China proposes 'traffic rules' to secure cyberspace - <AUTHOR> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-10/21/content_13944760.htm

<comment><USER2> There is absolutely no substance to that article except the usual undertones of "the US should not be in total control of things." Giving any control over to the UN, however, has historically been a pretty poor idea.</comment>


Follow the Mobile User - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/03/29/follow-the-mobile-user/ <comment><USER2> This might sound cliche, but this is exactly what TechcrunchIT needs more of... well thought out articles instead of Gillmors mini-essays on Twitter and XMPP. The subject matter is still not business IT, in the traditional sense, but its an improvement.</comment>


Best Practices for Building a Microservice Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-building-a-microservice-architecture <comment><USER2> Great article, very comprehensive

</comment><comment><USER3> Indeed this was a great read, felt like i was reading the O'Reilly Microservices book all summed down into a blog.</comment>


Google To Announce List Of Vendors Who Will Support VP8 On May 19th - <AUTHOR> http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2010/04/google-to-announce-list-of-vendors-who-will-support-vp8-on-may-19th.html

<comment><USER2> I cannot wait to rub it into all the "but H264 is already standard, there is no way that there will be another format supported" zealots. For a patent-free better future!

<comment><USER3> Right, but not many organisations are in a position to come along and do us all* a big favour as Google is here. Between being able to afford it, having a browser and a mobile OS, and YouTube, they are really holding the right cards to do this. Anyway, my point is, if Google weren't going to do it, then those 'zealots' would quite possibly have a point.

*I am under no illusion that 'us all' doesn't largely include Google themselves in this case, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is VP8 going to be open source? I believe Google still hasn't confirmed this rumor yet.

<comment><USER5> I would guess that they will in order to speed its adoption.

If they don't, it won't be long until there exists an open-source implementation. There already exist very high-quality open source implementations of H.264, like x264. Since VP8 won't be patent encumbered, there will probably be even more impetus to create one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> excuse my ignorance, but would that list of vendors possibly include Mozilla? I would imagine that having both Firefox and Chrome support VP8 day one would be a major shot against H264 becoming the standard.

<comment><USER7> Well Firefox, Opera, and Chrome all support Ogg and nobody cares. Safari and IE are all that matters since they are what ships with their respective OSes. H.264 is already the defacto standard. If Google somehow convinced Apple/WebKit to include VP8 out of the box then that might put pressure on Microsoft. That also puts most of the weight of the smartphone market behind VP8. But they also still support H.264 and hardware decoding is much more mature for H.264 now, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Safari on Mac OS X (or Windows) doesn't carry that much weight. Its global market share is half that of Chrome, and roughly the same as Opera. Even in its best market (North America) it's going to be rapidly overtaken by Chrome in the next month or so. There's also at least 3 good cross-platform alternatives for people to use.

Safari on iPhone and iPod isn't too great an obstacle either despite their mobile mindshare because they only support H.264 baseline and that (combined with their mobile nature) means a separate video file is probably recommended anyway.

And on the Microsoft side only IE9 is announced as supporting HTML5 video (with H.264 amongst a few other codecs), and no-one knows when it's coming out, probably some point in 2011 and not for Windows XP. Plus since Microsoft's VC-1 died off they don't really have a dog in this fight. They'd have to balance the minor benefit of H.264 patents being a hindrance to open source rivals (but not Apple or Google) against falling behind web standards if everyone else goes VP8.

So the one Google really want to convince is Adobe Flash. If they're on board you get effective 100% uptake within a year of release across all desktops (XP, Windows 7, Mac OS X) and all browsers (inc. Safari and IE 6, 7 and 8) and that's the kind of leverage you need to get Microsoft and Apple to follow domino style. And similarly to Microsoft they gain no real business benefit from H.264 files that can just as easily be served outside Flash.

<comment><USER8> I would be surprised, if Adobe would be not on board during Google I/O announcement. It was announced that Google is going to tightly integrate Flash with Chrome, support Flash in Android and ChromeOS... so what they would get in exchange for that? VP8 support in Flash would be one thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really hope that Flash and every major browser, including the iPad one, is on that support list, then you'd only have to encode videos once for the web.</comment>


Peer to Peer, Parallel Networking for Your iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/07/14/peer-to-peer-parallel-networking-for-your-iphone/ <comment><USER2> Completly misses the point that rendering is the bottleneck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not for the sites I generally interact with. I'm bandwidth limited 80-90% of the time (and that's with a 3Gs).

I'll agree that rendering is slow as well, but 3G, edge or worse (the O!) have horrid load times when grabbing scripts from pages I like to visit. They fly (in comparison) when I have wifi access.</comment></comment>


Review: Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 Leaves MacBook in the Dust - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2017/01/16/microsoft-surface-pro-4-microsoft-windows-10-microsofts-surface-pro-4-leaves-your-macbook-in-the-dust/ <comment><USER2> "Leaves MacBook in the dust", yet the article mentions 0 evidence of it doing so. Man I hate click-bait articles</comment>


Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas - <AUTHOR> http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texas

<comment><USER2> Ahh, The American Way (TM)

When a competitor offers a better product that you, make what they are doing illegal rather than competing with them.

Stopping innovation in America since the 70s.

<comment><USER3> Is "since the 70's" some sort of ironic joke? US industries were extremely and overtly anti-competitive _up until_ the deregulation of the 1970's. If competition is restricted now, it was far worse in the past.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980)

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

<comment><USER4> like Airbnb getting sued in New York?

or Uber/Lyft/etc having to go through extortionary-like procedures in California?

...

<comment><USER3> I'm not arguing that US is universally free-market today, rather that it was _less_ free-market 50 years ago.

<comment><USER4> i don't really agree. other than some deregulation (power, cable, etc), for the most part i'd say the government today is more intertwined with lobbyists/big corporations' interests at heart than they used to be...

<comment><USER5> Car franchise laws and taxi medallions didn't exist in the 70s?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does any other company get so many straight press releases consistently voted up on HN?

BTW this is old, the referenced bills did not pass.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's shocking how quickly this got to the top of the front page. People really, _really_ like Tesla :)

<comment><USER7> It doesn't shock me ...

1 - A charismatic "Rocket scientist" as a founder (Arguably the most inspiring founder since Steve Jobs). Check!

2 - A disruptive idea in a industry that hasn't been disrupted since the rise of Japanese cars (A long long time ago). Check!

3 - Wining against all odds (a year ago very few people were betting on Tesla). Check!

4 - A world changing idea. Check!

5 - A David and Goliath story. Check!

6 - A sexy machine and a delightful product. Check!

<comment><USER8> There is no "David" in this story. There is a new company but being new doesn't make you David. The power behind Tesla is not small by any means.

<comment><USER9> For Goliath, what about the entities that allegedly kill GM's EV1 electric car and want people to keep depending on fossil fuel? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Prior to the filing deadline, Tesla Motors reached out to Sen. Craig Estes (R-Wichita Falls) and Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) who agreed to file bills on our behalf. These bills would permit U.S.-based manufacturers of 100% electric- or battery-powered vehicles to sell directly to Texas consumers."

A silly band-aid to ridiculous legislation.

<comment><USER11> The band-aid is easier to pass.

<comment><USER12> That somehow sounds even worse.

<comment><USER13> However, not a concept new to dog owners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, this might seem a silly question (I find the ban ludicrous but this is worth asking).

Why not just allow certain dealers, approved by Musk himself for all that matters, to become 'authorized Tesla dealers'? Why does Tesla insist on direct-to-consumer sales, even to the point of not being able to do so in large marketplaces?

<comment><USER15> Musk clearly wants Tesla to sell all of their products themselves ala Apple. His stated reason was that car dealer's cannot properly advertise the benefits of electric cars without undermining their gasoline car business and so he doesn't trust them to properly sell the car.

<comment><USER16> That does not explain away others who would relish the idea of setting up an electric only dealership. He is using an pretty damn thin excuse to not allow others to sell the cars. Sorry, but there are many other like minded individuals who would very much sell the cars the way he wants, they may even improve on the methods.

Local dealers for electrics would provide the benefit of tighter integration with supporting businesses, from those who install the requisite plugs at homes, to marketing the need of stations to employers so that their employees can charge up at work. There are many many benefits to having local, private dealers.

<comment><USER17> > There are many many benefits to having local, private dealers.

Oh, so is that why they are mandatory through legislation? Usually if something has "many many benefits", the behavior will spontaneously arise and not need to be government mandated

<comment><USER18> I thought the regulation was to deter monopolization from manufacturers, not to prop up the dealership business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Someone in California should figure this out - I checked quick on CA's DMV website but couldn't find an email to ask someone.

If you buy a car in another state, California will charge you the difference in sales tax to bring it up to California's tax rate, netting them more tax revenue. What happens if you bring in a car that you paid a higher tax rate on? Would they refund you the difference? Would you get double taxed purchasing a vehicle from California and bringing it to Texas?

Can someone explain what's going on in the service paragraph? The customer can't talk to the repair place? They can't discuss the issues the car has, they need to relay all the information through Tesla motors? What the heck?

<comment><USER20> I am far from a tax expert, but my impression was that excess sales tax paid in another state can be claimed on your California state income tax return?

It sounds like the customer can talk to the repair place, it's just that the repair place can't contact the customer, or even advertise themselves as a Tesla repair place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I thought Texas was all about reducing regulations and welcoming new businesses.

<comment><USER22> q: How to tell when politician is lying?

a: His lips are moving.

Btw, "Financier" is a fascinating read and should be just used a main textbook for "Civics" class in schools on how the system works. I like this double- whammy :

"... Grund had been about, years before, purchasing through one or two brokers large amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt certificates and bonds. The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from Mexico, had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in value to ten or fifteen million dollars. Later, in connection with the scheme to make Texas a State of the Union, a bill was passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States of five million dollars, to be applied to the extinguishment of this old debt. Grund knew of this, and also of the fact that some of this debt, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was to be paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and there was to be a false or pre- arranged failure to pass the bill at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders who might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This page refers to April 9th (2013?) in the future tense, so it's probably pretty old news.

<comment><USER20> According to [http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/HB3351/](http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/HB3351/) and [http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/SB1659/](http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/SB1659/), the bills haven't progressed any further since then, I don't know if that means they're dead, or if that's just how slowly the Texas legislature proceeds.

<comment><USER15> The Texas legislature meets for 140 days every odd year. The bill was not passed in this session (which is to say it failed). It will likely be reintroduced in 2015 when the Texas Legislature meets again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Could someone still buy some Teslas, leave them in the lot, then sell them on Craigslist?

<comment><USER25> Sure. The warranty's even transferable.

In fact, last I looked used Model S cars were going for more than retail. Scarcity, I guess.

But it's not like you can't get a Tesla in Texas, just that they can't sell it to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is it correct to assume a Texas resident may order one from another dealer and drive it home? Can they just drive it home and legally have it registered in Texas?

<comment><USER27> Yeah, you basically just order it online and there's no problem. There are a couple of showrooms in Austin and from what I've heard, although you can't actually purchase it from the Tesla showroom, you are welcome to use their kiosks to order one via the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's gotta be a simple, legal workaround to require franchising. Here's how I could see it happening:

1\. Create Company X.

2\. Sell exclusive USA franchising rights to Company X.

3\. Acquire Company X, rename the new subsidiary as 'Tesla Franchising'.

4\. ???

5\. Profit

Edit: Thanks for the unwarranted down vote without a comment... I didn't know that big oil is trolling HN now.

From the article, they're already doing this with their service departments:

Customers in need of warranty service must call the Tesla Service to speak to someone at Tesla Motors in California. Based on their over-the-phone explanation, a Tesla Service employee determines whether repair work is needed/warranted. If so, the customer is sent to have the work _sub-contracted by a local subsidiary, Tesla Motors TX_. The local repair centers – currently in Austin and Houston – cannot advertise that they do warranty repairs nor can they discuss any additional repair needs or concerns with the customer. _Tesla Motors TX then bills Texas Motors, Inc._ for the work. If customers have additional warranty concerns, Tesla Motors TX cannot discuss them with the customer – the customer would need to call Tesla Motors, Inc. back and go through the process again.

</comment><comment><USER29> Elon, just install a bunch[1] of superchargers on I-10.

[1] And I _do_ mean a bunch.

EDIT: I just noticed. This is an old press release. The lege' is out of session. Be sure and pester representatives if another special session is called.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's ok. Instead, it will sell its cars in China.

</comment><comment><USER31> some people want to kill the electric car

<comment><USER32> don't think it's about being against the electric car, but against a world where car dealerships are unnecessary. car dealerships will eventually go the way of the book store. they don't want a world in which they aren't the very profitable middle men between the consumer and the manufacturer. tesla's direct consumer sales threatens their existence, so they want nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER31> So basically the law mandates that salesmen are not out of work. Brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _" Texas Bans the Sale of Tesla Vehicles"_

Title is misleading. Texas didn't ban the sale of Teslas but rather Teslas are incapable of being sold due to legislation that was added back in 2003. Still a problem, but it should at least be presented correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, that's my bad. I read it elsewhere[1], went to Tesla's site for official news, and couldn't find anything other than Advocacy. I'll try to change it. I put up the original title in the spirit of the guidelines, because "Advocacy: Texas" doesn't by itself mean anything in particular. And I haven't seen this story on Hacker News.

[1]: [http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/nightline-fix-abc-news/why- texas...](http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/nightline-fix-abc-news/why-texas-bans- sale-tesla-cars-140842349.html)

<comment><USER15> You can buy a Tesla in Texas. You have to order it online and (as the page says) it will be delivered by a 3rd party. You can see plenty of them in Austin. Tesla also maintains two "showrooms", one in Austin and one in Houston where you can see the car, but cannot test drive it or discuss pricing.

Tesla is not allowed to run its own dealerships in Texas, because the auto dealer's union has laws which prevent car manufacturers from running their own dealerships.

<comment><USER34> By "union" you mean the lobbyists of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association right?

I've never heard of lobbying arms being referred to as "unions"

<comment><USER15> Er yes, misspoke.

Although a union is for all intents and purpose a lobbying arm...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why single out Texas? The vast majority of states are the same way, including Tesla's home state.</comment>


Ask HN: Dealing with website distributing malware disguised as open source? - <AUTHOR> Our open source project has recently exploded in popularity, and someone registered a very similar domain to ours, using it to distribute malware. We've tried contacting their domain registrar (Namecheap) and host to no avail, and now they've taken ads on Google to appear above the official website.
Does anyone have experience or tips on how to deal with this situation?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> The first and fastest thing you can do is report the site using your browser so it can be blocked (Chrome or Firefox is the best since it goes to the same list and Microsoft will also pick it up). After you have done this, report it to US-CERT - [https://www.us-cert.gov/report](https://www.us-cert.gov/report) and the FBI - [https://www.fbi.gov/tips](https://www.fbi.gov/tips). For the registrar, did you also report it using their abuse email account and the IP/Datacenter operator abuse address? If those don't work you can also contact ICANN and the actual domain registry who can pull the domain.

You can then talk with a lawyer to file a trademark dispute if you have a registered trademark along with a DMCA complaint if they have copied your information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the US-CERT/FBI links, we'll report to them. We've reported the site through Google's safe browsing form and the registrar and host abuse addresses. Both registrar and host replied saying they found no malware on the site, despite us submitting analysis on it.

I don't think ICANN deals with malware, but we'll contact the registry. We've also considered DMCA, but we think it would be a very temporary solution.

<comment><USER2> You would need to take screenshots and links to the malware, you may also have to send the links to VirusTotal - [https://www.virustotal.com/#/home/upload](https://www.virustotal.com/#/home/upload) URL submission.

If it is targeted then you will have a bigger problem getting this resolved and law enforcement agencies would have to take over the investigation as it would be out of the scope of most to properly review this.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've done that with all the reports so far. Most of us aren't in the US, but hopefully the ones that are can reach out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does someone here work on Google Inbox? Questions - <AUTHOR> 1) Is there any way to filter for only messages that contribute to the iOS badge count?
2) Feature request: It would be wonderful to be able to reply to long emails in-line. e.g. I can just click on their email and write comments under the relevant sentences in their emails, and then it sends my reply to them quoting their email and putting my info in-line with it. (Otherwise, I often manually copy their email text and write my responses inline with >, but this generally messes up the formatting and could be easier)
Might this be added?
3) Feature request: It would be great to get a view/filter for all messages I've sent that included a question, where I haven't yet received a reply.
Might this be added? <comment><USER2> How about: When is iPhone X support coming? It's not that hard to update.... I've done it myself.

</comment><comment><USER3> For me number 1 of your requests won't find anything a lot of the time. I think I can reproduce it, snooze something, let the snooze occur, unpin the snoozed message and the notification count doesn't go away without quitting and reopening the app.</comment>


The top 50 passwords you should never use - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/12/15/the-top-50-passwords-you-should-never-use/

<comment><USER2> Actually I admire the foresight of the folks who were using "lifehack" or "gizmodo" for their passwords on those particular sites, rather than giving up one of their high-security passwords to the apparently-butterfingered hands of the clowns at Gawker media. If someone guesses my gizmodo password then the worst they can do is to comment as me on gizmodo.

If dumb sites want passwords for dumb reasons, they gotta expect to get dumb passwords. I applied for a job with ACertainBigCompany the other day, and it not only forced me to create an account with a password in order to submit my job application, but also told me my regular password wasn't secure enough. Screw you, job application site, I'm almost certainly only going to use you once!</comment>


Google Megastore - 3 Billion Writes and 20 Billion Read Transactions Daily - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/1/11/google-megastore-3-billion-writes-and-20-billion-read-transa.html

<comment><USER2> _Writes are limited to 1 per second, so HRD is not a good match when high usage is expected._

This is per entity group, and it's not a strict limitation, it's an expectation of performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"Backups and redundancy are achieved via synchronous replication, snapshots, and incremental log backups."_

That's nice but you can't access these backups. They are there for the system failing - not for your own needs. RAID is not a backup strategy.

<comment><USER4> It's built on top of bigtable, so presumably users can request the state of an object at any point in time just by specifying a timestamp with their query.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's an ability that's exposed to app engine users. I don't see any mention of it: <http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/datastore/></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to start on creating AI for games? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I've been interested in AI creating for a while. I'd be most likely interested in bot making (for casual/learning purposes only, really). How does one start doing that?
I do have knowledge of programming but not really sure how to grasp the whole concept.
Interested in concepts of how AI works in games such as Starcraft (I suppose, Warcraft too), Hearthstone (and other card games), Counter-Strike work. While I guess the FPS AI (at least the official bots) are not as fair as it might see - they're probably rigged to fail at some point just like chess engines are when are presumably playing in lower ELO.
Are there any books, tutorials, challenges that would be a great starter for me? <comment><USER4> There's a few really good fun AI challenges that you can get stuck into - <USER2> though they're ocmpetitions and over, you can still get the tools for them [http://www.marioai.org/](http://www.marioai.org/) [http://www.sscaitournament.com/index.php?action=tutorial](http://www.sscaitournament.com/index.php?action=tutorial) [http://www.slideshare.net/coboslab/demolition- derby-2012-gec...](http://www.slideshare.net/coboslab/demolition- derby-2012-gecco-competition-report) [http://www.cloudball.se/](http://www.cloudball.se/) [http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/](http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/) [http://aichallenge.org/index.php](http://aichallenge.org/index.php) [http://www.botprize.org/](http://www.botprize.org/) [http://aigamedev.com/open/coverage/ctf- report/](http://aigamedev.com/open/coverage/ctf-report/) [http://aibirds.org/](http://aibirds.org/) [http://geneura.ugr.es/cig2012/competitions.html](http://geneura.ugr.es/cig2012/competitions.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Creating "AI/bots" for games comes in three parts/flavors/divisions:

First, and the most critical to most games, is basic behavioral AI. This includes things like pathfinding, locating targets, attacking, and otherwise making an entity in the game interact with the environment in the game.

Second, you've got the more abstract parts, the "high-level decisionmaking". This is the AI's strategies and tactics, such as communicating with other AI, coordinating with squad members to circle an enemy, deciding when to change weapons or throw a grenade or pull back to reload, etc. In most cases, developers put in many crude heuristics here either because they don't have time to think of anything better, or for performance reasons. This will look like "if known nearby enemies > 2 and ammo < 20%, find safe point to fall back, reload". The developer thought up this quick rule of thumb and told the AI to do this, without having to code the AI with the intelligence and information the developer used when making up this rule of thumb.

Third, bot creation (for the usual "hacker" version/meaning of the term, as in e.g. bots used by AFK players to farm) is _significantly_ different than making an "official" AI as a developer or writing a replacement AI using available scripting in some games. For most games, bots will involve various hack techniques for retrieving information about the game world (occasionall literally involving visual pattern recognition, which is a whole other ball of yarn (and separate type of "AI") you don't want to mess with just yet). Bots will also usually involve indirect control of the game character by using some third-party program to "send" keys to the game using OS functionality. This is probably not what you're interested in, and you'd need to learn at least some basics of the first two to be able to achieve anything here.

One thing that was rather popular a while ago is to just dive into a game like Robocode[1] and work up your way until you can code one robot that will on its own beat various competition-grade robots without user input to adjust for the opponent's strategies.

[1][http://robocode.sourceforge.net/](http://robocode.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER6> Building off of your #3) An example for this would be the botting programs made for Runescape. Developers wrote an application that would sit on top of the game client and then use reflection in Java to see what's happening in the game: Various objects being created that are now on screen, the players direction, the map grid, etc.

The developers of this botting program would then expose their own API and scripting language that would allow other developers to interact with the game through their program. The could then write scripts such as: Go to this location via map coordinates, pick up some object, solve a puzzle, fight some boss, eat when below a certain health, etc.

Note: I used to run a VPS company that would specifically cater to those that were botting in Runescape; this allowed them to run their bots 24/7 without using their own hardware.

<comment><USER7> Right. I wrote one of the earlier RuneScape 2 bots around 8 years ago (example script [https://clbin.com/71NIX](https://clbin.com/71NIX)).

It's worth noting that these were very easy identifiable as bots by behavior. Making AI for a game (that actually seems human and is fun to interact with, past just target selection and pathfinding) is another (much more difficult) set of problems entirely.

<comment><USER8> Holey shit it's Regex :). Old ARGA dev here :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Learning the A* pathfinding algorithm is a good starting point as this is common in simple tile games. These two links should get you started:

[1]: [http://www.raywenderlich.com/4946/introduction-to-a- pathfind...](http://www.raywenderlich.com/4946/introduction-to-a-pathfinding)

[2]: [http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/GameProgramming/](http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/GameProgramming/)

<comment><USER10> I'll second this. Also, for board games like chess or othello, you should take a look at the mini-max algorithm:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1\. Grab Unreal Engine[1]. It's $20 per month, but you can cancel after the 1st month if you don't want to receive updates.

2\. Download the Unreal Tournament project[2]

3\. Examine the bot code and start tweaking

[1] [https://www.unrealengine.com/](https://www.unrealengine.com/)

[2] [http://www.unrealtournament.com/](http://www.unrealtournament.com/)

Unreal is an industry-grade game engine that is also quite accessible. AI can be scripted in Blueprint (a visual dataflow scripting language) or C++.

Unreal Tournament 2014 is 100% crowdsourced. If you own the Unreal engine you can download, play it, modify it and - if your modifications are good enough - feed them back in to the game itself. The community is apparently very welcoming.

<comment><USER12> Well, I like the idea, but why do all their documentation pages link to a Github 404: [https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament](https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament) ?

<comment><USER11> Private repos. You need to link your GitHub account to your Unreal account. See here [https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Getting_Started_With_Unreal_To...](https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Getting_Started_With_Unreal_Tournament)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> AI programmer here...generally "bots" are just AI that is intended to take the place of a player (typically in a versus setting and not a co-op setting).

If anything bots are tougher to make then "normal" AI since their value is measured by their performance against humans. Also the less you cheat (perfect knowledge of the other players, perfect aim, etc) the better your bot. Having a non-cheating bot beat a human is a major achievement.

The bots for a strategy game like StarCraft is fundamentally different than the bot for an FPS. They use completely different techniques and it's much harder to cheat in strategy game (though ignoring the fog of war is the most egregious). Strategy game AI is more akin to chess AI - lots of search (minimax and stuff). It's a whole field onto itself and you can only learn by studying the AI for that type of particular game.

FPS bots (like counter strike) are much closer to traditional game AI (shooters and such). Books on "Game AI" are a good place to start. Basically the two major problems is where should I go (evaluating cover, analyzing line of sight, estimating where enemies are and trying to pick a good place to stand) and how to I get there (pathfinding and pathfollowing). What you do when you get there is generally pretty straightforward (shooting at the appropriate guy). If you have a cover system you need to be able to tell them how to use cover and this involves a lot of animation (syncing my animations and position up to the cover in the world). But in an FPS this is usually just a question of crouching or not.

The big difference for FPS bots (versus single player enemy AI) is that bots need to choose between conflicting goals (should I go get ammo, should I go get health, should I attack the enemy). If you have a strict hierarchy of behaviours your bots won't be competitive (enter fuzzy logic systems, utility theory and the like - normal behaviour trees won't cut it).

Have fun!

<comment><USER5> > Having a non-cheating bot beat a human is a major achievement.

(for some categories of games!)

I'm almost nitpicking here, but it's important to understand the distinction where when trying to build "human-like" AI that players feel are like the real thing, you also want to emulate human shortcomings. Sometimes it might not be cheating per the rules, but still be obviously outside the realm of current human capabilities.

e.g.: An AI opponent with perfect arithmetical abilities in a game like Scorched Earth: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_\(video_game\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best start I ever had to Artificial Intelligence was via UC Berkeley's CS188 course[1]. This course takes you through the very foundations of AI, from search to planning to basic probability theory. It's been imitated at universities around the world with its open lectures, slides, homework assignments and __project code __.

The projects are the very best part of this course. You start with a blank slate PacMan agent trying to pick up dots to something able to track & dodge ghosts without even seeing them (!). It's what inspired me to continue AI research 7 years down the road!

[1]: [http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs188/fa11/lectures.html](http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs188/fa11/lectures.html)

<comment><USER15> Hey there, thanks for the great link!

As for AI (in general, not only for games) - AFAIK nowadays most serious work is done in non-symbolic, statistics/stochastic direction (including all the Big Data and ML stuff)... So what do you think about pure symbolic AI? Is there any research/advancements done in this part? I know I'm oversimplifying it, but I think you got the point... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> To create a good (i.e. actually useful) bot you want to start by spending a lot of time in whatever game you're targeting.

Most bots, or trivial helpers like macros, are written by the players that have spent a lot of time in a game and identified the elements most worthy of automation. The player's lack of in-depth technical knowledge then leads to the mass of crappy bots out there.

If you're coming from the opposite side, i.e. you have technological knowledge but don't know where to start, all you're missing is domain knowledge of an individual game or genre to figure out what you actually want to build.

Edit: it's also worth noting that game AI and bots are pretty different problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> Google Ants[0] is an AI challenge that is over now, unfortunately, but you can still run through it.

"The AI Challenge is all about creating artificial intelligence, whether you are a beginning programmer or an expert. Using one of the easy-to-use starter kits, you will create a computer program (in any language) that controls a colony of ants which fight against other colonies for domination."

[0] [http://ants.aichallenge.org/](http://ants.aichallenge.org/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Here are some resources on AI programming

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

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

[http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/artificial...](http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/artificial- intelligence/)

I highly recommend this book

[http://www.gameaipro.com/](http://www.gameaipro.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://codecombat.com/](http://codecombat.com/) may be a good starting point for writing simple AI logic.

<comment><USER20> That does look like fun. There are many online programming contests that work similarly to that, and I would recommend starting with one of them.

I'd also add that while everyone suggesting AI resources is helpful, the best thing to do is _just jump in_ and start coding. One of the problems with our formal education system is that it often ends up trying to present solutions to problems before the students actually understand the problems, resulting in students that learn fairly superficial understandings of the solution that the brain naturally ends up garbage-collecting. Just code things for a couple of weeks. You should notice you're sort of hitting a wall around that time. You should notice that you see behaviors in your opponents that you do not currently know how to implement. _That_ is the time to start cracking into the AI texts and learning from those who preceded you, and everything will tend to make total sense why you'd want to do that, instead of being these abstract thoughts floating in space that tend to go in one ear and out the other.

(I am convinced, incidentally, that this is why people can so confidently proclaim the uselessness of a degree in computer science to programming; what is taught is _incredibly_ useful, but trying to jam it in for four years before _finally_ turning you out into the real world to actually encounter the problems you've supposedly been learning the solutions to is a terrible way to go about learning. Take advantage of the ease of just hiking out into the coding wilderness and encountering these problems yourself before trying to learn their solutions. It is something the other engineering disciplines would _kill_ to be able to do!)

<comment><USER21> "I'd also add that while everyone suggesting AI resources is helpful, the best thing to do is just jump in and start coding."

I'd modify that slightly: skim (an hour per chapter? something like that) one or more comprehensive books (for this subject, Russell and Norvig is good) enough to get some idea what is known, _then_ jump in and hack seriously, then interrupt your hacking when appropriate by going back to study the particularly relevant stuff that you know is already known. Jumping in is good and important, but it tends to be a lot more efficient when you have some idea about the outlines of what has already been worked out for you.

The times I haven't been able to follow this advice --- notably not having physical access to university libraries when I was trying to write a C compiler for a Z-80 as a teen back in the 1980s, hence having no very practical way to learn about existing work on parsers and stuff --- have been better than nothing, interesting and educational but not as efficient as doing stuff when I had a lot of stuff to study as needed.

Incidentally, a similar strategy can be very helpful for formal study of nontrivial subjects, e.g. various college-level engineering courses. Skim the text, and maybe another text from the library too, and/or an online Wikipedia- level survey/tutorial/whatever before the course starts. Then you have a much better chance of seeing how things fit together and of finding ways to clarify things you're puzzled by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You could start at the beginning. Some people are still unaware that the four ghosts from Pac-Man each have a different decision-making algorithm. The red ghost always targets the player. The pink ghost targets four spaces away from the player in the direction it faces. The cyan ghost uses a combination of player position, player facing, and the position of the red ghost to determine its target tile. The orange ghost targets the player when far away, and a home corner position when the player is close.

Those four strategies in combination, along with some global behaviors for pathfinding and behavior modes, are often enough to defeat an unaware player. (search: "Pac-Man dossier")

This introduces the concept of _strategic archetypes_. Human players have them, too. I, for instance, often favor stealthy sniper strategies. The various strategic archetypes often have a complex relationship web from who tends to defeat whom. The player that always tries to do an early rush to overwhelm slower opponents before they can mount a defense may be easily defeated by a trap-and-decoy opponent, whereas that player may lose to a gather-intel-then-send-ninjas player.

To create a competitive AI, first identify how humans play the game, identify the strategic archetypes, then model your bot to pursue archetypal goals. Then, most importantly, determine when to switch archetypes. An early rusher AI has no strategy for midgame or endgame, so perhaps that AI evolves into aggressive expansion, or an ambusher.

But also remember that the point of the game is for the humans to have fun. Avoid cheating, or overusing a game-breaking strategy. Your bot won't care if it loses, but a human may ragequit if he loses to a bot with a perceived unfair advantage.

Of course, there are some games with no human players. There's the "rock paper scissors programming competition" (rpscontest.com), where players submit algorithms, who then fight each other to the death for rank points. It is interesting to see new strategies rise and fall, including those who win by "cheating", such as by manipulating the match-generating program itself, setting the opponent's random seed, examining the opponent's heap or stack, or causing the opponent to be improperly disqualified for cheating.

</comment><comment><USER23> There are plenty of books online. I would recommend creating your own project and finding something specifically you would want to do with that topic. For a class project my group and I did something simple, like a minesweeper bot. It also included a screen scrapper to scrap from windows and created our own minesweeper game including the AI part. It had about a 30% failure rate because it would get stuck on the 50-50 chances of it picking the wrong square. But that was a lot of fun. We did a bunch of statistics on it also.

This is a very broad topic because it can range from everything from 2D to 3D and different genre games.

I read and enjoyed this one. I would recommend it to start: [http://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Mathematics-Game-AI- Applied...](http://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Mathematics-Game-AI- Applied/dp/1584506849)

It covers basics like game theory and goes into some of the mathematics and some code examples.

Here are some good slides from Valve on how they did Left For Dead [http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of_l4d_mike_booth.pdf)

Good luck, have fun

<comment><USER24> I second the Behavioural Mathematics book. Really good introduction to AI and how to think about programming it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used this book for a Game AI class and the examples were easy to consume with a good focus on using the methods in real games: [http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Games-Ian- Mill...](http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Games-Ian-Millington- ebook/dp/B00AQNW0GI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-2&qid=1418319088)

A little pricey, but my favorite intro book for this subject.

<comment><USER26> Seconded. Covers a lot of ground, lots of great examples, the code is language-agnostic (Python-ish). Hard to go wrong with this book on your shelf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Funny (and probably a bit off topic) fact : if today I have a coding job it's because when World of Warcraft was all the rage, after a while I started "botting" then wanting to make my bots better I learned to code and a few months later I was enrolling in an IT school. The rest is history as they say.

If you want to interface with games, I would highly recommend looking at Innerspace (company was named Lavish something). My knowledge is from 10 years ago, it might be discontinued though (I'm not botting anymore).

edit : oh btw if someone at Blizzard read this, I would totally pay for 10 accounts on a botting friendly WOW server. I can always dream ;-)

edit 2 : yup they are still in business : [http://www.lavishsoft.com/](http://www.lavishsoft.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Not exactly AI, but the Processing language has a 'flocking' tutorial: [https://processing.org/examples/flocking.html](https://processing.org/examples/flocking.html). There's also a version in ProcessingJS: [http://processingjs.org/learning/topic/flocking/](http://processingjs.org/learning/topic/flocking/)

And, from HN a few days ago, Red Blog games has some awesome, in-depth explanations of game-related programming: [http://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/tower- defense/](http://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/tower-defense/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe implement Minimax [1] in your favorite language and apply it to a simple game like tic-tac-toe.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax)

</comment><comment><USER29> There were recently posts about a new Javascript based MMO AI strategy game called Screeps [1]. They are on Indigogo [2] at the moment. Maybe this can be a nice learning challenge...

[1] [http://www.screeps.com](http://www.screeps.com)

[2] [http://igg.me/at/screeps/x/9209812](http://igg.me/at/screeps/x/9209812) (affiliate link, is that allowed? otherwise: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/screeps](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/screeps)).

</comment><comment><USER30> I took a course on AI at University. The course had a lot of projects around video games. I liked the book we used:

[http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Example-Wordware- Developer...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Example-Wordware-Developers- Library/dp/1556220782)

Our final project was super cool. We got into groups. Then each group modified the AI of the soccer team in the book. Then we had a tournament to see who's team was the best. Winning the tournament was one of my prouder moments at school.

</comment><comment><USER31> Battlecode ([https://www.battlecode.org/](https://www.battlecode.org/)) is a programming competition run by MIT every January for programming an AI to compete in a game (the exact nature of the game changes every year. It's vaguely Starcraft-like, except completely played by AIs)

It's open to non-MIT students, as well.

They also offer lectures in January which will be streamed on twich.tv - <USER3> may be of some interest to you, even if you decide not to compete.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm currently working my way through this book Artificial Intelligence for Games [1] and am finding it very approachable for someone with no background in AI.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Games-Ian- Mill...](http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Games-Ian- Millington/dp/0123747317/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418308148&sr=1-12&keywords=ai+games)

</comment><comment><USER33> Take a look at wildfiregames 0ad, if you like RTS. 0ad is an open source RTS, where its easy to write your own AI in JavaScript.

A much bigger challenge would be an AI that is able to walk an avatar in Secondlife. First perhaps easy walk on the roads in mainland, later walk on arbitrary land, and the real challenge is walk inside buildings. A cat bot that does not fall into the lake, might even be a good seller.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've personally did a school project some years ago writing an AI for Transport Tycoon Deluxe, at the time it was a straightforward api; IDK about tthe current status. At the time though, I quite enjoyed it, also because of the subject matter. Linky: [https://wiki.openttd.org/AI:Main_Page](https://wiki.openttd.org/AI:Main_Page)

</comment><comment><USER35> If i'd be on the same quest, i'd first read a lot of articles on gamesutra concerning AI. Here's a quick google search - [http://goo.gl/aHZrXj](http://goo.gl/aHZrXj)

There are a lot of "handson" examples there from real existing games (with code) and interviews with game developers.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's also some relevant material in this book, The Nature of Code: [http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-6-autonomous- agents/](http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-6-autonomous-agents/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I really recommend this article on behaviour trees, it gave me a good intro on how to start with the basic structure of AI - obviam.net/index.php/game-ai-an- introduction-to-behavior-trees/

</comment><comment><USER37> You should check out CodinGame. I go on there from time to time to mess around with the challenges where you program the AI to do the task presented. Might be a fun way to get in the AI mindset.

</comment><comment><USER38> What I learned working for Brian Reynolds (Colonization, Civ2, Rise of Natopms. etc...)

Step 1: int result = rand(100); switch (result) { //... do something simple }

Step 2:

Watch the AI until something dumb happens, improve the logic.

</comment><comment><USER39> I would suggest learning how to use Sekuli to automate games.

</comment><comment><USER15> Any resources for fighting game AI? (e.g. Mortal Kombat)

</comment><comment><USER40> I would say that it's best to start with turn-based games, like Bridge or Chess or (shameless plug) Ambition (and if you take on Ambition, let me know how your AIs do). Some games, like Othello, aren't hard to beat. Or you could do one of the German board games if you want to take on a more heterogeneous environment than in, say, Checkers.

This will get you familiar with game AI as a topic. Then you want to take on RTS and FPS games, which are similar but have deadlines (frame rates) and more complexity in the environment. But it's important to get the basics down before taking on a complicated game.

</comment><comment><USER41> Back in the day I really enjoyed Matt Buckland's AI books.</comment>


Wire – Modern Communications Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.wire.com/ <comment><USER2> So in the age of Edward Snowden this is all they say about encryption...

"Are Messages And Calls Encrypted? Yes. Wire uses industry-standard encryption on all of your Wire messages and calls."

"WHAT SECURITY MEASURES DO WE TAKE TO SAFEGUARD YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We are concerned about safeguarding the confidentiality of your information. We provide physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect information we process and maintain. In addition, we restrict access to personal information to Company employees who need to know this information in order to develop, operate and maintain the Service."

Come on guys...how can anything this vague be trusted?

And by European they mean Swiss, so not specifically EU.

One of the typical evasive phrases...

From the Guardian Article:

"Locating its head office in Switzerland was Wire's first decision taken on security grounds. "If someone is interested in accessing our user data, there's a formal and well-regulated process in Switzerland for that. They're very mindful of privacy, and the same is true in Germany."

Swiss naturally implies safety for many people (which is deceptive...real, verifiable, audited, end to end encryption is safety), for anyone unsure about the reality of "Swiss" cooperation with NSA since the 70s, read about Crypto AG

[http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/](http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/)

For those wondering about "Swiss privacy laws," if you are a foreign national you are effectively fair game

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_%28interception_system%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_%28interception_system%29)

[http://www.iclg.co.uk/practice-areas/telecoms-media-and- inte...](http://www.iclg.co.uk/practice-areas/telecoms-media-and-internet- laws/telecoms,-media-and-internet-laws-and-regulations/switzerland)

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, even if they DID specifically list out all the security measures that they used, someone would still complain because it isn't completely open source. The previous company I worked for not only had legitimate encryption for anything private we received from the user (e.g.: email passwords) so that nobody at the company could ever read them, but also had some (if I remember correctly) good documentation on the site listing out exactly what we were doing. The founder of the company even commented with the specific technical details when our product was linked to on HN, and people still weren't happy.

While I sympathize with what you're saying, nothing is going to make people who actually care happy with whatever security a company puts in place. Unless that company releases their source code for everyone to see. Which I would hope most people would be reasonable enough to realize why that's usually impractical. (see the previous HN post about the guy who shut down his business and was debating open sourcing his entire codebase, and all the problems he would have had to tackle to do so)

<comment><USER4> There are already FOSS replacements for Skype, such as Tox. The fact is that if every line of code can't be inspected then the software can't be considered secure, and we're forced to put blind faith in a faceless corporation, which is understandably not acceptable for many people. I don't really care if you think this is "practical" or not. That's simply the reality of the situation. Proprietary == insecure.

If a company is unable to profit off of making FOSS software then they can go ahead and keep it closed source, but they should not be claiming that their software is secure when their claims cannot be verified. That's simply dishonest, and only proves the critics right about their trustworthiness.

<comment><USER3> I would argue that, theoretically, proprietary can be secure. A code base can be made secure by highly experienced engineers who are paid to make the code secure. You might never be able to see the code, but it could still be secure. The problem is that you can never actual verify how secure the proprietary solution is. So whether or not it is secure, you don't trust it. (there are even some interesting arguments to be made about the security of any solution that deals with some kind of user input. my previous boss stipulated that the only way to have a truly secure email client is to have some third-party, verified library that takes all the input, and spits out encrypted data to whatever program deals with email servers, without the program dealing with email servers ever seeing that input in plain text form because who knows what it might do with it)

On the other hand as well, open source most certainly does not mean secure. I don't even have to argue to make this point, I merely have to point out Heartbleed or Shellshock.

<comment><USER5> While you can argue that some piece of open source software can be more insecure than a proprietary alternative, auditing a piece of software requires access to the source code and that is mandatory. And with open source everybody can audit with no restrictions. Yes, OpenSSH is a piece of shit, but how do you think it was discovered, from 2 independent parties no less.

Then there's another effect that I like - after the initial patch was released, the story went public, we got notified immediately, then we could discuss about what caused it and see the actual commits and who did it. Such a catastrophe can sink a company, therefore you never see such post mortems for proprietary stuff. And yes, even I as a developer cannot audit software for security, but the point is that I could hire somebody else to do that for me, like the Finnish company that discovered Heartbleed.

So yeah, there is no concrete proof that proprietary stuff is less or more secure than open source, but the point is that we'll never know, because nobody can know how secure something is without looking at the source code.

<comment><USER6> OpenSSH or OpenSSL? I thought OpenSSH was pretty solid, forgetting the fact that configuring it isn't as straightforeward as one would hope.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I meant OpenSSL. It was a typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "What we need is another messaging app" said nobody, ever.

It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging. It seems like it's the default goto for anyone that can't think of something more interesting these days.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. Right now, I have installed on my phone:

* Standard text messaging app, for almost everyone.

* Google Hangouts, which is a pain to remove and always logs in behind my back. I don't want to chat on my phone, it's just a nuisance. (I wish people would stop talking to me through Hangouts, honestly)

* Viber, with a single contact.

* LINE, with a single contact.

I don't have WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever, but most people will likely have 3 or more messaging apps.

3 years ago, everything was fine. Google used XMPP. Facebook used XMPP. Companies used XMPP. I used XMPP. I may have needed multiple accounts, but I needed only a single app. Now look where we are.

<comment><USER9> I have on my phone:

Standard text messaging

ConnectBot (to an irssi session for IRC)

The answer is just to say no when people ask you install $appoftheday to contact them. No hangouts, no skype, no whatsapp, no facebook polluting my phone with their intrusiveness and always-on-in-background tendencies. One person occasionally asks me to install Whatsapp, but each time I say no.

Hangouts is a pain to remove if it came in your ROM, but you can still freeze it with Titanium Backup.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious how many people in the real world actually use IRC. Find 10 people on the streets of New York and statistically zero use IRC and maybe, maybe 1 has even heard of it. Ask those same 10 people if they've heard of WhatsApp and likely 3 or 4 would have heard of it and probably 2 would have it on their device. If they're from outside the US, that number would go up to likely 7 would have it installed. Ask those same 10 people if they've ever heard of Skype and all 10 would say yes and likely 8 of them have used it.

Obviously this isn't scientific, but the point is that most people don't use IRC. I'm a software dev and I don't use IRC and I've never had a real-world non-dev even mention it. But Skype? I'm forced to use that every day. Text messages? With iMessage, it's great, but you also need to have the person's phone number -- or, you're like me and you're moving around a lot and change numbers fairly frequently, but Skype/iMessage/etc stays pretty consistent year after year.

Just my 2 cents. In terms of "always on intrusiveness" isn't SMS always on? Unless you're using a burner phone, you're being tracked, SMS is always logged, there's no illusion of security.

Besides, who the heck buys a phone is Hangouts imbedded in ROM? If you're interested in security, then I'd suggest getting something other than Android.

<comment><USER9> Sure, SMS is always on, but it doesn't have access to my camera or mic. I have Skype on my desktops (although I haven't used it in over a year) where I can tell when it's running and where it doesn't bind itself to autostart whenever someone breathes. The main problem with apps is _what_ they request access to and, barring modding your phone with XPrivacy (I've done it, but not an option for the average user), there's no way to deny those permissions.

As for IRC, it isn't _how many_ people use it, but _who_ uses it; namely a huge proportion of technical communities and people I want to communicate with.

As for Hangouts, it's in the default OEM ROMs, obviously, but also in the gapps packaged for CyanogenMod unless you remove it before flashing (as I did).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Am I such an outlier if I use Skype for business, not for leisure? I have clients on three continents and every single one used Skype to communicate about the project. Skype was generally running on every machine as a "watercooler chat"/IRC replacement. Just open groups, give them names and pin them to the sidebar. Done.

So I really expected this to be more secure, more portable and LESS designer- driven. Who is even narcissistic enough to use a sidebar that is a giant, high-res portrait of oneself?!

Maybe a Slack/HipChat/... killer for boutique agencies?

<comment><USER12> i like to joke there are two types of tech companies, mutually exclusive.

\- profit driven

\- investor money driven

skype is a profit company. wire is clearly investor money driven.

So while your example is valid, i don't think they want to displace the corporate consumer that creates the bulky of skype profit. It probably wants to go after the users that uses snapchat/wasup/etc for free, with little revenue besides what is necessary for a "revenue" round A/B/C/IPO deck, and get investor money/get acquired.

PS: while skype is a consumer product, its job is not to drive revenue, but to advertise the corporate solution: Lync. Lync gets microsoft 2bi/yr, while skype peak at 600m/yr in a good year. 600m sounds good, but not when you paid over 8bi for it.

<comment><USER13> And curiously, Microsoft is replacing "Lync" with "Skype for Business".... although I'm not sure if that is a simple renaming of the existing client.

<comment><USER12> aparently it is just a rename. i don't deal with any clients that use it anymore, but last i heard they are just adding lync support to skype, and decided to kill one of the brands. cleverly they killed lync.

<comment><USER14> They did say they would make the Lync client more like Skype. Which is insane, as Skype is one of the worst pieces of software I use on a day-to-day basis. Lync is a far cleaner, nicer, client.

Also, ffs, "Skype for Business".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No, the Skype killer has another name: WebRTC. And Wire seems like _yet another closed-source_ GUI making use of the WebRTC stack. I honestly prefer FOSS solutions: Tox, oTalk, Jitsi, etc... oTalk looks really promising

<comment><USER16> What about matrix.org who's trying to fix the fragmentation by providing an open standardized signalling layer for WebRTC? Might interest you too! We've been working on integrating with Jitsi, although not finished yet

<comment><USER15> Nice project. Have you hear about OpenPeer? They're doing a similar thing... providing an open standardized signalling (P2P) layer for WebRTC...

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

<comment><USER16> Yes we're in touch with them. Matrix and Open Peer are complementary technologies - Matrix is focused entirely on the client/server use-case for messaging between always-on persistent federated messaging stores. Open Peer is obviously focused on adhoc p2p messaging without much persistent serverside history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh its everywhere! Except... Windows, Linux, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Web...

iOS, OS X and Android is far from everywhere.

<comment><USER18> I can understand why they wouldn't support Linux/Blackberry/WP. As a Linux user I'm used to that. But not having windows support? Really?

<comment><USER19> For Windows probably will be the Browser extension/addon which according to other comments will be using WebRTC.

<comment><USER20> They are releasing a full Windows client soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Skype has video chat. So far Wire only has audio. Skype can call a regular phone or receive calls from a regular phone. It seems like Wire can't, yet. Skype has all my contacts, Wire has none, yet.

Let's call it a Skype killer if it kills Skype. Not yet.

<comment><USER22> even my browser has video chat , basically a lot more than that (e.g. [https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Experiment](https://github.com/muaz- khan/WebRTC-Experiment))

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Something here I don't understand. First, the terms state that there are two kinds of governing laws: One for those using the service outside the US, and one for those from the US. This is the first time I see a supposedly non-US company applying two different laws. Also, if you go through the terms, you see that basically any legal aspect is governed by the County of San Francisco, California. Why not Switzerland where the company was supposedly formed and is located in?

Second, as of right now, there is no mentioning of a "Wire Swiss GmbH" in the Swiss commercial registry. That's quite severe because under Swiss law, you are not allowed to represent to the outside a juristic person as long as it is not in the official registry.

Here is the link to the registry:

[http://zefix.ch/zfx- cgi/hrform.cgi/hraPage?alle_eintr=on&per...](http://zefix.ch/zfx- cgi/hrform.cgi/hraPage?alle_eintr=on&pers_sort=original&pers_num=0&language=4&col_width=366&amt=007)

<comment><USER24> The Mac App Store app [1] is submitted by "Zeta Project Swiss GmbH" which does exist in the registry [2].

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/app/wire/id931134707?mt=12](https://itunes.apple.com/app/wire/id931134707?mt=12)

[2] [http://www.hrazg.ch/webservices/inet/HRG/HRG.asmx/getHRGHTML...](http://www.hrazg.ch/webservices/inet/HRG/HRG.asmx/getHRGHTML?chnr=1704011490&amt=170&toBeModified=0&validOnly=0&lang=4&sort=0)

<comment><USER23> Interesting. Judging from this LinkedIn page [1], Wire Swiss GmbH has been around since at least March 2014, and has between 50-200 employees [2]. My guess: they renamed Zeta Project to Wire, but didn't want to wait with the announcement until it's updated in the registry?

Still not sure what's up with the two governing laws.

[1] [https://www.linkedin.com/pub/pierrine- auberson/5a/70a/537](https://www.linkedin.com/pub/pierrine- auberson/5a/70a/537) [2] [https://www.linkedin.com/company/4836762](https://www.linkedin.com/company/4836762)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European privacy laws and > regulations.

Which basically means as soon as a warrant is sent from pretty much any European government they'll hand over all your conversations. The support article doesn't give any detail whatsoever on how they encrypt your conversations: [https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/203122500-Are- mes...](https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/203122500-Are-messages-and- calls-encrypted-)

It's a shame companies can't be held accountable for advertising their services as secure, for false advertising.

<comment><USER26> Huh? Which company will not give records if subpoenaed?

PS: Of course companies can be held accountable for false advertising. You can take them to court yourself.

<comment><USER27> The company that does not have records to begin with, when the encryption is truly end-to-end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Skype killer? Granted most Skype users are Windows PC users, how an application not available for Windows can threaten Skype?

<comment><USER29> While I agree that "Skype killer" is a hyperbole, I guess the idea is that the "Windows PC" people will switch to using their smart phone instead. Also, there is a "Browser - coming soon" button, indicating that they do target larger computers in a portable way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Skype-killers" without end-to-end encryption are useless.

<comment><USER31> This is really all I want as well. There's tons of pretty messaging apps. Style isn't enough to sway me anymore - I want privacy. How hard is it to make a messaging app that makes encryption its #1 priority?

<comment><USER32> I've been following Tox with some interest. It's fairly new but fully open source, decentralized, end-to-end encryption, no account needed (people added via their unique bytestring).

[https://tox.im/](https://tox.im/)

<comment><USER33> Tox has interested me more since it's inception, mainly because it's open source and completely relies on peer to peer connections. I've seen some other open source alternatives that aren't as light weight and still centralized to some degree. Wire, if it really wants to be a "Skype killer" in my opinion, should go open source and be more reassuring about how they are protecting our privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The UI is beautiful. However, differentiating on UI for an app that's about communication can only take you so far. I think some users will be initially wowed by all the nice colors etc. but the app is about chatting, sending images, text and taking, and no amount of beautiful color is going to impact that.

I know how long it takes to make things pretty, I'm wondering if this was a right decision vs. investing their time on something else that is more core to their value (communication).

I think there is a lot of room to innovate around ease of communication, texting, chatting, etc. on the mobile space and we'll see more apps and probably another $Billon exit.

edit: typo

</comment><comment><USER35> This was probably a big effort from the people who developed Wire.

I'm sure lots of development time has gone in to the product with many difficult problems to solve, so to all the developers of Wire: Good work!

It probably feels a bit defeating to spend all that time developing something only to have people slating it.

That said: I do not think this app is for me. I wish it had a more compact interface (like old Skype for OSX), before Skype became this large take-over- the-screen app, and reading that it might not have video chat kind of kills it for me.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hmm, no Linux client ... and you 'have' to set a picture when you register? Really? I'm out.

<comment><USER37> No OSX Lion compatibility too. And they've put it on App Store as if it's the only way to distribute it. Looks like a BS.

<comment><USER38> Not many people seem to use Lion these days though. An app that I work on has less than 6% (of the 13,000 users who have opted in to providing system stats) on Lion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anyone who is interested in OTR (off the record) and peer to peer encryption, Wire is not for you.

Please see [https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/software.php](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/software.php) for suggestions which might be reliable as of today.

Everyone else who feels good about keeping their messages safely stored for later inspection, use Wire or any other chat client that "looks beautiful", "is pure" and blends yt videos nicely into your feed.

EDIT: Do not take my comment as a critique or sarcasm against Wire. There are different audiences for messaging apps and it's important to understand if you are the one before being negative about privacy policy and encryption.

<comment><USER39> For off the record try - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.hushes](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.hushes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> All the comments on here are very witty. This Wire app is only available for iOS and recent versions of Android (no joy for me on 4.1 on my obviously ANCIENT Xperia S that still functions fine), and only available for OSX. Great for me on OSX but not for my chums on Windows. Buying a Mac makes for an expensive application price, no?

But in all seriousness I recall having great IM with MSN Messenger about 15 years ago, and despite the incessant barrage of replacement apps, there is still no one leader. Sure, we now have Facetime so I can irritate my mum at all times of the day but that's no good for my brother on Windows. And I find Skype to be a massive battery hog on my laptop, and an advert-infested mess on Windows.

Is anyone else like me, and just sticking to SMS and emails? The other day on a BBC News article it mentioned "if you're a bit old fashioned and use email"... but I think email is great because you can archive it offline (I have useful emails from years ago) and it can also be used in court I think.

IM logs - are they evidence in court? All the old chat logs get tidied up from all the IM systems I come across, so there is no referring back to old messages, or a paper trail.

EDIT: I'm getting downvoted, not sure why? In all seriousness is email really broken that we need another IM system? Obviously the lack of video calling is a big problem....

</comment><comment><USER41> It's not everywhere, it has no video chat, and nobody uses it. If it somehow manages to "kill" anything it definitely won't be Skype.

</comment><comment><USER42> Privacy agreements just a word without cryptographic technology background as supporter.

Also "everwhere" not means "ios, osx, android". where is windows and linux desktop clients, even skype supports linux desktops today.

<comment><USER43> I'm most surprised to see a new application launch without a Windows client. Is this a conscious marketing decision to not target the Windows user market? Is the market share of iOS, Android and OSx enough for these guys to succeed without a Windows client? The website notes that a browser client is coming soon, but nothing for native Windows.

<comment><USER44> I'm pretty sure it just means that the developers at the company primarily use Macs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> They won't use a standard protocol even if it makes lots of sense for the users. For them, they fear being commoditized as a result of using a standard. Same reason why Hangouts will stop being available through XMPP anytime soon. It's very sad that these companies are so short-sighted, and can only think of small profit for themselves.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Wire is everywhere!"

\- No windows phone client :P

<comment><USER47> Or Windows for that matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> To contact everyone I know I need:

* Skype

* XMPP

* Hangouts

* AIM

* YIM

* SMS

* Facebook

* IRC

* Viber (which I don't use, because yet another client was too much when all these people had other clients anyway).

Another client is just a no go at this stage. I'm still annoyed at Skype blocking both multiple network IM clients I used (imo first, then when they dropped the whole "multiple network" part, IM+).

<comment><USER49> Wow, AIM's not dead? With the stuff happening at Yahoo, one would think they might just go ahead and move to XMPP (and enable server federation for good measure...).

BTW: If you have XMPP anyway, you can use that for chat.facebook.com. Shame with Hangouts. But everyone wants their golden silo, I guess.

<comment><USER48> A bunch of my US friends started using about 6-7 years ago because it would send them texts when there weren't actively signed in. They're still using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Sadly, it seems as proprietary and centralized as Skype is.

</comment><comment><USER51> Amusing, given their past history with Skype, that this is not available for Windows Phone. Which is too bad as my SO carries a Lumia 1020 and if she can't use it I can't really use it either.

</comment><comment><USER52> A `Skype killer` not available on Windows computer ?

That's not going to kill Skype.

</comment><comment><USER53> Wondering why the Android app is 'incompatible' with my Nexus 6. Where can I get the APK?

<comment><USER54> Probably just their settings. I installed on a Nexus 5 with Lollipop just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Weird that no one here is talking about voice quality, which was what stood out to me as most interesting about the product. I've wondered for a while why, if we can handle something as high-bandwidth as video chat, we can't do higher-fidelity audio chat over data.

But I just tried it and it sounded more or less the same as a normal cell voice call. Also the UI is pretty but slow-feeling on Android. I have a feeling it's smoother on iOS. Disappointing.

<comment><USER56> Could the quality of the phone's microphone be the reason for the low-fi voice audio?

<comment><USER55> It's possible, but I doubt it. The person on the other end was using a Nexus 6. I don't know first-hand how its microphone is, but I know my (high-end Android) phone can record voice memos with much higher sound quality than I typically hear from a phone call.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Having some slight experience in the publishing and content industry, any title that contains the word "killer" is for me a big fat sign for "bulls#$t". I will still pick trusted recommendations[1] over advertising any day.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging- scorecard](https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard)

</comment><comment><USER58> That domain name would have been one expensive purchase. I wonder if there's any significant correlation between buying an expensive domain upfront & success rate.

That aside, It has spent most of it's life being parked with ads. [https://web.archive.org/web/*/wire.com](https://web.archive.org/web/*/wire.com)

<comment><USER59> I often wonder about price when I see great domain names like this. Sometimes they seem to boost the product and many times it doesn't matter. I saw a post on reddit about examine.com. I think the guy said he paid like 40k for the domain and he believes it was a big part of why they were growing. He basically said that he had money from previous business selling and he figured even if the site didn't work out the domain name would get him back most of that money if not more if he had to resell it.

<comment><USER60> That's me!

<comment><USER59> oh hai. So was what I said correct? When I had money I used to scarf up domain names for any idea I had. Some of them were decent but I don't think I've ever sold a single one. Eventually just let them all expire after holding them for like 6 years.

<comment><USER60> Yup 100%. Worst case, I could have still turned it around and immediately sold it for 25k. If I was more patient, likely 35k.

To me, ignoring the opportunity cost of the cash itself, it was a ~10k risk. Worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> What Skype has and what any of the newcomer will struggle to get is my extended family. My mum and dad, lots of uncles and aunts, some of which over 80 year old all use Skype every day.

It is a big challenge to move any of these people to new technology, even if it would offer a real advantage for them, which no real newcomer does at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm glad. Skype for iOS has so many bugs it is incredible.

</comment><comment><USER63> From my initial investigation they have some <bad> code behind, race conditions and I think I found a place where it's leaking the IP of the guy you're calling. I'll post my findings later. Messages are sent over SSL but not encrypted in any other way, so they can read them :)

</comment><comment><USER64> Skype has kinda been the hot potato company that everyone wanted to buy but, once acquired, no-one could figure out how to actually make money from. Will Wire be any different?

One argument is that is doesn't matter. Messaging is such an attractive market that people just continue to invest in it. Telecos certainly didn't have any problems making money back in their hay-day, and there is the "get all the eyeballs and monetize later" argument that is still popular. Perhaps as consumers we're just doomed to switch platforms every 5-10 yrs as companies rise and then fizzle out. Perhaps churn is the price we pay for free messaging?

FWIW I did pay for Skype for a short while, as I needed some features, but then their billing structure changed and other free products became popular so I stopped.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why no download for Linux? Why is this always still happening?

If you want to make this thing really everywhere, then imho priority numbero 1 should be to rely on libraries that work everywhere - not just the latest version of a select few OSes. It'll be easier to maintain in the future as well.

<comment><USER66> It's not year of Linux on the desktop yet, and never will be. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I recently discovered SIP-based softphone software (ex. Ekiga). I works great, is easy to use and completely free of charge and registration is minimal (you just need a SIP account).

I really don't get why people would pay for Skype when there are better alternatives around.

</comment><comment><USER68> While I welcome more competition since Skype really gone down hill after being bought by Microsoft, however this applications website doesn't give any useful information on the encryption used - it would be good to see if it supports OTR style encryption.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://twitter.com/wire/status/540139385660772352](https://twitter.com/wire/status/540139385660772352)

"Thank you for the good feedback on Wire. For Windows users — a full featured version will be available soon."

</comment><comment><USER69> Is it just a coincidence that Skype changed their AUP last week, requesting a license to all content transmitted via Skype (point 5.7 of their legalese)? That ought to scare some people away. To Wire?

<comment><USER70> I don't see that Skype get a license to the content, only that you should have the rights to distribute it ([http://www.skype.com/en/legal/tou- usa/#5](http://www.skype.com/en/legal/tou-usa/#5)), and that they have the right to "take it down" if they feel like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'm a little curious. I use Skype semi regularly and it seems to work just fine for me.

But it seems everyone here hates it. Are there some "power user" features that don't work well or something?

<comment><USER11> \- Impossible to grok as a network admin, as it aggressively tries to work on EVERY network (even when only port 80 is available etc.) \- The transition from P2P to centralised means that we enjoy all the downsides of a centralised system (hello NSA) AND all the downsides of P2P (no reliable offline messages, esp. with multiple devices) \- The iPhone version is 100% custom UI, looks and acts like a Windows Phone app, and has dropped several features (App Store reviews have not been very favourable) \- Closed source, non-sandboxed and from a surveillance-friendly company \- A resource hog

That said, Wire looks like a complete non-starter to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Two things of interest:

\- They use Scala on Android[1]

\- They plan on a full-browser version[2]; I assume it'll rely on WebRTC. The fact that they don't indicate plans on a specific browser makes me happy.

[1]: [http://jobdb.softgarden.de/jobdb/public/jobdb/posting/126982...](http://jobdb.softgarden.de/jobdb/public/jobdb/posting/126982/0/0/Scala+on+Android+Software+Developer.html)

[2]: [https://www.wire.com/download/](https://www.wire.com/download/)

</comment><comment><USER73> Have anyone read more marketing speak than this website?

"It's pure. With Wire you can easily move from messages and pictures to HD voice. Wire's pristine audio quality makes it feel as if the people you are speaking to are right there with you."

I don't even know what this means? I mean, will quality still be "right there with you" if the latency on the network is large? or if you phone is loaded doing some task in the background?

So much of this kind of stuff is hard to guarantee because it is outside of your control.

</comment><comment><USER74> When showing off a brand new app with no existing userbase, _please_ show or tell what your app _does_ before waxing poetic about its beauty. If it hadn't been for the HN headline, I wouldn't have stayed on this page long enough to see what the app did.

CORRECTION: I missed the intro animation when I opened the link in a background tab, and somehow got left with a masthead image with just three icons on a blank phone, not even the download link it showed after I refreshed.

</comment><comment><USER75> More fragmentation, great. I cannot help but think how this time I will again convince my contacts to migrate to yet another messaging app. I should probably ask the contacts on WhatsApp first. Or rather Telegram? I think some people are still on Viber, too. My friends on Kik have just migrated from Whatsapp so I will approach them last.

The app who can actually solve _this_ problem will be the next big thing. And if doesn't work, we have yet another messaging app.

</comment><comment><USER76> Skype is the most resource hungry app on my Mac. It deserves to die.

Unfortunately I am forced to resort using it whenever FaceTime fails. And that happens approx. every 15nth call.

<comment><USER77> Really? I use it on variety of Macs (2008 Mac Pro, 2011 27'' iMac, 2007 24'' iMac, 2008 Aluminum Macbook, 2011 17'' Macbook Pro) and it runs smoothly and doesn't use much CPU at all on any of them. During video calls it will use more CPU but that's somewhat expected (Factime video calls do too).

<comment><USER76> It beats Safari and Chrome by CPU time and packets sent by orders of magnitude. Of course Chrome and Safari processes are separated nowadays, but still they do have some central stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Are they going to have some kind of API? I loved being able to programmatically send and read Skype messages on Android, until it stopped working.

Also, will it work with Linphone?

<comment><USER79> I sure hope so. No decent API is my biggest gripe about Skype. We found Skype to be a great team chat tool although it was frustrating not being able to connect external services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Good luck but I'm not really sure how this product is differentiating from other bundled voip and messaging products other than better UX/UI.

Where is the revenue model and where are the open APIs into the service? Messaging is becoming really saturated now. User experience might get you some of the way there but interoperability with things outside your walled garden is also important for success IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER81> Top video is broken on Firefox. This has been happening more and more these days; entire, diverse development teams and they're all on Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER82> No Windows-version? No killer.

</comment><comment><USER83> The most compelling feature of Skype was end-to-end encryption - that is before Microsoft centralized the service, subjected it to man-in-the-middle attacks, and partnered with the Chinese government to produce a back-doored version Tom-Skype.

The app page says "Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European privacy laws and regulations." That's just not enough.

<comment><USER24> Skype still has end-to-end encryption.

But Skype also has the private keys for every user which renders end-to-end encryption "less useful". Sadly they have always had the keys, from the beginning. Tom skype just made content more accessible to the "interested parties".

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Strange decision to solely target Android 4.4 and above, that means it's only compatible with about 34% of Android devices.

<comment><USER85> I wonder which feature that they need that is only present in 4.4+

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> I like how Wire and Telegram are referencing old tech. I prediction the next Skype killer will be called Morse or Flip Phone.

</comment><comment><USER87> Does anyone else feel like we're in the midst of another 1990's instant messaging war? Except now with smartphones!

<comment><USER88> Yeah and this implies that people by and large still aren't tech savvy (enough). This is very unfortunate as we have to use the software most people are wiling to tolerate. Ironically, in most of my use cases e-mail is the best solution for communication. It is based on widely accepted protocols [there is an abundance of e-mail clients you can choose from without fearing compatibility issues], delivery is (most of the time) almost instant and it is up to you which provider you use (or you can even host an e-mail server yourself). It's also good concerning encryption in that you can agree with each of your contacts whether or not you want to use some form of it. In contrast, messenger like Facebook don't give you a choice and OTR is not something everyone is willing to learn about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Can anyone explain to me what "full democracy" means in this context? From the page:

"It's on. Wire is perfect for staying connected with any group. Create a conversation, name it as you wish, and add people — your groups will be taking off whether they're about work, family or fun. Oh, and Wire groups are full democracy."

</comment><comment><USER90> Not surprised this is from ex-Skype people, no desktop. Quality isnt something I have attached to the skype brand.

</comment><comment><USER91> Nice first impression. Some issues though: No video chat. That's the main thing i use skype for. Sound goes through my Macs default settings. I can change the microphone to my headset but not the output. If i change the output to headset it will also change this for my music which is annoying.

</comment><comment><USER92> If they put "win client coming soon, sign up for updates" to get how many people even want it, that would be at least something. But this "only ios and android" philosophy, i just don't get it. What kind of smart business decision has to be to rule out 80-90% of users!?

</comment><comment><USER93> I understand it's their business and all, but I don't see why we need one more not-opensource messenger app. As we don't have enough. Sure, somebody will use it, but it's all about marketing now and I only can hope they'll fail. Nothing interesting here.

</comment><comment><USER94> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692427](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692427) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692140).

</comment><comment><USER95> Unless I'm missing something, this seems to be voice, IM, and multimedia only - no video chat.

<comment><USER96> I was going to say, I was expecting an app with a significantly better video chat experience, since that's what most people associate the word "Skype" with, not instant messaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> I signed up and downloaded the app (android).

1\. The App uses different non-standard patterns. It's really a pain to use and navigate. 2\. The design is cool and I like it. 3\. I should be able to find users by ID or similar.

Who wants to test this thing can add me (contact -at- omarabid.com )

<comment><USER98> 4\. You can't seem to actually call phones, which is why everyone uses Skype. Or did I miss something?

Notably, all videochat apps makes desktops super hot while their mobile equivalent works fine. My humble guess is because on iOS/Android they are using the hardware accelerated codecs (due to the lack of other options), while on desktop they just assume the CPU can do everything. I will be interested to see how Wire performs in that regard.

I am doing a lot telecommuting and have a frequently remote relationship, so I try a bunch of these apps. Here is the thing: I don't care about beautiful interfaces when it comes to full screen videochat.

So far the best experience I had was with oovoo, which was simultaneously the ugliest software at the time. Perhaps Wire will be successful for the same reason Slack is: it just works (I have yet to see).

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> _sigh_ it seems I'll eventually have to update this:

[http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the- insta...](http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the-instant-mess- we-re-in)

</comment><comment><USER100> Documented open protocol or GTFO !

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some background: [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/wire- commu...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/wire- communications-skype-janus-friis-app)

</comment><comment><USER101> how is this a Skype killer? Not for nothing, but for $2.99 a month I can anywhere with Skype. There is no information on the site about pricing, coverage or restrictions.

Maybe I'm not the majority of Skype users, but I use Skype as a replacement for a second phone in my office. I'm not using it as a messager, picture/video uploader or whatever else this thing does, again, I'm using it as a low cost phone line.

From what I see on the website, I can see this competing with SnapChat, Instagram or whatever other messaging client, but not Skype.

</comment><comment><USER102> The title of this article is hipster-bait. Someone claims something is a Skype-killer while not supporting 95% of Skype users (who are on PCs). Its ridiculous on the face of it.

</comment><comment><USER103> Personally I'll wait for Hemlis ([http://heml.is](http://heml.is)) to be released (even if it doesn't do everything Wire does).

</comment><comment><USER104> We should all just get over our prejudices and download BBM which is the closest app to a Skype killer that I've used. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

</comment><comment><USER105> I'd love to replace my company Skype with a client/service that has an API, that I can script bots for, and has great support for both mobile and desktop.

</comment><comment><USER106> A skype killer... that doesn't run on windows or linux.

<comment><USER107> I read the blurb, liked the look and thought "why not?". I clicked download and don't see Linux, or even a browser option. It's not a skype killer - it's more prettier Whatsapp alternative without the market share.

Honestly, if whatsapp did a browser/desktop client I'd be on that before this even got a second look

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> This sentence on the App Store page needs fixing: "Wire works on iOS and OS X, it is inspired by and developed for the latest in hardware."

</comment><comment><USER109> Marketing, marketing everywhere. Is the protocol open?

</comment><comment><USER110> "This app is incompatible with all your devices"

Well, then.

</comment><comment><USER111> I'll sure it'll be great... just like the original Skype - and then they'll sell it again and it will get worse.

</comment><comment><USER112> Installed on Android. I went to invite a friend to try it out, there is no invite or share feature. Hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER113> Skype Killer... No Windows client.

Oh Hacker News, you do realize that very few people actually use Macs in the business world, right?

</comment><comment><USER114> Horrible website

<comment><USER115> Yeah, I can't believe this crap has become de-facto web design.

<comment><USER116> I am also stunned by the horrible usability of the web site. Who really inspires those people to make many UX mistake on one simple page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> Why does Skype needs to be 'killed' by ex-Skype people again and how does that benefit consumers exactly?

</comment><comment><USER118> So many colors....and so much text. Are there any pictures at all? Or is my Chinese internet just too slow?

</comment><comment><USER119> The UI may look pretty, but its totally unusable for me. It took me ages to figure out how to make a call.

</comment><comment><USER120> The first selling point is "it's beautiful?" That's not selling anything.

<comment><USER121> > The first selling point is "it's beautiful?" That's not selling anything.

Its selling aesthetics rather than function, which may not be important to you, but it may be important to the customer they think they want to target.

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> Doesn't require a mobile number to sign up, that's new.

Privacy policy is predictably gritty though.

</comment><comment><USER123> ..and _please_ let there be decent keyboard shortcuts (I'm looking at you, Skype)

</comment><comment><USER124> On Linux google hangouts voice call quality is much better than Skype's

</comment><comment><USER125> Actually it is not that hard to create a better product than Skype. Skype sucks in so many ways that i wouldn't know where to beginn. Exchange developers, exchange the designer and the UI team. Hate it - but use it every single day.

</comment><comment><USER98> Am I the only one who realised there is no videochat in Wire?

</comment><comment><USER126> This site looks broken with EFF's HTTPS everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER127> Anyone know why it won't run on a Nexus 7 tablet?

</comment><comment><USER128> No video and no win32/64\. Skype wins by default.

</comment><comment><USER129> Could they not get any more Hipsters on that page?

<comment><USER130> I know right. I guess that's their target demo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> Good case of veneer design vs functional design.

</comment><comment><USER132> Anyone know the stack they're running?

</comment><comment><USER133> seems buggy to me when you can't even register to the platform :(

</comment><comment><USER134> I will definitely try this

</comment><comment><USER135> Where is the pricing?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> Talko? Blah blah.

</comment><comment><USER137> Terrific.

</comment><comment><USER138> iPad only? I am out.</comment>