Ask HN: Software Design and documentation – what do you use? - <AUTHOR>

When you create software, what do you use to design, document and visualize. What do you use to help with designing software.
e.g. Use cases, Pseudo code, Gantt chats, PERT charts, DFD, decision trees, decision tables (Your answers maybe used to help teach students)
Also, why? When have they proved valuable? <comment><USER2> I barely use anything sophisticated. When designing a complex system I usually start with a simple document that lists the use cases (this is the most important), system components, and some implementation details. There are a couple of architectural models I've tried using (such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%2B1_architectural_view_model](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%2B1_architectural_view_model)), but I haven't found them very useful in practice.

Instead of over-designing and engineering from the very beginning, I prefer a more iterative approach. Admit to yourself that the first time you design/implement a system you will most likely get a lot of things wrong. Get a proof of concept out there, and try to learn from it. The second time you design that system you will probably try to incorporate everything you know and are prone to overengineering and feature bloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second- system_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect)). So, be careful.

Check out "The Mythical Man-Month". It's a timeliness book on software engineering.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Second-system effect Thanks, never seen that one before.

I wish there was better rule for deciding what feature to put in. Maybe for every added feature i should have "a use case" . ... Um, an "add feature rule", to create a good rule, maybe I need some use cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Design: paper; mockup app; .psd; html; whiteboard Docs: github wiki; word docs (for smaller pieces)

There are too many tools. One can drown in tools and still not do anything.

We try to keep as simple as possible, until it is not enough. Then we escalate the tool, but only IF experience proves we work less efficient without it.</comment>


Ask HN: The case of the semi-technical co-founder - <AUTHOR>

There are many debates about the necessity of having a technical co-founder in a start-up and many opinions subscribe to the views that without a technical co-founder, the probability of failure is much higher. I'll use CTO as a synonym to technical co-founder from here in.
The reasons giving are that a non-CTO founded start-up will fail is because the "business" founder can't hire the right talent because he won't know what to look for. There are many other reasons but I want to focus on this one here.
My question is, what about the case of a semi-technical founder, or founders that don't know how to code explicitly, but they are very familiar with development processes, they have enough grasp of the technical side to at least partially gauge how development is progressing, and they can compile blueprints etc. well enough for other programmers to quickly execute them?
Compare this to the current archetypal view of CTO + 'business guy' founding team, and how do you think it bodes in terms of failure probability? <comment><USER2> "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." ( 1/2 :-)

Seriously, if you don't know how to code you still won't get too much of the critical stuff. You'll still have to find at least one programmer you _absolutely_ and without reservation trust, although if you handle things correctly you'll be more valuable than a not-at-all-technical co-founder.

Just be careful: e.g. I had one project die (and mostly lost a friend in the process) when he decided he knew the design process I was teaching him better than I did ... which was pretty unlikely seeing as by then I'd been programming for two decades and had used it from start to finish four years earlier in a technically very successful project. His misapprehension was of a nature that blocked my work on the design, and, well, it all ended in tears.</comment>


This Robot Barista Promises a Perfect Cup of Coffee - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/this-robot-barista-promises-a-perfect-cup-of-coffee/280658/

<comment><USER2> But when I wear a PHP shirt will it tell me how lame I am for not coding in Ruby?</comment>


Firefox Multi-Account Containers - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ <comment><USER2> There's one huge issue with containers approach comparing to Chrome's profile approach

You can only have a single set of extensions.

So if for example I have LastPass at home and at work containers don't help me much</comment>


My husband raped two women – and I had to answer for his crimes - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/1/13/10737742/husband-rapist <comment><USER2> I really don't like the title since it's very link baity and suggestive that this would likely be a flame war topic on HN, but that said, her story and expecially the content after her story about restorative justice is very good and worth a read.</comment>


Has any site really worked out geolocated photos? - <AUTHOR>

I was planning a trip to Spane and would have loved to be able to see geo-photos of the laces we were planning to go to.<p>Is there a site that really has this worked out yet? <comment><USER2> flickr?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about a site where Geophotos is a compelling central feature. Is geophotos just a side feature in Flickr or a central concept?

<comment><USER2> Are you asking because you are thinking of implementing a site with geophotos as a central concept? If not, why would it matter?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask: A post on sites for launch - <AUTHOR>

Hi:
A few weeks ago someone had posted a list of websites useful for launching your startup. Unfortunately, I forgot to bookmark it and I'm unable to find that post. If someone recalls or knows about the post I'm talking about, I'll appreciate if you can please share the link.
Thanks,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you pdm55.</comment></comment>


Examples of marketing tactics - <AUTHOR> https://johnmcelborough.com/growth-hacking-strategies/ <comment><USER3> Great growth hack my grandfather did, inspires me still: He opens a restaurant, on a bet, against a competing restaurateur, that he can succeed in an awful location with no signage or parking. On opening night, he hands a wad of money to my Dad and his adorable girlfriend, instructs them to dress nice, take a cab to the airport, tip, and rave about the dinner. upon arriving at the airport, get another taxi, tip, inform them that you've just flown in from SanFran and have heard the food at the 13 Coins is divine and to take them there post haste :) He won the bet.

<comment><USER4> If I recall correctly, participants of Egypts Arab spring mentioned the same tactic to spread the information about the location of upcoming demonstrations. A few people took cab after cab and kept mentioning that a protest will take place that evening in place xyz. In a few hours the information had spread through the city.

<comment><USER5> We need open mob HTTP routers that decorate all requests with X-ANARCHY: <date> <time> <gps>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understand that the term "growth hack" isn't well defined but still - <USER2> of these are just old school marketing techniques used by tech cos. A few novel ideas worth learning from but that's about it.

<comment><USER7> Read the book Growth Hacking which is quite clear about what the definition is. The idea is to have a cross functional team focus on a specific metric eg. user engagement or churn. And then rapidly prototype and experiment with different techniques to drive the metric in the right direction.

It is just a new name for a combination of existing practices. But then again so is Agile and it changed the way software companies worked.

<comment><USER8> Even by that definition, this list doesn't make sense. There was no "cross- functional team focus[ing] on a specific metric" for the ice-bucket challenge. Cash incentives (PayPal example) have been around for decades—that's not a growth hack.

This is a list of marketing strategies and tactics that happened to work for these particular companies/individuals.

<comment><USER9> "Growth hacking" was always, since the very inception of a term, just rebranding of "marketing" in a way that makes it sound cooler. It's just a purified buzzword. In the tech space, having yourself called "growth hacker" was seen as more cool than "marketer".

<comment><USER10> In other words, this is marketing applied to itself.

<comment><USER11> meta-marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who thought webpages giving you notifications was a good idea?

<comment><USER13> There are plenty of legitimate use cases - calendar apps, issue trackers, online games, news sites.

They just tend to be stupidly implemented. If I'm a first-time visitor to your news site, and I haven't even read the article yet, there's about a 0.00% chance I'll allow notifications. Why they don't set a cookie and prompt only once you're a repeat visitor for a while is beyond me.

<comment><USER14> It's not great when the notification box is styled like native UI to make it seem more legitimate, although it is nice that the page doesn't just flat out request notification permissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm really tired of the phrase growth hacking.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. While the tactics are great and undoubtedly effective it should be classified as a lesser used word these days - Marketing.

<comment><USER7> I think you might be confused.

1) Marketing is far more popular today as it was a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago etc. Especially with the rise of SaaS tooling there has been a lot of innovation and interesting work coming out of this space. And let's not forget influencer and content marketing both of which are relatively new concepts.

2) Growth hacking is not just about marketing. It is a cross functional system bringing in expertise from engineering, data science, sales, marketing, finance etc. It isn't specificaly a marketing activity but could be growth hacking against a range of business metrics.

<comment><USER17> > _Marketing is far more popular today as it was a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 > years ago etc._

Although it might seem that way[1], I'm curious what you'd point me at to persuade me that that's true.[2]

> _It isn't specificaly a marketing activity…_

By most definitions (and regardless of title), marketing is anything associated with buying and selling a product or service. It's a pretty wide net.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion) [2] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0g4gr)

<comment><USER7> Growth hacking is predominately about online businesses. And it's a pretty solid fact that there are more of those every year than in the preceding year.

And not sure what you mean here. Growth hacking is not just about marketing. There are plenty of growth hacking initiatives for improving financial or business metrics e.g. employee retention.

Might want to read the book about Growth Hacking to understand the discipline and why it is getting more and more popular. It actually isn't just some lame name to describe a few marketing tricks.

<comment><USER18> Marketing departments everywhere do the same thing you are using to describe "growth hacking." They convene with members of other departments to construct the brand in a way that is cohesive with how the product or service operates (and should be perceived).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A few comments on these examples:

Buffer:

> The company grew its user base from 0 to 100,000, largely through the impact > of guest blogs on third party sites, written by founder Leo Widrich.

Was a good idea in the olden days, works a lot less now that Google has started cracking down on spammy guest blogging practices.

Facebook:

> To counter such resistance, Facebook has progressively turned off the > message facility on its own app and telling mobile users they must migrate > to Messenger. The result is a rapid growth curve to underpin the Facebook > messaging masterplan.

This is certainly 'effective', but it really, really annoys users, and will probably not work as well for a company with decent competitors. Network effects and being a near monopoly helps Facebook get away with this stuff, but if your small service tries it... well good luck there.

TripAdvisor:

> For instance, Tripadvisor encourages hotels to publicise good reviews by > displaying badges. This is good for the hotels in question, but the badges > also link traffic back to Tripadvisor and make Google rank that hotels > reviews higher in their own search results.

Ah, the old 'have people display a widget that links back to your site' trick.

It's an okay strategy if your reputation is somewhat good or you got in early, but Google has worked to discourage such things in recent years too.

[https://searchengineland.com/google-reminds-webmasters- widge...](https://searchengineland.com/google-reminds-webmasters-widget-links- webmaster-guidelines-258393)

Pokemon GO:

> There was no advertising for Pokemon Go and no explanation of how the game > actually worked. All the maker Niantic did was tweet that it was available.

This was also why the game died out so quickly too. Niantic was terrible at communication, and spent weeks seemingly doing nothing to address issues people had with the game. No comments online, no social media posts, nothing about updates with features people were looking forward to...

The result was a huge die off, with things only recovering a bit when they actually opened up and spoke to their customers again.

Either way, the advice is simple:

Remember that what works for a large company or certain brand may not work for you (or others), that a lot of tactics used in the past have been disincentivised after SEO abuse and that your marketing trickery may be your downfall if you don't realise when a change in tact is needed afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER20> I feel like I'm in 2012 again.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of my favorites that's missing from here is the Just Mayo story:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food- star...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food-startup-ran- undercover-project-to-buy-up-its-own-products)

Clearly unethical and maybe broke a few laws but who ever said that growth hacking was a game where you always keep your hands clean?

<comment><USER22> > Clearly unethical and maybe broke a few laws

> but who ever said that growth hacking was a game where you always keep your > hands clean?

This is called fraud.

<comment><USER23> Would it have been fraud if they disclosed it to the investors? Ie is going into a store and buying your product to create an illusion of demand, by itself a criminal fraud?

<comment><USER24> No. It might have violated their contracts with retailers, but any recourse from that would have been civil, not criminal.

An interesting question is how long it's material for. Clearly it's material while it's a meaningful portion of their total revenue or per-store sales. There's an argument that buying your own product is material long after real revenue has grown, though, because it's likely to have an impact if publicly discovered. Basically it becomes a skeleton in the closet, and as long as that skeleton is (a) known to the company and (b) newsworthy (and thus likely to impact the company's perception and valuation), there's an least an argument it still needs to be disclosed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lycos is still around and its search is pretty good - <AUTHOR> https://search.lycos.com/ <comment><USER3> Had to check. Lycos/tripod is still hosting a stupid website me and some friends made a bit after 2000 (2004?). The cost is probably none (some static files), but I'm impressed they haven't just removed it or lost it during all these years. Stagnant and probably no visitors other than us the weekend we made it.

Edit: the glory: [http://moj24.tripod.com/](http://moj24.tripod.com/) animated background, marquee and right-click blocking script in case someone tried stealing our content

<comment><USER4> This is my zine from 1997. It uses frames. [http://scenezine.tripod.com/](http://scenezine.tripod.com/)

<comment><USER5> Those with an ad blocker are missing out on the full Tripod experience, make sure to turn it off for maximum fun.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget that <blink> (And maybe <marquee>?) is no longer supported by modern browsers, so you're definitely missing some major elements of the experience.

<comment><USER7> <marquee> still seems to work. <blink> doesn't... Any good reason this has been deprecated?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Appears to be powered by Bing. The search results are nearly identical. More importantly snippets for each site are identical, which is the real giveaway.

<comment><USER9> Yep. A lot of folks appear to be pretty confused about retail search engines verses the actual index -- Google, Bing, and (at lower quality) Yandex are the only viable English-language search indices right now. Almost every search box you find on the Internets is powered by one of the three.

<comment><USER10> Did You check Cliqz already? Independent search index: [https://beta.cliqz.com/](https://beta.cliqz.com/)

There is a lot of technical details about how it's built on the tech blog: [https://0x65.dev/](https://0x65.dev/)

(Disclaimer: I work at Cliqz)

<comment><USER11> I've been using your service as my main search engine on desktop and phone for more than one month (I made an xml file to load it as search engine.) It's okish but not very good at dealing with misspelling, with news and with images. Sometimes I touch the Google button at the end of the page to find what I'm looking for. I hope you keep track of the keywords that go to Google and use them to improve your index. Anyway, it's a good service, thank you.

<comment><USER12> Hey, thanks for using Cliqz. We're working hard on improvements for each one of the things you mentioned (in that order as well) - so things will definitely get much smoother over the next couple of months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Has the exact same poor search results as Bing.

[https://search12.lycos.com/web/?q=elm+list](https://search12.lycos.com/web/?q=elm+list)

[https://www.bing.com/search?q=elm+list](https://www.bing.com/search?q=elm+list)

Funny I only ever hear someone call Bing good when it's named something else (DDG, Lycos).

<comment><USER14> What are you searching for though? Some people care about the Elm language and some people are looking for information about the tree or location.

<comment><USER15> The "list" in the query string makes the intent clear.

<comment><USER16> No, "array" would be unambiguous. Asking for a list of different elm species a valid interpretation.

<comment><USER15> A valid but very unlikely interpretation, which is the point. Every query is ambiguous, but if certain interpretations are much more likely than others, the search engine should respond accordingly.

Someone interested in a list of elm species is much more likely to search for "elm species."

<comment><USER17> It may be that this is true of people who use google but less true of people who use Bing.

<comment><USER15> It is very unlikely to be the case. Much more likely is that Bing either doesn't have enough search data to properly answer that query or does not have a ranking model that can answer that query correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We should have a 20 year ( has it been that long? ) reunion. Get all the cast together. Lycos, Excite, AltaVista, AskJeeves, etc. Google will probably be too cool to attend.

<comment><USER19> Wasn't there a monkey-themed one, too? I remember it being garish purple and lime green.

<comment><USER20> Are you thinking perhaps of BonziBuddy?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I searched for my own name, and in addition to the usual top hits (like LinkedIn), it provided a link to a popular article I have published few days back as the sixth result.

In contrast, Google primarily links to "scammy" sites claiming to have my phone number and email address, after the usual hits. If I search with the title of the article above, the only link which appears is that from the R Bloggers aggregator (in fact, it appears to me for some Google does not index the articles in my site at all).

</comment><comment><USER22> Amazingly, so is [http://www.zombo.com/](http://www.zombo.com/). It still delivers all it promises

<comment><USER23> Nowadays you have to go to [https://www.html5zombo.com/](https://www.html5zombo.com/)

<comment><USER24> According to the cert, it's actually [https://html5zombo.com/](https://html5zombo.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A few years ago, looking out of my Boston suburban office window across a rainy, street-lit 128, I caught a glimpse of a strangely familiar dark shape, out of context. Something from my past. Something I hadn't seen in a long time, and never expected to see again... It looked for all the world like.. a large, black dog.

The mental connections of the symbolism rattled through my mind - <USER2> tales of deathly omens, Conan-Doyle's hound, Harry Potter's uncle, Churchill's dark companion...

Through the rain, my eyes focused and it became clear: LYCOS.

Apparently they'd leased some space in the MGH building, and enough funding to spring for a rooftop sign. They're not there any more - moved into a small Waltham Main Street office in 2015 I believe.

But, as with this article, they keep showing up.. that black dog... reminding us of... something.

Why have they turned up, here, now? What could it mean?

</comment><comment><USER26> > After any Sponsored Links, the Web Results section shows information that > comes from LookSmart or AllTheWeb.

From [https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2004/03/15/how-lycos- works...](https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2004/03/15/how-lycos-works/)

<comment><USER27> Interesting.

AllTheWeb === Yahoo now.

The few test queries I tried on Lycos seem to be identical (almost down to the ordering) when I tried them on looksmart.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Their ads aren't even good lmao. Searching for test brings up the following ad:

Test Test Test Test - Right Now

www.kensaq.com/Test Test Test Test/Here

Welcome to Kensaq.com. Find Test Test Test Test Today!

<comment><USER19> To be fair, a few weeks ago I searched for "fighter jets" on either Google or Duck and got ads for "Find discount fighter jets in your area!"

<comment><USER29> It just means somebody paid for those keywords.

When you buy your ad space at Microsoft, you can determine how it shows up at duck-duck-go, which keywords triggers your ad, what region you want it to work etcetera...

(and yes, that is not a typo, you go to microsoft to buy ad space for ddg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just did a cursory search on Lycos, and the top 5 "results" were all ads, the first one being a super-ad with six (!) sub-headings.

<comment><USER30> It also seems like Lycos does _not_ default to https. Oh, Lycos. At least you're trying!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I tried the search which I used a few weeks ago when someone here claimed that DDG was pretty good. Google found what I wanted above the fold. DDG found it at hit #87 or so (click "next" 7 times). Lycos didn't find it in the first 100 at least.

I used to like Lycos but there's a reason everyone migrated to Google.

</comment><comment><USER32> I used to work in the same building as Lycos, which is how I learned about their (now defunct) zombie-themed weather app, WeatherZombie [1].

The forecast sometimes called for "Rrrrraiiiiiiinnnnnnsssss"

[1]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140703054940/http://www.weathe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140703054940/http://www.weatherzombie.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how different the internet would be if we had to pay a dollar a month to use certain search engines. Better privacy? Better search results with no ads?

Honesty no idea, but I'd imagine if a million people paid me a dollar a month for a search engine, I could hire seven or eight people and build something more private and better performing... eventually.

Too bad that would never happen.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow. I tried a few searches and the results actually contained the words I searched for. It's amazing.

Lycos must have hired an archeologist to recover this long lost technology from an ancient data center.

</comment><comment><USER35> I just searched the exact title of an article... and the result wasn't on the first page.

So... I tried it a few more times and I didn't get a single hit for any thing I tried. Google picked up each one with "I'm feeling lucky". DDG got them all too.

I wouldn't describe this as "pretty good", or even "good" or even "worth the time I spent this last 90 seconds".

<comment><USER36> Just for grins, try the same search on Bing and on Yandex. Look at the first 20 'organic' results (not always easy I know but its worth trying to figure out).

Search indexes have a reasonably unique fingerprint in the rank order of organic results for a given query. The ads and sponsored content are all over the map and perturbed by a/b tests and other things but the organic results typically come straight from the ranking algorithm.

Most "Search portals" (which is the web page that you type at to get your search engine result page from (SERP)) are either using one of the two English language indexes (Bing and Google) with their own ad network, or "blended" index where the search portal might index somethings like Wikipedia and Stack Overflow and then use Bing or Google for the long tail stuff.

The reason for this is economics, you can stand up a search portal on an AWS instance, feed all the queries to Bing out the back and sell ads on it and make a few bucks.

In contrast building your own index requires many more servers, crawling over the content you want to index (if you want to keep it fresh) and generally much larger network and storage costs. So its harder to pay for that with third party ad networks (not impossible, just harder). Pretty much everyone skips this approach for that reason.

<comment><USER37> Does anyone know how ddg and co. pay for that? Do they get special rates? Because the normal price for using the Search API of Google or bing seems too expensive to be viable.

<comment><USER38> > Do they get special rates?

I'd suspect so, the sticker price is for the little guy who cannot guarantee them a large volume of organic search queries. With a large volume of course you negotiate.

The most interesting thing here is Startpage. Apparently Google doesn't give access to general Search API (as opposed to custom search limited to some sites) for over a decade now. I idly wonder if folks at Startpage have to maintain an extremely plain and not terribly well marketed site lest they be evicted from their deal, presumably a very very old one. According to Wikipedia they probably use Google since the early 2000s at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is anybody able to go past the first 2 pages of search results. Lycos does not show page numbers and it looks like it is repeating old results past page 2

</comment><comment><USER40> Oh man, Tripod and Angelfire too? I'm back in the 90's for a minute.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Haha. Guess who I've seen around Toronto on "tech swag" backpacks?

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

<comment><USER23> They don't offer software downloads any more? I browsed Tucows a lot, looking for cool new software..

<comment> 52-6F-62 Same! It looks like they've completely junked their old content and pivoted hard.

<comment><USER41> No, they haven't.

[http://www.tucows.com/downloads/](http://www.tucows.com/downloads/)

<comment> 52-6F-62 I'll be damned. I just didn't see that anywhere on the main site.

That's also a blast from the past. Look at the number one freeware download:

[https://ibb.co/gDZjjBf](https://ibb.co/gDZjjBf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Wow, just tested it with

\- a weird old Norwegian word (some of the results it surfaced amazed me),

\- Angular 9 new features (nice collection og blogs, stackoverflow results etc)

\- Angular momentum (Nice mix of brands, tutorials etc with the Wikipedia article on top of the results).

</comment><comment><USER43> I have been shocked recently at how Google.com is no longer the best search engine at many (legal) things I want to find.

Yesterday I was looking for downloadable Word / Excel templates for a certain kind, and wondering why Google wasn't showing me what I KNOW exists on the web.

In exasperation I went to Bing.com. In first few results, it showed me exactly what I was looking for.

Google say they give us what we want, but my story demonstrates that Google now show what _they_ want us to find.

Couldn't help but notice they were significantly de-ranking search results about a competitor's file formats vs. their own. They _know_ I'm looking for DOCX / XLSX files.

Ultimately this is good. By using multiple search engines now, I feel like I'm using _The Internet_ again.

Google is a censored and corporatised filtering of the web - not _the_ web.

This is insane...but it's 2020, and I'm going to check out Lycos.

<comment><USER44> There are a lot of assumptions in this post. A more likely explanation is the search term has been SEO'd to hell.

<comment><USER43> I'm not in the search engine or SEO industries, but:

Isn't it Google's job to deal with that type of thing in order to give us an accurate print-out of what's most relevant to a search query?

Would they do the same thing (i.e. do nothing) if SEO was burying their own Google products' search results?

My cynicism is necessary for a healthy and thriving ecosystem. It should not be discouraged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> We used to deliver search to Lycos in the late 1990s / early 2000s. I despised them deeply and the experience taught me that you shouldn't go out of your way to please the wrong customer. Lycos had no taste.

</comment><comment><USER46> When I entered "bicycle touring" it showed about a dozen links. When I clicked on "More" it showed me the same dozen over again.

<comment><USER47> That happened to me too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> surprised that searching 'sex chat' all of the top 10 it shows are many of the sites today's current top 3 engines show in the top 20 or 30.. so it's more modern than I expected.

However when I click next it just reloads the same results page. Thought it might be a firefox ublock origin thing, but I get the same issue with chrome.

No clue what the issue is.

</comment><comment><USER49> I was just thinking today that I am surprised that whomever owns Ask.com hasn't brought out an Echo clone called Jeeves.

</comment><comment><USER50> Good to know! After Google search has become a bad joke and completely unusable, every alternative is welcome.

</comment><comment><USER51> [https://www.excite.com/](https://www.excite.com/)

<comment> 52-6F-62 Bless them for not changing their logo too much. And for their treatment of mobile browsers

[https://ibb.co/vLBPYTW](https://ibb.co/vLBPYTW)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> In the end it's funny: it shows my location (a borough in London),but when I click on jobs,it shows positions in Nashville... According to Wikipedia, just 3 years ago there were still 500 people working there...

</comment><comment><USER53> In the first five seconds on the site i noticed the temperature is not in my local unit. I tried to change it to degrees C, but it won't work.

</comment><comment><USER54> It seems to be using Google Analytics and Google fonts...

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm shocked that tripod is apparently still around.

</comment><comment><USER56> Damn. I did a vanity search and everything above the fold on my laptop screen was an ad.

First thing after that was me, though, so that's alright I guess.

<comment><USER48> So, it's just like google then. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> "Its search is pretty good"? I entered "cf.lumen" and all the results were completely unrelated ads.

</comment><comment><USER58> It doesn't seem to be very up to date, and the first query I tried returned a phishing website as a first result.

</comment><comment><USER59> Experiment: search for "delta". Delta airlines is the 6th result below (what i think are) 5 ads. Doesn't seem that good.

</comment><comment><USER60> Are they hiring?

</comment><comment><USER61> The pagination on SERP does not work for me - clicking 'next' redirects to the same, 1st page results

</comment><comment><USER62> When you search for "Google" you get no results. That's kinda funny.

</comment><comment><USER63> Wow, I didn't know this was still around, this is a serious blast from the past.

</comment><comment><USER64> "Redwood city" weather, complete with lower-case "city"

<comment><USER65> Hi from RWC! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> 404 all this traffic from hackernews was too much for the 90s

</comment><comment><USER67> Looks like it's the same as yahoo, down to the search suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER68> It s still a TERRIBLE search engine for who wants to test it....

</comment><comment><USER69> Oh wow no ads. This by itself is good enough for me to switch.

</comment><comment><USER70> I wonder how many times they changed hands

</comment><comment><USER71> searches are identical to the results from duckduckgo, looks like they are using Bing.

</comment><comment><USER72> nope. search is not good.

</comment><comment><USER73> Not really. My test is my handle "geuis". It's always autocorrected to "genius". Google and Bing at least have the "did you mean geuis" link. Lycos doesn't.</comment>


Buffett Remains Optimistic About America's Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/28/business/AP-Buffett-Letter.html <comment><USER2> I'm optimistic about America's future too. It's the present that's worrying.</comment>


Foolproof Fundraising Tips for Non-Profits - <AUTHOR> http://www.wepay.com/blog/2011/03/03/5-foolproof-fundraising-tips-for-non-profits/

<comment><USER2> Anybody care to explain the odd comment ring happening here?</comment>


T-Mobile's John Legere Goes Off the Deep End: 'Who the Fuck Are You, EFF?' - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160107/14412033273/t-mobiles-john-legere-goes-off-deep-end-who-fuck-are-you-eff.shtml <comment><USER2> The "who pays you" FUD reminds me of the subpoena Personal Audio sought for a list of EFF donors in the podcasting patent case. The EFF is not a front for your competitors. People really care about this stuff.

<comment><USER3> We see the same kind of thing with the National Rifle Association. It seems like many people opposed to them are convinced that it's just a proxy for the small arms industry (that would be the National Shooting Sports Foundation) and it can't possibly have the grassroots support it does.

<comment><USER4> To me the NRA just seems to have gone off the deep-end in the last decade or so. Perhaps it's just a symptom of the increasing political polarization in the US in general, but recently it seems like their point of view has shifted to "no gun regulation is good gun regulation" which is almost a parody of what they used to stand for.

<comment><USER5> It seems to me that the NRA positions itself to the government as a representative of all gun owners. Around 31% of households in America claim to own guns [1] - so maybe this group shouldn't have so much political sway as it does? I recognize that groups with moderate views are few and far between but the collective "we" that the NRA stands for keeps pushing me further away from it.

[1]: [http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun...](http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun%20Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf)

<comment><USER6> 31% of Americans is an enormous political faction, you'd be hard pressed to find another group of citizens with a singular lobbying purpose that reaches that size (AARP and Agriculture lobbies come immediately to mind).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love this "proprietary technology" schtick, as if selective throttling isn't something that any carrier could implement. The hardest part of developing this technology was likely the legal analysis as to why it doesn't violate FCC net neutrality rules. My conspiracy theory is that TMO implemented a system which does not violate the rules, but is designed to get customers used to the concept of throttling. Then after some lobbying or political changes, the rules may change, and TMO will have both the infrastructure as well as complacent customers ready to pay extra (perhaps indirectly) for streaming content on mobile data plans.

<comment><USER8> I don't think they're after customer money. They want service provider money.

If what telekom is trying in germany is a any indication, the plan is to move all traffic to the BingeOn mode. After that, they degrade services that are not paying them and zero-rate + allow higher bitrates for services that pay them.

But "paying" is not cash if the talk in our startup scene is to be believed. Telekom is pulling out of startup incubating (after failing miserably) and are trying to use their position as an intermediary to get equity off of every new startup.

How? Imagine a new startup "meflixtube": growth is good, funding is secured, everything looks great. Telekom notices and says "would be a shame if something degrading would happen to your service, ey? give us a few percent of equity and you'll get zero-rated, undegraded access to our customers". Now instead of getting a few $$$, they are in line to get a few 100 million $$$ when a few of the new startups take off. They can even make sure that the startups they have "convinced" don't get any competition by refusing the same deal to competitors.

tl;dr: Telekom is not after customer money, their customer base is the market they "offer" to companies and zero-rated, undegraded data is their gate.

<comment><USER9> This is spot on, and it's why "free" offerings are still a major net neutrality worry. Even if there's nothing underhanded going on with them initially, it sets the stage for trouble.

I find "proprietary technology" claims amusing because to me that is such an obviously bad thing, and bragging about it is like General Mills bragging that every box of Wheaties is contaminated with mercury and PCBs.

<comment><USER10> To play devil's advocate here, does this mean companies shouldn't even offer time-limited freebies (e.g. promotional offerings "Buy 2 data packages for the price of 1! Limited Time offer!")?

Or is the worry that only indefinitely free offerings can set the stage for trouble later? To me both viewpoints set the stage for trouble, except the indefinite free offering is a darker shade of gray.

<comment><USER11> The issue isn't free/paid, but variations in communications service performance based on the content of the communications or the parties involved.

<comment><USER10> Except where such variations in communications service are explicitly authorized by the consumer.

A counter example that I bet T-Mobile is waiting to deploy is parental control. As strange as it sounds, there are actually families that pay to have their wireless carrier restrict adult content while on-net.

EDIT: "As strange as it sounds" refers to the fact that most parental control solutions are network-based, when in fact a proper parental control solution should be client-based because as soon as your child goes to WiFi at MacDonalds/Starbucks they probably have access to all the adult content they want to see by bypassing the wireless carrier parental control network controls.

<comment><USER12> So I have T-Mobile (a prepaid account on a pay-as-you-go plan with no data), and there's already a parental control feature: they call it Web Guard. It's been there for a long time (since dumbphones) and is set to "Young Adult (17+)" by default. To turn it off I need to provide age verification: my full name, address, date of birth, and last four digits of my social security number. Although this information "will not be collected or stored for any use by T-Mobile USA" \-- presumably it's only sent to Equifax or some other identity verification partner -- I'm still not comfortable giving them that information (I believe the only personal information I've ever provided is my name, email address, and ZIP code). I haven't made a fuss because I have no data plan, so turning it off won't help me, but I do still find it annoying.

Incidentally, when I went looking for the setting today (it's in your account profile under Phone Controls), I discovered I now have a Binge On setting, which is (of course) on by default. However, I haven't checked to see if streaming video works (even though I have no data plan).

<comment><USER10> I didn't know that but it makes sense from a liability perspective. Not sure if other prepaid offerings are similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like the EFF is arguing semantics and hasn't really made a valid argument about what's wrong with T-Mobile's approach. Yes T-Mobile is throttling and yes they're trying to relabel what they're doing to avoid all of the negative connotations that the term "throttling" brings wit it, but what are they doing that's harmful to the customer? I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that T-Mobile made it an opt-out feature instead of an opt-in one.

The reality is that wireless bandwidth is constrained and sustained transfers at high rates degrade the overall experience of everyone using a particular cellular tower. T-Mobile, being particularly bandwidth constrained, is attempting to mitigate this issue. They're doing it by offering a service where if you allow your bandwidth for certain content types to be be throttled, then the bandwidth you use for certain qualifying services won't count against your data cap. They're offering a carrot, not threatening with a stick.

Yes it's opt-out, but that was probably done intentionally because most folks won't notice the degradation or won't care, _AND_ , more importantly, most people wouldn't bother to enable it if it were opt-in. If T-Mobile made it opt-in then their adoption rate would be lower so by making opt-out they're getting the greatest benefit.

I just looked at my account and the toggle to turn Binge On off is easily accessible in my user profile. It's not a buried feature anywhere. The only possible gripe I could see is that the setting is granular and per-line making it marginally harder to disable, but that's also a benefit. I have multiple lines on my account but only 1 has unlimited data, so the ability to disable it for just that one line is nice and allows me to have my cake and eat it too.

<comment><USER14> Regardless of T-Mobile's intentions, this is on-by-default traffic shaping and content manipulation. They also weren't clear that this is only a throttling service and nothing more. My biggest issue is that it's on by default.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, that is where they run afoul of NN in my view, if the customer is given a opt-in choice then it is OK. The parallel is regular cable service, you can select regular or HD where HD costs more, but it is your choice.

<comment><USER13> They are giving the user a choice, they just defaulted to opt-out instead of opt-in. It's like when you buy something online and get auto-subscribed to a mailing list. You still have the option to turn it off.

<comment><USER14> They made the choice for them. You would think differently if this were an on- by-default service compressing PNGs to JPEG or automatically minifying other content in the name of bandwidth saving. It's a dangerous slope for companies to turn on content manipulation at will. The free market has a hard time punishing them (or even knowing) for large telcos and ISPs. This is the crux of the NN legislation argument.

<comment><USER13> They chose a default, the choice to change that default is still with the customer. It's also very granular so you can choose for each individual line how you want your service.

While content manipulation would give pause for concern, as it does with Comcast's data cap notifications, that isn't what T-Mobile is doing. They're not altering the traffic, they're altering the transport rate which is very different. By lowering the bandwidth of certain content types, they're triggering the adaptive technologies employed by services to behave differently.

One of the EFF's gripes was that the pipe constriction was indiscriminate and thus services that didn't employ adaptive technologies experienced buffering and stuttering issues. That's probably the only legitimate point they made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The level of ignorance and intentional misdirection by Tmobile's CEO here is incredible.

I say this as a customer :/

<comment><USER17> The short video sounds like what you'd hear from any salesperson to me. A rough outline of the talking points, but no real understanding of how what they're selling works. Which is OK, it's not their job to be technical, but it does sound really crummy when you actually do understand what they're talking about. For example, "proprietary technology" sounds good to whoever this guy usually talks to. It sounds like nonsense to us.

The sales department. Am I right, engineers?

<comment><USER16> What's even more appalling is that he so vehemently refuses to acknowledge the throttling of data throughput _even after EFF reached out to TMobile separately and the company confirmed it_. HIS OWN COMPANY CONFIRMED IT!!!

That's just comedy.

<comment><USER10> It's various shades of spin. For unencrypted videos, T-Mobile might be using other techniques beyond throttling (e.g. downshifting the resolution). Or perhaps he's trying to get around strict throttling by claiming (in his head) that they're only throttling videos, while other data isn't being touched.

I wonder if he's on an internal hunt to find out who confirmed to the EFF that videos were being "throttled".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> WiFi is the long-term winner of Binge On. And that may be T-Mobile's objective?

In most markets, TM can't compete head-to-head with the dominant LTE provider in that market. If other MNOs follow T-Mobile's lead (certainly not a given, but a possibility), then this moves the playing field to WiFi. And T-Mobile may prefer to play there.

<comment><USER10> I wish I could upvote you more than once. BingeOn provides limited relief for consumers using data while on-net, and are the most advanced amongst the American wireless carriers around integrated WiFi services.

For example, they were the first as far as I can tell to launch extensive WiFi calling and WiFi SMS, even extending to some American airlines (at least for WiFi SMS - calling is possible but socially unaccepted on planes).

Wireless carriers as a general rule are all looking at WiFi offload capabilities especially as 802.11ad and up provide higher transmission rates (peak and average theoreticals).

There is a race to perfect and bring to market seamless WiFi-base station handoffs (both ways) in real-world conditions. I suspect that will require a combination of channel (i.e. mobile devices) + wireless network upgrades, so in the meantime carriers need to bridge the gap. This is arguably a pretty good strategy assuming T-Mobile is expecting WiFi to handle even more of their traffic overtime.

<comment><USER19> Except what T-Mobile wants does not mean jack to what consumers want, and it is reflective of the times for a company to be trying to exploit consumers rather than provide value to them.

Of course every carrier wants you using wifi instead of their network. _Its not their expense_ , but you would still be paying them for it. But people are not subscribing to often ludicrous mobile plan bills to be told to not use it.

We absolutely have the technology to provide a huge swathe of people broadband (as per the new FCC relabel) Internet access through long-range transmission based tech like GSM CDMA or WIMAX. That makes it insane to propose laying physical wire in the dirt or making an interconnected mesh of low power wifi routers as a substitute. The only real barrier is the draconian privatization of photons that makes up spectrum regulation. If we had a 95% open spectrum with some restricted for government and emergency communications you could easily have broad spectrum towers that could adapt to congestion and pair them with radios that will adapt frequency to optimize for range vs data rate vs congestion.

The limitations are entirely artificial and that should be pissing people off.

<comment><USER10> Re. "95% open spectrum" \- Now we're really getting into the interesting tangents!

I'm still on the fence about de-privatizing spectrum for a variety of reasons. But the biggest elephant in the room whenever discussing spectrum de- privatization is that the FCC earned US$45 billion from wireless carriers last year, and US$19 billion in 2008's auction ([http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc- rakes-in-45-billion-from-wirele...](http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-rakes- in-45-billion-from-wireless-spectrum-auction/)). In the grand scheme of the entire US federal budget, I think that's just a drop in the bucket. But it's still money that the federal government looks forward to.

So on the one hand, the FCC wants to play fair for consumers and tax-payers. On the other hand, the FCC can't really restructure an existing industry without biting the hand that literally feeds their existence to the tune of US$2-3 billion per year if you imagine their auction revenue as ratable over the years an auction doesn't take place.

<comment><USER19> Considering we're on a topic that is complete fantasy anyway, you could just rebudget the FCC. They aren't getting paid 3 billion a year of magic money - they are being funded effectively by the users of the networks that buy the spectrum in their bills they pay to the carrier.

Obviously we can look at the FCC and know it will not actually break up the spectrum monopolies, because its a conflict of interest. That doesn't change that privitization of radio waves is hostile to everyone but those who can exploit their ownership for profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did a short consultancy gig at T-Systems (also part of Deutsche Telekom, like T-Mobile). Apparently they had bad experiences with T-Mobile services so were in the process of switching to another provider. Funnily enough, T-Mobile was not such a big fan of the IT service provided by T-Systems, and was also looking for an alternative. Sounds like a very healthy company indeed. P.s. John, if you read this, I also pay for the EFF.

</comment><comment><USER21> If only Project Fi's cost/gb were competitive with T-Mobile so I could jump ship. For my volume of use (5-10GB/mo) T-Mobile is the cheapest provider in town.

Google's convergence (i.e. bundling Fi+Fiber) in this space would be exciting if they could get their MVNO pricing competitive but I guess they'd have to buy T-Mobile or Sprint to make that happen because they're not going to sell minutes or data at a loss.

<comment><USER9> As long as people prioritize price above all other things, shenanigans like this will keep happening. If you're not willing to pay more for better service then your likes or dislikes don't matter in the end.

<comment><USER22> That's simply not true at all, if you're paying the lowest, that means you value money over extra service and provided ample opportunities for competition in the market place and customers that want cheap service. They'll get what they want.

If there isn't ample competition or near perfect legislation, it doesn't matter what you pay, the service will eventually be held by a monopoly that can do almost whatever they damn well please.

You don't fight monopolies by paying more money, because as long as that's your only focus, the bar to entering the market will continue to rise until eventually you can't afford the `good guy`.

<comment><USER9> There's no monopoly in the US cell phone market. Competition is decently robust, with four major networks and a buttload of MVNOs.

Right now, _one_ network is pulling this throttling bullshit. If you don't like it, there are other choices. If you say "I wish I could switch but T-Mobile is cheaper" then what you're actually saying is that you don't care about the issue enough to pay for it, and that means the providers have no reason to care about it.

<comment><USER23> > one network is pulling this throttling bullshit.

They're _all_ doing something major that violates Net Neutrality.

Sprint's compresses images and throttles video [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sprint%20compressing%20images) They just don't advertise compression/throttling as a "feature", so it doesn't get the publicity. Sprint also does zero-rating for music.

AT&T has "Sponsored Data" and throttles 'unlimited' plans, and Verizon has their ad-tracking-injection mess.

Whoever I pay is going to get money for "pulling bullshit". I love the idea of voting with your dollar, but _all_ of the major cell networks are anti-Net- Neutrality in multiple ways, so the whole thing is almost a false choice.

<comment><USER9> I don't see how throttling "unlimited" plans is a net neutrality problem, but other than that, point taken.

The comment I replied to mentions Project Fi, do they avoid all this?

Aside: not that this really makes it better, but AT&T's list of Sponsored Data providers is full of hilariously obscure companies:

[http://www.att.com/att/sponsoreddata/en/index.html](http://www.att.com/att/sponsoreddata/en/index.html)

<comment><USER10> _I don 't see how throttling "unlimited" plans is a net neutrality problem_

It's one of the examples given during the FCC's bright-line guidance ( [https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-332260A1.p...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-332260A1.pdf)):

 _However, the network practice must be primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management and not business purpose. For example, a provider can't cite reasonable network management to justify reneging on its promise to supply a customer with "unlimited" data._

<comment><USER9> I still don't see how it's a net neutrality problem. Promising "unlimited" and then not providing it is a bad thing, certainly, but it's either false advertising or a failure to abide by the service contract, not a net neutrality violation.

<comment><USER10> You'd be right if the carrier denied data access beyond a certain limit despite advertising "unlimited".

But if the carrier chooses to throttle an "unlimited" data plan and thus degrades the delivery speed outside of "network management" contexts (such as congested network conditions) then they are now subject to _additional_ punitive fines arising from net neutrality regulations that they are now subject to, on top of any (successful) fines related to misrepresentative advertising.

This falls under the category of willfully "impairing, or degrading" an existing service motivated by business interests related to the specific subscriber, instead of driven by purely technical network management justifications which would apply to a wider geographic area (i.e. not subscriber-specific), and this is one of the bright-line examples given by the FCC when they issued their press release.

As a side note, I believe the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection handles deceptive advertising enforcement, while the FCC handles net neutrality enforcement.

<comment><USER9> I understand you're saying that the FCC considers it to be a net neutrality issue, and I'm not disputing that. I'm simply saying that I don't agree with that, and don't see why it would be considered a net neutrality issue. If you throttle all data to "unlimited" customers equally then that's still perfectly neutral. The government may disagree, but I have no reason to follow their definitions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The technology they are using basically is similar to the technologies other wireless providers have used for throttling which they sometimes call "video optimization", the word optimize here is from the perspective of the carrier meaning "use less bandwidth on our network. It works by re-sampling and reducing the video quality in terms of resolution (pixels) and also color fidelity (e.g. octree). The thinking is that people watching video content on their phones will not notice the difference because the screen is so much smaller. The reason a lot of carriers ran afoul of NetNeut is that they were applying it without the consent of the subscriber (for example some would apply it only when their network or a cell site was nearing capacity or for users who were "abusing" unlimited plans (abusing meaning actually using a lot). I am not sure if the user elects to use a service with reduced quality at a reduced cost is really a violation of Net-Neut or not, the cable companies offer regular definition and high definition TV at tiered pricing for example. All the wireless carriers are trying to get into the content business in various ways as the growth of the traditional business levels off.

One add on to my own comment is that I forgot is that there is an allegation that Tmo is applying "video optimization" to content other than bingeon, which if true is a clear violation. It also is possible they are just incompetent too because that type of system they are using has to be programmed based on the 5-tuple source or destinations (and some other parameters) which it would not surprise me if they screwed that up).

</comment><comment><USER24> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10861391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10861391)

(still ranked ~80)

</comment><comment><USER25> To me it sounds like he really doesn't know what EFF is.

<comment><USER26> He knows. His question was not a question, it was an aggressive statement of FUD.

He is backpedaling and now saying that "innovation" can be controversial.

[https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/685236769319587840](https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/685236769319587840)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> FWIW, he followed up in a Periscope chat: [https://www.periscope.tv/w/aV8GYzE4NTc4fDF5b0tNZHpRbXFveFELq...](https://www.periscope.tv/w/aV8GYzE4NTc4fDF5b0tNZHpRbXFveFELqXKy00GCduhfapXi- Pw9hE0fOURv_nuD9m46Bcx_kQ==)

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone else find it disturbing he doesn't know who the EFF and their sources of income are?

<comment><USER29> Not exactly disturbing, but revealing. Evidently he lives in a little corporate bubble and is out of touch with the concerns of many ordinary internet users.

<comment><USER30> I would not call card carrying EFF members ordinary internet users. We may be vocal but the vast majority of the internet denizens don't know who the EFF is either.

The EFF does represent the concerns that most ordinary internet users _should_ have but I don't know that I would say most of the _do_ have those concerns.

<comment><USER31> Here EFF is pushing government interference in the market, as pushed by an FCC that is exceeding its authority, all so that consumers can have less choice (after all, if they don't like Binge On, they can choose another carrier that does not have it.) Most users don't share the EFF's concern because what T-Mo is doing does not harm them, so I certainly don't see how users even "should" share EFF's concern here.

<comment><USER28> The problem with this is, ultimately, it allows providers to create the original "slow lane/fast lane" situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> T-Mobile's product is a move into creating a "wireless cable" company. In the long run, it's going to be cheaper to compete across many local markets by building towers than running last mile wires and contracting fleets of service technician vans.

In the US, the fact that most regulation is at the Federal level, implies that such a move will be relatively unconstrained by local governments and less burdened by franchise fees and right of way agreements and negotiations with power companies for stringing wires on poles. I suspect that regulations requiring big carriers to provide access on their networks and access to their exchanges may be another advantage, but I'm not a telecom lawyer.

It's probably a necessary move as video increasingly dominates bandwidth consumption. And my experience is that competition in the cable market tends to lead to better service.

I'm not really sure this is a bigger affront to net neutrality than some CDN delivering stale content or Google and Bing customizing my search results. It's just that we've come to accept those things and tend to heap hate on cable company business practices.

<comment><USER33> > cable company business practices

Nearly by definition, "cable company business practices" means shared bandwidth circuits, the business practices in question being network QoS attempts to make it profitable to offer shared network services at low cost.

I'd love to see a mathematical analysis of how much FIOS would cost if everyone got a 100% dedicated circuit at anything close to the advertised specs.

The hubbub about T-Mobile's policy is a misguided rant which idealistically supposes that all bandwidth should be sold in some idealized "dedicated" way with no QoS imposed. It certainly could be sold that way, but at a much higher price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Apparently this is part of his image:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy- john-...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3046877/who-the-is-this-guy-john-legeres- strategy-for-taking-new-customers-by-storm)

Be offensive, get millions of customers.

</comment><comment><USER35> Poking an alligator with a short stick is likely to have bad consequences.

<comment><USER36> Who's the alligator here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This might be the only time I've ever been happy to _not_ be a t-mobile customer. (Well, at least for reasons other than network coverage...)

</comment><comment><USER38> Yes, that's the (formerly) government-owned corporation arrogance we got used to in Germany. As a former customer I hope they choke on it one day.

</comment><comment><USER33> The whole net neutrality debate is fraught with profound misunderstandings of how the internet works. This T-Mobile/EFF fiasco included.

We think of bandwidth in terms of maximum throughput, which makes sense for a dedicated circuit, since often the customer of a dedicated circuit plans to keep it nearly saturated (consider an office phone system, for example).

We also care about latency and packet loss, but these are generally application specific concerns. Internet browsing works pretty well with high latency, but VOIP does not.

Generally, it's always possible to overbuild the circuit and exceed the minimum performance requirements. A small office could install a second T1 to handle the extremely rare case of all phones and all fax machines being in use at once, but it may prefer to save the money and use a single T1. The second T1 could be viewed along the lines of an insurance policy against a usage spike, and the decision not to buy it could be considered "living dangerously" or voluntarily exposing the company to that risk in exchange for money saved.

T-Mobile is not selling a dedicated bandwidth circuit to its customers, in spite of what the EFF wants us to feel indignant about. Yes, we all know the slippery slope the EFF is concerned about, but what T-Mobile is doing is quite reasonable.

Imagine that you are the only person using a cable modem in the whole neighborhood. There is ample bandwidth available to you. But if all the neighbors are also using it, there is throttling and prioritization going on so that the finite bandwidth can be shared optimally.

What does optimally mean? That is very much in the eye of the beholder. Maybe you play network games and would prefer that the network be optimized for low latency and UDP. Maybe your neighbor runs a BitTorrent node. Maybe someone down the street downloads raw SETI data for some kind of analysis. _Each person has a different optimal QoS that he /she wishes the service provider would impose on everyone else._

T-Mobile has strong incentives to keep its customers happy. By analyzing the bandwidth usage, it has found a way to offer bandwidth at a lower cost by imposing a specific kind of QoS filter on the data.

This is precisely the purpose of QoS, being able to "stretch" bandwidth to accommodate more traffic by placing limits and prioritization on the traffic, with the goal of meeting all of the _application specific_ requirements that the circuit would ideally meet.

So, quite reasonably, T-Mobile has found a way to constrain some of the most egregious bandwidth hogging behavior its customers do, and has engineered a way to offer the constrained service at an improved price and packaged in a way so customers perceive _greater value_ from the service.

Yes, there might be someone trying to download SETI data over the T-Mobile LTE connection, or trying to compete in networked gaming, or all sorts of edge cases, but like Amazon's choice of which products it offers as Prime, T-Mobile has chosen a broadly appealing QoS filter which will result in most customers perceiving better value.

Additionally, it allows T-Mobile to leverage content providers in infrastructure planning risk, which helps reduce the amount of bandwidth speculation going on, and overall makes the circuit perform more like a dedicated circuit. This point is subtle but true.

So while the T-Mobile CEO seems a bit over the top, the EFF has (I think) gone over the line in an ill-conceived attack on one of the more progressive service providers. I personally donate to the EFF and proudly display the laptop sticker, but I also understand QoS and the complexity of shared infrastructure planning.

<comment><USER39> Thank you! I'm a T-Mobile customer and that's exactly what I was thinking when I read about this plan. For what it's worth, as a customer I know I can opt out of this plan and I didn't, because unlimited lower resolution video simply is worth more to me than limited high resolution video.

Personally my only concern is that zero rating only applies to video providers that sign up with them. If they want to be good corporate citizens, I think they should zero rate all the streams they detect as video, so there's a 1:1 mapping between zero rated and throttled.

I live in New York, where many many people's only connection to the Internet is on their phone. They have no home wifi. With this plan, t-mobile just became way more cost effective for those people if they want to watch tons of video.

Is it the first step down a slippery slope? I don't know. But this first step is awfully appealing from my point of view as a cheapskate consumer.

(My views here do not in any way represent the opinions of my employer.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> "... you'd probably pick EFF. The group, which has been around forever..."

Founded July 6, 1990; 25 years ago. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation))

What a curious definition of forever. I'm not always sure when the EFF is more interested in protecting digital rights or self-promotion. Some statements sure feel like the later.

<comment><USER41> World-Wide-Web-forever. I don't think anyone was implying that they were around before utilization of electricity became common, or before the Warring States period in China.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I wrote a VM and Compiler for a small language in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/actuallyachraf/monkey-giggle <comment><USER2> Looks good, you might compare to this implementation of Monkey with a bunch of extensions (such as "objects", regular expressions, and a standard-library written in the language itself):

[https://github.com/skx/monkey/](https://github.com/skx/monkey/)

A similar idea allows embedded usage of a scripting language, as a filter:

[https://github.com/skx/evalfilter/](https://github.com/skx/evalfilter/)

Of course it gets addictive writing little languages, so you'll probably want to have fun and try making more! I went with BASIC:

[https://github.com/skx/gobasic](https://github.com/skx/gobasic)

But then you start thinking about assembly language:

[https://github.com/skx/math-compiler](https://github.com/skx/math-compiler)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I recently took time to dive into compilers and programming languages by reading Thorsten Bell's excellent books, and this is what came out !</comment>


Bitcoin Network Growth is Finally Slowing - <AUTHOR> http://alexsmith.io/?p=155

<comment><USER2> A small number of individuals amassing enough hashing power is a bad thing. Crypto currencies are, at their core, about decentralization and trust. Even power split between a few entities can represent a threat to the system. Thankfully the system has other means by which it deals with this: alt currencies.

This is just the beginning. Nothing is slowing - it's just changing form. It would be interesting to overlay the amount of Bitcoin being bought with alt coins.</comment>


One Year with Apache Mesos – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - <AUTHOR> http://datajet.io/One-year-with-Apache-Mesos-The-Good-The-Bad-and-the-Ugly.html <comment> bernd-mesos Good to hear what works well. And great to hear what exactly needs to be improved.

</comment><comment><USER2> Great report, thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: How much should I pay an iOS dev tutor? - <AUTHOR>

I'm about to hire a tutor to help me along with my iOS project. He is asking for 100 an hour. Does this sound reasonable? The sessions would be taking place via Skype?<p>If it is reasonable, what sort of things should I make sure the tutor provides before the lessons so that I get the most out of my lessons? <comment><USER2> $100 USD (assuming this is USD) is pretty steep for remote mentoring.

...unless you have an extremely challenging, and specific problem they are going to help you solve.

For general iOS tutoring/mentoring, there are countless resources available online that will get you pretty far down the road of iOS mastery.

With that said, I will tutor/mentor your for $75 an hour! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you published anything to the app store?

Edit: Honestly my current project shouldn't be all that challenging. The problem is the number of hours in the day. That, and there is not a big mobile development community where I live, so I don't particularly have access to developer mentors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, for that kind of money he ought to do the entire project for you. I think that's quite high for one be taught something which, theoretically, one could learn on one's own. Especially via Skype.

</comment><comment><USER4> iOS training companies fees break down to about $100 an hour, but for real life instruction including hotel and food. It is overpriced for Skype tutorials. I would suggest the Stanford iOS course which is available for free on iTunes U, supplemented by the materials on ADC.</comment>


Google Is Close to Buying HTC Assets to Bolster Hardware - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-20/google-is-said-close-to-buying-htc-assets-to-bolster-hardware <comment><USER2> Remember when google bought Motorola and we thought the moto x line was going to become the new nexus? And then they sold to lenovo and it's kind of been down hill in terms of software updates. Let's see what google extracts out of HTC and then sells to someone else with this company.

<comment><USER3> The rumour at the time was that Google fully intended to enter the hardware business. they wanted to keep Motorola forever and didn't just buy them for patents, but Samsung threw a hissy fit and threatened to drop android entirely if Google was going to compete with them directly. Moto was sold as part of a deal with samsung (samsung intro'd a tablet with a very microsoft-y UI shortly before google sold motorola, and after the sale the software was re-done to be much closer to stock android)

Presumably, with the Pixel line going head-to-head with the Galaxy S last year the situation has changed enough that Google no longer fears that Samsung will ditch Android. It's also worth noting that the rumour here is that Google will buy specific manufacturing and hardware assets from HTC, but _will not_ buy the brand. So it's less of a "buying the company and keeping the parts they want" situation, and more of a "buy only the parts they want" situation.

<comment><USER4> I wish Google had just told Samsung they didn't care if they dropped Android back then - not sure what other OS Samsung would have switched to, but if Touchwiz is any indication it probably wouldn't have been very good.

Samsung's hardware today seems better, but for a long time the galaxy phones were cheap plastic builds with unwanted software customization on top. The few Motorola phones that came out during the Google ownership were nice.

If Google had built their own hardware back then (or had even gotten Nokia) I would probably have stayed on Android. For a long time starting around iPhone 5 the Apple hardware was a lot better (prior to that Apple lacked turn by turn navigation and LTE). The Nexus One was nice, but the S wasn't great and the Galaxy Nexus was terrible enough to switch.

Now Apple seems to be winning in security and new hardware features and everything else is fairly comparable.

<comment><USER5> Regardless of how bad Samsung's alternative would have been (probably Tizen, but possibly Windows Phone), it would still look incredibly bad for Android and Google for the news of the top Android OEM getting out of the Android space.

<comment><USER6> There is no way on earth Samsung would have dropped android. Google lost this game of chicken, that's for sure.

<comment><USER7> The entire Tizen project as well as continued efforts in Google competitors like Bixby is Samsung hedging their bets to leave. Samsung is probably the only Android OEM who _could_ leave without going out of business: People would buy the next Galaxy no matter what it ran, and Samsung has the clout to push all the major app developers to push to their own store.

<comment><USER8> Some people would buy the next Galaxy. Plenty of people wouldn't, though, as soon as the helpful employee at the T-Mobile store warned them they couldn't reinstall their old apps on the new phone. It would be a really risky move. I imagine they'd have done it already if it weren't so likely to fail.

<comment><USER7> Bear in mind, Tizen supports Android apps. Samsung would have a lot of work to do here, but would have the pull to get the top X apps on their market, even if it took paying devs to list them. Then just add a migration tool like Google has on their Pixel devices that plugs into their old phone and downloads all of the same apps on their new phone (and probably would report back to Samsung which apps they were unable to do so with so they know who to encourage), and voila.

I'm sure there'd be _some_ loss, but Samsung would likely come out doing fine. Even if they lost some market share, their profits would likely go up in the end, since they'd be the ones pulling the app market cuts and such.

<comment><USER9> >Then just add a migration tool like Google has on their Pixel devices that plugs into their old phone and downloads all of the same apps on their new phone

And be pleasantly surprised when none of their Google apps transfer over? Good luck with that.

<comment><USER10> Google Apps are important in some markets, but far less so in other markets.

Samsung might lose a percentage of the SV customerbase, but everyone who's not relying on Google accounts wouldn't really notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When Google bought Motorola, Android was under serious assault from patent trolling, and the move looked to most people to be mainly defensive to quickly build up a defensive warchest. It's my impression that Google never intended to become a serious competitor in the handset market, perhaps for fear of stepping on the toes of its partners like Samsung, so it was content to let Motorola operate as an independent entity as if Google were a holding company.

This is just my personal opinion with no more knowledge than anyone else, but this HTC acquisition looks different than Motorola. It has the hallmarks of an acqui-hire, and which implies Google may no longer be content to just sit by as a cornucopia of OEMs ship commodity HW using off the shelf stuff and small tweaks, as that's never going to pull the market forward like Apple can do with vertical integration.

<comment><USER12> Google already has serious problems with its culture that prevents it from consistently shipping consumer products. Adding HTC's overhead and shrinking market share is adding more fuel to the fire.

If Andy Rubin can ship a mobile phone in just two years with ~100 employees, maybe Google could take a similar approach by funding a totally independent startup that's not burden by its culture yet has access to all of Google's resources.

<comment><USER11> Did Essential actually build their phone, or did they simply contract an OEM to do it? Looks like LG might be the true maker of this device: [http://phandroid.com/2017/05/30/essential-phone- manufacturer...](http://phandroid.com/2017/05/30/essential-phone-manufacturer- lg/)

<comment><USER13> According to the FCC test report [0], the manufacturer is "FIH Mobile Limited", which Google says is owned by Foxconn.

[0] [https://fccid.io/2ALBB-A11/Test-Report/Test- Report-3524146.p...](https://fccid.io/2ALBB-A11/Test-Report/Test- Report-3524146.pdf)

<comment><USER14> It seems pretty easy these days to get an OEM phone made. Even Pepsi commissioned their own smartphone:

[http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/pepsi- phone-p1-3109](http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/pepsi-phone-p1-3109)

<comment><USER15> Even teenagers are commissioning their own smartphone: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/09/05/frank-isnt-just- phon...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/09/05/frank-isnt-just-phone-phony/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think this is a good deal for nobody but those HTC engineers Google is going to hire, at least short term.

The $330M price is so low none of the HTC investors are going to make any money on it. HTC's mobile phone business has been unprofitable for years and Google won't make any money on it either.

Who knows maybe Google is planning on using the HTC business unit as a sort of an R&D lab for Android hardware, with no real plan on making it a traditionally profitable business.

<comment><USER17> Considering the recent Pixels were made by HTC, I think Google just wants to cut out the middle man and have its own phone hardware business for the Pixel. This allows them to compete with Apple by having an official flagship and by being able to produce this flagship without the added cost of another company's profits and the whims of cellphone OEMs too focused on their own branded products, and all the inefficiencies that brings.

HTC has everything Google needs for an in-house Pixel from soup to nuts and they're hurting for money. Its a happy coincidence HTC is collapsing right when Google is getting serious about launching its own branded flagship phones.

I also suspect aggressive moves like this mean that Samsung is probably going to pull the trigger on a full Tizen move and eventually stop producing android phones. The Pixel is aimed right at Galaxy buyers. I'm skeptical this is just a coincidence. The agreement that Nexus was kinda, sorta a developer's phone and will always be hobbled by mid-range camera, battery, and storage seems to have ended with the Pixel line.

I just received a Pixel after my 6P died and its about the closest to iPhone quality I've seen on an Android device. Its clearly a serious attempt by Google to have a proper branded flagship.

<comment><USER18> As much as it's entertaining to see Samsung try to prop up Tizen as a deterrent against Google, it hardly seems ready for mass adoption.

<comment><USER7> It likely isn't a top priority for Samsung, so resources on it could likely be better. I presume if Samsung decided to actually pull the trigger, they'd release one last Android phone while _massively_ ramping up the scale of their Tizen division to get it ready to ship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This would have been great if Google had bought HTC about three years ago, back when it was making the HTC One M7. The company was struggling then, but still had plenty of prestige.

The problem now is that HTC has been sinking for so long that most of its famous engineers and personnel have long since jumped ship, so I'm not even sure Google will get much out of this acqui-hire. I would _assume_ that none of this involves the Vive, as that seems too profitable right now for HTC to sell.

Don't get me wrong, if we got another HTC Google Play Edition phone using an HTC 10 successor (really don't like the U11, go back to the HTC One design template, please), that would be awesome. But I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER20> Honest question : Is the Vive really profitable ?

It seems to me that this current generation of VR is a niche that lacks any killer app and that any tangible improvement is very incertain

<comment><USER21> Yea, but they can charge any amount of money for it. The market is so small, that they can charge arbitrary profit for the best headset in the market.

They also make all the peripheral and headset prerequisties and components, so when people compete on new peripherals or headsets, they still win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google is also poaching quite a few Apple hardware engineers if my group of acquaintances is any evidence. I wonder if they're going full on into hardware production with tight integration like on the iPhone?

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure what "going full on" means, but to me it seems like they already have with the Pixel and soon Pixel 2. But yes, it seems like they are still ramping up higher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's interesting about this is that HTC has a 10 year licensing deal with Apple that expires in 2022 [1]

Wonder if that deal came with a poison pill. I doubt Apple wants to be a counterparty to a mobile licensing deal with Google at this point.

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2012/11/10/apple-htc-patent- settlem...](https://www.engadget.com/2012/11/10/apple-htc-patent- settlement-10-year-license/)

<comment><USER24> Neither Apple nor Google want to get into a patent war, but neither want to be unprepared for one either. This is just another bit of stockpiling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What leaves me curious is what's to happen of the Vive hardware line that Valve sells made by HTC.

<comment><USER26> I don't think it really matters. All of the meaningful technology behind Vive (Lighthouse sensors, SteamVR, and the associated IMU firmware) is all developed and licensed to pretty much anyone who wants it by Valve. In the end Vive will be the VR equivalent of the first Android phone. A breakthrough piece of tech which led the way for an entire ecosystem of products to develop, but forgotten and obsolesced in it's own right.

<comment><USER27> I really hope you're wrong as it is currently the best VR headset on the market and the most promising one as well.

<comment><USER28> LG is working on a SteamVR headset that uses Lighthouse and seems to be roughly on par, if not better than Vive. [https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14769624/lg-valve-vr- heads...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14769624/lg-valve-vr-headset- development-kit-hands-on-gdc-2017).

I think OPs point was, even if HTC stops manufacturing Vive there will be Vive quality or better headsets that use Lighthouse tracking, which along with the upcoming knuckle controllers and vive trackers are the real competitive advantage Vive has over Rift or Microsoft MR headsets in PC VR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Makes sense. Own the hardware and the software and create a seamless experience. It's what Apple has been doing for years. Hopefully, they can pull that off if that's indeed the aim: I might consider a Google/HTC device if they pull it off and heck it might be running Fuschia and not android and that'd be compelling to me.

<comment><USER30> It's a shame Google doesn't care about its users and actually goes out of its way to inconvenience and blame customers who experience issues with their products. Sorry but I can get my iPhone repaired or replaced in any major city on short notice and it's generally a pleasant experience. Good luck getting Google to even take manufacturing defects seriously [1]. Stop giving this company your money.

[1] [https://9to5google.com/2016/12/09/google-pixel-screen- peelin...](https://9to5google.com/2016/12/09/google-pixel-screen-peeling- support/)

<comment><USER31> Reminds me of the Nexus One when the power buttons failed left and right - both Google and HTC left many customers with expensive paperweights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My biggest complaints about the Pixel line is are price and availability -- are these going to be addressed, or will Pixel phones continue to be overpriced and out of stock?

It seems to me that Google are intentionally sabotaging the success of their Pixel phone lineup. I would hate for the Nexus 6P to be my last Google phone.

<comment><USER33> I'm not convinced Google is really trying to make their hardware competitive. They are just using it to up the Android game and focus on specific features they may feel other manufacturers aren't doing a great job with or not highlighting, which is currently their assistant, as well as having a more intimate connection to some enthusiasts. Google's goal is to get many devices dependant on their ecosystem. Directly competing with other companies that use Android would not work in their interest. I hope I'm wrong though, Google directly backing a competitive and available consumer device could really put smartphones into a better territory of cost and support. Currently Samsung is quite halfhearted; while I think their hardware is great their support is more like the support one gets from a fridge than such an important and personal information device, it just doesn't compare to Apple's support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Until Google is willing to truly support their Pixel/Nexus devices for more than 2 years, I'm not sure what difference this will really make. Not that Samsung and others are all that great, but I guess I had hope that Google might do more with their branded phones.

</comment><comment><USER35> Mistakes are meant to be repeated. /s

Still, an open question is why would they feel the need to buy an exisiting company? Couldnt they simply recreate a hardware company from scratch with their resources? HTC is not exactly a world leader or some unique innovator here.

<comment><USER36> My bet is Google is also buying HTC VR/AR asset so that they can release an AR hardware before Apple's AR Glass next year.

<comment><USER37> HTC has zero AR property. Vive is VR exclusively, tethered to a PC, and the tech is from Valve. HTC may have some research but it's either very secretive or not worth bidding for - which scenario is more likely?

<comment><USER38> They've already announced a standalone Vive in partnership with Google:

[https://www.vive.com/us/product/standalone/](https://www.vive.com/us/product/standalone/)

They haven't sold it as anything but VR for now, but it could have AR capabilities. (And HTC has some sort of AR apps like Vive Paper for the standalone Vive, it has a camera).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Serious question:

I have an iPhone 6+ -- and it is 90% great. (some UX choices suck on a bigger device, I cant hit certain buttons when one-handing the device)

I really like the essential....

I hear good things about the Pixels.

I would only up to the iPhone X for water resistence...

They are all nearly $1K

(I worked in Intel's game developer relations lab in the 90s when they were trying to prove that a <$1k computer was even possible (Celeron's with SIMD)...

Now its like a phreaking phone is going to be hitting/pushing the ~$1K mark....

Should I get a new phone, and if so, of those three, which would be best?

<comment><USER40> Why not the iPhone 8? Of course, an iPhone 8 Plus with 256GB of memory is right up near $1k as well.

I'm switching back from a Samsung Galaxy S8, which like the iPhone X has an OLED screen and doesn't feature a home button (Samsung is making the iPhone X's screen). Just too much time waiting for it to recognize me. It wasn't a lot, but enough to be annoying.

<comment><USER41> I have the S8, and although the rear fingerprint sensor is less convenient than the front, I haven't even considered using the face or iris unlock.

Just stick your finger round the back and you'll be happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > Google has tried to buy its way into hardware twice before, albeit more > expensively.

Google bought Danger which got Android. Motorola was a failure yes. So not twice but once.

<comment><USER43> Incorrect. Microsoft bought Danger and it gave rise to their Kin phone effort. Andy Rubin did start Danger, but he left before the Microsoft acquisition to start Android, which is what Google bought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> They should instead buy a SoC company like mediatek and build own SoC competing apple AX series and Qualcomm 800 series with additional processing engine like neural engine etc.. also they should buy imagination technologies previous GPU technology supplier for apple which is already up for sale

This could greatly enhance android and they can start selling SoC along with software. If not they are dependent on Qualcomm to catch up with apple.

<comment><USER45> Or they could do what Apple does and design their SoC's and send off the designs to TSMC for fabrication. Google has already poached Apple's lead chip architect in June of this year.

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15791918/google-hires- app...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15791918/google-hires-apple-chip- architect-pixel-phones)

<comment><USER46> It's interesting to watch the game of telephone unfold right before your eyes.

>>> Google has already poached Apple's lead chip architect in June of this year.

No where has it been mentioned that the person they poached was Apple's "lead" chip architect. All it says is that google poached _An_ architect from Apple to be it's SoC lead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm surprised Google would be interested in "only 100 engineers" from HTC that I almost don't see the point. Are those engineers _that important_ to Google's smartphone hardware efforts? Is it that much easier to acquihire them for $300 million than hire them one by one?

<comment><USER48> Buying an existing team probably makes more sense than starting one.

And if they tried to hire all 100 they'd probably be exposed to a lawsuit (plus they'd end spending a lot on bonuses and relocations anyways)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> A lot of people are discussing this purchase as a way to bolstering Google's hardware R&D prowess, which I sort of don't understand: what are some of the most impressive phone innovations that came from HTC in the past 5 years?

<comment><USER50> Just off the top of my head some things that HTC did before anyone else:

      * First LTE phone in america (Thunderbolt)
      * Dual front speakers (BoomSound)
      * Low-MP camera (Ultrapixel)
      * Unibody aluminum phone (One M7)
      * Squeezable edges (U11)
      * Glasses-free 3d display (Evo 3d)

I am sure I am forgetting some.

HTC has always had really nice hardware on their phones and once in a while they get the software right too. While a lot of these innovations have failed in the market, in the right hands they could all be just what Google (or some other company) needs to get in front of this market.

<comment><USER49> I appreciate some of these, but some I'm not sure I do for all of them. Just because they released something before everyone else doesn't mean there was real brilliance behind it --- do people really care that squeezing the phone is a new medium for interacting with it? (Maybe it's too early to tell for this one, but I have my doubts.)

First LTE phone: I'm not sure I see why this is "innovation" on its own; the LTE specs were known for years before LTE networks rolled out, and I don't think HTC made the low-level components that made it possible anyway (e.g., the filters). Not that it didn't require some _new_ work, but I'm not sure the R&D dept. had to work hard on this one.

Low-MP camera: why is this important and/or innovative?

BoomSound: Is this really innovation? It didn't create much of a trend in the smartphone market, and it used off-the-shelf parts.

I don't know much about the 3d display unfortunately.

I should have been clearer with my comment though, and asked what they have done that have been impactful and clearly required a huge amount of expertise, i.e., things Google might be interested in.

As an example of something that might fit the sort of work I am thinking about is this: [https://atap.google.com/soli/](https://atap.google.com/soli/)

<comment><USER50> None of these are really scientific breakthroughs but it shows HTC can be on the cutting edge of phone hardware.

To address what you mentioned:

      * First LTE phone means they were ahead on hardware integration, testing, and price to get to market first.
      * The Low-MP camera demonstrates that they saw the end of the highest-megapixel wars and the shift towards picture quality being subjective.
      * BoomSound has certainly kicked off a trend,  The iPhone 7 made a big deal (TV ads, etc) about its much louder dual speakers.  Nobody before HTC cared about phone speakers.

<comment><USER51> Please don't use code blocks for text quoting. They cause side scrolling which can be annoying in desktop browsers and nigh unreadable on mobile.

Common methods to quote text blocks on HN are to use a > prefix and/or asterisks to italicize the quoted text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> So, can someone explain me why they sold Motorola? I can't understand their strategy.

<comment><USER53> They basically wanted the patents Motorola held. They kept the patents and sold the rest to Lenovo

<comment><USER37> They also kept ATAP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> From a selfish standpoint it would be nice for me if they could get back into phones and offer a mid range pixel (call it whatever) type device that gets regular security updates and etc.

</comment><comment><USER55> Confirmed by HTC

[https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=15303272](https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=15303272)

</comment><comment><USER56> It's interesting to me that a tweet from a single well respected journalist (@evleaks) can set off a huge chain reaction of coverage.

</comment><comment><USER57> And we all know how well that worked out for Motorola Mobility. Especially for its fungible "people resources".

</comment><comment><USER58> And just a year after canceling Project Ara!

<comment><USER59> I realize the overhead of a modular phone would make that phone lesser than an equivalent price/weight non-modular, but at least Google would have had something unique in what's quickly becoming a stale industry.

Instead they chose to compete head-on with the iPhone, and it's clear they're not doing too well at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Is this for their new OS? (Fuchsia?)

<comment><USER61> Fushia running on risc-v with AV1 codec in hardware. You need to throw all the new tech in there.

<comment><USER62> Fuchsia kernel RISC-V port: [https://github.com/slavaim/riscv- magenta](https://github.com/slavaim/riscv-magenta)

<comment><USER61> That's good, but Google has recently forked Magenta into Zircon:

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fuchsia-...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fuchsia- OS-Magenta-Zircon)

And the arch folder in the Zircon repo seems to only have x86 and ARM at the moment. Perhaps they still need to pull a few changes over ;-)

[https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/zircon](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/zircon)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> >Google will keep the HTC brand and take on about 100 HTC engineers

Only 100 engineers? They are not planning on retaining HTC's phone unit any much functional.

</comment><comment><USER64> Good

</comment><comment><USER65> Recommend buying?

</comment><comment><USER66> It's about time! Google should have bought a handset maker years ago! It can't fail!

<comment><USER67> Google used to own Motorola Mobility.

<comment><USER68> That's the joke.

<comment><USER67> Sarcasm doesn't always convey correctly over text, especially when there are folks around who don't know that this is not the first time Google has been down this road.</comment></comment></comment></comment>