ChuChu TV is responsible for widely-viewed toddler content on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/raised-by-youtube/570838/ <comment><USER3> I strongly recommend that you don't let your kids watch YouTube. There's some really low-quality garbage out there and there's just too much to properly curate. After some exploring on my own I absolutely do not trust YouTube at all to filter appropriately. This is just pure garbage streaming into your kids' faces.

Do anything else, Netflix at least has _some_ barrier for kids content... but torrent a bunch kids shows if you have to.

<comment><USER4> My toddler watches shows on there.

It's been good to teach him colours, but it's all very low quality videos with clearly chinese-english influence.

My biggest concern is not the content of those, it's the automatic skip after the episode is over, to "whatever" youtube feels right afterwards, and also the ads being played between episodes, some are about gaming, but violent, and a toddler takes everything he sees as "real".

<comment><USER5> Teach him colors with blocks the way every toddler before 2010 learned them. The most valuable skill of the future will be to not compulsively need screens.

<comment><USER4> I do too of course. He learns colours with food, objects we play with AND TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone has to say it. If you're letting your kid use YouTube or I'd even say the internet or smart phones unsupervised before their brain is well developed you are taking a tremendous risk on their mental development.

A few years back when my kids were toddlers I'd rather naively give them my phone with YouTube on it, and after ignoring them for just 15 mins they'd have switched from whatever edutainment programme I'd put on to a video of a burly pair of hands unwrapping toys - for 4 hours...there are no studies on the long term effects of YouTube on cognitive development in young brains but why wait? It's not like it's rocket science to infer that if you show growing minds poor quality content you're going to get poor quality results.

I don't feel comfortable leaving my kids to watch Netflix either. It's too easy for them to binge watch a half season of Paw Patrol or Omizumi or other similarly lite content. As a kid I remember eagerly waiting for the next episode of He-Man or Ghostbusters but to have had several seasons of dozens of episodes on tap would have been too much to resist. With auto play on these services too it's not like they have the interests of us or our kids at heart.

We need to be super careful here, this is new territory with early indicators showing declines in ability to concentrate in adults from these forms of distraction - god knows what it's doing to our kids.

<comment><USER7> Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours? And unsupervised, too. It sounds to me like it's a bit like letting your children run free in a candy store for hours and then wondering why they ate so much.

I try to teach my kids that these things are tools: we want to know how something works --> there's definitely a video on that --> we found out and turn it off again. And as with any tool, you can use them to become better or to hurt yourself.

<comment><USER8>
      Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe
      the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours?

Isn't your assertion "Youtube isn't a problem so long as you don't watch for 4 hours" and leonroy's that "If you want something to watch for 4 hours, Youtube is a problem" just the same statement worded in different ways?

<comment><USER9> I would say no, the point is that there's _nothing_ that's good to be watched for 4 hours

<comment><USER10> Something like Sesame Street might be good. My problem with YouTube is it creates feedback loops where if you like something you seek out more of it, but with a near infinite range of topics. Throw an underdeveloped mind in there who is using basic stimulus to work out what is good and bad and who knows what will happen.

Wouldn't surprise me if that feedback loop was damaging even for many adults, but at least they are responsible and already have some grasp of how the world should work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My kids watch this stuff constantly and it's just too much and too random to vet it all. I'm putting a lot of trust in YouTube Kids to filter it to quality content.

That trust was shaken the other day when they said "daddy did you know you shouldn't sleep under trees because you can't breathe properly?" I'm like who told you that. "A video."[1]

Turns out it was a "learning" video produced by one of these outfits, not ChuChu but a competitor called AumSum. It's some weird urban myth that has traction in south asia.[2] It's a bastardization of tree respiration biology. They think it puts out enough CO2 at night to impact humans. So don't sleep near it because then you'll be oxygen deprived.

So yeah, apparently someone green-lit that stinker and turned into a cute animation. Which is funny until you realize AumSum as a whole has 139M views. Their _singular mission_ is to make educational science videos.[2] And my kids are 100% addicted to YouTube Kids.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_L7JOYz7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_L7JOYz7U)

[2] Compare the locations of the authors with pro-myth vs anti-myth answers. [https://www.quora.com/Why-do-trees-produce-carbon-dioxide- CO...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-trees-produce-carbon-dioxide-CO2-at-night)

[3] "We try our level best to create highly creative and refreshing videos of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. This channel can prove to be useful for students studying in schools, colleges as well as for people of all ages who have a curious scientific mind." [https://www.youtube.com/user/Smartlearningforall/about](https://www.youtube.com/user/Smartlearningforall/about)

<comment><USER12> Why do you let your kids watch Youtube? I never understood this. You as a parent have sole responsibility for what your kids consume.

<comment><USER11> I know, I'm a shitty parent, and I'm solely responsible for my kids being exposed to shitty things in the world. I should throw out their iPads and read books to them constantly (more than the 20m/day I do every single day after 2h dinner & bedtime process) as well as have a large assortment of crafts and novel activities for them to engage in every morning while I do stuff like bathe and eat. Sorry for being shitty.

<comment><USER13> Don't mind him/her. Distracting a single-digit-aged human long enough to put dinner on the table or get some work done is hard on the best of days.

I don't have kids so I'm curious, why youtube? I assume most families don't have the time for a full time parental distraction but is there really no other alternative? I'd imagine Disney or some other media giant would have figured something out by now. Is youtube content just so practically endless and passive enough that no one can compete? Or is it just that they don't like gaming or TV shows that much (or you dont allow it)?

<comment><USER14> Kids will adjust to whatever their circumstances are though. If you just pull all media, kids will complain for a few days, but eventually just get used to it and play with their real toys. Hell, kids don't even really need toys to have a good time, take those away and they'll go dig in the dirt, jump off couches, and make pillow forts.

It's not hard to "distract toddlers", my daughter is three and LOVES to help cook. She fries eggs pretty well and I figure the worst that'll happen is she'll burn herself (which she hasn't). Given the right opportunities and structure children can actually be much more helpful than we give them credit for, especially in the USA we're just sort of taught that children are useless ingrates that are wholly incapable of the most rudimentary tasks (I mean I was certainly treated that way).

It's a self fulfilling prophecy, the more constantly stimulated the kid is, the more difficult it is for them to pay attention when it's important.

<comment> ux-app > my daughter is three and LOVES to help cook. She fries eggs pretty well

Maybe I'm over protective, but hot oil around a 3 year old sounds like a bad idea. I get it that they _can_ do it, but it only takes 1 accident to scar them for life and 3 year olds are super uncoordinated. I have been called a helicopter parent before though, so maybe it's me being a bit weird.

<comment><USER14> So you're right, it is a bit scary. We cook on low, with just a little bit of butter. I certainly wouldn't deep fry ANYTHING with her around, and when I have the kitchen is a no go zone. To me it's about calculating risk, and a small amount of ~175° with a closely supervised child is not that risky.

I get some judgy looks on the playground for studiously ignoring my kid and letting her play for three hours and everyone else stays for maybe 15 minutes being super engaged with their kids before they get super bored and leave, so I guess I'm not really normal. I consider one of my goals to get my daughter to walk to the park alone at five, since that was the age I had agency to go wherever I wanted. I'm not super optimistic, I may end up moving to a small town to make that possible, if I can get a good remote position eventually.

<comment> ux-app >I consider one of my goals to get my daughter to walk to the park alone at five, since that was the age I had agency to go wherever I wanted.

Are you maybe misremembering your age at the time? I have a 4.5 year old at home and there is no way that I think he will be ready to go the park a couple of streets away on his own. By not ready I mean, in no way capable of judging when to cross a street safely and may get lost on the way, especially if he gets distracted and absentmindedly wanders in an unfamiliar direction.

There was a recent study [1] that showed that kids have a highly elevated risk of accident when crossing the road right up to the age of 14 (!! was surprised to read this). Some points from the research:

\- simulating traffic showed accident rates as high as eight per cent with six-year-olds

\- Even those aged 12 were hit by vehicles two per cent of the time

\- It was not until early adolescence that children crossed the road safely

Just thought I'd point this out in case you were not aware of the research.

Kudos for promoting self-reliance and independence though. I am a long way in the other direction where I do way too much to try and ensure my kid's safety. I know I need to ease up so that he can start to make his own mistakes.

[1] [https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross- bu...](https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross-busy-streets- safely)

<comment><USER15> In Japan they send their kids shopping at 5-6. It's Super safe in Japan, but the point is kids are very fast learners and learn to be independent fairly easily if pushed or directed in that direction..

<comment> ux-app I wonder if these kids need to cross any streets and what the accident rate there is. I'm assuming Japanese 6 year olds are developmentally very similar to western 6 year olds. So according to the research that I linked to above they have an 8% chance of getting hit by a car when crossing the road.

Would _you_ cross the road if you were hit by a car for every 12 times you crossed?

> kids are very fast learners and learn to be independent fairly easily if > pushed or directed in that direction..

An acceptable level of risk awareness can't be taught to kids under a certain age because their brain development is not yet at the level where they are capable of learning certain things. For example: do you think there is _any_ level of training that you could give a 5 year old to safely handle a loaded gun? Do you think there is a level of training you could give a 5 year old to then leave them unsupervised with a gun? Crossing a street is no different. It's life and death.

If you've ever spent any time around kids 6 and younger you will know that they have very intense tunnel vision and very poor situation awareness. It's not their fault. They literally don't yet have the brain development necessary for accurately predicting future events and predicting the consequences of their actions.

<comment> barry-cotter I suggest you read David F. Lancy's Anthropology of Childhood. If children were as stupid as you suggest none of them would make it through childhood. No parent can watch even one child all the time and it's possible to kill your self getting out of bed.

> "Perhaps the most persuasive evidence regarding the attitude of adults > toward children acquiring culture through play – without the need for adult > guidance – comes from widespread reports of parents' indifference and even > encouragement of toddlers playing with machetes and other sharp and > dangerous tools (Howard 1970: 35). For example, from the Kwoma of Papua New > Guinea: "I once saw Suw with the blade of a twelve-inch bush knife in his > mouth and the adults present paid no attention to him" (Whiting 1941: 25). > Aka mothers regret it when their infants cut themselves while playing with > "knives but they don't want to restrain their exploration and learning > (Hewlett 2013: 65–66). The Aka provide scaled versions of items in their > tool inventory to their very young children and enjoy observing (and, > occasionally correcting) their practice strikes (Hewlett et al. 2011: 1175). > Four-and-a-half-year-old Okinawan children readily peel the outer skin off a > length of sugar cane with a sharp sickle. When a mother was asked how the > child acquired this skill she was at a loss for a reply. "'I don't know! He > must have watched us and learned himself by trying it out!' she said" > (Maretzki and Maretzki 1963: 511)"

<comment> ux-app >If children were as stupid as you suggest none of them would make it through childhood.

They're not stupid and I didn't say they are. They lack experience and do not have the skills (brain development) that are necessary to cross a road without significant risk.

Read: [https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross- bu...](https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross-busy-streets- safely)

From the research:

> "The researchers found 6-year-olds were struck by vehicles 8 percent of the > time; 8-year-olds were struck 6 percent; 10-year-olds were struck 5 percent; > and 12-year-olds were struck 2 percent. Those age 14 and older had no > accidents.

Children contend with two main variables when deciding whether it's safe to cross a street, according to the research. The first involves their perceptual ability, or how they judge the gap between a passing car and an oncoming vehicle, taking into account the oncoming car's speed and distance from the crossing. Younger children, the study found, had more difficulty making consistently accurate perceptual decisions.

The second variable was their motor skills: How quickly do children time their step from the curb into the street after a car just passed? Younger children were incapable of timing that first step as precisely as adults, which in effect gave them less time to cross the street before the next car arrived."

Your quote from David F. Lancy's Anthropology of Childhood is an anecdote. Was there a study done to measure child mortality and injury in this community? Would it be acceptable by modern standards?

My dad was raised in an eastern European village in the 1950s. From his stories child supervision was non existent. He has many stories of children who died due to accidents, e.g. children who misjudged the thickness of a frozen lake, fell through and drowned. Of course most survived into adulthood, but by modern standards child mortality rates were completely unacceptable.

<comment> barry-cotter Your associations with the word stupid are your own. If children were as poor at dealing with the environment as you believe they are I would not be unable to name a classmate who died during primary or secondary school.

I haven't read the article you quote and I won't because the conclusions you're drawing from it are insane. Maybe the internal validity is good and if the experiment was replicated the same results would be obtained. The external validity is obviously not there. They are attempting to measure how traffic mortality from independent road crossing and they get numbers so high that it's obvious their experiment doesn't generalise to the question they're actually interested in.

If we pretend that children do not cross the road until age 12 and assume 0.99 chance of surviving one crossing a day, after 100 days 63% will be dead.

Or I could just examine my own experience. My father and I both grew up within 100m of a main road with heavy traffic and we survived unscathed. The paper does not support your conclusion.

There may be a sensible conversation to be had on child supervision but my father grew up in the 50s too and it was not the hellscape you depict. If you look at deaths per 100,000 young children 5-14 they're at worst three times current levels. By the 80s they've dropped to less than double current levels and people weren't going insane wrapping their children in cotton wool and depriving them of all contact with the real world then. Deaths in childhood are so low that accidents are a minority of childhood deaths.

You're advocating depriving children of freedom under a model of the world where childhood is so dangerous no one would survive when the trends in death rates are pretty much the same across industrialised countries while the insane helicopter parenting isn't.

www.freerangeparenting.com

<comment> ux-app > I haven't read the article you quote and I won't because the conclusions > you're drawing from it are insane

They're not my conclusions, I quoted a summary the researchers provided.

>Or I could just examine my own experience

Since when do personal anecdotes trump research?

<comment><USER16> Barry has a point, one piece of research does /= the absolute truth. Research is the scientific process of moving closer to the actual truth through experimental investigation. While you may believe this study, do not be certain that it can't be falsified.

<comment> ux-app sure, but you counter research with more research not a personal anecdote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Everytime I think of YouTube and kids I think of those bizarre videos featuring Elsa and Spiderman that are oddly disturbing and borderline erotic.

This TED talk sums up why I'll never allow my child to go on YouTube. What a mess they've allowed.

[https://youtu.be/v9EKV2nSU8w](https://youtu.be/v9EKV2nSU8w)

<comment><USER18> The irony of the rebuttal against YouTube posted with a YouTu.be URL as cite.

<comment><USER17> YouTube + kids. Not YouTube in general ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Chuchu tv is low effort content. I mean: it's really quite terrible and a waste of your kids time.

There's a lot of great content on youtube, but gets buried in this pile of garbage. Chuchu TV is part of the garbage. If you go to their channel and search for 'jonny jonny' (a popular nursery rhyme in india) you'll find a half dozen videos and enough garbage content to fill a whole days watching. This is a 3 minute rhyme.

The _only_ reason chuchu has views is because they know how to game the system. Parents search for a popular nursery rhyme and leave kids with auto- play or suggestions... and guys like chuchu know how to game the recomendation algorithms to keep the kids within their content.

<comment><USER20> >> .. and guys like chuchu know how to game the recomendation algorithms to keep the kids within their content.

Just curious, what stops other competitors like Disney, Sesame Street and Nickelodeon from doing the same thing?

<comment><USER21> Western media has sort of an honor code not to engage in such actions. We traditionally prefer people to find our creative works because it's good and high quality, not because we gamed some algorithm.

That being said, it's entirely possible for someone outside of these organizations to start something like Chu Chu TV in the United States. However, it would probably face harsher criticism.

<comment><USER22> Thats just a dense comment. Disney and others have no worthwhile content for that particular age kids on youtube.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Our oldest recently started kindergarten and the teacher related that she's seen a marked decrease in social skills the past few years. She blamed increased screen time which is generally videos on YouTube.

Our kids get about 20 min a day, 45 on weekends. I'd like to be rid of the devices entirely. Honestly withholding devices is the best discipline tool I have. What's sad to me are the kids who are on them all day.

<comment><USER24> Teachers have been making the same argument for decades.

I remember a big anti-video game and anti-tv push when I was in elementary school.

<comment><USER25> Maybe they've always been right. My wife is from a a developing country, and the incredible depth of the older generations who grew up without a drop of modern media is striking. Of course it is a complex situation since they had many other factors in their upbringing, but it is telling -- especially because their ability to patiently listen to and truly see the other person seems at least intuitively related to the lack of modern media consumption, which simply gave them so much more practice socializing, and placed so much more value on it. It was where life was at.

<comment><USER26> TV isn't the rot of the western civilization/culture. It's baked in much closer to the roots. We got two world wars well before any of this. And nukes.

<comment><USER25> War is the worst case scenario. It is not a good metric by which to measure a civilization or human growth, since we can be more refined, and virtually all wars are fought in self defense by one side - so say nothing at all about the quality of their way of life prior to the event.

<comment><USER26> I refuse to discard the death of millions as a statistical outlier. Particularly when the next example would likely result in the end of human life - possibly all life - as we know it.

<comment><USER25> Well then I expect you to note that the war was not "Western" only, and also take into account the extremely long and well documented history of war across this planet throughout human history. The danger of modern war is in technology, not culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Boggles my mind why youtube will NOT let users(parents) whitelist channels. You almost always end up with the same set of "black hole" videos.

<comment><USER28> They added it a month ago: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/youtube-kids- adds-a-whitel...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/youtube-kids-adds-a- whitelisting-parent-control-feature-plus-a-new-experience-for-tweens/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is just terrifying: "As YouTube became the world's babysitter — an electronic pacifier during trips, or when adults are having dinner"

Having kids is hard work. Do the work. Take some damn responsibility for your kids. Mine are limited to an average of 30 mins a day, including some days with 0. And never in the car, and we always eat dinner together.

I can't even understand how that sentence exists. It certainly does not in my world.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why would anyone let little children watch YouTube when there are dedicated TV programs or even whole TV stations with quality content for children?

YouTube is best for deeply specialized content. Generic content has better sources.

<comment><USER31> > _when there are dedicated TV programs or even whole TV stations with quality > content for children?_

Name three.

All children-targeted TV I've seen these days are pure garbage. YouTube is full of garbage too, but at least you can find _something_ of quality (even if it's some children cartoon from previous century) if you dig deep enough. But then there's issue with autoplay (discussed at length by other commenters), making YouTube dangerous to leave with kids unattended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> And that's why only let my kids watch my kid friendly curated collection: Gummi Bears, DuckTales, Conan the Adventurer, Darkwing Duck, The Legend of Prince Valiant, Talespin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Defenders of the Earth, He-Man, Tintin, Dungeons and Dragons, Captain Planet, Batman The Animated Series, Avatar and Korra.

<comment><USER21> > Batman The Animated Series

That one does get somewhat violent, though.

And be sure to show them Batman Beyond when they get older. It's my personal favorite of the DC Animated Universe.

<comment><USER33> Think of it as a modern version of Grimm's fairy tales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> My kids are crazy about "Youtube Police" eg ChuChu Police. Last night my youngest complained that the cops where not wearing motorcycle helmets. =) The night before I cut out little stars on a thick paper, then put it ontop of a LED which filled the ceiling with stars, and put on a Youtube video about the universe with moody music. The next day one of them drew the solar-system with different colors. We also sing songs from Youtube videos even though I'm a terrible singer. And they refuse to go to sleep until I have read at least one book, where the Brothers Grimm's are far more scary then anything you can find on Youtube.

</comment><comment><USER35> My youngest son has been watching ChuChu TV, and a year ago he could count to 10 in English, and knew the name of every color in English as well.

Most 2 year olds can do that, but not in a foreign language, so for us it has been educational.

</comment><comment><USER36> The shows I watched growing up have been replaced by Breath of the Wild play through videos and DIY craft project videos.

<comment><USER21> Because networks like Nick and Cartoon Network became absolutely stagnant for 6+ years. For example, It's only recently that Cartoon Network is beginning to invest in their shows again. Take their recent crossover.

[https://youtu.be/JFW-2q6_dlc?t=125](https://youtu.be/JFW-2q6_dlc?t=125)

Then compare it with what they had in 2013. Notice a difference?

And Nick is basically flatlining since they haven't ended Spongebob yet. Even the guy that made The Fairly Oddparents finally quit when he realized that Nick would just continue beating what they had into the ground. They're still having that DanWarp guy rehash the same sitcom formula he's used for the past 20+ years. It's all so stale now.

It's like every major network went into shock when Netflix started pushing their originals and are only now beginning to recover from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Two genres of youtube content that I was not aware of before I did some babysitting for a friend, and that I've come to appreciate now:

* compilations of ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks just driving along with their blue beacons rotating and sirens blaring. It's amazing how fascinating that is to kids.

* compilations of "good kids" happily eating their broccoli, spinach, etc.

That said, I've showed these to the kids for a few minutes on occasion; I don't think I'd leave them alone with a tablet to watch what they want (=what youtube recommends them for maximum "engagement"...) for extended times.

</comment><comment><USER38> See also previous discussion from 13 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18137217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18137217) (31 comments)

</comment><comment><USER39> YouTube is trash for kids. PBS has tons of quality programming for kids and it's all free with no ads! If you're a parent get the PBS Kids video and games app for your device.

</comment><comment><USER40> The people in those offices look absolutely miserable.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have let my child watch some of the ChuChu TV videos, but I limit it to a fix time of 10 or 20 minutes tops.

I monitor which videos they are as the sidebar in youtube can suggest videos that are not appropriate for kids.

I think limiting screen time at a young at is what needs to be done. There are other activities the kids can do where they are engaging with their environment and using their senses.

</comment><comment><USER42> What strikes me thought is the story about a dad who catches the son on eating sugar and lying to him and the outcome is happiness and whole family dancing. What is simply cheating others is promoted as wit and smartness.

</comment><comment><USER43> I've mostly just manually white listed content that my kids get to watch, that is to say I make playlists for them (they can make requests) and their viewing is supervised.

There's a lot of "don't let your kids watch youtube" but you can... if you're present. It's not easy, but there is also stuff I like on there that I'm cool with the kids watching.

</comment><comment><USER44> How is it possible to watch 8 hours of TV a day? I guess this includes watching TV while also doing other things?

<comment><USER21> > I guess this includes watching TV while also doing other things

Exactly this. Some of my family members leave the TV on while doing other things "for the noise". Before the internet, you usually had what was either on TV or on the radio in terms of instantly finding background noise. TV was generally considered higher quality by most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Yeah, chu-chu's success is evidence of the importance of being early and finding a good niche. I think all of my YouTube videos combined have like 100 views total.

</comment><comment><USER45> For those looking for good things on YouTube, check out storybots and Great Big Story.

<comment><USER46> SuperSimpleSongs are good too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think the film industry mentioned in article might be kollywood instead of tollywood. Kollywood industry is based out of Chennai.

</comment><comment><USER48> my kid loves ChuChu tv.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm not sure if this is a puff piece or an ad disguised as an article, but it is quite fluffy.

A more apt title would have been 'Chuchu TV is pretty great, but could it be greater?'

<comment><USER50> That's a bit unfair, but you're right that "Raised by YouTube" is not a good title for this profile. We've changed the title to use more representative language from the article.

<comment><USER51> Weren't your criteria 'not misleading or clickbait'? This doesn't seem to be either. 'Good' opens an even bigger can of worms of title bickering.

<comment><USER50> The title was misleading. The article is a company profile.

<comment><USER51> It's a 7k-word piece in the print edition of the Atlantic. You've made the case yourself that titles don't have to be trivially revealing - <USER2> because 'intellectual curiosity' necessarily involves some actual curiosity.

'Raised on Youtube' might be imperfect on some parameter or another but it's not 'misleading' any more than, I dunno, 'The Power Broker' is a misleading title of a biography. The title it's been replaced with is literalist butchery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> (deleted)

<comment><USER53> What group in Vietnam? I can't find their channel</comment></comment>


Self-replicator caught on video (Conway's Game of Life emulating itself) - <AUTHOR> https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/self-replicator-caught-on-video/ <comment><USER2> The video explanation of the Life metacell is from 7:35 to 13:05.

It's really nice to finally have some good pictures showing how the 0E0P works. Until now it's been kind of a black box, just because the pattern is so impressively huge that even HashLife has a hard time simulating it.</comment>


iOS Indoor Localization Using Magnetic Particle Filtering - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gregorymfoster/how-any-app-could-track-the-indoor-location-of-everyone-magnetic-localization-acf3707716de <comment><USER2> Incredibly unique way to think about spacial tracking!</comment>


Why iOS 6 just stomped out Android, again - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/06/12/apple-ios-6-features-android-opinion-criticism/

<comment><USER2> Most of these features already exist in Android and have done for quite some time.</comment>


Why I won't run another startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@arthurattwell/why-i-won-t-run-another-startup-e5ff64c933d0 <comment><USER2> There is definitely a huge industry designed to funnel venture capital away from ventures into what is effectively the entourage, hangers on, groupies, leeches and skeezers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Back in the dot com era, there were many hangers-on who cashed in on the mania as various types of leaches. They were characterized by their use of buzz words while not possessing the slightest comprehension of concepts underlying the terminology.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Another time, I got interviewed on a startup-support radio show, only to be asked to sign a letter afterwards saying they'd given us R188000 in airtime. (I didn't sign.)"

What would the implications be if they signed?

<comment><USER5> I assume they would claim "You now owe us R188000." (about $15,000)

<comment><USER6> No, if the company ultimately became a huge success, the radio station would claim $15,000 in very early equity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Needs a "2015" disclaimer.</comment>


Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/07/28/windows-10-free-upgrade-available-in-190-countries-today/ <comment><USER2> I've been on the "insider preview" for a few weeks now, and I must say that I think Windows 10 is an absolutely amazing OS. Definitely the best Windows I've ever used. Also the best desktop OS I've ever used, but I hope you'll believe me about the "best Windows" even if you can't imagine why a developer would possible want to run something other than $YOUR_FAVOURITE_UNIX.

If Windows 10 is as well-received as I expect it will, this might really impact Microsoft's position on phones as well. A core feature of Windows 10 is an app store that doesn't suck, with apps that can easily be used on devices that _don 't_ resemble tablets. Windows 8 really had this wrong, and 10 fixes it. I think the Windows 10 store _might actually get used_.

I've seen a glimpse of that future with the mobile app of Dutch weather site "Buienradar". They made a new Windows Phone app which totally rocks, to replace an old extremely crappy one. I didn't understand why they invested in an app ecosystem that is so clearly on the way down, until I found the exact same app in the Windows 10 store - just larger and with more info on the same screen. But it's very obviously the same codebase. My guess is they actually wanted to make a Windows desktop app, but adding phone support was such a minor extra investment (because of MS's "Universal app" thing) that they did it, despite the abysmal market size of Windows Phone in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER3> My experience has been the opposite. To me Windows 10 is the continuation of the 8/8.1 trainwreck, with the ridiculous Metro skins, a broken start menu, the half-assed fragmentation of the UIs into Metro/non-Metro, ham-handed app store/online services integrations, and various new features that do not work. I'll be going back to Windows 7, in which at least the UI works. And really, the only thing keeping me attached to the ecosystem is the PC games.

<comment><USER4> _> a broken start menu_

I love Windows 7, but do you honestly think the Windows 7 start menu is _not_ broken? I believe we just got used to it over time.

In Windows 7, I can either have an unstructured list of "pinned" programs, or I can manually categorize the real ("All programs") start menu.

Option 1 doesn't scale beyond ~15 items (I have 22 pinned programs and it's a mess), and option 2 breaks whenever a program updates itself and puts new links into the top level. Also, option 2 is not an option at all for 99,9% of users, so it's quite obvious why MS wouldn't optimize for that use case.

The single thing that I like the most about Windows 8.1 machines is how I can group programs on the start page. Now that it isn't fullscreen any more with Windows 10, I am pretty much looking forward to it.

<comment><USER5> Why don't you just search for what you're looking for?

<comment><USER6> Muscle memory is easier on the mind than name recall - it simply wastes less brain cycles.

<comment><USER7> In my experience muscle memory is just as easy to pick up with typing the name of an app than clicking - apps I use all the time I can open by typing their name without thinking about what the name is, apps I don't use all the time I find myself opening the metro start screen and wondering which will happen first, remembering the name to type or spotting it in my tiles.

<comment><USER6> You're right. Though at least on Windows 7, typing to search apps in the start menu was a miserable experience that takes dozens of seconds to find the application you're looking for. I hope they have improved it in 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that the upgrade will remove your Windows built-in DVD player. The right to play DVDs must be paid for every computer. You paid it when you bought the Windows 7 or 8 that you'll maybe upgrade to 10. Now the upgrade to Windows 10 takes that feature away from you.

They apparently (the twitter message isn't actually the company statement) plan to return it "sometime in the future" and "if it might be free or if it will cost" is TBA:

[http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-will-include- option...](http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-will-include-option-play- dvd-movies-sometime-future)

The Media Player capabilities, if you have them in your Windows edition, will be for ever deleted. Just so.

Moreover, note that the upgrade can reduce the functionality of your notebook: Microsoft made the deal with the hardware producers about integrating hidden partitions to allow the recovery from the hard disk, but the upgrade process will just make sure that the Windows runs, not that your recovery from the hard disk functionality, managed by each hardware vendor independently (based on the recommendations from Microsoft) would be preserved.

I don't use the recovery mechanism, but I do use backup. When the recovery partitions aren't right, the built in backup (which was kept from Windows 7) doesn't work on Windows 8.1.

The same story happened with the transition from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 (I have such a notebook).

Anybody knows if the "Windows 7" style full disk backup survived in Windows 10?

<comment><USER9> _Note that the upgrade will remove your Windows built-in DVD player._

Windows 8.1 had no built in DVD player. Nor did Windows 7 Starter or Basic. Further, I suspect it's a feature that the vast majority of people have never used, exactly why Microsoft decided that they wouldn't subsidize the licensing for no reason. This is a very 2002 discussion.

Not that your point isn't valid -- at least for those users who ever actually tried playing a video DVD, and who had a supporting version of Windows -- it's just pretty odd that such a comment sits at the very top of an enormous technology event.

The Tesla doesn't come with a holder for my buggy whip.

<comment><USER10> As a user I have issues with Windows removing a built-in DVD player. I'm one of those dinosaurs who still watches his DVDs from his laptop. It was news to me and I appreciate that it was at the top.

<comment><USER11> But that's just the thing. They _didn 't_ remove it. I have literally never been able to play DVDs in Windows without installing third party codecs or programs.

<comment><USER10> I've never had an issue playing on Windows 7 Media Player out of the box (I skipped 8 and 8.1 chaos).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I work on the Start menu. It's just a UWP XAML app with Models and ViewModels written in C++/Cx, as are most of the new Shell features and built-in apps-- although some of the newer ones, like Maps and Xbox, are in XAML/C#/.Net Native. Even the UI frame of Edge is in XAML, and the new Office UWP apps are too. I encourage everyone here to give UWP apps a shot; we dogfooded the dev platform to ensure it was stable and fast, and XAML really is a pleasure to use. It's come a long way since WPF.

<comment><USER13> What is UWP?

<comment><USER12> [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/Dn894631.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/Dn894631.aspx)

"Universal Windows Platform". Lets you target every Windows 10 device with a single app, from Raspberry Pi 2 to phone to PC's to Xbox One.

Apps are written in C++/C#/VB with XAML markup or JavaScript/HTML/CSS. Also FYI, it takes a minimal amount of work to repackage an existing web app as a UWP.

<comment><USER13> Does that support Windows 7/8/8.1? If not I won't be able to adopt it for a long time.

<comment><USER14> No it doesn't. Only works on win10 (phone, PC, tablet & surface hub for the moment, but they are expanding it to hololens and xbox one).

<comment><USER15> Even Avalon/WPF has been back ported from Vista to WinXP. Afaik, UWP is newer release of WinRuntime (WinRT).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looking at the deprecated features that won't make it to Windows 10 I see:

> Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts Games that come pre-installed on Windows > 7 will be removed as part of installing the Windows 10 upgrade. Microsoft > has released our version of Solitaire and Minesweeper called the "Microsoft > Solitaire Collection" and "Microsoft Minesweeper."

Does anyone else find it kind of sad that they killed off the old solitaire and minesweeper games? Part of what made Windows great was its incredible focus on backwards compatibility and it was always fun to load up solitaire, minesweeper, etc. in all their classic win 32 glory just like they ran in Windows 95.

The new games are weird microtransaction/subscription-based things that I'm sure marketing folks are extremely proud of but seem to have killed a bit of the soul of Windows. If nothing else the old games should have stayed in to show people that yes it's still your old Windows and apps written years ago will mostly just work.

<comment><USER17> I really don't care about this, why should we expect MS to support their 20 years old software? Back in '95 internet was not that common so it was nice to have such time wasters built into the OS.

On the other hand, including Minecraft would be a really interesting decision.

<comment><USER16> Because for years Microsoft built up a reputation for supporting old software and old APIs. Read Raymond Chen's Old New Thing blog for some anecdotes about the amazing lengths they would go internally to keep old software working. Like with the classic game Sim City they realized its code was buggy and using uninitialized memory, so the Windows team wrote a special case to detect when Sim City runs and emulate an older compatible memory allocator. It's not really clear if MS today cares about supporting software like they used to.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Because for years Microsoft built up a reputation for supporting old software and old APIs."

That's a reputation they need to lose. It was important at one time but has been holding them back for years.

<comment><USER16> Just like the start menu was holding them back and had to be removed in Windows 8...

<comment> k-mcgrady The start menu isn't old software/API's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone here know much about Windows licensing? This seems like a good opportunity to ask.

I never run Windows on bare metal. I only run Windows on virtual machines on my Mac desktop and Mac laptop; only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application.

I would like to go legit this time around, but it's nigh-impossible to find any specific documentation from Microsoft which states, in plain, simple English, how I would go about getting the proper license to cover my use case. I find this hard to believe as it's 2015 and certainly there must be countless others who do the same as I (and at least a few of them here on HN).

The only official Microsoft document I can find about Windows licensing and virtual machines pertains specifically to business use, and appears to be focused on running Windows in a "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" (VDI) environment, so I don't believe it applies to me. (I confess I did not read the entire document as it contains so much unfamiliar jargon that I have a hard time parsing it past page one.)

Anyway, from what I can tell by gathering bits and pieces posted on various forums by Microsoft community reps or third-party Microsoft "solution providers," Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create, for each host machine I run it on (i.e., M * N licenses).

Can anybody here tell me whether that's correct? Because if that's correct, Microsoft can go fly a kite.

<comment><USER19> _> Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create_

That is indeed the case. Otherwise you can buy licenses meant for ISPs and cloud-hosting providers. Your "personal use of multiple VMs" is simply not contemplated. You could probably get by with a MSDN subscription, which gives you some leeway.

<comment><USER20> The 2012 Server Datacenter Edition is a mere ~6000 USD and allows to run unlimited VMs on up to two physical CPUs. Who ever claimed the licensing costs made a real difference between Microsoft and Linux?

<comment><USER21> They only require a license for VM's that run Windows. You can run as many non-windows VM's as you want on the free hyper-v server on as many procs as it will run on.

<comment><USER20> Oh, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But you generally won't have to pay for a licence to run Linux or *bsd in a vm. I'd assume one would want/need to run Windows software on windows (reactos/wine aside).

<comment><USER21> I dig it. Thanks for being polite. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Be sure to read the licensing fine print about data collection for advertising etc.

[https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your- persona...](https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal- data-abused/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966236)

<comment><USER23> I've been on the preview since the beginning, when I installed the supposedly "final" build (10240?) about a week ago it ran through a wizard that allowed me to disable this functionality.

<comment><USER22> Including the per-device unique id for advertisers?

<comment><USER24> Yes, although by default this is on (Express Setup). Customising the setup allows you to disable it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In case there are people wondering I am using Windows 10 Pro x64 and did the following -

Downloaded ISO using the media creation tool at [1] then did an upgrade from 8.1 to 10 which complete just fine. I then booted from the USB drive I just made, did a diskpart clean on the only drive in the machine then did a clean install.

When prompted for a product key I pressed skip then when asked again during the out-of-box experience I selected to do it later. I signed in with a local account. I connected to the internet and it activated without any questions. Yes it activated using NO product key.

It seems when you do the upgrade from a valid 7 or 8.1 install it stores the hardware hash they generate on MS servers so when you then do a clean install it generates the (same) hardware hash, sends it to MS activation servers and sees it is already validated so it just activates you again. Very nice not having to deal with horrible product keys!

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10)

Edit: And so far it has been great. Stable and fast over the last 5 hours of doing updates (fucking Office 2013 has like 2GB of updates after install!).

<comment><USER26> Any idea what would happen then if you skip the upgrade 7/8 -> 10 and start with clean install? You need a key anyway? The same key as for Windows 7?

<comment><USER27> The "key" works only when you updated from a Windows7/8 installation with that key to Windows 10 once. It apparently saves a hardware id on their activation server. After that you can cleanly install Windows 10 and skip the key entry and it'll activate based on that hardware id.

What could be done if you change the hardware ? If you had a retail key, then you'd probably need to install Windows 7/8 and upgrade to 10 again to repeat the hardware id registering process, but I didn't notice anywhere if this was tested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Did anyone with a dual boot configuration already try the upgrade? This article [1] suggests that, for once, you don't have to restore GRUB after the upgrade.

[1] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/insider/wiki/insider_wint...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/insider/wiki/insider_wintp-insider_install/how-to-upgrade-a-dual-boot- installation-of-windows/d7ca80ce-96b0-4f0a-9a8e-4038ded592b2)

<comment><USER29> This really surprises me. The SHA2 code-signing hotfix released for Windows 7 a few months back won't even install if you dual boot. I still haven't installed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dear marketing people, please stop using "The best <thing only we make> ever". If you make a new product it should be better than the previous version, it it's not, you did something very wrong.

<comment><USER31> Maybe they are trying to say this will not be another Windows 8. Or Vista. Or ME.

<comment><USER30> It's not about Microsoft in particular, it's about every tech company now using this for every new release of an existing thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Let's hope Windows 10 is a big hit with PC users. Consumers trade in those old XP boxes and hundreds of millions take the free upgrade. Then maybe within 24 months lots of old IE's will fade away.

[https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qpr...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0)

Edge appears to be a much better browser: [https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html](https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html)

<comment><USER33> The upgrade is not free for XP users.

<comment><USER32> That's why I said trade in those XP boxes. New hardware has gotta seem nice for them by now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I got the upgrade from 8.1 Pro last night:

1\. The OOBE experience ran twice. It rebooted half way through the first one to apply updates and then I had to do it all again.

2\. It lost the product key and won't activate even though this is a genuine copy from MSDN. I guess I have to wait for a key from MSDN later today. Not end of the world but a pain point. If it isn't activated, hardly anything works now.

3\. However that's all pointless as it hangs solid after 3-5 minutes reliably. That's not enough time to even roll a single windows update in so I'm shafted.

This is a rock solid Lenovo X201 that has never had a single problem with any Windows release. It hasn't crashed once since I bought it new.

Not impressed. Spent an hour rolling it back.

I imagine, considering this was quality well tested hardware, that this is going to be nothing but hell for people. If even 1% of people have this experience, the media will blow big time and I'd hope that they do.

Edit: on my Sony VPC-J1 AOI machine that fails with "Windows 10 upgrade failed" after pissing around for an hour. At least that didn't hose the machine.

</comment><comment><USER35> Meanwhile actually trying to buy the damn thing seems nearly impossible. MS rep on their store said that it might take couple of weeks until it becomes available for purchase. On US store you can order physical copy but download option is "coming soon". Just seems bit ridiculous...

</comment><comment><USER36> Official ISO downloads: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10I...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10ISO)

<comment><USER37> Presumably you have to do an in-place upgrade if you use these? I can't see any mention of what key I am supposed to use (from the reservation tool) if I want to do a fresh install.

<comment><USER38> From what I understand you have to first do an in-place upgrade, which then gives you access to your license key (via Windows system info or something similar).

You can then use that to do a clean install.

 _EDIT_

I've just read contradictory information here;

[http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media- creation...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation- tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10)

 _If you upgraded to Windows 10 on this PC by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer and successfully activated Windows 10 on this PC in the past, you won 't have a Windows 10 product key, and you can skip the product key page by selecting the Skip button. Your PC will activate online automatically so long as the same edition of Windows 10 was successfully activated on this PC by using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer._

Which makes it sound like the version of Windows 10 you received as a free upgrade from Windows 7/8 will not work on any other machine than the one you first install on.

Which is unbelievably shit.

<comment><USER39> > Which makes it sound like the version of Windows 10 you received as a free > upgrade from Windows 7/8 will not work on any other machine than the one you > first install on.

Any idea what defines a 'machine'? I gradually upgrade my PC. New video card here, new SSD there, sometimes new CPU (and possibly motherboard)

<comment><USER40> Somewhere else in the thread it was mentioned it used the bios to determine if it had been activated on the computer. So I would think a mobo replacement would mess with the activation

<comment><USER41> And what about when your machine _started_ with a retail motherboard that doesn't have OEM Windows keys embedded in the firmware? What kind of signature does it use for the initial registration?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anybody else experience issues with Truecrypt 7.1a?

It displays

      X:\ is not accessible.
      Incorrect function.

and the Computer Manager displays the drive with the RAW type.

\- Even though the filesystem is intact (tested on another Windows 8.1 computer) and

\- chkdsk showing NO errors (yes that's right: it even shows the filesystem as being NTFS).

Aside from that my UI/UX experience with Windows 10 is great and I'm really happy. The above thing is a bummer though.

<comment><USER43> UPDATE [SOLVED]: searching for this problem I stumbled into this thread: [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7045334?start=15&tstart...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7045334?start=15&tstart..). . as I'm running windows 10 on a mac using bootcamp, it only took me to rename c:/windows/system32/drivers/AppleHFS.sys to something else, reboot and get truecrypt running as before. only side effect until now: I can't see the mac partition contents in windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> willingly installing botnet, why would you do that? [https://i.4cdn.org/g/1438152355097.jpg](https://i.4cdn.org/g/1438152355097.jpg)

<comment><USER45> Here's a mirror, since 4chan files are sometimes auto-wiped relatively quickly [http://i.imgur.com/QSKsW0G.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/QSKsW0G.jpg)

<comment><USER44> Nice, wanted to do that and then forgot it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm really sad about what have they done to start menu. The one Win10 Tech Preview started with was way better than the current one. It's less functional and still buggy (doesn't show up from time to time).

<comment><USER47> ...and limited to 512 shortcuts. [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/29/windows_10_bug_alert...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/29/windows_10_bug_alert_start_menu_breaks_512_entries/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Call me cynical, but I have just made a bootable Linux USB stick with GUI in order to keep working if/when the corporate update roll-out kicks in and borks my work machine.

Happily running Fedora 22 on my home laptop!

<comment><USER49> "We're still not finished clearing XP, you've got plenty of time before 10 is on the horizon." \-- Corporate IT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> The naked truth about this new Windows from user's perspective: [http://i.4cdn.org/v/1438148570882.jpg](http://i.4cdn.org/v/1438148570882.jpg)

<comment><USER51> There's a whole bunch of stuff in that that's inaccurate/outdated, re Wifi Sharing (opt in, even for contacts).

Not to mention a bunch of stuff (Do Not Track) that is set by default that has been explicitly enabled (or disabled, depending on defaults) to look worse. You can argue about whether you should have an "opt-in" for some of these things at all, yes, but this image makes it look like many things are opt-out, when they are in fact opt-in.

Telemetry is the same diagnostics that OS X and even Linux Mint and other distributions do.

<comment><USER52> > There's a whole bunch of stuff in that that's inaccurate/outdated, re Wifi > Sharing (opt in, even for contacts).

So if a random visitor asks for my wifi password, I can prevent it from being sent to Microsoft?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Ridiculously how much things I need to turn off to have the same privacy than in Windows 7... I don't get it, why don't they just make a slider after the installation where you could slide between Maximum Usability <-> Maximum Privacy and still have their "Additional Settings" where you could turn off everything one by one.

Also even after turning off everything I still need to stop OneDrive from working and other stuff that still isn't a good default, even for "home users" I wouldn't recommend sending too much data.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'll be waiting until before a week or two before the one year free upgrade period is up before I subject any of my family to it. In the meantime, it's popcorn time.

Btw, Windows 10 now forces critical updates. You can find a registry tweak to disable this behaviour here:

[http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8013-windows-update- autom...](http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8013-windows-update-automatic- updates-enable-disable-windows-10-a.html#option2)

<comment><USER54> I will also not be upgrading immediately, though in a few months, not (almost) a year from now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm really excited for this release and especially excited about Cortana. If it works as advertised I'll be buying a windows phone. I'm ready for a device that i can just talk to with a normal voice and ask it stuff.

<comment><USER56> It works fairly well, in the manner of Siri. It copes with moderate Scottish accents, which is impressive. The downsides are that you have to have location services turned on (bad for battery) and, like Siri, everything you say is recorded and may be farmed out mechanical-turk style for analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> anyone knows when Windows 10 will be released for mobiles?

<comment><USER57> Could anyone explain the downvotes? I have a windows phone and I am really interested in the release of windows 10 for windows phones, especially with the hope of finally having a decent browser on my phone.

<comment><USER58> I think people don't know that Windows Phone 8's follow up is also called Windows 10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> If your windows copy is not genuine, can you still get a free upgrade?

<comment><USER59> The update isn't available for people with group licenses (i.e. schools, large workplaces).

So, no.

<comment><USER60> Not even "personal" MSDN(AA) licenses.

<comment><USER61> Are you sure about this? I have this kind of license (for Win 8.1) and in the "Win 10 upgrade window" it said that my machine can be upgraded. Although, I have not tried it, yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> The update only froze once for me (had to hard reset). No side effects from that. This was the smoothest windows update process I've ever had.

Had some trouble with Asus touchpad drivers, but after fixing that, everything is running well and nothing was lost. All previously installed software seems to be running fine.

<comment><USER22> > The update only froze once for me (had to hard reset). No side effects from > that. This was the smoothest windows update process I've ever had.

Having to hard reset during an update due to a freeze doesn't exactly sound like a particularly smooth process. I guess your perspective depends on your experiences with previous updates.

<comment><USER62> Yes, every other windows update I had before either: a) Failed on the first try b) Deleted files/software

Windows 10 was the first time I didn't lose anything (except the games that stopped working)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I have a legitimate Windows 7 license that I run on my MBP using VMWare Workstation .. is this ineligible for upgrade, does anyone know? I've left the VM running in the hopes I get the little taskbar notification to do a free upgrade to Windows 10, but its not happening .. I guess us VM Windows users are out of luck, then?

EDIT: Scratch that. As luck would have it, just as I submitted to HN, I got the upgrade icon notification in my VM. Looks like I'll be upgrading my Windows 7 VM in VMWare on a MBP to Windows 10 soon .. leaving my comment in case it trips anyone else up: patience, I guess!

</comment><comment><USER64> Any news on how to get a free 'reserved' copy? The Verge seems to suggest that you just have to wait, and it might take weeks, since Microsoft wants to do a gradual rollout...

<comment><USER65> Why reserve something for which scarcity is impossible?

<comment><USER52> Their capacity to upload copies of Windows 10 is not infinite (though only because they have chosen not to distribute via BitTorrent).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> It'd be nice if it wasn't for all the bundled spyware.

</comment><comment><USER67> Wait. Until. Service. Pack. 1.

<comment><USER68> Hopefully they release that service pack before the upgrade-for-free period ends.

<comment><USER69> Big feature update is pencilled in for late this year I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> If you aren't getting Windows 10 pushed out to you, you can follow this tutorial to force update

[http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-slates/how-to-force- downl...](http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-slates/how-to-force-download- windows-10-on-your-pc-and-tablet)

</comment><comment><USER71> If you don't want to wait, you can jump start your upgrade with a moment's fiddling:

[http://www.redmondpie.com/force-download-windows-10-free- upg...](http://www.redmondpie.com/force-download-windows-10-free-upgrade- right-now-heres-how-tutorial/)

</comment><comment><USER72> Looking forward to 10, if only to get parents of XP. However the other issue I have with Windows is installation methods.

Owning an iMac without a DVD drive what exactly are my options for obtaining any version of Windows short of buying a DVD drive to copy an install DVD to USB for bootcamp?

<comment><USER73> Download an ISO[0], put it on a USB, and then use your key as normal :)

[0] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10I...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10ISO)

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> The Windows 10 Installation media creation tool is also already out: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- download/windows10)

</comment><comment><USER75> From the feature deprecation list:

      If you have a floppy drive, you will need to download the latest driver from
      Windows Update or from the manufacturer's website.

I really wonder if there are manufacturers of floppy drives without a website.

<comment><USER76> All floppy drives come with a floppy disk with the driver on it. Problem solved.

<comment><USER75> You mean like WinRAR installers inside a .rar file?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> This looks amazing but I'm disappointed at the absence of 'Windows 10 devices' launching alongside this release.

If anything this seems like a missed sales opportunity for Microsoft/ hardware vendors.

<comment> k-mcgrady Have they ever synchronised the OEM release with hardware releases? I always thought they released the boxed version and then a few months later it started appearing on PC's.

<comment><USER77> They haven't, but I thought it would increase adoption and sales if they did- or if they had 'reference' hardware devices.

It seems kind of strange even their Surface line of devices is not shipping with Windows 10 on the day of release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So when you upgrade to Windows 10, do you get a Windows 10 license key?

<comment><USER38> _If you upgraded to Windows 10 on this PC by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer and successfully activated Windows 10 on this PC in the past, you won 't have a Windows 10 product key, and you can skip the product key page by selecting the Skip button. Your PC will activate online automatically so long as the same edition of Windows 10 was successfully activated on this PC by using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer._

From;

[http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media- creation...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation- tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10)

Which makes it sound like you don't, and can only upgrade or clean install on a single machine. I hope this is incorrect because I'm planning to upgrade my machine in 6 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Does the key/license that comes with the upgrade allow for a re-install? If not, I'd rather stick to Windows 7.

<comment><USER79> "How to perform a clean installation of Windows ... you can skip the product key page by selecting the Skip button. Your PC will activate online automatically so long as the same edition of Windows 10 was successfully activated on this PC by using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer."

Source: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media- creation...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation- tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10)

I'm burning an old-fashioned installation disk as I type this, using the tool mentioned in the link above. The tool can also create bootable USB sticks or ISO images.

<comment><USER78> Thanks. So it's not a full license... too bad.

<comment><USER79> Yeah, it's basically an OEM (single-device, non-transferable) license with remotely managed product keys.

Most legal Windows users only have OEM licenses anyway, so there won't be any difference for them. It sucks if you already own a full license.

But if you need to move to a different computer sometime in the next year or so, I guess you could first install Windows 7/8/8.1 using your full license, activate it, and then take advantage of the free upgrade to 10. That's basically what I did with my "student discount" license when Windows 7 came out. I had a full license of Vista, so I first moved it to a different computer and then upgraded it to 7.

<comment><USER78> I don't want to be stuck with an OS that I don't have a full license for when I replace my hardware.

And I found out that Microsoft basically reserve the right for full access/download of your data and it can't be disabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Didn't receive the update. GWX app is gone now. WU says Windows 10 upgrade is reserved.

</comment><comment><USER81> Reasons for why you might _not_ want the upgrade:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3f060k/anonymou...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3f060k/anonymous_member_releases_reasons_not_to_upgrade/)

</comment><comment><USER82> I use dual boot for ubuntu and windows 8.1, should I worry?

<comment><USER83> not as long as you boot on the ubuntu partition ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I can't believe there is still no clear official statement on how the licensing works. From some sources[1] they seem to imply that retail licenses (Win7/8) turn into what is basically an OEM license, but then there are some sources that state the exact opposite[2][3].

I don't want to lose my retail Win8 license, as they say that it will be "consumed" by the upgrade (wth is that supposed to mean), so I'm going to sit and wait on this, maybe try to get an answer from their helpdesk.

They try so hard to make this easy for people, to make windows popular again, and they still fucked it up. I am disappointed.

[1] [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media- creation...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation- tool-install)

"If you upgraded to Windows 10 on this PC by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer and successfully activated Windows 10 on this PC in the past, you won't have a Windows 10 product key, and you can skip the product key page by selecting the Skip button. Your PC will activate online automatically so long as the same edition of Windows 10 was successfully activated on this PC by using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer."

[2] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_upgrade/after-free-update-to-windows-10-from- existing/4ca295b7-54ef-4d40-9b2e-d037cf41a8a7)

"From the Windows 10 end user license agreement:

b. Stand-alone software.

If you acquired the software as stand-alone software (and also if you upgraded from software you acquired as stand-alone software), you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you. You may also transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came on to transfer the software. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices."

[3] [http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/operating- systems/14...](http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/operating- systems/1403593/how-to-upgrade-to-windows-10-and-get-your-new-licence-key)

"After your computer has upgraded to Windows 10 it will have a new licence key. You'll need this if you want to perform a clean installation of Windows 10, as you can input your existing Windows 7 or 8 code into the installation routine. To get your key fire up the Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder app and you'll see your Windows 10 key at the top of the list."

</comment><comment><USER85> In other news, MySpace releases a major UI overhaul with several new features.

</comment><comment><USER86> Reminder that Microsoft installed adware on Windows 7/8 machines to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10. Even if you hid the update from Windows Update, they un-hid it and reinstalled at least once that I know of.

Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.

<comment><USER87> Upgrade notification is now adware? are you serious? You don't even have to pay for the upgrade and you'll have a lot to gain from it and for us developers, it's a good thing aswell since it might reduce the number of old IEs/plateforms we have to support. I expected more from an HN user..

<comment><USER34> It's only a notification until you can't turn it off. It's incredibly difficult to get rid of it on a non-domain attached windows 8.1 machine.

<comment><USER87> For me it was an icon next to the clock. Once I reserved my upgrade I just hid it in the action center and it never popped again.

<comment><USER34> It's still there and running though.

That's like you know there's a hissing cockroach living under the sink but you just close the door and stick your fingers in your ears.

<comment><USER87> The other option is to remove kb3035583

<comment><USER34> Still appears on mine if you remove that and block it. Lots of people have reported that.

<comment><USER86> You also have to hide the update to prevent WU from reinstalling it for you, but actually not even that will permanently disable it.

This is because Microsoft will release "updates" to that package, with the _totally_ unintended side effect of unhiding and reinstalling the update. So even if you uninstall it, and hide the update from WU, it will _still_ find a way onto your system.

So yeah, _like I said_ and despite the downvotes, it's fucking adware. Bordering on malware.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why chips in passports and ID cards are a stupid idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14066895

<comment><USER2> So, maybe it's just me, but I don't see why RFID is such a great thing for secure applications. Like, it's an awesome technology for a retail store to do inventory with. I mean, they can just pass a scanner near a bunch of products and figure out what they've got. Heck, each individual product can give a different ID which is even better than the simple barcodes that we use today.

However, why would one use RFID when you _don't_ want the reading to be easy? There are plenty of technologies that require physical contact to transmit information (like mag strips or smart chips). If they want the passports to have to be inserted into a machine, they might as well use one of those technologies.

I'm all for RFID in its place. It's great for my subway pass so that I don't have to take it out of my wallet. Same for highway tolls where I don't have to stop. But neither of those are instances where I completely care about security. Sure, I don't want anyone cloning my subway pass, but it also isn't a window into my identity like my passport is and so I can choose convenience a bit over security there. Oh, a good example would be something like site passwords. Sure, I don't want anyone getting into my HN account, but it's not quite the same as someone getting into my bank account and, as such, I don't need quite as complex a password for it.

I'm not saying that I like the idea of chips in passports, but if you're going to put one in, why RFID? Why on earth didn't they choose something that requires physical contact to be read? I mean, the article focuses on the RFID problems (that it can be read without you knowing it since it doesn't require physical contact) and doesn't explain how on earth RFID became the choice. While one might not want to have a chip on their passport, at least a chip that needed physical access to read would put the holder (mostly^) in control of who got access to that information.

^I say mostly because there are always pick pockets and such that could swipe it without your knowledge, but that's a much lower risk than someone walking around with an RFID skimmer - it requires the person to physically remove it from your person, put it in a reader, and return it to you without you or anyone else noticing; not impossible, but a great deal less trivial.

<comment><USER3> RFID is not even that much of a hit in retail, either. Some say, "yet". But widespread use of RFID in retail was "just around the corner" for several years, now.

As long as the technology is not cheap enough to (profitably!) slap an RFID chip on every 25 cent cup of yoghurt, it won't be ready for retail.

(At least that's the picture in Germany. But thanks to Aldi, Lidl and a few others --- most of our groceries don't even accept credit cards, because their razor-thin margins make them unable to swallow the fee. Debit card processing --- which is mostly free for the shop --- is nearly universal however. (Except for Restaurants; most accept only cash.))

<comment><USER4> Wow, Germany sounds like a horrible place to go shopping.

<comment><USER5> Debit cards aren't half bad. You have to use your PIN to spend money, makes a thief maxing out your CC harder.

In most parts of Europe, you also don't have to pay %15-20 on top of every meal at a restaurant out of obligation. Tips really are only tips, you leave one based on the service you receive.

For the life of me, I really can't get over the fact that you _have_ to leave a 15% tip by default in the US (unless there was something blatantly wrong with your meal, of course). I mean, I'm not a dick, I still do it, I just can't get accustomed to it.

<comment><USER6> You don't _have_ to leave a tip. People don't appreciate it, and if you get not-bad service you should tip adequately, but the tip is a mechanism designed to encourage servers to meet your needs as well as possible, and not neglect their patrons. I think they work well, generally. In most places, a tip is not mandatory (I have heard of some establishments banning frequent non-tippers), though you generally leave one anyway to gauge the server's performance. i.e., bad performance gets 5-10%, normal 10-20%, awesome 20%+.

<comment><USER7> You say that you don't have to tip and then advocate tipping 5-10% for bad performance in the same paragraph? Of course there is no legal obligation to tip, since if there was it couldn't be called a tip-- it would just be itemized billing. But the fact that in the US wait staff can be legally paid less than the minimum wage (before tips) provides an ethical argument for tipping, if not a legal one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't really understand why governments are so obsessive about associating a photograph and a name. I can change my name whenever I want, for no reason at all. I can show up at the DMV with trivially-forged documents and get an ID card saying I am whoever I want to be. I can show up in a random country and easily overstay my visa. I can be a nice person one day, and the next day kill 3,000 people.

So I don't really see what all this scrutiny about identity documents is about. Identity is something that constantly changes, and doesn't really mean anything.

</comment><comment><USER9> To make the chips harder to clone, try including a physically unclonable function as part of the authentication:

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

<comment><USER8> Too expensive. Remember, the chips don't do anything useful, they are there so the government can look like it is somehow stopping terrorism with amazing high-tech gadgets.

The 9/11 hijackers had valid passports and visas.

<comment><USER10> True about the uselessness of the chips.

But adding a PUF is not expensive. For example the last option listed on the wikipedia link: a random magnetic strip costs fractions of a penny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1.) Sometimes new technology does not improve your situation but the opposite. e.g. RFID Passports open new attack vectors. There is no technology which is totally secure.

2.) RFID is not the problem, you can easily put a mesh inside the cover of the passport to prevent reading of the chip.

3.) Hammer time^Wthem. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=9> or tinfoil it.

4.) Subway cards with RFID are scary. In the UK the police uses the "named" cards to track peoples movement.

</comment><comment> onreact-com The real reason to introduce them is tightened control not "speed" or something.</comment>


How Usain Bolt Came from Behind Again to Win Gold - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-mens-100-meters-final.html <comment><AUTHOR> for those having a hard time with scroll, scrolling up and down on trackpad on my MacBook Air scrolled graphic left-right. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.</comment>