Ask HN: What apps did you build for yourself and why? - <AUTHOR> A great thing about being a developer is you can make apps to your liking. If it's simple and doesn't take a year to build, why not make your own?
My wife and I have been traveling extensively in the recent months, and I've got increasingly frustrated with the clunky and ugly currency converters. All I want from it is just type in the number and see the result instantly. I don't wanna be tapping input fields to gain focus, and I don't wanna be selecting stuff all the time, I just want a minimum number of taps to get the result. Would also be nice if it wasn't sore for my eyes.
So, since it's a pretty damn simple type of app, and us being a designer/developer couple, we rolled our own: https://www.billyconverter.com
And then besides happily using something that fits your needs, it's also pretty cool to see it being used by other people around the world.
What apps have you built yourself just out of a need to get something that fits your needs exactly? Why? Did you publish them on Android or Apple stores? <comment><USER2> I built a web app called Bucket for tracking todos, inspired by the technique described in this video[1] whereby you put tasks into buckets based on the time horizon for completion.

Your tasks are stored entirely in your browser, so there's no back-end, no risk of losing access, works offline, you can export any time, and you can share your tasks between devices using the Sync URL. You can use it here (for now, looks best on mobile): [https://lusmo.re/bucket/](https://lusmo.re/bucket/)

I built it because it was easy, it does exactly what I want, and I don't need to rely on some 3rd party to profitably monetise todo apps so that I can use it indefinitely.

[1] [https://youtu.be/iNG1a--SIlk?t=28m48s](https://youtu.be/iNG1a-- SIlk?t=28m48s)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very interesting. I like this approach. I've been using a sort of simplified Kanban for my own tasks, but I find this time-based sorting interesting.

Technically the only downside for me in this tool would be having to sync manually betwen devices, as I'm constantly jumping between managing the list on my phone and on my laptop.

I found that Trello works pretty well for my own needs, having automatic sync and offline functionality.

<comment><USER2> >Technically the only downside for me in this tool would be having to sync manually betwen devices, as I'm constantly jumping between managing the list on my phone and on my laptop.

Yeah, I can definitely agree that this is an annoyance if that's your workflow - personally I mostly stick to my phone. I might look into whether Chrome/Firefox tab syncing could do this for me, if I kept the hash fragment up-to-date. Feel free to raise any issues in the linked GitHub for requests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree, being able to build things that scratch your own itch can be amazing.

Some of mine:

\- a simple real time location sharing app[1] -- all the alternatives at that time were either clunky, with time limits, designed just for driving or with horrible privacy issues

\- an SMS app for when the Nexus 7 2013 tablet was still relevant[2] -- google blocked all SMS clients on that device for some reason until Android 6.0, but I managed to find a workaround

\- a way to find out the real network operator of any mobile phone in Romania[3] -- when you switch operators, you have the possibility of taking your phone number with you, so you can't rely just on number prefixes for lookup

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo.graticule)

[2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo.nexus7sms)

[3] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo.portabilitate)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! That last one is interesting. If not a secret, does it use some third- party service to get the operator for a given number?

<comment><USER3> Not a secret, just less known I would say :-)

The national communications regulations body provides the information on [http://portabilitate.ro](http://portabilitate.ro)

Example: [http://portabilitate.ro/ro- no-0744112233](http://portabilitate.ro/ro-no-0744112233)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love it when the governmental organizations release data for public use. I wish this happend more often. Good find!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I built an application for myself called meditations: [https://github.com/ioddly/meditations](https://github.com/ioddly/meditations)

It's actually...a todo application, but focused on habit formation and creating a positive feedback loop around a few consistent habits or projects.

I wrote it for myself because there was nothing quite like it that I was aware of. I use it on a daily basis; I also learned a lot of frontend development by having to maintain and use a real, interactive application.

> it's also pretty cool to see it being used by other people around the world.

It is cool! I've gotten one or two reports of people using it, despite the fact that I've taken almost no effort to make it easy to use, and it feels good.

I haven't published it on any stores because it's a self-hosted application -- you can keep all your data (encrypted if you want). I actually thought there would be no market for anything like it but over the years I've learned of a few that are making a decent revenue.

Bottom line, it's fun and rewarding to work on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like the idea of being able to track your overall progress. I use trello for all my tasks, but it always stays on the granular task level and it's sometimes difficult to see the bigger picture. Maybe you can explore this concept a bit more and work on a polished product?

<comment><USER4> Meditations actually was originally a Trello board. I built out a frontend that gave made it easier for me to see statistics and manipulate the individual cards (e.g. just click on one to cycle through labels). Eventually it became evident that it needed its own backend, so it's been through a couple large iterations since then.

I don't see it becoming a SAAS-type product, but I would like to make it easy to download and use at some point in the future. I like working on it, but I can only really get into major things when I have time between client projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a music streaming app ([https://audiostreamer.org/](https://audiostreamer.org/)) running from a machine at home that I like to listen to at work.

Verizon FIOS loves changing my home IP address randomly, especially whenever we lose power at home, which is unfortunately common. Since I can't know my IP in that case without being at home, I built a super small web app that I call Waypoint.

Essentially, every morning my PC pings the server running Waypoint. The app stores my IP address. If the IP ever changes and I'm not at home, all I need to do is go there to get the new one. (Yes, the website is password protected).

All-in-all, it took probably less than 30 minutes from start to finish to get this setup working, and it solved a minor problem in my life.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice one. I used to have a large mp3 collection (now replaced by Spotify) and would have loved to use audiostreamer and Waypoint to get to it while at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I built lnav ([https://lnav.org](https://lnav.org)) to help dig through the log files of the product I was working on at the time. I grew tired of having to manually interleave log messages from multiple files, so I created lnav to do the work for me. I started it over a decade ago and have used it at every job I've worked at since then.

<comment><USER7> I recently discovered it and started using it. It is pretty awesome and feature-rich. Thanks for this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I built CronAlarm ([https://www.cronalarm.com](https://www.cronalarm.com)) to solve a problem I was having at my primary job. I had several dozen cron jobs / scheduled tasks that ran at various times of the day, multiple times of the day, and across a range of servers. It became a little unwieldy to adequately monitor and I too often didn't know anything was wrong until somebody complained. So I built an internal tool to centralize the results of the jobs and to send me alerts when a problem was detected.

There are other cron monitoring tools out there, but at the time I didn't realize that. I didn't even look for one before building my own, actually. After stumbling across another option online one day, I thought to myself that if somebody was willing to pay for such a service, why not put my own out there? I thought mine was/is different enough from the others that it may be a compelling alternative to existing solutions. Thus, CronAlarm was born.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been working on a tool for analyzing my DJ track library, with the goal of doing a little semi-supervised learning to help organize my crates, remind me about music that might be getting lost in the shuffle, and - eventually, if all goes well - automatically scan beatport, soundcloud, etc for new tracks and notify me about music that might fit into my library. It doesn't actually do anything useful yet, but even if it never comes together the way I'm imagining, it's already been a great ML learning experience:

[http://www.github.com/marssaxman/robocrate](http://www.github.com/marssaxman/robocrate)

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a great idea. I used to have a decent vinyl collection, and would often forget about some of the good ones I have after not playing them for a while.

There isn't any info on the github page. Could you describe a bit how exactly does it organize the music?

<comment><USER9> There's no info yet partly because I've been trying a variety of approaches, and I'm not sure yet which approach will work out best. The core of the tool is a scanner which extracts an audio feature vector for each track in your library. Armed with this feature matrix, we can apply clustering algorithms - the most successful so far has been a Gaussian mixture model. I'm currently working on a system which will hopefully improve accuracy by bootstrapping a feature selection model, using metadata tags as an initial ground truth for music similarity, thereby allowing us to reduce the actual number of features which need to be compared.

I started out imagining that this tool would continuously update the contents of my crates, but now I think I want it to be more of a manual process. I'm imagining it as an analysis and reporting tool more than an organizer; I'll ask it to identify the outliers in a given crate, or ask for suggested additions, then choose how to arrange things myself. This way, I can use the manually-curated organization of my library as additional training data for the similarity model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Building REST APIs for database schemas which do not follow conventions of frameworks (rails,django,play etc) is incredibly tedious.

Xmysql solves this problem [1]. Within 2 seconds you can serve REST APIs for any MySql database. Other than CRUD-List APIs it has few more cool APIs and features relating to filtering, grouping and prototyping.

[1] [https://github.com/o1lab/xmysql/](https://github.com/o1lab/xmysql/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome, and github stars speak for themselves. Nice one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A built a free password helper for iOS because I've accepted that password reuse sucks, but so do traditional password managers. So this app takes snippets from valid site information and uses a secure hash algorithm which creates a binary, which I map to an string of ascii values to generate a password. It includes a per site salt and a device specific code to counter reverse engineering attempts. The salt can be which whatever you want, and you must remember a final passphrase (if you use one) to get the passwords regenerated. You have to kind of keep track of the length of these generated passwords yourself, because it's truncated for differing password lengths. Anyway, on the whole imho it's more secure than many a password manager on the market, save that it's still new and requires use of copy/paste buffers. But, all of that is of course predicated on using the tool correctly, and using caution with passwords, which you should do anyway.

The App is DyfynderX if you're interested. The name comes from dyfnder, which is the Welsh word for depth.

</comment><comment><USER12> I built a macOS App last year for managing Screen Shots.

I run a development agency and love taking snapshots from various blogs & websites. They were getting difficult to manage.

So I created a small utility to manage screenshots on macOS.

[https://shots.mobilefirst.in](https://shots.mobilefirst.in)

Send me your feedback on this.

</comment><comment><USER13> I built [https://dndemail.com](https://dndemail.com) because I wanted do not disturb functionality for my email. I like to only check email 2x a day, but I would find that my workflows would often require me to visit my email (to look up an old email or send a new email). I would get distracted by new emails in my inbox.

DNDEmail keeps my inbox empty -- my new messages are only delivered on the 2x day schedule. It helps me stay focused even when I have to go into my email.

On the weekends, I keep my email off entirely.

It is also in the chrome webstore: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/do-not-disturb- for...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/do-not-disturb-for- gmail/plpeflfgccdjdoalphmpcahkedbabkno)

</comment><comment><USER14> As "the computer guy" at my office, I was tasked with printing a football pick 'em pool sheet each week of the NFL season (no way we could get everyone to use an app). Built something that fit our needs and assumed others would use it, as well: [http://footballpickempool.net](http://footballpickempool.net)

Another fun one that I love sharing with people: [http://donetemperature.com](http://donetemperature.com). I love to grill, and I am a stickler for doneness of the meat, for both safety and preference. I found myself always relying on a web search each time, and the top results are all for random food blogs, and the info I needed was always buried somewhere in a massive recipe post.

</comment><comment><USER15> My app Baajet was also created extensively for travelling purpose, which I created to help me keep track of my travelling budgets with simple UI, no reports or charts and graphs.

Just keep tracking daily budget. Plain and simple.

[https://baajetapp.com](https://baajetapp.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's cool! I can totally see this being useful. I like the logo and the sheep :-)

I love how simple it is, but I have one wish -- when you enter an expense, by tapping the red (+) button, it would be nice if the text field was already selected, so I don't have to tap on it -- would save one extra step. Then, once you select the text field and enter an amount, the next problem is that the continue button (>) is hidden below the keyboard, so I need to somehow dismiss the keyboard in order to proceed. Would be cool if you could tap the keyboard "return", or "OK" button to proceed.

Otherwise really nice. I like the simplicity of it very much! Good job!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I built an image sharing utility connected to a friend's service, because I wanted to be able to directly share an image from anywhere on my phone without going on his website.

[https://pix.artemix.org/](https://pix.artemix.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice. I was actually looking for a simple image host with an API that I could use for a personal project, and didn't know about Pix. Ended up using Cloudinary, which is way overblown for my needs. Maybe I'll make an iOS port of your app!

<comment><USER16> If you do so, don't hesitate to contact me so I can also advertise it, and send the information to the service's owner, a friend of mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I built [[https://scinder.io](https://scinder.io)](https://scinder.io\]\(https://scinder.io\)) as a way to analyse my running and cycling data to see how well I was training and if I'm on track to achieve the goals I've set myself. I've found that a lot of the services I'd used previously didn't give me the depth of analysis that I needed to be able to make decisions about my training schedule.

For a long time the project just sat on my PC but I'm now trying to try to turn it into a paid service as I think some of the features I've added are pretty cool and I've not seen them anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've built Fog[1] which is an Overcast[2] wrapper for macOS. I started it because I wanted to listen to podcasts on the Desktop but also wanted to control playback via media keys. I've since added a few more features.

I've made SandwichTimer[3] because no other pomodoro timer did what I wanted — to be minimally controllable via the CLI (so I could do it from Alfred[4], without needing the mouse) and to show the remaining time just as minutes (seconds are distracting, and a pie isn't accurate enough). Since I also frequently needed regular timers and needed to use the phone for those, I've baked that in as well.

PinPlus[5] because I wanted a simple app to add Pinboard[6] bookmarks that looked good and I could dismiss with ⎋.

Sacar Musak[7] not for me, but for my friends that want to download videos from Youtube and kept downloading shady apps I did not trust.

I have a ton more in the form of CLI tools, but _the_ apps I use most frequently are the Alfred Workflows I've made[8].

[1]: [https://github.com/vitorgalvao/fog](https://github.com/vitorgalvao/fog)

[2]: [https://overcast.fm/](https://overcast.fm/)

[3]: [https://github.com/vitorgalvao/sandwichtimer](https://github.com/vitorgalvao/sandwichtimer)

[4]: [https://www.alfredapp.com/](https://www.alfredapp.com/)

[5]: [https://github.com/vitorgalvao/pinplus](https://github.com/vitorgalvao/pinplus)

[6]: [https://pinboard.in/](https://pinboard.in/)

[7]: [https://github.com/vitorgalvao/sacar- musak](https://github.com/vitorgalvao/sacar-musak)

[8]: [https://github.com/vitorgalvao/alfred- workflows](https://github.com/vitorgalvao/alfred-workflows)

</comment><comment><USER19> I built [https://www.remotepassword.com](https://www.remotepassword.com) because I didn't want to hardcode passwords in my scripts and wanted a way to disable them remotely (ie my raspberry pi has been stolen and I don't want them to mount my backup truecrypt containers).

It works fine and gave me some peace of mind!

</comment><comment><USER20> I wrote a simple web-based RSS client: [https://github.com/travisred/bottomfeeder](https://github.com/travisred/bottomfeeder)

I got tired of looking for a lightweight option that would run on pretty much any VPS or webhost. And I can modify it any time I want without learning a large codebase.

</comment><comment><USER21> A long time ago I built an app to monitor online retailers for items that were hard to find in-stock. It would send me text alerts so I could buy them before they went out of stock again. I made it into a business for a while, then the retailers caught on and stopped paying commissions on a those items.

I've also built code generators for myself.

<comment><USER22> I've built something similar just the other day. But the purpose is to find items on sale below a price point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's a link to the app mentioned in the OP: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/billy-currency- converter/id1...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/billy-currency- converter/id1311724635)

@timojaask developed it and I designed it

</comment><comment><USER24> I got sick of how slow ESPN/Sportsline/NFL.com etc. were when all I wanted was to see NFL scores. So I made a little script to pull the NFL's live JSON game data file and display it in plain text. Bold who had the ball, italicize if they were in the red zone, etc.

<comment><USER22> But what API do you use that you can get the data faster?

<comment><USER24> It's not an API just some random JSON file. It's some random php file on a web server. I just refresh the page when I want to see the score. It's the speed of all the other stuff on the page (videos, whatever) that makes ESPN, etc. unbearable. I just want the numbers.

[http://www.nfl.com/liveupdate/scores/scores.json](http://www.nfl.com/liveupdate/scores/scores.json)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wrote a Greasemonkey script that creates page previews for Wikipedia, so I could cover more ground understanding terms and articles. This was about a year before Wikipedia's official page preview feature was made live.

</comment><comment><USER26> Right now I'm slowly building a Git GUI for working with changes I make in my TiddlyWiki instances. The app will keep me from getting behind in my commits and be a fun way for practicing Python and working with Toga.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wrote my home automation software because none of the prebuilt applications I could find did exactly what I wanted or let me customize them in the way that I wanted to. It's not _good_ software, but it works.</comment>


Cutter – A Qt and C++ GUI for Radare2 reverse engineering framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/radareorg/cutter <comment><USER2> Cutter is "A Qt and C++ GUI for radare2".

There are more alternatives to IDA Pro. Hopper Disassembler is one. Binary Ninja (binja) is another.

Here is an independent review of Binary Ninja: [https://www.trailofbits.com/research-and- development/binja/](https://www.trailofbits.com/research-and- development/binja/)

Here is the project itself: [https://binary.ninja/](https://binary.ninja/)

I happen to know most of the people involved in Binary Ninja. They do great work. They really understand security and the need to operate off-line.

BTW, if disassembly is a career interest for you, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17208556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17208556) for my "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2018)" comment.

<comment><USER3> Reverse engineering has been a constant interest for me but I've never managed to get it to "click" for me. I don't particularly _need_ the skill, but it's one I'd like to have (at least to the extent of being able to do simple crackmes).

<comment><USER4> My earliest exposure to computers was the ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit home-computer from the 80s, which was insanely populare in the UK.

Having few games, and little budget for more, most of the kids around would swap home-copied games. I used to have fun removing protection, or hacking the games for infinite lives. At the time I was 12-15 and it was very much a case of trial or error.

Assuming a game started with 3 lives I would look for every occurance of "LD A,3", and change the 3 to 5. If that didn't work I'd eventually replace every occurance of 3 with a different number. As you can imagine this was a tedious process!

If I was lucky enough to find the right "starting value" I'd then go on to look which memory-address the value was saved in. That would then let me search for that same address in the rest of the program, and hopefully spot something like:

         LD A,(addr)
         DEC A
         LD (addr),A

At that point I was done. Removing the decrement would stop the lives-counter from being decreased - giving you as many as you wanted.

Later I moved to the PC, and I found +fravia's site very educational. There are still mirrors which show how you could remove protection from commercial software - and oftentimes I'd be reminded of my previous attempts. Sometimes it is very simple, and sometimes not. Educational regardless.

Random mirror here - [http://acrigs.com/FRAVIA/aca400.htm](http://acrigs.com/FRAVIA/aca400.htm)

The main reason I stopped this work? Few programs on Linux prompt you for license keys! But a good disassembler is a worthwhile thing to explore, whether for debugging your own code, or randomly exploring crackmes.

<comment><USER5> My first and only hacks were at the age of 12 where i "patched" the copy protection keywords from the first XWing in 1993 [0]. I only knew 1 password and searched for it in a hex editor. I found it and recognized a pattern with similar words. Replacing them with the Ascii Space resulted in "press return to pass" password checks :D Damn i was proud.

At the same age, i rewrote the Story Text of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1991)[1] via hex and "Try and Errored" all Ascii combinations to develop my own Ascii chart. You can imagine what a 12 year old rewrote a love story to... my older brother was quite happy :D

I later tried to patch Dune2 Level files to create my own but did not understand a thing.

Now i write medical software and sometimes feel the same ;)

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X- Wing_(video_game_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X- Wing_\(video_game_series\)#X-Wing)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Robin_Hood_(...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Robin_Hood_\(video_game\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been watching the ecosystem of radare2 GUIs for a while now. I've loved IDA for its long-standing support of numerous architectures, as well as its built-in interpreter for running Python/IDC scripts with ease, however the price is nearly inhibitive for the average student or weekend hacker. IMO, the one major reason that radare isn't as widely adopted in the RE industry is simply because of a lack of GUIs that aren't either web-based or half-baked and partially broken. In many ways, the radare2 plugin architecture is far superior to IDAs, and I hope this project can start to bridge the gap between functionality and ease-of-use.

On an entirely separate note, I'd love to see a port of this for Android :)

<comment><USER7> I looked into buying IDA Pro a while back and the experience was like buying enterprise software in 1997. There's not much of a reason for me to have it but it'd be a fun thing to have and toy with in spare time but I'm not really willing to pay an insane subscription price on a sketchy website.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but it's not really the type of tool you play with during the weekends. It's high powered and the industry standard.

I, and many of my colleagues, would gladly play 4 or 5 times the price for IDA and Hex Rays. Though, any decent security company will purchase a subscription for it's employees.

<comment><USER7> >it's not really the type of tool you play with during the weekends

I am not so sure I agree. I can take another example, CAD software. There are high powered industry standard softwares which I would love to use on weekends and maybe even use in side projects for profit, but there's no way I can pay $2k/year and justify that. A $2k permanent license? Sure, it's a stretch but I'd probably go for it. 180/month though, whatever I'm doing would have to be really serious before I could justify that.

And I won't ever start at that price so the deal is dead.

There's a parallel in 3d printing. Not so long ago 3d printers were insanely expensive and only accessible to professionals. Now consumer grade machines are starting to replace machines that cost 10-100x more.

It's a frustrating thing about the economy where power tools that could enable a lot of people to do a lot of things are priced so that only a few people who can pay a lot can have access to them. I get that the people making them need to make a livelihood, but the frustration remains.

<comment><USER9> For free CAD, checkout OnShape if you don't mind all your drawings to be public.

[https://www.onshape.com/](https://www.onshape.com/)

<comment><USER7> Oh yes there's plenty of free CAD (for example, FreeCAD), but there are some truly excellent but insanely expensive tools out there too.

I would be happy to spend a large sum of money for a copy, but you can't any more. You have to buy a subscription.

If I can buy something excellent and know that I'll be able to use it, even if outdated, in 10 years, there's real value to an investment like that.

If I'm throwing several dollars a day into a hole for something I'll probably only use sometimes, and at that, perhaps taking years between uses, I can't justify the expense.

Something like how I bought the best cordless drill I could find. Not because I use it every day, or even every month, but because I wanted my drilling experience to be good every time I used it.

If you have good tools you're more likely to do things and do them well.

People give the same advice about guitars. Don't buy a cheap guitar if you want to pick up the skill. It will be difficult to tune, it won't keep a tune, and it won't sound great whatever you do. Buy a good guitar and what you do will sound better and encourage you to keep it up and get better.

A lot of free software tools are the same. They can do what they do, but their flaws discourage use and make failure as a beginner a lot more likely.

There is probably an optimum there. Not so refined as to be too expensive to be accessible to most people and not so rudimentary as to turn away people who try with low success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I discovered Radare2 some years ago, and found that Cutter strongly lowers the learning curve of r2.

On that note, I used to play (as a n00b) to some crackmes and ctf, but not having kept up to date I can't find a live replacement for crackmes.de (or .cf today...still an archive though). Any suggestions of current resources to "play" with r2 and Cutter?

<comment><USER11> I don't know those websites, but I can recommand something in the same genre : pwnable.tw

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish there would be some App/Website similar to DragonBox [1] but to learn assembler instead of math ;-)

[1]: [https://dragonbox.com/products/algebra-12](https://dragonbox.com/products/algebra-12)

<comment><USER13> TIS-100 by Zachtronics is a game based around a very small instruction set assembly language on an interesting architecture.

Shenzhen I/O is also meant to be good, but I haven't played it.

Neither are even close in complexity or sheer number of instructions to x86, but then I get the sense that x86 tends to put people off assembly in a way that simpler architectures don't.

<comment><USER14> TIS-100 is a neat programming puzzle game. A lot of the programming challenges revolve around the limited nature of the CPU nodes in each system (two registers, no memory, very limited space for assembler source code). It's a fun game if you love to program. However, I found the later challenges somehow too frustrating and I haven't finished the game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I learned to use Radare2 a bit during our company's last CTF, and while it's super awesome in terms of capabilities, the GUI story is terrible: if you start investigating, it seems there's a long debris trail of half-done GUIs where someone said, "Hey, this would be easier if there were a GUI". Even the visual mode inside radare2 has _completely_ different commands from the non- GUI mode, and you almost certainly need to switch back and forth.

If radare2 found a couple of undergrad usability students to contribute and then focused on consistency and bug-fixing, it would be able to live up to its truly amazing potential.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://rada.re/r/cmp.html](https://rada.re/r/cmp.html)

Radare, in my opinion, is mostly lacking on the user-experience sides. IDA is easier to pick-up and use. Also, I feel Radare's decompilers don't fare as- well as Hex-Rays. I equate this to Windbg - your best Windows debugger, which unfortunately is relatively tough to pick up (I'd argue, mostly due to poor UI choices). Forgoing that, Radare is absolutely packing.

I've moved on to reverse most of my projects with Radare. I'm still missing a handful of small features/plugins from IDA, but it's not a big issue.

<comment><USER17> The thing that r2 is lacking is a good decompiler. IDAs decompiler really helps a lot if you are reversing a big binary with many structs.

<comment><USER18> Avast released RetDec as free software not long ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15912595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15912595)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This looks proper good. Interesting to see pseudo code support too.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is great. I've tried to pickup radare2 multilple times for fun and I always struggled with the CLI. I will give it one more go with Cutter.</comment>


UBeam finally shows off its wireless charging tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/ubeam-finally-shows-off-its-wireless-charging-technology-2236385621.html <comment><USER2> From the looks of it the founder and her roommate (a political science major who's since been written out of the company's history) developed a basic idea with no experience or demonstrable ability to turn it into a product, and received tens of millions to give it a shot.

It's not a new idea--ultrasound is already used to power pacemakers, and people have been playing with the concept for years. However, basic calculations shows that this is not likely to be practical as a consumer device. The founder has no physics or electrical engineering background, so there's no reason to think that she has some unique ability to overcome these hurdles. She's also hasn't demonstrated that she's developed any novel techniques to overcome the engineering challenges.

So why all the VC money? Why give VC money to a 20 something with no experience and no background with the hope that she'll hire enough engineers to figure it out? It just doesn't make sense to me.

I said the same thing about Theranos. They basically gave an inexperienced person who had no real domain knowledge millions of dollars to run a research lab. It looks very similar. Are VCs just desperate for a media friendly founder success story?

edit: Turns out there was already a patent covering something very similar filed in 2003 [https://www.google.com/patents/US6798716?dq=ultrasound+power...](https://www.google.com/patents/US6798716?dq=ultrasound+power+transmission#v=onepage&q&f=false)

<comment><USER3> Just a shot in the dark, but I think VC's probably see this as game changing tech if someone can pull it off. Something that would pay off big and that slot of risk must've been acceptable.

Also possibly to fill diversity requirements.

<comment><USER2> > but I think VC's probably see this as game changing tech if someone can pull > it off

I'm sure it would be. But what I don't understand is why not hire someone who knows what they're doing to try to pull it off? Why hire an inexperienced person with almost no domain knowledge just because she happens to have a very basic idea sketched out.

<comment><USER3> It's not like she's the only person at the company. I'm sure that they've got at least some engineering under that VC Capital umbrella

<comment><USER2> I'm sure the company is filled with engineers now. But my point is why put someone with no research, engineering, or management experience in charge?

Imagine a hypothetical scenario. I'm a VC and some kid with a degree in biology told me we should make phones that use ultra capacitors instead of batteries.

Me: "That sounds cool, but it's probably not going to work because ultra caps just don't have the energy density."

Kid: "Yeah but if you give me 25 million dollars I can hire a bunch of engineers and figure it out."

Me: "Why do I need you? You're idea isn't novel. You don't have any experience or training, and you probably can't even do it."

Kid: "But if I do, you'll make billions."

Me: "I can give the same money to anyone of thousands of people qualified to actually run an R&D project, and I'll have a much higher chance of success."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As somebody who came from an electrical engineering background into software, literally from the bottom of the bottom on a physical layer level....

Software VC would really benefit from a couple emag classes before trying to disrupt physics. These extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence. I don't want to be anywhere near any kind of field that's strong enough to power my laptop. Acoustic or otherwise. No thank you please.

<comment><USER5> Sunlight, electric heaters, stoves, induction stoves, flying batteries (toy helicopters), electric lightbulbs. There are all kinds of common ways of transmitting large amount of power through space. Sure, they can be harmful but we work around the risks. As long as it deposits the energy into people slowly and as heat, then we'll feel it before it causes damage and get out of the way.

Those things don't even have fancy high tech people-detecting safety features. Maybe this charger shuts down when it detects that some of its energy is being lost to an unknown place.

<comment><USER4> My dawg, you just named several things that require physical contact for energy transfer (ie they plug into the wall) and one wireless system that will literally kill you if you stay out in it unprotected.

I don't know if you meant to prove my point, but really man, physics is cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am all for encouraging startups and giving benefit of the doubt, but isn't this just a show?

I am curious how this is different from what she would have demoed to her angel investors several years ago.

Displaying that it's charging is very different from actually charging. It could look like it's "charging" but may actually take all day to finish charging, in which case the technology is completely useless.

I am especially put off by how the "startup community" people seem to be patting her on the back saying "it works!" even though none of them actually believes it to be so deep inside.

Literally __ALL __of the criticism around this company have been how there 's a huge discrepancy between the demo and their actual product (hint: there is none), and she should have addressed THAT point (about how fast it charges) instead of doing another one of those deceptive demos that don't mean anything.

<comment><USER7> > Displaying that it's charging is very different from actually charging. It > could look like it's "charging" but may actually take all day to finish > charging, in which case the technology is completely useless.

Absolutely not! Give me a thin mat that I can put next to me at my office desk, in the kitchen, on the night lamp stand, and on my car console between seats, and I can guarantee you you have billion-dollar in sales!

Don't forget the common nature of us human is laziness! If something can be done simpler (not reaching out for cable and plugging it into device 3 times a day) then you will find people to buy it! It doesn't have to charge my phone to full, enough to get me going for a while until next stopping/charging point.

<comment><USER8> If you want to charge your phone while it sits on a mat you can use an induction charger where is an entirely different technology from what uBeam is promising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a TED video from 8 years ago that ends with the exact same demonstration: [https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electric...](https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity#t-368790)

</comment><comment><USER10> Technical eevblog FAQ on the feasibility:

[http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam- faq/](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/)

<comment><USER11> Very informative

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Without a powermeter or multimeter, that's just a gimmick demo. I've done that with UHF RFID tags from 10m away, where we harvest a few mA to light up an LED. That doesn't mean it can charge a cellphone.

</comment><comment><USER13> Precious little technical details don't inspire much confidence on the performance of the product. After years of research and controversy we get a demo that shows basically very little.

To trigger a charge detection on a phone, you only need to apply a sufficient voltage and be able to supply a small current. It will "charge" but may take days to do so.

As a minimum, the UBeam receiver must be able to generate 5W of power (1A at 5V) to adequately charge a phone (10W or more would be needed for a faster charge though).

Assuming that the technology is 100% efficient in its power transceivers (which is impossible), there is still the matter of exponential attenuation when transmitting ultrasounds through air: at 2m, to produce 5W at the receiver, you need to generate 25W at the transmitter.

This gets worse very fast. Even if you assume they magically manage to get extremely efficient, the laws of physic will prevent the technology from being useful beyond a couple of meters without requiring hundreds of watts of transmitted power. And we're not even talking about the actual performance of the transducers, or the fact that the angle between the transmitter and receiver can affect power transmission, as would air humidity levels...

UBeam will most probably end up producing something super-niche. On paper and in controlled demos, you can transmit some power through the air using ultrasounds. So maybe they'll manage to have an exhibit in a museum or some technology-of-the-future showrooms and they'll probably continue to have demo at exhibitions for years to come while not answering the difficult questions of efficiency and practicality with actual verifiable numbers.

Having an affordable, safe, useful, practical mass-consumer product though? Nah, not a chance.

UBeam is one of these companies build on wishful thinking. They sell a dream and get money from people caught in that dream. They can't back down now, so they have to keep up appearances and come up with polished demos from time to time just to keep the buzz and the mystery alive, and the money flowing.

<comment><USER8>
      > when transmitting ultrasounds through air: at 2m, to
      > produce 5W at the receiver, you need to generate 25W at
      > the transmitter

Where does that 2m come from? It has to do with the frequency of the sound right? I don't remember enough physics. :(

<comment><USER13> 2m is what they demoed if I'm right. The power attenuation actually varies a lot and is dependent on ultrasound frequency, temperature, humidity, air pressure...

You get better transmission at low frequencies, but below 100kHz you risk affecting pets.

Some details and a link to an interesting paper: [http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52195/ultrasonic-...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52195/ultrasonic- wave-through-air)

<comment><USER8> Ya, it's the power attenuation calculations that I'm trying to relearn/reremember how to do. I'll keep futzing around. Is fun. Thx for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's been posted before, but bears repeating:

[http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the- sausage-f...](http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-sausage- factory.html)

\- it's a lengthy series of posts from the former VP of Engineering at uBeam, going into the politics and technological issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you guys can't watch the videos on twitter essentially she held a phone that was turned off kinda in front of the machine, then it turned on and a "battery" showed on the screen with a 3 frame animation of it "charging"

No proof whatsoever that it was charging anything.

Does that mean it's not real? Unsure. But this wasn't that convincing.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure it was charging. Probably at a rate of 1 full charge per month, but totally charging ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > When she did so, a large battery charge counter on the screen showed that it > was indeed charging.

That doesn't prove it was charging, just that it could sense the ultrasound and throw up a graphic. Let's see it run for 30 minutes and show the Android battery app for proof.

</comment><comment><USER18> No details of input power to the transmitter nor power received by the receiver.

Companies have demo'ed similar devices before, but where the rubber meets the road is the efficiency and total power of the system. In other words, if it takes 200 watts to transmit and 200 milliwatts received at 3 feet, it is not useful for a consumer nor the environment.

<comment><USER19> The article mentions a "coin-sized chip," although it's hard to say if that refers to the transmitter or refers to the receiver.

One of the older articles about uBeam stated that a trickle charge for IoT/Phone was the target after the physical limitations were discussed.

<comment><USER20> In what way is any of that relevant to the question of efficiency?

<comment><USER19> It's entirely possible that efficiency may not be a product objective for uBeam.

<comment><USER20> It certainly should be. If I need to waste enough electricity to charge my car just to charge my phone, that's a big problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Perry first stood a couple of yards from a large white box emitting ultrasound waves, and used a device that glowed red when it was in the waves ' path. She then grabbed an Android smartphone in a large and bulky black case, and held it up in that path. When she did so, a large battery charge counter on the screen showed that it was indeed charging._

Of course you can transmit some power that way. But how much? And what's the efficiency?

Here's their previous demo, from 2011.[1] What they had then was a bunch of cheap ultrasonic transducers [2] aimed at each other. Those used to be popular for hobbyist robotics. Some unspecified amount of power was transmitted about two feet. Probably a few milliwatts.

The last time UBeam published numbers, they claimed to be generating a few kilowatts of sound power. Such things are usually used as weapons systems (see LRAD) or welders. You don't want to be in a kilowatt ultrasonic beam. The energy mostly ends up as heat.

This technology is either too low power to be useful or, if pumped up to useful power levels, too dangerous.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHxyweJcZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHxyweJcZI) [2] [http://www.futurlec.com/Ultrasonic_Sensors.shtml](http://www.futurlec.com/Ultrasonic_Sensors.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER22> We can glean some info from the videos posted to Twitter. The receiver is a big bulky cover around the phone- no way that will fit in my pocket. The transmitters are the size of a microwave oven. Notice that she is very careful to hold the phone so as to maximize the area that is exposed to ultrasound. There doesn't seem to be any tracking at work.

At the end of the day, after 5+ years and $25M+ spent ubeam is still quite far away from a viable consumer product. It would kill Meredith Perry to admit it, but the naysayers were right about the viability of this technology. At some point you've just got to cut your losses and move on.

</comment><comment><USER23> So how much energy was transferred? The charging icon easily could come on under many different situations and also if the phone receiver pack was engineered to detect the presence of an ultrasonic signal that would then tell a battery pack inside the receiver pack to start charging the phone that easily could be used to fake the situation. So again one of these situations that easily can be judged to be good or bad with like 2 numbers but they refuse to publish those numbers.. Shocking...

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks I really hope they get a product to market. The wireless charging aspect is boring, but it'll be cool to modify it for frying things, messing with dogs and stuff

<comment><USER24> Wireless charging will be awesome.

As a person who wants an exterior security camera, a wireless bluetooth speaker in my bathroom, smoke detectors placed in the highest parts of my ceiling, a completely wireless TV on my wall, to never have to plug my phone in again, LEDs in the ceiling of my garage for better visibility in the corners, and about 100 other little things, wireless power will change everything for the better.

A small battery and wireless power basically means no more cables for about 90% of home devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, frankly: pics or it didn't happen. Or rather videos, in this case.

<comment><USER26> I went digging for videos on Twitter (as that's where the article says they're floating around).

[https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff/status/827344599362383872](https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff/status/827344599362383872) and [https://twitter.com/broukhim/status/827430306101669888](https://twitter.com/broukhim/status/827430306101669888)

<comment><USER8> Well yup. There are some blinkenlights on that stage.

<comment><USER26> I share the cynicism I infer in your comment; I don't think that this demo really gives any weight to the idea that this will be an actual, practical, product. However, the commenter asked for a video and there it is.

<comment><USER8> I think it's great that you found the links and posted the video. Certainly relevant.

My cynicism is wholly directed at the company which I believe to be a fraud. I'm sorry if I accidentally sent some of it in your direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm sure this is as real as Magic Leap.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is this thing safe for dogs?

<comment><USER29> Dogs don't require charging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hmm. 6 years and ~$30 million dollars later, this is what we get?

</comment><comment><USER31> transmitting electromagnetic signals over the air has been done long time ago (think fm radio), but to charge a battery you need much more power, to a level that becomes unsafe foe humans to be around it. there is no mention in the article about saftety and what the long term effect will be on humans when constantly around it.

</comment><comment><USER32> why ultrasonic? Wouldn't millimeter radio wave beams work better?

<comment><USER33> Another word for that range of the EM spectrum is "microwave". At moderate power density, they very efficiently cook meat. You are made out of meat.

<comment><USER29> To be fair, that's just because the emission of microwave ovens is tuned to a resonance of water molecules. That said, I think that resonance is rather broad, so you could expect a fair amount of coupling at large power.

Also, microwaves can denature proteins; one symptom of massive microwave exposure is cataracts (from the proteins in the eye denaturing).

But man, I really hate charging cables!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In case anyone is wondering about the feasibility concerns the FAQ on the web blog is very comprehensive:

[http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam- faq/](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/)

Overall, it seems unlikely to work, even for trickle charging phones, under anything but ideal conditions.</comment>


Introducing The Humble Introversion Bundle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/11/Introducing-The-Humble-Introversion-Bundle

<comment><USER2> Awesome. I'd missed the first bundle with Aquaria, and now a second chance to get it!

And I've yet to play the games from the past two bundles :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hard to not be a fan of these bundles. I loved Uplink when it was released, I had no idea it had such a fan base.</comment>


Another Canadian diplomat in Cuba sick with mystery illness, Global Affairs says - <AUTHOR> https://globalnews.ca/news/4710539/canadian-diplomat-cuba-sick-mystery-illness/ <comment><AUTHOR> "a mysterious illness that causes dizziness, headaches and trouble concentrating"

and from CBC:

"Canadian government sources say that of the 12 Canadians who were previously affected, only one reported feeling a sensation of waves or pulses coming through the air. In all other cases, the Canadians became aware of their injuries when they began to experience symptoms."

Interesting...it seems a bit of a stretch to assume this is some mysterious weapon.</comment>


Getting to Antarctica - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/getting-to-antarctica/ <comment><USER2> > The closest you can get to Antarctica on regular commercial flights is Punta > Arenas

Not quite true. You can get to Ushuaia, which is a little closer.

<comment><USER3> I can confirm this, having flown through airports in both places. I flew into Ushuaia from Buenos Aires and out of Punta Arenas, taking a bus between the two (since Chile and Argentina apparently don't get along all that well).

Speaking of which! The website also says "the team will link up with a British Antarctic Survey transport plane". The British and people in Ushuaia (and Argentina generally, although feelings seem to run a bit higher in Ushuaia) also don't get along terribly well. So, this may well be the closest a _British_ team is able to get commercially and link up with a British flight to Antarctica.

Fun fact: the area around Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego) has a beaver infestation problem, thanks to enterprising souls importing beavers there from Canada.

<comment><USER4> Yup, the British Antarctic Survey run regular flights from both Punta Arenas and Stanley (Falkland Islands) to Antarctica during the summer season. Ushuaia... not so much. Plus, link flights back to the UK are easier via the Chilean route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> mildly annoying presentation style, got tired of clicking to see more.</comment>


Show HN: Processing on the Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/processing/processing/wiki/Raspberry-Pi <comment><AUTHOR> 3D graphics and a board-agnostic Hardware I/O library that just talks to mainline kernel interfaces was the hard part.

Adafruit did a video hinting at what this could be used for: [https://learn.adafruit.com/processing-on-the-raspberry-pi- an...](https://learn.adafruit.com/processing-on-the-raspberry-pi-and- pitft/overview)

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.</comment>


Lethal Business Model Pushing Black-Tar Heroin - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-me-blacktar14-2010feb14,0,674979.story

<comment><USER2> Must be run by an MBA</comment>


India's Answer to Google Glass: The Smartshoe - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/07/24/indias-answer-to-google-glass-the-smartshoe/ <comment><USER2> Shoes are a fantastic idea, and highly overlooked. The biggest hurdle to wearable technology is the friction required to convince a consumer to wear it. We all wear shoes. We don't all wear glasses or watches. Some of us even wear contacts to avoid wearing glasses. The Smartshoe doesn't seem as competitive to Google Glass as it is complimentary. Glasses have a better appeal for visual media capture because you can see what you're capturing in real time and from a better angle. The Smartshoe could have a better appeal for fitness and GPS use cases. Emphasizing 'smartsole' would probably be a better sell than 'smartshoe' though. Letting consumers stick with their personal fashion choices, i.e. Nike, Vans, is a powerful selling point.

<comment><USER3> It also needs to be useful on a relatively regular basis otherwise there's a dissonance between added value and the additional cost. For these shoes to be useful you need to be walking somewhere you don't know the way to, without someone with you who knows the way with you, for a distance that makes you not want to take your phone out to check you're going the right way occasionally. I don't think I've been in that situation for about 10 years.

If you're a courier or a messenger then these would be fantastically useful. For everyone else, they solve a problem no one really has.

<comment><USER4> At destination tourist sites, rent the shoes out (or sell the "tour" software to those who own the shoes) so they can walk the same steps as people of bygone eras while listening to the ambient audio recreating the time period. I can see this as being a huge tourist activity for the historical and location- fan minded type.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not sure how is it an answer to google glass !! It navigates and counts the number of steps and roughly the number of calories the wearer burns. Now if we consider it as an answer to google glass then is it an answer to smart watch and astronaut's suits(I consider them wearables as they are expensive and loaded with tech). End of the day, title's a bit too misleading I would say but none the less a good invention and I might even go back home and buy it.

<comment><USER6> Possibly click bait. I think India's Answer to Wearable Computing would have been a little more fitting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is it titled India's answer to Google Glass? Possible explanations: 1\. The editors know that Indians are susceptible to jingoistic patriotism. "Wow Indians did this? Really?" 2\. The editors think that Indians as a collective are not a piece of the flat world and their accomplishments are more surprising than routine. 3\. Now that China has pulled itself close to developed nations, India represents "The Third World Asian Country".

I am not offended. IMO all of the above are true. But I guess it can't be too hard to refer a product by the company name rather than the whole nation.

<comment><USER8> I think it is condescending to associate a product with a country and not the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the idea, but can I suggested also on the same note that they can create a high tech condom, which will let you know how many diseases you have avoided each time you wear it, and it might have also a pleasure indicator, so at the end both partners, will know how much the other one faked. (Obviously this message is intended as a joke, and should not offend anyone)

<comment><USER10> You've just painted a horrifically realistic concept for the quantified self crowd. How was my orgasm? Was it better or worse than the one I had two days ago? Is my current partner giving me better orgasms than my previous one? Let's upload all of this personal data to the cloud and get some pretty charts...

<comment><USER11> Like this?

[http://spreadsheetsapp.com](http://spreadsheetsapp.com)

<comment><USER10> Oh god.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an absolutely brilliant idea.

Wearables like Glass solve the problem of people having their faces glued to their phones by gluing their phones to their faces. And people use their faces for social interaction. So face-mounted tech is immediately noticeable and obvious, especially around eyes and ears. Hence, the nickname "glasshole".

Vibration is not new. I recall seeing video of a belt fitted with multiple vibration motors that always vibrated the motor closest to true north. This allowed blindfolded people to navigate across the test field to a predetermined destination.

This puts the same concept into the least noticeable spot on your body: the soles of your feet. Shoes are nearly impossible to forget when you go out, and we are already well conditioned to tolerate wearing them.

Obviously, it has lower sensory resolution than a visual or audible interface, but it is going through a completely different channel. Over-eye or in-ear wearables have to compete for bandwidth in already cluttered channels. Tactile wearables have a wide open channel, just begging to be used.

Add in an interface for foot-gesture inputs, and you could do a lot more than just navigation and pedometry.

</comment><comment><USER13> What does this have to do with Google Glass? I believe this is one of those cases where writing your own post title is allowed (encouraged?).

<comment><USER14> They're both wearable tech, I guess. Title might be better phrased as "Wearable Tech in India".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I a not convinced of the benefits of wearable technology in the immediate future. The watch was the original piece of wearable technology for years, but many people including myself don't bother with them now, because they can check their phone. The other application I can see an advanced version of a heart rate monitor. The fact is these will only appeal to a small part of the population. There are far more people who don't give a shit about their health than do AND want to shell out for something like this.

This article actually gave a new case, for blind people. But considering how frustrating a conventional smartphone can be to get directions (no GPS lock, no signal, the phone has just decided to run slow while you really need it, or it crashes), I am skeptical about how good it will actually be. What is the advantage in having your shoe tell you which way to go over a handheld device like a phone?

<comment><USER16> you wont have to check anything, you can feel where you have to go. If I understood the shoe correct.

<comment><USER15> Seems a very marginal benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised that this wasn't mentioned: [http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_...](http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/b8/76/b8761a8f11c0e30390e6224d482cbe74.jpg?itok=ywocHyD9)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is an awful headline. Not a terrible idea though - always exciting to see new wearables.

</comment><comment><USER19> On a similar note, check out Northpaw, a project to help people develop a sense of north - [http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/](http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/). This exact same method might actually be an easier way to get wearable navigational aids, as it will work with all shoes.

What I found interesting was that the insoles featured had a surprisingly similar height profile to my medical orthotic insoles for pes cavovarus (high arches, inward-turned heels)[1]. I'm all for tech that fits disabilities by default! (although this is probably an accidental by-product of the required space for the tech)

<comment><USER20> Interesting - does the motor run all the time, or in intervalls?

<comment><USER21> > does the motor run all the time, or in intervalls?

It runs all the time. I built one of these using a kit from Sensebrige. The results were not as good as I had hoped.

<comment><USER20> What was your issue with it? I have a bad sense of orientation, and I thought about building my own version of it, theirs is too large imho.

Also, running a motor continually seems like it would drain the battery really quick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This has a great application for travelers in certain areas. The article glosses over it with "even tourists can plug in their destinations and not have to stop to check their phones" but this could be a big deal for people who spend a lot of time walking in unfamiliar areas where pickpockets roam.

It's really not a good idea to take out your fancy smartphone there to check at each corner, but imagine walking around like you actually know where to go. This even applies to places like London, where there have been multiple cases of motorcyclists riding next to the sidewalk (er, pavement) to snatch smartphones from pedestrians.

<comment><USER15> I am fairly sure when I was a teen in the late 80's that trainers got stolen. They were a status symbol for that age group at the time, and we had fancy tech like Reebok Pump built into them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can't help it: [http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/get_smart- tv.jp...](http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/get_smart-tv.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER24> People should look at technology rather than having a opinion, a person should not have mentioned India's answers to google. A very bad message for a country and to for the business.

</comment><comment><USER25> > The shoes sync up with a smartphone app that uses Google maps and vibrate to > tell users when and where to turn to each their destination.

You have to take into consideration that internet is not really great in India. Slow internet will force drawing of battery in mere an hour or two. Secondly, Google Maps in India isn't as great as it is in western countries.

I had to literally uninstall Moves because it would eat up at least 15-20% of battery compared to it used to either not take more than 5% of battery in US.

<comment><USER26> There has been some research on generating energy from the flexing motions of shoes. Maybe these could be self-powered?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting concept. I think this would be great for travellers so they don't have to ask for directions from locals who might otherwise misguide them. For example: [http://learningindia.in/how-to-never-get-lost-in- india/](http://learningindia.in/how-to-never-get-lost-in-india/) [http://indiaopines.com/perils-directions- india/](http://indiaopines.com/perils-directions-india/)

<comment><USER28> I always feel like such a hopeless tourist when I have to consult my phone for directions. I'd definitely feel a lot happier (and safer) being able to pay more attention to my surroundings.

<comment><USER27> Likewise. I hate looking like a tourist and go out of my way to look/act like a local when I travel (mostly for safety reasons). Now that I've read your comment, I think these shoes might do better in parts of the world that have better maps and faster internet than India. They might have to upgrade the look though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If the only purpose of these shoes is to get directions, I would prefer a pair of bracelets, which I could wear on my wrists or my ankles.

<comment><USER30> Exactly! Sure it seems 'logical' at first sight that directions _for the feet_ are directed _at the feet_. But since all signals need to go through the brain anyway, I don't see why you can't replace this with a bracelet or smartphone in your pocket (two vibration patterns, should be easy to learn). Especially the latter saves you a lot of recharge hassles.

Steps could be measured just as well with a clip on my shoe(s) so I can wear whatever shoes I want. I would be surprised if there is no disadvantage at all to run on these shoes (or inlays) compared to a pair of well chosen running shoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> India seems to produce many alternate low cost ideas for the latest technology. However being in India, we don't see or experience any mass market usage of these alternates. Some examples.. low cost tablet,laptop,even the tata nano low cost car don't have mass market adoption considering the fact that there are 1 billion+ people.

<comment><USER32> I guess the problem comes due to positioning. I am not looking for a low cost product. I am looking for a good product at a lower cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Certainly interesting idea. The writeup seems odd though.

one: Title is off. Second: "The shoes sync up with the Google maps smartphone app and vibrate to tell users when and where to turn to reach their destination."

Unless they worked with Google its not possible as out side Google Maps you have no way to notify your shoe about the turn (Through bluetooth).

<comment><USER34> I'm sure they meant "The shoes sync up with the Google maps SERVICE VIA A smartphone app" and the extra words were probably edited out for brevity. Most people wouldn't understand the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hmm......this sounds familiar...sounds very close to this MIT Media Lab project: [http://dhairyadand.com/sec/?page=projects&id=supershoes](http://dhairyadand.com/sec/?page=projects&id=supershoes)

</comment><comment><USER36> I like the vision. Those inserts will need to come in different varieties to allow for people who already need inserts for other reasons, e.g. arch support... odour control... (not me obviously, I'm commenting on behalf of a friend)

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm surprised nobody brought up the mandatory Python reference yet: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka9mfZbTFbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka9mfZbTFbk)

</comment><comment><USER38> Related HN post from a number of years ago, covering a similar idea: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192304)

<comment><USER39> It's the same Le chal shoe from Ducere Technologies

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just wait -- pretty soon, they'll come installed upward-pointing cams. And anyone opposed to having such gear in mass circulation will be derided as "luddites".

</comment><comment><USER41> What is WSJ upto? How does a shoe even compare to Google Glass? I live in India and I did hear any news about this...

</comment><comment><USER42> So every time you wear your shoes out, you have to buy a new pair of these expensive ones?

</comment><comment><USER43> Was I the only one expecting a self-guided shoe you can throw at glassholes?

</comment><comment><USER44> will it tickle the feet?

</comment><comment><USER45> The first thing that came to my mind:

Play Dance Dance Revolution without a pad :D

</comment><comment><USER46> cool stuff. a potential issue in India market for smart shoe in India is: in most holy places they need to remove footwear & also many a times they get stolen.

<comment><USER47> Indians make sure not to wear the "good shoes" to the temple for the precisely same reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> how did this make it to the first page?

</comment><comment><USER49> It sure sounds great contender ;)</comment>


Petition to Open Source Mailbox - <AUTHOR> https://www.change.org/p/dropbox-open-source-mailbox-app <comment><AUTHOR> This will probably fall on deaf ears, but it's worth a shot.</comment>


Ask HN: How Do You Pick a Job? - <AUTHOR> When picking between jobs I typically have access to access to only some of the information - commute time, compensation, benefits, title, maybe a tiny peek into culture.
However, other things that matter hugely, such as "How good at managing is my manager?", "Will I feel connected to my coworkers?", "Will I find the work challenging and interesting?" or "Can I move my career forward here?" are almost impossible to get honest answers to, and often vary greatly between different teams within an organization.
How do you reduce uncertainty when it comes to those questions, and, if you accept a lot of uncertainty, how do you confidently pick a new job as an improvement in the face of it? <comment><USER2> You know that information pretty well about _one_ job - your current one. If you like your co-workers, if they do their work well, if your boss is reasonable, if management is sane, and if the pay isn't awful, _think well_ before you leave.

The better the current job is, the less probable it is that the next one is an improvement...

</comment><comment><USER3> Research.

Use LinkedIn. Talk to people currently at the company and those who have left it.

Look at glassdoor. It's not all truth, but it is data.

Read through the company's website, especially the tech blog if they have one.

Ask questions at the interview about your concerns.

Notice how they treat you during the interview when you ask questions. It's probably the way you'll be treated as an employee.</comment>


Google Glass Parts Estimated to Cost Less Than $80 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/30/google-glass-parts-estimated-to-cost-less-than-80/

<comment><USER2> That's the marginal cost of the raw components. That doesn't even begin to describe the total cost of parts (validation/tooling/inventory), which itself doesn't begin to describe the total cost of manufacturing, which itself doesn't begin to describe the total cost of the product.

</comment><comment><USER3> These tear downs are super interesting and useful, and I'm sure the folks doing them aren't delusional about the sunk costs that went into development of something so complex.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady The most interesting thing here to me is that if they are willing to bet long- term they could sell this for under $150/200, get it in a LOT of people's hands, and become the dominant player eventually making the R&D money back. I'm sure it would also be quite easy for them to make a lot of money through accessories for this (glass cases, interchangeable frames etc.).

<comment><USER4> Still needs to answer the "what does it solve" question. I am not sure most people will use this daily...even if it was free.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think that if it makes a few things easier (even if you don't wear it all day)(e.g. cooking, travelling, driving) people would be willing to spend $150-200 on it. Then hopefully with more real world use Google can make it a more indispensable device that fits a lot more needs.

<comment><USER4> _Then hopefully with more real world use Google can make it a more indispensable device that fits a lot more needs._

Why hopefully? I don't understand what's in for the world, other than potential, real time spying?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So what's the rationale for charging $1500 to early explorers? Pure greed? Desire to keep out the riff raff? All of the above?

<comment><USER6> C'mon, people need to know better when reading stuff like this. There are R&D costs. _Tooling costs._ Multiply that by the number of scrapped early revisions. There's all kinds of costs that just don't show up when you get the luxury of adding up the finished parts with Digi-Key open in your browser.

I see a bunch of pretty complicated tight-tolerance plastic parts in there[1], not to mention the optics which need to fit pretty precisely. What did tooling cost for that alone? The article itself mentions that this isn't a simple injection-molded piece:

"The Glass display, for example, is only a few millimeters wide, but boasts quite high resolution and _could have been tricky and expensive to design and manufacture_."

[1] [http://www.catwig.com/google-glass- teardown/teardown/glass-t...](http://www.catwig.com/google-glass- teardown/teardown/glass-teardown-exploded-top.jpg)</comment></comment>


Eric Schmidt makes 2014 predictions, says mobile has won - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/30/5256248/eric-schmidt-says-mobile-has-won-2014-predictions <comment><USER2> A partial CEO says something partial, more news at 11.</comment>


A distributed, tag-based pub-sub service for modern web applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nanopack/mist <comment><USER2> A lot of open-source projects by Nanobox look awesome, but most don't have any documentation or demos :-(.

I'm most interested in:

      [Hooky D](https://github.com/nanopack/hookyd) - Remote hook execution layer
      [Butter](https://github.com/nanopack/butter) - Git based deployment system
      [Shuttle](https://github.com/nanopack/shuttle) - Transparent TCP proxy for web

<comment><USER3> Yeah we hear ya. The nanopack cloud-initiative was just announced last friday ([https://blog.nanobox.io/nanopack-a-new-vision-for- automated-...](https://blog.nanobox.io/nanopack-a-new-vision-for-automated- infrastructure/)). We're getting there slowly but surely!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a point of clarification (I work at Pagoda Box/Nanobox). Pagoda Box uses an older suite of similar tools ([https://github.com/stormpack- core](https://github.com/stormpack-core)) mostly written in Erlang. This newer project (written in Golang) is part of a group of tools ([http://nanopack.io/](http://nanopack.io/)) being written for [https://nanobox.io/](https://nanobox.io/)

<comment><USER4> I'm curious why did you drop Erlang in favor of Go?

<comment><USER3> The actual reason is much less exciting than you might have hoped and actually has nothing to do with erlang vs golang...

The erlang version has been running successfully for about 2 years and we haven't had any issues whatsoever (excepting a wrestling match with mnesia early on). We are erlang/elixir advocates and have used the erlang vm successfully on highly critical multi-million-concurrency services for over 6 years.

When we set out to build nanobox desktop ([https://desktop.nanobox.io](https://desktop.nanobox.io)) our vision was to provide a single pre-compiled executable that could be run without any configuration. The design required a push layer and needed the same functionality that the erlang project was already providing. It wasn't feasible to package the erlang application into the nanobox binary, so we emulated the original project into a consumable golang package. As time went on we were porting more and more of the features into the golang port until all that was lacking was distribution and authentication. At that point we made the decision to consolidate our efforts into a single project, that could be a standalone service or composed within a golang binary.

I regret to inform you that there isn't a mass exodus within our company to ditch erlang for golang. While that certainly would make for a fun thread, in this case it was simply a matter of fit and effort consolidation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a great project! I'm curious about the following caveat from the readme, however:

"Data flowing through mist is NOT touched in anyway. It is not verified in any way, but it MUST NOT contain a newline character as this will break the mist protocol."

I haven't read the code yet, but my gut reaction is that this suggests it would be possible to inject commands using malicious user input. Given the caveat, this may be allowed for by your threat model, but it may be worth some effort to mitigate.

EDIT: To clarify, this may not be the case at all, in which case I'd be curious to hear why this restriction is in place.

<comment><USER3> This is referring to messaging being sent through mist. Mist doesn't care what the data looks like, and won't transform it.

Currently the public-facing websocket client is not allowed to publish messages until this is mitigated, as you mentioned. Any feedback here would be appreciated.

<comment><USER6> Netstrings are for this exact use case:

[http://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt](http://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt)

<comment><USER7> Actually this proposal is quite bad compared to simple "<4 bytes size><size bytes contents>". If you use netstrings recursively like djb recommends, you will end up copying / reallocing the strings many times. Since your top-level length depends on the lower level length, you cannot send it without actually calculating the whole contents. Asn1 DER has the same issue because of the weird size encoding.

RIFF is a bit better [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Interchange_File_Form...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Interchange_File_Format) with strict length,tag,contents format.

<comment><USER6> Wasn't suggesting they use the recursive feature. Just a flat netstring for the data segments, sort of how the Redis and Memcached protocols work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Messages are not guaranteed to be delivered, if the client is running behind > on processing messages, newer messages could be dropped.

> Messages are not stored until they are delivered, if no client is available > to receive the message, then it is dropped without being sent anywhere.

Not sure in which use cases can I use this ? Doesn't this defeat the purpose of having a message queue.

<comment><USER3> So to the first question, there's not a transactional layer to guarantee the client handled the message. Once a message is sent to the client, it is assumed the client has a mechanism for queuing messages if it can't keep up.

As to the second, the caveat is basically saying that if a message is broadcast and nobody cares about the message (ie: there aren't any subscriptions) then mist isn't going to store the message anywhere, it just gets dropped.

<comment><USER8> Err, I get that! but I am still wondering on where would I use this ? If I dont need transactional layer or buffering, I could use event listener and dispatcher pattern. Anything more than that, a message queue like ZMQ works. Where does this fit in ?

<comment><USER3> Oh I see. Sorry for the confusion. The initial need was for a rails app to send data model updates to dashboard clients. Later, as our infrastructure became more micro-service-oriented, mist has been used as a place for the dashboard javascript client to subscribe to a centralized event queue. Each micro-service will publish messages to the mist cluster, and the dashboard can respond accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Struggling to see when I'd use this over, say, rabbitmq. Feels a bit like "not invented here" syndrome, though glad to be proven wrong. Also curious that this replaces previous tooling written in erlang, be interested to here what prompted the move to golang, I would think a message broker was right in erlang's wheelhouse

<comment><USER10> Not the OP, but this looks like it's designed to be lossy, and prioritize availability over deliverability. If clients are unable to keep up with message volume, messages will be dropped.

That makes is okay for things like realtime dashboards (which this is apparently designed for) and other rapid events where transactionality is not required.

But it's obviously not suited for job-like scheduling like data processing or email delivery. Nor as an event bus for inter-service coordination ("on event X, do Y").

<comment><USER3> That's a pretty accurate assessment. Mist could be conceptualized as a self- hosted replacement for pusher ([https://pusher.com/](https://pusher.com/)). It's designed specifically to address building realtime web apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Curious how this compares to gnatsd: [https://github.com/nats- io/gnatsd](https://github.com/nats-io/gnatsd)

<comment><USER10> Two things come to mind: gnats uses wildcard topics, very useful to create filtered subscriptions. And gnats is pretty good at dealing with backpressure; the stated aim of Mist is to silently drop messages if clients can't keep up.

I would also say that gnats is mature and has been proven in production for several years, which might not be the case with this project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I need one of these at $DAYJOB as of yesterday, so thanks!

Any chance of basing it on `igm/sockjs-go` or similar instead of raw websockets?

<comment><USER13> An alternative is to use a proxy. For example Pushpin ([http://pushpin.org](http://pushpin.org)) can convert SockJS to native WebSockets. There might be others too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Also to clarify (and yes I also work at Pagoda Box on the Nanobox project), this service was initially intended to provide push capabilities for rails and other web frameworks that can't natively provide a push socket layer. It has successfully filled that niche and has expanded to fill other needs as well.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's like PubSubHubbub, except with JSON instead of XML, and bypassing that whole HTTP protocol that was never going to catch on anyway...

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this what what Pagoda Box uses for their in-dashboard live updates or is it an off-shoot of that project?

</comment><comment><USER16> How is this distributed?

<comment><USER3> When a node is brought online, it uses multicast discovery to learn about other nodes. You can see the gist here: [https://github.com/nanopack/mist/blob/master/main.go#L68-L76](https://github.com/nanopack/mist/blob/master/main.go#L68-L76)

Propagating events is really simple: When a client subscribes to a particular node, the node will replicate the subscription to all nodes in the cluster, and relay any messages from the 'proxied' subscriptions back to the client.

<comment><USER3> Also, if your network can't natively support multicast, you might want to check out red ([https://github.com/nanopack/red](https://github.com/nanopack/red)) "A fast, in-kernel, ad-hoc point-to-point vxlan network."</comment></comment></comment>