xvfb, then throw Selenium or similar at it. It's a pretty mature setup.

<comment><USER9> I would think PhantomJS, being a headless, scriptable browser (plus built on WebKit so closer rendering to the most popular browser), would be the "first port of call."

<comment><USER10> I have used phantomjs (with casperjs) for scrapping a website, it was complete nightmare.

1\. It use javascript to script so writting sequential code wasn't possible so the code ended up using continuation passing style.

2\. The very first example snippet on the front page don't work in the repl ([https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/11180](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/11180)). So the repl is useless.

3\. When an error occur in your script (not the one on the webpage) there is no message anywhere no matter what you do.

My mistake was to continue with phantomjs the hype around made me think others options would have been worst.

I have used selenium+firefox+php to do a quick test it was wayyyy better, just for n°1 using sequential php remove a lot headaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I did a lot of work on Firefox's NPAPI implementation over the past decade. Improving that code was rewarding in that it had very tangible benefits for Firefox users but it was pretty clear that improving Firefox's code was only going to get us so far, and not far enough. The system is a mess and I couldn't be happier to see Firefox dropping support. I hope I can be the one to rip out the code altogether some day.

</comment><comment><USER12> What I like most about firefox is the mobile version supports addons like ublock origin. In mobile Chrome the support for add blockers is not really well supported.

<comment><USER13> Is this for Android only or iOS also? I can't find an option for addons in iOS Firefox.

<comment><USER14> Firefox for iOS is a lie. It's a non-Firefox browser just set up to sync FF settings and bookmarks and kinda look like Firefox.

<comment><USER15> > Firefox for iOS is a lie.

That's a bit harsh.

> It's a non-Firefox browser just set up to sync FF settings and bookmarks and > kinda look like Firefox.

It's a WebView-wrapper like all other iOS "browsers" because that's everything Apple will allow. To be fair though, synced data, history, passwords and settings is probably one of the most important things for a mobile user, where entering things manually is a pain in the ass.

Basically NOT having this would risk losing users on the desktop (to something which _does_ sync). And right now, Firefox can't afford to do that.

<comment><USER16> I'm not too familiar with how heavily locked down iOS is: does this "WebView only" policy only apply to apps released via the AppStore? Meaning, can I build locally and sideload install an app that uses my own engine? And if that existed, could I open source it for others to use?

<comment> TD-Linux Yes and yes, though that would require your users to pay $100 per year, install Xcode, and compile your app.

<comment><USER15> > and compile your app

Which in turn would mean that lots of people would have to shell out several hundred dollars more for a Mac just to build it.

It's not exactly a stellar deployment-model when you try to push it at scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Added support for WebAssembly, an emerging standard that brings near-native > performance to Web-based games, apps, and software libraries without the use > of plugins.

I've been watching this from the sidelines... what's the best way to dive into WebAssembly? Or is it just waiting for tooling to catchup to produce it for WebAssembly-enabled browsers to execute?

<comment><USER18> The WASM Explorer is a good place to start. I wrote up a little blurb about it: [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/previewing-the- webassembly...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/previewing-the-webassembly- explorer/)

Lin Clark's Cartoon Intro to WebAssembly is also great: [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/02/a-cartoon-intro-to- webasse...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/02/a-cartoon-intro-to-webassembly/)

Rasumus Andersson's WASM Intro dives deeper into the binary format and wasm semantics: [https://rsms.me/wasm-intro](https://rsms.me/wasm-intro)

Lastly, the WASM Community Group's page at [http://webassembly.org](http://webassembly.org) is quite good.

The tooling story is currently the same as it was for asm.js: Use the Emscripten fork of LLVM. Upstream support is being worked on in LLVM, and Rust has a cross-compiler in the works.

<comment><USER19> Given that WASM is a stack-based language, do you think it would be a good target for a modern concatenative language? Something like, say, Kitten?

[http://kittenlang.org/](http://kittenlang.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Enhanced Sync to allow users to send and open tabs from one device to > another.

If you haven't used this, try it out, it's a fantastic feature. I use it all the time to send a page I'm reading on my phone to my laptop, and vice versa.

<comment><USER21> On desktop, does it still require installation of this addon to get the UI bits? [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/send-tab- to-d...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/send-tab-to-device/)

EDIT asking because it's been this way for a long time, see [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/PushTabToDevice#Desktop_Im...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/PushTabToDevice#Desktop_Implementation) which says _" Currently, push-tab-to-device on desktop must be used through an addon: [send-tab-to-device]"_

<comment><USER22> No, I don't have any extensions like that installed, and the feature just showed up for me.

<comment><USER23> Indeed, we added a "Send Page/Tab/Link to device" menu item to the contextual menu.

<comment><USER24> Is it new to 52? I hadn't seen a menu until today and really wanted to have that feature.

<comment><USER23> Yes this UI is new, there was an unofficial add-on [0] before that did something similar.

During my internship this summer we also added Push capabilities to decrease the time it takes to send a tab to another device (it used to be in the order of minutes).

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/firefox/addon/send-tab- to-d...](https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/firefox/addon/send-tab-to-device/)

<comment><USER25> It appears you don't have to have tab sync on for it to work. Mine does take a very long time to be received. Definitely a great feature, I don't want full tab sync just this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Starting from this release, Firefox now requires PulseAudio for sound on Linux [1]. ALSA can still be enabled at build time for now, but is not supported.

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247056](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247056)

<comment><USER27> How does this fit in with the current state of sound on Linux?

I'd guess that this would impact relatively few people if they're willing to require it.

<comment><USER28> I do most of the audio work on the Wine project.

I personally think it's a bad move to drop official support for ALSA. Not everyone can or wants to use PulseAudio, for various good and bad reasons. Supporting multiple backends also keeps you "honest," so to speak, preventing you from relying on certain behaviors or features that only some platforms support.

But, I can understand the practical arguments behind dropping support for ALSA. The ALSA API really sucks to work with. There's a fair number of bugs and device quirks and whatnot that you have to take care of as an application developer. Standardizing around PulseAudio means only PulseAudio has to care about those quirks, instead of every single application. In practice, the vast majority of users use PulseAudio; there's a small (but vocal) minority that don't.

So really there's no clear winner on whether to provide support for ALSA.

<comment><USER29> Like many Poettering products, PulseAudio polarizes. There's one minority of users with either quirky setups or just bad luck for whom it just doesn't work, so they have to stick with ALSA. One minority of users (including me) who really loves the features it puts on the table (e.g. per-app volume control, effortless network transparency).

And of course, there's a large majority of users who couldn't care less, and who will just choose whatever their distribution installs (which is why I think the most Linux users not using PulseAudio are on those distros which don't install any sound stuff by default, e.g. Arch).

<comment><USER30> > Like many Poettering products

I didn't know pulseaudio was a Poettering product, but I know very well that pulseaudio has been a nightmare for me over the years on most setups with a variety of linux boxes and distros. And the fix when an audio problem arise is simply to uninstall pulseaudio and use alsa.

Now that I know pulseaudio is Poettering work, this makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER31> Pulseaudio, Avahi and Systemd are his. Seems to be directly or indirectly inspired by Apple.

I have seen claims that Network Manager is his as well, but so far i have found no clear link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just added Firefox 52 to Browserling. You can try this new version at this URL without installing it:

[https://www.browserling.com/firefox/52/news.ycombinator.com](https://www.browserling.com/firefox/52/news.ycombinator.com)

If the demand is too high then you'll have to wait in a queue for a while to try it. I'm adding more servers right now to let more people try it without waiting.

<comment><USER33> Out of curiosity, what's the difference between browserling and a service like browserstack?

<comment><USER32> Biggest difference is that Browserling is powered by alien technology, unlike Browserstack that is powered by puny human technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Congrats Firefox team! I've been using the latest Nightly releases (for container tabs!) as my daily driver and it has been a rock-solid experience.

Thanks for the hard work

<comment><USER35> There's now also a Firefox Testpilot experiment for container tabs: [https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers](https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers)

<comment><USER36> Thank you! I've been eagerly awaiting containers for a while, but didn't want to switch to nightly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Removed support for Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI) plugins other than Flash. > Silverlight, Java, Acrobat and the like are no longer supported.

Good bye, you will be missed (not).

<comment><USER38> They were the only way to get hardware accelerated video on Linux.

Even today, Firefox decodes all video (even h264) on CPU.

Which causes, with 4K 60fps video, 50% CPU load on an entire core for me.

<comment><USER39> > Which causes, with 4K 60fps video, 50% CPU load on an entire core for me.

Is that a punch line? Because it sounds like one. What is that, like, 6.25% of your total CPU power?

I say this because many people have machines with CPUs that can't decode 4K 60fps video in realtime at all. So your stat sounds like a great deal to me.

Having said that, hardware video decoding is important for this very reason. It's a shame that the situation isn't better on Linux. It seems like, no matter what site or browser--Chrome or Firefox--VLC always plays the same video with far less CPU usage.

<comment><USER40> It is problematic especially for newer codecs like h265 which uses approximately 3x the CPU cycles.

Which pushes you beyond what a single core is capable off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> And still no support for <input type="date"> . I just can't believe Firefox is behind Edge on this one. I'm using Firefox as main browser for years now, and it feels so bad when I always need to use a polyfill when developing a form with date field - to support Firefox. It's embrassing that Chrome supported it since... Chrome 20, in 2012.

<comment><USER35> I think this is in Nightly and now Firefox Developer Edition (54) behing a pref: [https://twitter.com/mozhacks/status/821005161602646016](https://twitter.com/mozhacks/status/821005161602646016)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You might want to switch yourself to the ESR branch if you depend on add-ons that will not update to the new Web Extensions API. The old extensions model is scheduled to be removed in FF 57, later this year. But 52 ESR will be supported until at least mid-2018.

Edit: switched "plugins" to "add-ons".

<comment><USER42> Based on [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal) it looks like 52 ESR will be the latest ESR when 57 is released. Is that right?

<comment><USER31> Seems i need to consider a full time move to Palemoon, as i am currently on 45esr (their last GTK2 based esr).

Its really "funny" how it seems i can get Qt5 to work on an "old" X11 install, but GTK3 balks at same.

If the FOSS world really wants a foot in the door on the desktop they really need to learn to properly do backwards compatibility. Yes, it is not a glorious job unlike working on the latest shiny framework or language. But it is what has kept the likes of Microsoft in the top spot all this time.

Frankly i fear that once Torvalds steps down as kernel boss, Linux as a whole will fragment into a million variants with diverging APIs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Past few days I've been making a Befunge JIT that targets WASM: [https://github.com/serprex/Befunge/blob/master/funge.js](https://github.com/serprex/Befunge/blob/master/funge.js)

Ended up finding that Firefox 52 is overly accepting in validation. Dead code is allowed to pop from an empty stack, whereas in Chrome that's not allowed (as per spec). It's fixed already in next versions of Fx

<comment><USER44> > Past few days I've been making a Befunge JIT that targets WASM

 _why??????????????_

<comment><USER29> Science isn't about _why?_ , it's about _why not!?_.

<comment><USER44> This isn't science, this is art. Specifically, this is like making Pollock's Autumn Rythm out of play-dough.

<comment><USER29> I see you haven't recognized the reference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> _sigh_ I had to switch to Chromium because they've broken + disabled HW acceleration on Linux, and my 2016 netbook is too slow to browse amazon or read news without it. Here is the bug:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594876](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594876)

In the release notes for 52, it says hangouts is broken. I wonder if this means all of webrtc is broken or not.

Regressing "stable" features like these is creating serious problems for end users. I wish they'd focus on keeping the ship afloat instead of continuing to chase the new shiny. I really don't like relying on google (or any other ad/surveillance shop) for my web browser.

<comment><USER46> Here's Google's official post about the Hangouts issue: [https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/google- hangouts...](https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/google-hangouts- temporary-issues-with-firefox.html)

<comment><USER47> And the HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13763759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13763759)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Firefox for Android recently stopped showing me the "Send to Firefox" option in the share menu. I previously used it all the time to send tabs to my desktop. Does anyone know what happened or how to get it back?

<comment><USER23> Is this related? [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1342881](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1342881)

<comment><USER48> Yea, that looks similar. I'm not in the beta channel, though, I'm on 51.0.3.

I am signed in and have synced recently.

<comment><USER48> I think it is the same issue. Changing my clock makes the option re-appear, just as described in the issue comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> WASM, Grid, deprecation of NPAPI and SHA-1 certs, all in one release. That is huge. A very important release!

</comment><comment><USER50> Doesn't mention if the major problem I have with Firefox 51 is fixed. It makes a new, unauthenticated request every time I do View Source rather than showing the source of the page I'm looking at, which is an extreme PITA.

If View Source works properly, that'd be worth upgrading for immediately.

<comment><USER22> That is annoying, but does the Inspector in the Developer Tools show what you're looking for?

<comment><USER50> As far as I know the way to get the unmodified source in the Developer tools is to find the html request in the Network tab, click on it, go to the Response tab of the small panel on the right and read the source out of said small panel (it's about 65x11 chars here). I'd much, much rather be able to just hit Ctrl-U and read it in a new tab. If there's an easier way then I'd like to know about it.

<comment><USER51> For me it suffices, though I too would prefer if "View source" just showed this same content. Maybe an extension could hijack Ctrl-U and display fetched source?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> And so the age of WebAssembly begins...

<comment><USER53> What I ask myself, is this really the end of JavaScript?

WASM reminds me of the NDK on Android. A way to write high performance GC-less code, but nobody started to use it for other things than high performance computations.

Will people really start to port runtime environments to WASM so they can run Ruby, Python and Java in browsers?

Or will this mainly be a place for C/C++, Rust and co to get some niche high end stuff running?

<comment><USER54> Definitely not the end of JavaScript. But it is the end of JavaScript-only.

It's likely we'll see other languages targeting WebAssembly in the next few years. I heard rumors Microsoft is working on something in that area. If I were to guess, I'd expect a TypeScript-to-WASM and C#-to-WASM to follow. Java, Rust, Go, and others will likely have something too.

Additionally, I expect to see some JS-heavy frameworks (React, Angular, etc.) write performance-critical sections with WASM, thus benefiting a great number of web apps.

<comment><USER55> Where did you hear these rumors? I could see a WebAssembly target for MSVC in the near future (say hello to Office in the browser) but the CoreCLR needs GC so it's currently out of the question.

<comment><USER54> I heard this directly from a higher up at MS during a conference afterparty. He said he couldn't wait for browser support for Web Assembly to go live so he can show the things they're working on.

And yeah, for C# to WASM, we'd need garbage collection support in WASM. That doesn't exist yet, though it's on the list of future enhancements[0].

[0]: [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/02/where-is-webassembly- now-a...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/02/where-is-webassembly-now-and- whats-next/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> If you're using Tree Style Tab and this upgrade causes new tabs to appear after a delay of many seconds... setting browser.tabs.animate to false resolved it for me (macOS 10.12).

</comment><comment><USER57> Mozilla says 'Enabled multi-process Firefox for Windows users with touch screens', however on my Dell XPS 13 it still says multiprocess windows are 'Disabled by accessibility tools' in about:support, which was the touch screen issue. Any ideas?

<comment><USER58> Are you running a 32-bit Firefox or 64-bit? I _think_ the touchscreen thing was only fixed for 32-bit for the Firefox 52 release, and the fix for 64-bit will be in Firefox 54.

I'll see about getting the release notes fixed to reflect that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'd love to see some webassymbly benchmarks now with 52 stable.

</comment><comment><USER60> Most important to me from this release: webdriver finally supports self-signed certificates.

<comment><USER61> Nice. Maybe it's finally time to upgrade to the latest Firefox for testing. We had been pegged at an older version because we ran into some issues with the new (at the time) MarionetteDriver[1], but I imagine the migration might be smoother now.

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/QA/Marionet...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/QA/Marionette)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Can't wait for servo to be shipped so that everyone can move back again to Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER63> Despite of my media.gmp-provider.enabled setting being set to false Firefox makes a connection to ciscobinary.openh264.org on port 80 and downloads the h264 decoder binary provided by Cisco.

Does this mean that the library is being downloaded (and executed) using plain HTTP without any authentication? Sounds like a nice target for QUANTUM style MITM attacks.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm still rockin Firefox 33 (released 2014) on one of my PCs. Sad to observe websites which fail and throw errors without any grace including big sites like Netflix and others.

Strange errors and broken functionality usually without any mention of my browser being the problem. That's sloppy development. A browser from 2014 isn't "Netscape 3".

Signed up to Google Firebase recently. Tried navigating to the console on my PC with Firefox 33, "there was an error completing your request". That's because I was using a browser from 2014. No mention of that in the error. At first I thought the service was down, then I tried a newer browser.

Backwards compatibility or at least graceful degradation and error handling is accessibility. Your site either has it or it doesn't.

<comment><USER65> Why are you using such an old browser? Part of the reason sites are built for current browsers is that responsible users should be updating their browsers frequently.

With as many ways as you can have your machine compromised by simply browsing to a website that had some malicious advertising code embedded, I can't imagine why anybody would use such an old browser if they weren't absolutely forced to.

<comment><USER66> I use Firefox 29 for most of my profiles. Because I have a very specific workflow with add-ons, that runs circles around any Chrome user.

It's also more secure, because of my external sandboxing.

I also have my own container mechanism for Firefox that I have been using for years.

And this is what the web is all about. It used to be that the web was accessible to people in remote parts of the world, using old hardware, and anyone could write and add to it.

Now it's quickly becoming a black box that only wealthy people can access.

<comment><USER67> That's quite the hyperbole.

The performance gains that come with newer browsers (generally) should allow websites to run on older hardware. Not to mention support for new protocols and compression that lead to smaller assets being sent to all devices.

<comment><USER66> I can see how my comment wasn't clear. The fact that disadvantaged people are being driven off the web has nothing to do with the fact that I have a highly customized browser setup. I probably should have made that more clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> > Removed support for Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI) plugins other than Flash. > Silverlight, Java, Acrobat and the like are no longer supported.

That's really, really bad. At this point Firefox was the only browser which was supporting Java on Linux. I am forced to stick to the 51 version (52 64bit ESR does not support Java also).

You may ask, why on earth do you need Java inside your browser in 2017? My company, which does not support Linux, uses Java applet to create system-wide VPN connections to the client's networks and Firefox was the only choice.

</comment><comment><USER69> It's frustrating that multi-process is _still_ not enabled on my touchscreen windows laptop. The about:support page says "Disabled by accessibility tools". Feel like I've been waiting for this feature to arrive for years.

<comment><USER70> Multi-process support for Windows touchscreens should be coming in Firefox 53, according to the release notes. 53 will enter the Firefox Beta channel this week or next.

[https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/53.0a2/releasenotes/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/53.0a2/releasenotes/)

<comment><USER71> Since "Enabled multi-process Firefox for Windows users with touch screens" is in the Firefox 52 release notes, it should be enabled now. I don't understand how else that note could be interpreted.

<comment><USER72> I'm the developer responsible for multiprocess on touch screens. There was a mixup in the release notes.

This is what the realities of the situation are:

Touchscreen Windows users running 32-bit Firefox 52 should have multiprocess.

Touchscreen Windows users running 64-bit Firefox will not have multiprocess until version 54.

<comment><USER71> Thanks for the clarification. And thank you for the work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here's a more hacker oriented write-up at [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/firefox-52-introducing- web...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/firefox-52-introducing-web-assembly- css-grid-and-the-grid-inspector/) (published today). Discussion (if it comes) at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812145)

</comment><comment><USER73> How is Firefox Android working for everyone? I can't seem to get video player working on some website like bloomberg.com, otherwise I'm a fan of it.

<comment><USER51> Another fan here. There are some rough spots and there doesn't seem to be much done to fix them. I have already cloned the source but haven't found the time to build it yet.

My main gripe is that it doesn't treat closing the window as "exit", which means you must go to menu and select Exit if you want to remove session cookies and similar.

Another one is that selecting text is clumsy because standard Android lens is not used.

But I still prefer FF to its "all-your-data-are-belong-to-us" competition.

<comment><USER74> actually a whole session is the phone turning on and off. So I like this session behavior better. Otherwise unlike apps I have to login again and again to some websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> What happened to TLS 1.3 which was supposed to land in Firefox 52? (At least according to [https://threatpost.com/mozilla-turning-tls-1-3-on-by- default...](https://threatpost.com/mozilla-turning-tls-1-3-on-by-default-with- firefox-52/121461/))

Not that I'm ungrateful; Firefox is my preferred browser.

</comment><comment><USER76> It is annoying that I have to install pulseaudio if I want to continue using Firefox for media consumption.

</comment><comment><USER77> I have one question: when I hit "." in twitter.com will the whole thing hang whilst it crunches through the updates?

I moved from chrome to firefox and so far this is my one complaint. This and I believe the CPU usage is higher for the same number of tabs open.

</comment><comment><USER78> Why does Mozilla make it hard to run the sync server (easily) on our own? Just give a docker file. Instead you need a sync server, your own account server.. such poor technical design. These are small features that will make many stick to Firefox.

<comment><USER79> Thank you for pointing that out, I don't use the sync feature because I don't like giving too much info to 3rd party services but I never considered running it on one of my servers.

I've just skimmed through this guide: [https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run- sync-1.5.html#h...](https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run- sync-1.5.html#howto-run-sync15)

It doesn't look too difficult and it says that running your own account server is optional. Or does it mean that you can run your own sync server using a mozilla account? I'm not sure I understand how sync server and accounts server interact exactly...

<comment><USER78> This is exactly the problem. They have just made it hard for no reason. I want concrete information as well with an easy to run guide. It's not clear why I need to use Mozilla accounts.

<comment><USER80> > for no reason

What's the reason that they should accommodate you and write you a dockerfile?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Did they bump the minimum Android version required?

I do not see the release via the Play store app, but the web site shows it.

For a project that seems to bill itself as being for the people, they seems awful quick at dropping backwards compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER81> What are the supported operating systems, I don't see any list of supported OS's ? i did the upgrade and it just crashed on startup (on windows 7 enterprise edition), Installing from scratch didn't help either.

<comment><USER58> [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.0/system- requiremen...](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.0/system- requirements/) has the list. Windows 7 is supported...

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> woohoo CSS Grid! It's happening!

</comment><comment><USER83> I hope this update doesn't break Vimperator again.

<comment><USER21> VimFx is enough for me, maybe it's for you too. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/vimfx/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/vimfx/)

<comment><USER83> Thanks! I hadn't seen it, but Vimperator was what finally got me to switch from Chrome/Vimium. If it's customizable enough that I can remap `d` to close a tab and `u` to reopen, I'll be happy... but then I guess I don't need to be happy, as I won't have a choice soon enough :)

<comment><USER29> Oh, I feel you. I had a hard time remapping Vimperator "Ctrl-u/d" to VimFX "u/d" and Vimperator "u/d" to VimFX "x/X" in my muscle memory.

On the other hand, some parts of VimFX's language are more logical, e.g. "yf" instead of ";y" to select a link into the clipboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Still no hardware accelerated video on Linux. Everytime Mozilla adds new features, I am reminded of this:

[https://xkcd.com/619/](https://xkcd.com/619/)

</comment><comment><USER85> Does Pentadactyl still work in this release?

</comment><comment><USER86> What percent of Google Voice users will abandon Firefox now that v52 breaks a key component of their workflow?

[https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/google- hangouts...](https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/google-hangouts- temporary-issues-with-firefox.html)

Ironically, Mozilla has stated that breaking all these user plugins is part of some strategy to _regain_ market share and "influence web standards". Now that it's actually happening, I'm hoping more people will see how it's not going to work.

<comment><USER87> Why is Google relying on an NPAPI plugin for Hangouts, rather than using WebRTC?

<comment><USER88> This is the old version of hangouts, so I guess a) because WebRTC didn't exist/was too new at the time, and b) hats

<comment><USER70> Hangouts switched from NPAPI to WebRTC in Chrome back in 2014, but still uses plugins (NPAPI or ActiveX) for other browsers. Hangouts depends on some non- standard WebRTC functionality in Chrome. Google has had almost three years to adapt to other browsers' WebRTC stacks, but it is not a priority because the plugins have still worked (in Firefox < 52 and IE).

[https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3Pc...](https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3PcLye)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lean Startup Stack: Free Software Products for Bootstrapping Startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/siliconcfo/the-lean-startup-stack-free-software-products-for-bootstrapping-startups-dd212c6ed5b7 <comment><USER2> Tools need to be evaluated against your long term goals. It won't be easy to migrate and will likely face lock-in later. Consider the following before picking the right tool for your business.

Make sure the tools you choose give you the option to scale or remain cost- effective at scale. Some free tools can easily cost more in the long run.

If you are not sure, you might be pleasantly surprised by how well a spreadsheet works for now. This will give you a chance to delay the decision until you have more information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Solid advice. Many of the tools listed that are "free" simply have a free tier. The free option could very be the wrong option, and it may make more sense to pay a little bit to start off with the right tools.</comment></comment>


Bootstrapping a Startup is a State of Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.vendscreen.com/vending-technology-blog/bootstrapping-a-startup-is-a-state-of-mind/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's so much about bootstrapping vs. funded as just being frugal.

Not all bootstrapped companies are low on money, some had plenty of their own to put in, or others have achieved profitability.

This is a way of running a company for sure, but I think it would be better put as "Frugal is a state of mind".

</comment><comment><USER3> "In a way, it wasn't really a sense of accomplishment for us; the funding simply signified the beginning of additional hard work to be done and the responsibility we owed to our investors."

I like to think this is the attitude I'd have if I ever got funded. I see the same thing play out with grant funding in education. Sometimes big grants are seen as piles of cash; the educators I respect most always see big grants as the beginning of some hard but hopefully meaningful work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would you accept a tranched Series A? It's not really 1998 anymore.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry, no-one with a 12MM Series A is bootstrapping.</comment>


AppRater – Discover new web apps - <AUTHOR> https://apprater.net <comment><AUTHOR> I've been running this website for many years, any tips on how I can make it better? AMA

Thanks!</comment>


Federal appeals court rules for Comcast and against FCC on net neutrality case - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/technology/sns-ap-us-tec-internet-rules,0,6955319.story

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it might take an act of Congress to bestow the authority? Can't find the full text of the decision yet, but first reports seem to suggest the court finds the FCC's authority doesn't extend to enforcing net neutrality rather than net neutrality is itself unenforceable.</comment>


America Obsessed over Janet Jackson. But the NFL Secretly Enraged China - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nfls-big-plans-for-china-slipped-away-11571050803?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> [paywall]</comment>


Word embeddings in 2017: Trends and future directions - <AUTHOR> http://ruder.io/word-embeddings-2017/ <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/kudkudak/word-embeddings- benchmarks](https://github.com/kudkudak/word-embeddings-benchmarks) has a pretty nice evaluation of existing embedding methods. Notably missing from this article is GloVe ( [https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/glove/](https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/glove/)) and LexVec ( [https://github.com/alexandres/lexvec](https://github.com/alexandres/lexvec) ) both which tend to outperform word2vec in both intrinsic and extrinsic tasks. Also of interest are methods which perform retrofitting, improving already trained embeddings. Morph fitting (ACL 2017) is a good example. Hashimoto et al (2016) sheds some interesting insight on how embeddings methods are performing metric recovery. Lots of exciting stuff in this area.

<comment><USER2> Alex Gittens also has a nice paper this year showing how Skipgram enables vector additivity. See [http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P17-1007](http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P17-1007)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No mention of StarSpace (from FaceBook) ? It figures, with the rapid pace of innovation these days.

StarSpace can compute 6 types of entity embeddings, of which word embeddings are just one type. It's a whole family of algorithms.

[https://github.com/facebookresearch/Starspace/](https://github.com/facebookresearch/Starspace/)

<comment><USER4> Note for those who it's relevant for, this is not usable in a commercial setting.

<comment><USER5> I don't really understand the implications of this license. Does it forbid using the resulting vectors for commercial purpose? Or does it only forbid stuff like packaging their code into a product, or offering to run it as a service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My question is what are they really good for.

I mean king = queen -woman + man

That's the kind of thing we have ontologies for.

This article mentions that word embeddings are useful inside translators, but from the viewpoint of somebody who wants to extract meaning from text, what use is something that doesn't handle polysemy and phrases?

<comment><USER7> Word embeddings (or subword embeddings) are used for nearly all recent NLP algorithms, both shallow (e.g. FastText) and deep (e.g. Google Neural Translation). Unless you're using a basic bag-of-words approach, you need to translate your words into some vector format, so you probably want some kind of embeddings. In practice, all the state of the art approaches for translation, language modeling, classification (eg sentiment analysis), etc. all sit on top of embeddings.

It's not word embeddings job to handle phrases - but nearly all modern phrase embedding algorithms sit on top of word embeddings. They often create a weighted average of embeddings by using an attention model, or they can use a more complex model such as an LSTM with attention (e.g. CoVE - [https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.00107](https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.00107) ).

Word embeddings can handle polysemy - high dimensional vectors can (and do) hold information of various types that is used in different contexts in different ways. Some approaches deal with this more directly (e.g. including part-of-speech as part of the vocab item), and that sometimes can help a bit.

<comment><USER6> Maybe I'm not reading it right, but that arXiv paper about CoVE doesn't seem to be getting anywhere near commercially useful results.

For instance, the random result for ImDB in Table 2 is 88.4 and the best one is 92.1; that's really not a lot of lift. I could see TREC-6 and TREC-50 results being good enough to let off the leash, but I still have a hard time picturing this being useful in the real world.

<comment><USER7> Oh BTW the "random" result means randomly initialized vectors. It's still using embeddings, just not pretraining

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I also think that there is still room for improvement for embeddings based on other contexts as pointed in the blog entry. Another example from this year is leveraging dictionary entries as external context - [http://aclweb.org/anthology/D17-1024](http://aclweb.org/anthology/D17-1024) ( _)

Selecting context words differently is also an option for improvement. Using dependency structures to "filter" out context window seems to work better than "filtering" using subsampling frequent words illustrate that there is room. We may see other solutions to select context words in the future, as a building block as it is. Especially lately with the StarSpace hype advocating the idea of general purpose - task-agnostic - embeddings.

Or we can also consider that the expected improvements are insignificant w.r.t. improvements with the model learnt on those embeddings for downstream tasks that may update embeddings especially for this task...

(_) disclaimer: I am a co author

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the note, Christophe. I had missed your paper. I've added a short paragraph with regard to improving negative sampling by incorporating contextual information.

<comment><USER8> Thank you Sebastian.

Keep up the great work !

You will note that negative sampling improved by leveraging information on word pairs form dictionaries entries (we called it "controlled negative sampling") do help, though not much. It actually really depends in the rare words rate (see section 5.4, improvement ranges from 0.7% up to 10%). But I guess it is already an interesting, somehow counter-intuitive, observation.

Another very interesting observation is that you can also choose to just clamp a general purpose dataset and expand it with external contextual information (meaning not using is for supervision but rather just collapse it at the end of the training corpus in a raw form [^]). In our case, we call those corpus : \- corpus A : plain old wikipedia dump \- corpus B : plain old wikipedia dump + dictionaries text collapse at the end of it.

It sounds a bit naive : the latter part of the training corpus is really small w.r.t. the full wikipedia dump. Nonetheless, it has an significant impact on word similarity (see improvement in Table 2 to see how those training corpus influences representations learnt by word2vec, fasttext and dict2vec). (Related to the effect of the training corpus : [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.05523v1.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.05523v1.pdf))

I mention this effect of training corpus content here since it sounds like an interesting info for the working natural language processing practitioners (get a mid size general training corpus, add as many contextual corpus as possible => may yield useful embeddings...).

[^] to be entirely fair, this has been suggested to us by an anonymous reviewer, many thanks for him/her for pointing this out : I found the results surprising.

<comment><USER8> Typo from the blog : "to move related works" => "to move related words"</comment></comment></comment></comment>