Show HN: Campistry – Camping on Demand - <AUTHOR> https://campistry.net/ <comment><USER2> Is there room to carry personal gear/bags or is the entire cargo area filled with the supplied gear?

From a safety and security standpoint; you should probably add a true partition between the cab and cargo area. In an accident or abrupt stop the aluminum/zip-tie/mesh organizer isn't going to stop gear from coming into the cab and from the looks of it ([https://i0.wp.com/campistry.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/I...](https://i0.wp.com/campistry.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_6882-e1499236710494.jpg)) could probably collapse into the cab. If someone were to break in, they don't really require anything more than scissors or a knife to access the gear.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am right up your alley as a customer. Here's where you lost me.

1\. Coverage. Where are you located and what's your service area. (I did see it at the bottom in a small font, it's not enough) 2\. Price and general conditions. Should be the front of your service. Just like the uhaul trucks. IMHO. 3\. More pictures of the car/cars. Could it fit my family? Could it fit more equipment than what you initially put in it?

There's just not enough details on the landing page to get me interested enough to even drop an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback! We'll get that info out shortly. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks super interesting. I built out a spreadsheet of (very rough) projected financials for a business I was considering trying that was going to do something very similar; essentially gear rental for camping. I wasn't able to find a way to have it make sense as a solid business (margins were so tiny), but I still love this concept and would totally be a customer of a business that offered this. I'm moving to the Bay this month, maybe I'll give this a try! :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it! Please drop us a line via the form and we'll save a spot for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> love it. the local univ where I live rents out camping/outdoor gear, but only the outdoor crowd knows this. So many ppl choosing to blow $200 at the waterpark on summer weekend because they don't have the gear/know-how (where to go, reservations or first come spots) to go camping with the kids.

If it were as easy as renting a car from local Avis, more ppl would go, esp. here in Nor Cal where the weather is most always conducive to camping and so many opprtys.</comment>


LangTool – easy localizations for developers - <AUTHOR> https://langtool.tech <comment><AUTHOR> Released web application on Ruby on Rails. It helps developers with free automatic localization for their projects. Just select file for localization, wait a few seconds and take translated one. Supports: Ruby on Rails, android, iOS, .NET, json-files</comment>


Google should be building a global paywall solution to connect them all - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@b44rd/why-google-should-be-building-a-global-paywall-solution-to-connect-them-all-cd6948da8cd7 <comment><USER2> I've thought this forever; there should be one service with a few levels of content:

(*) free/public - encourage people to come to your site!

($) blog

($$) opinion article

($$$) solid multi-page feature

($$$$) they went out and made a bloody documentary

It's not even that it's difficult to build. YC should just build it as they are out of the Google/Facebook/Microsoft want to own everything ever written equation.

If there is one system for this you can give search engines access for free and even allow people to share articles with relevant people.

There is no paywall, you pay per article a fixed fee per $ everywhere. There is a value system built in if people think the articles were bad. Better tiers of users can have different levels they can charge. There is not need for micropayments as the wallet you top up with $10 per time even though articles cost, say, multiples 5c.

JS toolkit to bring up the "authorise" credits dialog ala Facebook friends dialog.

Bookmarking... and loads of other features would be easy to add.

It would make loads of money that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just wonder what the effect of having a tool like this available would be. Most websites don't use paywalls because of a combination of two factors:

a) they don't believe it to be a good business model.

b) they don't want to put the effort into implementing such a system themselves.

c) they believe paywalls hurt the open web.

If google solves b, we will see a lot more websites putting up paywalls. How is that good for the open web?

I understand the article is trying to say "if Google doesn't do it, someone else will, and if that happens the open web will die even faster". But the assumption that someone will do it and that paywalls will become the standard at some point is still just that: an assumption. I don't think an assumption is good enough for a company that values the open web (assuming Google values the open web) to sacrifice part of it because it would be better than if someone else did it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this what life is, now? We make supplications to the largest corporation we think will help us? We're sliding back into feudalism.

<comment><USER5> Did we ever leave feudalism, at a fundamental level?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the Netherlands, there is startup that does allow you to buy newspaper and magazine articles with micropayments (35 eurocents for example). It's called Blendle ([http://blendle.com/](http://blendle.com/) ). Sadly not international yet.

</comment><comment><USER7> To build a global paywall, you first need to have a global payment system. Google still doesn't have a way to accept digital payments in many countries.

</comment><comment><USER8> 410 Error: The author deleted this Medium story

:(

<comment><USER9> Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40b44rd%2Fwhy- google-should-be-building-a-global-paywall-solution-to-connect-them-all- cd6948da8cd7&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40b44rd%2Fwhy-google- should-be-building-a-global-paywall-solution-to-connect-them-all- cd6948da8cd7&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.2080j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8)</comment></comment>


Vint Cerf: "Re-thinking the right to remember and the right to be forgotten" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/vgcerf/status/933553319347474432 <comment><USER2> Perhaps use the linked article—not by Cerf—instead?</comment>


Ask HN: Need advice on a great phone system  - <AUTHOR>

I've tried Google Voice, cell phones, Grasshopper, Avaya, RingCentral and several others. I have yet to find a system that I love. Each one solves some of the problems but the rest feels like a kludge.
Key for me are: - Simplicity to transfer calls - Compatible with physical (conf rooms and desks) and mobile phones - Simple to administer - Scales well for an office of 20+
Any advice? <comment><USER2> I use Plivo for my telecom service. You should be able to put a custom script together. @UnFundedHype if you would prefer I put it together for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Plivo and Twilio provide a good architecture for building custom phone based apps but they don't seem like a good turn-key solution for a growing business. Unless I'm missing something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Have you tried OnSip? We use Lylix with a customized Asterisk install with Cisco SIP phones, but it's kind of a headache to manage.</comment>


Amazon releases a no-cost distribution of OpenJDK - <AUTHOR> https://sdtimes.com/java/amazon-releases-a-no-cost-distribution-of-openjdk/ <comment><USER2> I always thought it already was free hence OpenJDK hahah. Guess I was wrong...</comment>


I/O Stack Optimization for Smartphones (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0245c5c937c5dedcca3f1764ecc9b2f.r43.cf2.rackcdn.com/11774-atc13-jeong.pdf

<comment><USER2> It would have been interesting to see the impact of these improvements on battery usage.</comment>


Infiltrating Microsoft and Barclays? What a waste of spies - <AUTHOR> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10206/1074891-109.stm?cmpid=newspanel

<comment><USER2> I can't tell if the author is being serious or tongue-in-cheek.

Infiltrating Microsoft in the right way could give you trojans in just about every other company he listed. Even Apple if they use Office anywhere. It's the very first place I'd go as a foreign spy, if not Google.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. This advanced spy network could infiltrate Microsoft and insert deliberate security holes into their applications. These can later be exploited by people back in the motherland to create gigantic botnets, which they can then sell time on back to the West while filling all our inboxes with spam.

Clearly this isn't serious ("never attribute to malice...", etc), but it's no worse then most other conspiracy theories.</comment></comment>


America's Epidemic of Unkindness - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-be-kind/602488/ <comment><USER2> SUMMARY: The average person's circle of concern has a diameter of 4-5 feet, depending on how recent the last meal was. This can be verified by scrolling through Twitter for five minutes or listening to literally anyone's political opinions. Some people feel that this might have been different in the past? Consequently, "scientists" are investigating the causes and symptoms of kindness, presumably in order to find a cure. So far they have made no discoveries worth reporting, so they decided to replicate an experiment discussed in _Media Studies for Dummies_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every man for himself can only be changed by the power of law. Blame your lawmakers, because it's exactly the way they need it to be. Divide and conquer.

</comment><comment><USER4> > But it turns out there is a sweeping scientific case for kindness.

Really? You need a scientific justification for being kind?</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with plagiarism via unauthorized translation? - <AUTHOR> I operate a US-based website where we publish original long-form non-fiction. I have dealt with plagiarism before, but this is a new situation for me.
The short version: There is a popular Mexico-based website that has been translating our articles into Spanish sentence-by-sentence, and posting them as their own works. They also take some of our images and artwork without credit. The offending site appears to have a large following (larger than my own site, anyway), with over 100k followers on Facebook.
Long version: I discovered two articles plagiarized in this way because the person posting it had added "Source: [our site name here]" at the bottom of the text, and it triggered a Google alert. Looking around their site I soon found additional articles that were directly translated from our material sentence by sentence, and none of these cited their source.
I emailed the listed contact address, asking them to take down the unauthorized translations (in a polite, professional tone, just in case this was the work of a rogue contributor or something). They did not reply, but they did swiftly edit those two articles to remove the "Source" line from the bottom.
So far I have have found 36 (!) articles on the offending site that are direct translations of our work, going back nine years. There may well be more I have not yet found, they are mixed with many other articles (which are probably plagiarized from other sources).
The site appears to be hosted on Google Cloud Platform. I reported the plagiarism to Google's Cloud Platform abuse department over a week ago, but predictably they have not responded apart from some automatic replies.
I've contacted a few IP attorneys, and that route is looking expensive, and unlikely reach a satisfactory resolution.
Is there anyone here who has dealt with something like this? Any advice? <comment><USER2> Name and shame. You'll need to find some influencers on Twitter/Instagram/FB who have a following among the Mexican website's audience. Post an article detailing all the copyright infringements. Promote it on social media and hope the owners and the readership cares enough about content piracy.</comment>


WebKit == Mobile - <AUTHOR> http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/2009/01/webkit-mobile/

<comment><USER2> _"As predicted, the mobile world has beaten the desktop to the web of the future."_

Technically, not really. Most people I know have the IE of phones: just some crappy Nokia or something that just text messages and phone calls.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do we really want the mobile net to be dominated by one rendering engine? Haven't we been down this road before?

<comment><USER4> That one rendering engine is fully open source this time around. Makes somewhat of a difference.

<comment><USER5> And a _good_ , _standards-compliant-yet-innovative_ one at that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't mention Opera Mini which also has 21 million users - <http://www.opera.com/smw/2008/10/>

<comment><USER7> I'd disagree with their methodology. So, every Windows Mobile user who has downloaded Opera Mini to _try_ it is considered an active Opera Mini user? Hogwash! Opera Mini has been downloaded 21M times which includes a substantial proportion of people who have downloaded it multiple times and users who have downloaded it to try it and never use it again.

<comment><USER8> I concur, as a Windows Mobile user (Blackjack II) I downloaded Opera to 'try' and use it occasionally on websites which I know render correctly/better than mobile IE. However much of the web is not Opera Mini compat, and it tends to freeze/screw up quite frequently which forces me back into the mobile IE ghetto.

However it's worth noting that I just installed Skyfire is it's working beautifully.

<http://www.skyfire.com/product>

Shows web pages like a desktop browser (no one-column BS), has Opera/Safari- esque zooming features and plays web video (YouTube/ESPN) with no fuss. Lovin' it.</comment></comment></comment>


Women earned a majority of 2012 doctoral degrees in 33 STEM fields - <AUTHOR> http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/01/women-earned-a-majority-of-2012-doctoral-degrees-in-33-stem-fields-can-we-stop-calling-it-a-national-crisis/

<comment><USER2> You can pound on a small portion to increase to meet the goal of making the total increase.

The crisis is some STEM grads make more than minimum wage. This must be eliminated by all means necessary, such as intense PR to push the supply / demand equation. You can do the divide and conqueror boys vs girls thing to distract the proles from the real purpose.</comment>


Four book series that are shaping the future of science fiction on television - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/08/four-book-series-that-are-shaping-the-future-of-science-fiction-on-television/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are three series I would just love to see adapted for TV: a) Robin Hobb's Liveship trilogy, which I can easily envision as combining the best elements of Black Sails and Game of Thrones; b) Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga, which has just won the Hugo award for best literary series, although it might be a much harder nut to crack; and c) Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which might become the merging of Sherlock and Dr Who that fans have been dreaming about. :)

Any of these would provide better material than the Kingkiller Chronicle, for example. I have read The Name of the Wind and found it so incredibly frustrating that I just couldn't bear to read the rest of the series.</comment>


CronusPaaS, an open source PaaS framework built for developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.cronuspaas.com/index.html Deploy sample application in 10 seconds, and much more. Manage Java, Python, Node, or ANY Languages or Stacks. Deploy to Hundreds of Machines in Seconds. No Vendor Lock In, run on GCP, AWS, Azure. Light Weight, Setup in 2 Minute. Scale Simply and Predictably. Intuitive UI, RESTful APIs. 100% Open Source. <comment><AUTHOR> Deploy sample application in 10 seconds, and much more. Manage Java, Python, Node, or ANY Languages or Stacks. Deploy to Hundreds of Machines in Seconds. No Vendor Lock In, run on GCP, AWS, Azure. Light Weight, Setup in 2 Minute. Scale Simply and Predictably. Intuitive UI, RESTful APIs. 100% Open Source.</comment>


Khan Academy on Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-w7SnQWwVA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

<comment><USER2> That's informative...but I wish he didn't have a two-minute introduction that doesn't actually tell you anything...</comment>


Complete Guide to Create a Chat App Successfully - <AUTHOR> http://www.redbytes.in/blog/complete-guide-create-chat-app-successfully/ <comment><USER2> I am the author of a private chat system that is used by a medium sized group of people. It was originally developed about 10 years ago, using a basic frame based page and http-refresh, and over time it evolved into a full Ajax/JS web application with features that match Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

The key thing when developing an app is to fill a need. If there's no need for your app, why bother developing it? (unless it's a learning activity which of course is fine)

The 'needs' in this particular case were:

\- Be web based; The target users couldn't install a local application. \- Be proxy aware; Only use port 80 (and later 443) for connectivity. \- Be 'under the radar'; Needed to live on a URL that didn't attract attention to itself.

No other service at the time could fill these needs and this was before the explosion of Smartphones and the PhoneApp ecosystem. As such it became a useful tool, and is still used daily by a group of people.

"See the Need - Fill the Need" \- Robots (film)</comment>


Compatibility Tables for HTML5, CSS3, SVG and other upcoming web tech - <AUTHOR> http://a.deveria.com/caniuse/

<comment><AUTHOR> From <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1273618> , too useful not to share. Thanks to nimbupani.</comment>


Google Adds 152 Patents to Its Non-Assertion Pledge - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/google-adds-152-patents-to-its-non-assertion-pledge/?ncid=fb&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=fb&utm_content=FaceBook

<comment><USER2> This is probably obvious to anyone with a legal background, but does this carry any weight? Or is it just a gentleman's agreement that could turn into a lawsuit if you make them angry enough?

<comment><USER3> This is one of those situations where the legal pananoia clips back on itself. Clearly this is not a contract and wouldn't expect to be enforced as one. So the conservative assumption has to be that it carries "little" weight and that Google might change its mind.

Nonetheless, if you imagine the flip side, the legal advice flips too. If you have a company whose employees made a statement to a partner about their intent not to enforce IP rights, you certainly would expect that to be an important bit of evidence in any subsequent trial. It's routine in big companies for employees working with partners and customers to be warned by their legal departments _not_ to make statements like this becuase of the risk involved.

In the real world: I think we have to take this for what it is. It's just a promise, apparently in good faith. Short of legal action by our governments, there aren't any permanent solutions to this problem. This is as good as we're going to get.

<comment><USER4> > Clearly this is not a contract

I'm pretty sure making a pledge of this nature does form a contract. The terms of that contract are available here: [http://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/pledge/](http://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/pledge/), which says:

> It is Google's intent that the Pledge be legally binding, irrevocable > (except as otherwise provided under "Defensive Termination" below) and > enforceable against Google and entities controlled by Google, and their > successors and assigns.

<comment><USER5> A contract typically requires consideration between two parties. Consideration can be almost purely nominal, but it has to exist.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note: 94 uniquely named / 245 total</comment>


Debian Jessie Release Targeted for April 25th - <AUTHOR> https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/03/msg00016.html

<comment><USER2> Is this the fastest freeze-to-release of Debian or what?</comment>


Andy Rubin Puts Essential Up for Sale, Cancels Next Phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/andy-rubin-s-phone-maker-essential-is-said-to-consider-sale <comment><USER2> Making mass consumer flagship smartphones and going up against Samsung, Huawei, and Apple is a really tough game, but I'm sure Andy and the team at Essential knew that. I like that there are people who, in the face of giants, pick up the stone.

<comment><USER3> It's not like it's hard to carve out a niche now that literally every flagship phone is functionally identical. There have been so many novel features that have been tried since the birth of the Android ecosystem that there are bound to be dozens of useful, now-unique features to choose from that only failed to be adopted because the phone they debuted on was fatally flawed in other ways.

In my opinion, there are 3 major features that are immediately obvious, yet always overlooked by OEMs that are such low hanging fruit that I'm constantly amazed that no manufacturer has put them all together. They aren't even all that interesting either, the only reason they haven't caught on is that all the also-ran's have tunnel vision about playing copycat with Samsung and Apple.

1\. Battery life. Seriously, we could have phones with 4+ days of battery life if we'd only stopped making them thinner to the point where the rear camera sticks out, effectively ruining the aesthetic of thinness. We've also sacrificed the 3.5mm jack in the pursuit of the most anorexic phones imaginable and all for what? A feeling of awe when we open the box of a new phone which only lasts 10 seconds before we throw it in a case which makes it as thick as an OG Motorola Droid?

2\. Stock Android. Stock Android. Stock Android. I will never buy anything but a phone running stock Android (or maybe a dumbphone once Big Brother Google pushes me over the edge). Even the most technically illiterate users recognize that stock Android (whether they know what that means) is vastly superior to the Samsung Galaxy Whatever they just traded in.

3\. Durability/Ease of Repair. Modern phones have become less fragile in many ways (waterproofing) but the screens and batteries are still weak points. Glass can never be made shatter-proof and lithium ion batteries will always lose a significant amount of charge capacity after being cycled several hundred times (a fault made worse by fitting a phone with a battery that often requires 2+ charges a day). So how do you fix this? Easy, just make the screens and batteries easy to replace like those of older iPhones. This works directly in conjunction with point #1 as we've been forced to accept bonded screens and sealed back panels as a result of the thinness wars.

Extra Credit: You know how you can get my money as well as the money of everyone I know? Bring back the landscape QWERTY keyboard. There hasn't been a phone since the Droid 2 that could lay claim to being anything more than a lower midrange design. The first company to do all of the above will make waves, I promise you.

<comment><USER4> > Battery life.

Nobody but technically inclined users care that much about battery life anymore. For most people, you can throw a rock and hit a phone that has all day battery life. People are used to charging their phones nightly.

People will take a battery life improvement, but it's not a driver. Many manufacturers have slapped in giant batteries or included battery modules, removable back cases that allow for double life batteries. None have caught on, because really. If I have to charge it once a day or twice if I'm using it for games all day or something, then what is the difference? Have a charger at work, a charger at home and a decent phone, and you'll never have a battery life issue. I don't think I've depleted my iPhone X once and I've owned it since day one.

> Stock Android

Another thing nobody but techies care about, and even they are mixed. I know plenty of people who prefer modern TouchWiz, or more likely, simply don't care. Caring about stock Android really only applies to those who spend most of their time in the launcher or OS, which isn't most people. For most, their phone is a gateway to apps, and this goes double for Android phones.

If the primary use of your phone is launching Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Gmail & Facebook, then who the hell cares what the launcher interface is? Most younger and less technical users don't even use the dialer or contacts or other apps people typically leave stock.

> Durability/Ease of Repair

I can't believe people can actually say this with a straight face. Once again, the last thing on people's list. It's far and away a nice to have, not anything that actually influences a purchasing decision for a significant number of people. For those that it does matter to, they'll just slap it in a case anyways. It also requires a boatload of design compromises to make things easier to repair.

> Bring back the landscape QWERTY keyboard

The icing on the cake. I don't know who you know, but seriously, nobody wants a hardware keyboard. Most people under 30 (y'know, the people who buy new phones frequently and use them as primary computers) would actually be significantly slower on a hardware keyboard, regardless of layout.

What you've described is a giant phone, double or triple the size of any other normal between the massive battery, use of durable materials and durable slider mechanism. Nobody wants this. You might, and some of your friends might, but any company that took a run at actually making this phone would have abysmal sales.

You make a ton of assumptions here, all of which smack of someone who hasn't spoken to a normal consumer or someone under 30 in a long time. I suggest hanging around retail for a little bit, because you're in for a rude awakening.

Things people actually care about in a phone, in rough order:

1\. OS - This is tied for the next two for number one. Nobody gives a shit about stock Android, but most are pretty set in one camp or the other in regards to iOS v Android at this point. People do switch though, so its not the highest priority for all.

2\. Screen Size - Massive consideration. Many want a giant screen, many want a manageable screen, both are pretty set in their ways.

3\. Camera - I can't count the number of times people have asked me for a phone recommendation and had this as their number one concern. I put the other two first because they tend to have those decided before speaking to me, so they are typically more important. Camera quality, as subjective as that can be, can really sell a phone.

4\. Design - Gasp! Weight, thickness, materials. Actually really important. It may not show up on a spec list, but people do make decisions based on this even if they aren't acutely aware.

5\. Price - For many this is the number one factor, but for many it's not even on the list so it's hard to know where to place this one in terms of order.

6\. Cool new features - Hugely important, triggers upgrades. The giant OLED screen & FaceID sold plenty of people on the iPhone X. "What can this phone do that my phone can't" is a strong driver of upgrades that aren't required due to a failing/broken phone.

<comment><USER5> > The icing on the cake. I don't know who you know, but seriously, nobody > wants a hardware keyboard.

Not true. If it were true the Blackberry KeyONE wouldn't have been the moderate success that it was. Clearly TCL believe that QWERTY phones are viable as they've just announced the Blackberry Key2.

My better-half has not one, but two, KeyONEs - one for work, and one for personal use. They are very nice, well built phones with a pretty good spec. If you type stuff all day, then they are a great option.

<comment><USER6> Your experience is anecdotal. So is mine, and I haven't seen a single hardware keyboard in use -- not a single one, from any manufacturer -- since Nokia N900 was a thing almost ten years ago.

<comment><USER5> It's not actually. What I didn't say, is that my other half works for a large Law firm. Most of the Partners there (100+) have switched from iPhones to Blackberry KeyONEs as they can actually work on them because of the proper keyboards.

At the end of the day, keyboardless and keyboard phones CAN co-exist. I was just disagreeing that with the point that _no-one_ wants a keyboard phone.

<comment><USER4> > I was just disagreeing that with the point that no-one wants a keyboard > phone.

Perhaps glib. I could have clarified further but "a keyboard phone could carve out a small but somewhat lucrative niche amongst people who refuse to get used to software keyboards, people over 30-40, and people who owned devices that sport hardware keyboards in the past but they are ultimately doomed to irrelevancy in the long run" is less pithy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Typing this from an Essential.

I'm pretty sad. I've had four Nexuses, a Galaxy S and an iPhone and this is probably my favourite. It's camera-problems are well-known, but I really do think it's the best-designed phone on the market today.

Some high notes:

\- the notch predates the iPhone X and looks even better because it's so small. The one on the X is so large, they may as well have not bothered.

\- The glass-ceramic-titanium is slippery, but a joy to behold. I love the heavy, blocky feel and love idly flipping it around in my hand (I guess I don't need a fidget spinner). The flat sides also have the advantage letting you leave it straight-up on it's sides (ie for camera shots) while simultaneously being rounded enough to be easy to hold.

\- flat, unbranded back and general layout is basically what every phone should have.

\- The module extension system is probably the best of all the ones that have been tried. I have the 360 camera and it works great.

\- speaking of the camera, I love 360 photos. I kickestarted a failed 360 Camera (Bubl) etc, I used to spend a ton of time making photospheres, their camera was fantastic. I love taking photos with it and people actually like looking at them.

\- If they had managed to get rid of the chin and shrank the notch a bit (the status bar is 2x as tall as regular Android because of it) on their second phone, it would have been a perfect.

\- Apart form the physical stuff, the updates came fast, the storage was generous (128GB) and the UI was uncluttered.

I hope they get picked up by someone, they have a lot of good stuff going for them.

<comment><USER8> The notch is smaller because it's just a camera lens. The iPhone X basically has a Kinect in its notch. They're not really directly comparable.

<comment><USER9> Of course you can compare them! They're both phones with a notch! You can also separately compare their face detection capability. But that doesn't disallow you from saying one notch is smaller than the other.

<comment><USER10> I think he meant given that the features are not the same, it's hard to compare the physical aspects (and more technically, product specifications) "fairly".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In my mind, Andy Rubin is likely be one of the most unfortunate tech personality I'm aware of.

So here is a guy who grows up dreaming about robots. But instead of doing that he ends up doing startup to make money so he can eventually do robots. He spends best years of his life building phone OS by walking a fine line to clone a work of a genius. And a pretty shitty clone at that. But the guy is so in to robots that he ends up calling this thing "Android" even though its not android. Thing takes off despite being shitty clone because Microsoft had become incompetent to his enormous luck. He becomes rich, powerful and eventually able to demand to get off the shitty clone train to actually do robotics. He goes to GoogleX with essentially carte blank to make his dreams _finally_ come true. The guy goes out and buys up every cool robotics startup out there, spends billions and surrounds himself with some of the best talent on planet. And then he leaves it all to rott. But still... he is ultra rich, can do whatever he wants and he still has some of his productive years left. What does he do? Another phone startup! And again just a clone with minor tweaks at that.

<comment><USER12> Meh. Looking at his Resume ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin#Career_timeline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin#Career_timeline)), he started working on Mobile OS's as far back as 1992. Then he hopped from company to company (founding 2) until the Google Acquisition in 2005, and he didn't get into Robots until 2013.

You don't spend 21 years working in a domain you don't like.

And you don't quit managing Google's robotics division after LESS THAN A YEAR to immediately go back to mobile if robots are your lifelong dream. OK, sure, maybe he didn't like Google's robotics strategy or vision, but he was in a prime position to change it from the inside, and that takes longer than a year.

It sounds much more that Robots is a hobby. But his life goal and passion is Mobile.

Also, discounting his successes as just cloning the work of a genius is silly. Firstly, he has a credible role in the historical progression, as the Danger SideKick was a legitimate leader in the field for a few years.

Secondly, Android to iPhone in the 2010's is Windows to Mac in the 1990's. They democratized the platform to give people the freedom of choice.

<comment><USER13> Surely a robot needs a 'mobile' OS?

<comment><USER14> Generally something a cut above the current stereotype of s̥̙̭͘͠m̡̻̤̭͡a҉̵̯̪̼̘̥̠̞r̢̦͎͉̺̤t͈̯̥̳̮̝̼͢phone quality, I would hope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There has been one successful model for new entrants into the smartphone market, since the iPhone: start with a low-budget phone, and progressively raise your prices and move to more premium products as you build trust among consumers and retailers. It's what OnePlus did, it's what google did with nexus, it's what Xiaomi and Huawei have been doing.

Andy Rubin thinking he could skip this process and just jump in at the top of the market was pure hubris, and as much as I was hoping to see them succeed, it's a little bit reassuring that they failed. Success takes hard work, and essential skipped a lot of that.

<comment><USER16> Were the Google Nexus phones considered low-budget?

<comment><USER17> I have owned 10+ phones during the last 10 years, and the Nexus phones were only ones I bought new.

\- Nexus 5 was low cost and amazing for the price. I was able to forgive every issue it had. And another international friend also asked me to buy it & ship it to her.

\- The 5X was not low cost, but then it could also be bought cheaply through the Google Fi "loophole." I know at least one other person IRL who bought it through the loophole.

<comment><USER18> What was that loophole, exactly?

<comment><USER17> Normally the Nexus 5x was $400, but the cost of buying it through the Project Fi and cancel right away was $250. Now the loophole is with the Moto X4.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wonder if this has anything to do with it:

"Former Android Head Left Due To Sexual Misconduct Claims" [https://www.channelnews.com.au/former-android-head-left- due-...](https://www.channelnews.com.au/former-android-head-left-due-to- harassment-claims/)

"The woman who filed the complaint reportedly worked in the Android division run by Rubin, which would make any personal relationship between the two violate Google policy; the company requires employees to disclose such relationships so that one of them can be moved to another division. Rubin left the Android department in March 2013 to lead Google's efforts in robotics, but the HR investigation is said to have taken place in 2014. That investigation, according to The Information, concluded that "Rubin's behavior was improper and showed bad judgement."" [https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/16714264/andy-rubin- leav...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/16714264/andy-rubin-leaves- essential-google-inappropriate-conduct)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is sad but forseeable as Essential sold poorly. It was a nice phone but it can be hard to establish a new brand right now and differentiate oneself.

The only new brand of smartphone in the last four years I can think of is OnePlus that has had success. OnePlus did this by buying their popularity. By offering a ton of value initially and then raising the price each generation.

<comment><USER21> >This is sad but forseeable as Essential sold poorly. It was a nice phone but it can be hard to establish a new brand right now and differentiate oneself.

I don't think it is, everyone is just too afraid of doing something radically different. Essential phone was just another generic midrange Android phablet at a top end flagship price. Until someone completely throws that paradigm away we will be stuck with the bloated nonsense that smartphones have become. I would give ANYTHING for a 5" phone with capacitive touch e-ink display, 3000mAh battery, and a barebones BSD based OS that did nothing but call, text, take pictures, gps, and text-based web browsing.

<comment><USER22> Glad to know others exist that just want a basic device that will last a week without charging without massive bloat and apps I don't care about.

<comment><USER23> You can get one for <$30, they're called featurephones. The rebooted Nokia 3310 claims one month of (stand by) battery life.

<comment><USER22> Aggh, sorry...I meant to be agreeing more with the parent comment I replied to. I want all that plus an e-ink screen running freeBSD and some very basic browsing. I don't think old Nokia dumb phones had that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > and its Android software is nearly identical to the stock version running on > Google's Pixel phones, giving it another unique sales proposition.

Is it just me?

<comment><USER25> Very few Android phones are not full of crappy manufacturer apps. Nexus, Pixel, OnePlus and apparently, Essential are the few exceptions.

So maybe not unique in the literal sense, but a differentiator anyway.

<comment><USER26> Also Nokia falls into this camp. Bought Nokia 6 for my wife and it seems to be working very nicely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I bought the PH-1, and have been very happy with it. Their commitment to releasing source code, supporting no bloat, and stock google android (not stock aosp but close enough) made it a real winner in my book. I was looking forward to the PH-2 so I could push my relatives toward it for their upgrade cycles.

With Amazon going full force on the Alexa hardware (1st and 3rd party) but their only attempt at a phone a failure, I wonder if they will try to pickup Essential and go for a Essential Fire Phone-2?

<comment><USER28> While I love my PH-1 and want the concept to continue, I can't help but feel that this would be a disaster. Amazon would almost surely ruin the stock Android experience by forcing its ugly bloatware on you to ensure that you consume Amazon content and services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I said this in another thread about the Essential Phone, but I'll say it again: their strategy was 100% bass-ackwards. You can't come in at the high end of the market: that's where the big dogs live with huge advertising budgets, carrier buy-in, and solid R&D for great cameras. You can't compete with that starting from scratch.

You have to be like OnePlus and the other Chinese manufacturers: start by offering a good phone at a good price that undercuts Apple and Samsung's stupidly expensive flagships, then gradually work your way up-market. That kind of disruption strategy is the only way to break into smartphones.

<comment><USER30> This misunderstands the problem...

Carriers are the main distribution channel for phones. You can't compete with carrier distro.

<comment><USER29> I said that in my comment? Carriers control visibility for big, flagship phones, but the Chinese manufacturers still manage to sell decently by marketing their cheaper phones directly to consumers. That's the kind of strategy Essential should have emulated, until they got big enough to start cutting deals with carriers.

<comment><USER31> again, I don't see how you can draw a comparison between cheap Chinese manufacturers and an SV backed startup. Can you imagine the VC pitch for that? "We want to raise capital so we can make low-margin phones and that Chinese manufacturers can easily undercut".

Chinese manufacturers have more capital and have easier ways to monetize than a small startup. For that matter, Name a Cheap Chinese manufacturer that has been able to break through in the US market? No chinese phone manufacturer has more than 8% of the market in the US.

Essential took their shot at trying to make a value-chain leap. They failed. That's okay. Life moves on, their engineers will be okay, and they'll get more opportunities in the future - but at least they took their shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This company was founded on the myth that the original Android OS was an important part of the history of smartphones. And that Andy Rubin was somehow an important innovator. His arrogant rant on the Essential homepage explains why they failed better than anything else could.

The version of Android that Google bought was just another crappy blackberry clone that would have likely gone no where.

It became Google's cover story for their effort to clone the iPhone because its in their legal interest to claim that Android was an independent effort that just happened to become an iOS-like operating system over time.

But history proves otherwise. The original Android was a crappy Blackberry clone: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/HT...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/HTC_HT722G700375_20080211.jpg/800px- HTC_HT722G700375_20080211.jpg)

And the Android phone they released over a year after the iPhone was was a half-Blackberry half-iPhone clone monstrosity: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/HT...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/HTC_Dream_Orange_FR.jpeg/1920px- HTC_Dream_Orange_FR.jpeg)

From Wikipedia:

 _An early prototype had a close resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical QWERTY keyboard, but the arrival of 2007 's Apple iPhone meant that Android "had to go back to the drawing board". Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that "Touchscreens will be supported", although "the Product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons". By 2008, both Nokia and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the iPhone 3G, and Android's focus eventually switched to just touchscreens. The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23, 2008._

<comment><USER33> > His arrogant rant on the Essential homepage explains why they failed better > than anything else could.

Pretty sure it was the fact that Samsung is the primary supplier for the majority of parts so they always end up making money. But sure, the homepage is totally why millions of people didn't buy the phone.

<comment><USER32> I claimed that his rant explains why they failed, not that the rant itself is why they failed.

I think his rant says a lot about how he views his role, company, and product. He seems conflicted about starting the company at all, dismissive of his coworkers, delusional about his role in history, and confused about what makes people want products. And yes, the fact that the product's homepage features him above the product itself is also a very bad sign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If Microsoft couldn't force their way into the phone market late, no way a startup was going to.

<comment><USER35> Microsoft cut-and-run, they could have just stuck to it like they did with the Xbox and in the long term it probably would have worked out for them. But their initial models were rushed to market and their Nokia strategy didn't make much sense.

<comment><USER36> They also tried to bring their Video Game UI to the phone after a phone UI had already been established. Then it felt dirty for them to dial back to generic android.

They could have been successful if they wanted to just make a phone, but they wanted to make the phone on their terms.

<comment><USER37> Interestingly, the UI was among the most praised features of windows phones, and still has a number of fans.

<comment><USER38> Windows Phone refugee here: going back to Android was a massive step back in user experience, It's been over 2 years and I'm still angry at Microsoft for dropping the ball on WP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I really liked the Essential phone and it's message. It hit the sweet spot for me running vanilla Android and being at the mid tier price point.

The no branding focus really went against the big brands and convinced me the company had the right goals in mind.

Unfortunately I had no reason to buy a new phone, as mine is working fine. I planned on buying the next Essential phone.

</comment><comment><USER40> Their phone was literally set up for failure. It had nothing new to offer over any of the established players, initial price was among the flagships, it had a broken camera, no headphone jack, buggy software. Basically inferior in every way and priced the same as Samsung's S8.

<comment><USER41> It is directly unlockable for easy rooting and modding, unlike most phones... that's a big plus. (there's only the Pixel, OnePlus and maybe only 1 or 2 others like that)

<comment><USER40> Ok that does sound valuable. But maybe too much of a niche. Most people are fine with the OS apple/Samsung ship with the phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Really disappointing to hear. I was super excited last year when Essential announced their foray into the smartphone hardware business -- always exciting to see new entrants, especially one founded by Andy Rubin nonetheless.

Also worth noting is that Essential phone (v1.0; 2017) was the first device to include a notch around the front camera -- a revolutionary feature and a head- turner at the time, with other big players following suite down the year. [0]

I'd personally be pleased if Essential gets credit at least for making top centered notches on smartphone devices mainstream; would now be interesting to see how they approach their AOSP-based OS given the abrupt end to their 'hardware manufacturer' ambitions.

As many others have already pointed out, Essential's (relative) failure shows how saturated and competitive smartphone hardware industry has become -- with barriers of entry being unimaginably high -- for even a multiple VC funded startup.

[0] [https://mashable.com/2017/05/30/essential-phone-android- andy...](https://mashable.com/2017/05/30/essential-phone-android-andy-rubin/)

<comment><USER11> _I 'd personally be pleased if Essential gets credit at least for making top centered notches on smartphone devices mainstream_

What?

Notch is a boneheaded design compromise, not an achievement!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I never got the hype around the Essential phone. Apart from the specs, what sets it apart from other flagship devices. I've been using a Pixel2 for last few months and it has been quite good so far. How does the Essential phone compare to Pixel/Pixel2?

<comment><USER44> Exactly, no clear differentiator. There's a number of online interviews where even the founders couldn't clearly articulate what was novel.

<comment><USER45> I think their idea was to establish a consumer brand recognized as high quality, and then expand in other spaces. But entering the Home market these days will be hard, facing Google/Amazon/Apple.

<comment><USER40> To establish a new brand, you must offer something new. Essential phone had nothing new and had a number of drawbacks compared to its peers. Oh and it was priced like Samsung's new flagships.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I had never even heard of this phone until now, and I think I would've bought it over the Pixel 2. Think I'm the target audience, but word never reached me. Maybe they just whiffed on marketing.

<comment><USER47> That's interesting, why would you prefer this phone over the pixel 2 ?

<comment><USER48> Also not OP, but not having a headphone jack is a non-starter for me. In a tie-breaker, I'd prefer a smaller company over a larger company too.

<comment><USER49> I ended up with a OnePlus 5, which was cheaper, and IMO more attractive than the Essential, which photographed well, but had a very 80s bling-y aesthetic IRL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think aside from the Essential product itself, the smartphone market is basically at a mature stage now just like the laptop market, so for a new product to successfully enter the market, it would need a lot more money to be wasted for marketing and production just to compete with the giants.

Mature market, smartphone users still growing but not as fast as before: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of- smart...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-smartphone- users-in-the-us/)

Microsoft apparently had ~1 billion dollar loss in first year in North America region while promoting and selling the Windows Surface which illustrates the difficulty in selling in a competitive mature market with high stakes.

Microsoft makes loss when selling Surfaces: [https://www.computerworld.com/article/2476544/tablets/with--...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2476544/tablets/with --1-7-billion-in-surface-losses--is-it-time-for-microsoft-to-pull-the- plug-.html)

Also noteworthy, reputedly global smartphone sales in Q4-2017 sees downturn: [https://www.ft.com/content/6ef7e850-17e6-11e8-9376-4a6390add...](https://www.ft.com/content/6ef7e850-17e6-11e8-9376-4a6390addb44)

</comment><comment><USER51> You can't make money selling Android phones in today's market. Chinese phone makers eke out small profits and Samsung makes most of its money as a component manufacturer. The average selling cost of a Samsung phone is $227 ([https://www.androidauthority.com/price-gap-samsung-apple- sma...](https://www.androidauthority.com/price-gap-samsung-apple- smartphones-769772/))

<comment><USER52> Personally anything over $300 is a no-go for me, a phone is not worth more than a general purpose computer.

<comment><USER53> A phone is a general purpose computer, and most people pay more than $300 for their laptop or desktop anyways.

<comment><USER52> A phone is a special purpose computer.

For it to be general, I should be allowed to do everything I can do with a PC, without any kind of constraints or workarounds.

Exactly because most people pay more than $300 for an unconstrained device, there is little value to pay more than that for a constrained device.

<comment><USER53> Are you talking about a "dumb" phone? That I would agree is a special purpose computer.

A smartphone is definitely a general purpose computer, though. The definition of a general purpose computer isn't "a computer that can do anything a typical PC can".

A proper definition would be something like "Any computer-based device that accepts different applications". It's a differentiator between things like microwaves, which are technically computers, and smartphones/laptops/PCs/tablets.

<comment><USER52> So how do I run Android Studio on my general purpose phone, without workarounds like connecting to a VM in the cloud, while looking at an usable screen?

Mobile OSes are special purpose, constrained to their phone + apps, developed by on external devices.

<comment><USER53> You don't run Android Studio on your phone. Being able to run Android Studio isn't the definition of a general purpose computer.

Being able to develop software for a device on that device also isn't the definition of a general purpose computer.

A general purpose computer is one that can be easily made to run different programs. Again, it's a differentiation between devices like microwaves and ovens that are _technically_ computers, but aren't _used_ like computers by the general public.

<comment><USER52> So my car, TV and fridge use general purpose conputers from your point of view, thanks Android Car, Android TV and Android Things.

I guess I will prepare that accounting document with a Bluetooth keyboard paired with my fridge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I was really looking forward to the PH-2. For me their USP was that the phone had no logo and that they sold them as being non-affiliated with any big corp software-though that may not be entirely true, it did raise my hopes of replacing the software with something more 'open' and just benefit from good hardware (easier said than done).

I think this a sign I move to a dumb phone.

</comment><comment><USER55> They launched around the same time as the Pixel 2, with similar price and slightly worse hardware. It was unfortunate timing.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm more interested in Librem 5. They aren't trying to beat everyone, they are addressing specific market.

<comment><USER57> I wonder if purism would have the cash to buy Essential? It would give them a nice head start on getting android apps working with their phone.

<comment><USER56> How exactly would it benefit them though? They are working now on their hardware and their own Linux UI (for some reason they weren't satisfied with existing options like Plasma Mobile).

Full supported OpenGL and Vulkan implementation for i.MX 8M would speed things up for them a lot.

Another good thing would be someone implementing a browser based on Servo working on that GPU. But that again requires better OpenGL / Vulkan support for i.MX 8M (and possibly Vulkan for WebRender).

I don't think Essential would help with any of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I tried to buy an Essential phone when it launched and it was probably the worst product rollout experience I've experienced. The company made promise after vaguely hedged promise and kept pushing back delivery, even after payment. Like, for months. People don't buy phones because they will need them in a few months, in my experience. Several top execs in the company left during the rollout. They breached data privacy by releasing very private user data (like people's driver's licences). Their customer service went offline for a while. And then when the phone finally arrived, it was super underwhelming. Poor camera and heavy as a brick. So lucky I was able to return it.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't think it was just me who thought this was a really bad idea from the start. Iphone launched at a time when there were no decent phones with capabilities it added. In presence of polished iphone 7s and other android phones what does this device really add?

</comment><comment><USER59> Is there a disconnect between the Silicon Valley elite and the population, when it comes to hardware and privacy? I feel, more and more, that my stance is anachronistic.

<comment><USER60> In which direction? Apple is the "elite" or "luxury" brand and also one of the few to take privacy dead seriously.

I think the general population is more happy to give up privacy for cool features built using their data than you may think (unless I'm reading your comment backwards. It is phrased rather ambiguously)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I bought this phone and the 360 camera and I can say that so far I have thoroughly enjoyed owning both and would do it again. I came from the Apple ecosystem, too.

</comment><comment><USER62> You have to learn to walk before you run. You also need to make profits.

HMD Global (Nokia smartphones) started with low-end phones and is slowly building better and better phones. They sold 10 million smartphones in 2017.

Their first high-level model is promising but far from perfect. It does not matter because they are not going out of business if it flops. Next iteration will be better, one following that will be better yet.

</comment><comment><USER63> Is it just me, or how come I never heard of this phone?

</comment><comment><USER64> The company raised money at a $1.2 billion USD valuation in August 2017: [https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/14/16142772/a...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/14/16142772/andy- rubin-essential-phone-valuation-billion-dollars-unicorn-value)

"Fail fast" seems to apply.

</comment><comment><USER65> If any prospective phone startup founders are reading, here's what I want:

1) A utility phone (i.e. maps, weather, camera, sms--leave all the extra features nobody uses out).

2) Good ergonomics, fits my hand, small.

3) Battery that lasts for at least 2-3 days.

4) No notifications possible apart from phone and sms.

5) Well-made and well-designed, like an iPhone.

Assuming it's very well done, I'd pay as much for it as an iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER66> No headphone jack, no removable battery, no sd card. Any one of those is a deal-breaker for me.

<comment><USER67> Mind if I get your opinion on the librem 5?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Makes sense. Hardware/software overall is monopoly-determined. If you are looking for an exit or a business model in the startup world you have to do something unique. This whole scheme was dead in the water, IMO.

<comment><USER69> I think this company is very emblematic of the tech bubble. Someone with a name and not much more is able to raise a staggering $330m with nearly nothing to show for it down the line, and 95% of people paying attention could have predicted it was going to be a flop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> This was built to be sold to Amazon. The plan didn't pan out.

<comment><USER71> I somehow got a hunch that the recent overfunding trend made startups as inefficient as large companies are, so there's not much incentive left for acquisitions if you can simply copy it in-house for much less.

<comment><USER72> If a company prematurely captures their upside by raising an excessive amount of capital they create a scenario for new employees where they participate in the upside only after the desired (10x) multiple is realised on the prior raise.

<comment><USER71> Except if a company is inefficient, the founders may find a way to get what they want without waiting for that 10x to realize. I'm not sure though why the investors are seemingly OK with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> From the mobile marketplace ecosystem point of view this isn't good for the consumer. That being said the entry barrier is quite high for anyone, even essential...

</comment><comment><USER74> I think it's the cost structure. If they were based in China like Xiaomi, you could see it monetizing differently and have another type of product.

</comment><comment><USER75> This is the problem when startups are founded based only on the founders name. Foolish idea shouldn't have got a penny of investment.

</comment><comment><USER76> "The startup, part of Rubin's incubator Playground Global, has raised about $300 million from several investors [...]"

</comment><comment><USER77> hate to say it, but yeah, saw that one coming. is it me, or does $100MM seem like too small an R&D budget for a halo phone?

</comment><comment><USER78> After watching FirefoxOS fail I don't think I can put faith in another interesting-looking mobile OS/phone again.

<comment><USER79> I actually think Firefox OS would be a lot more viable if they tried to make it today. A lot of things are webapps or JavaScript apps, so app support might have been less of an issue.

There's also blockchain which exploded, leading to a lot more developers with good funding willing to work on and/or donate to efforts like FirefoxOS.

Hardware support, on the other hand...

<comment><USER78> It's really too bad they didn't stick with it.

Mozilla is exactly the company I most trust to guide the software that is going on my phone, and the browser I use. I'm not sure they would make it today even if they tried, the management and the goals of the project were what drove it into the ground IMO. They might have done better if they focused on the high margin cell phone market -- grab the blackberry and privacy conscious market who have money to blow.

At least we got a faster/better FF out of it -- then again so many sites are chrome optimized (and don't necessarily even test FF) that I'm a little worried.

Android is open source but doesn't feel like it in practice (especially if you buy a vendor build)... And it's surprisingly hard to find a vendor that will just give you a phone that can be easily wiped to put stock android on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Looks like I'll soon have a replacement for my Nextbit Robin I bought last year for $100.

</comment><comment><USER81> Wish the first one had had an OLED screen, but I guess that's impossible to get.

</comment><comment><USER82> What was he think man? Maybe he saw how easy XiaoMi made it look and wanted a piece

</comment><comment><USER83> What about Amazon picking this company ? Seems interesting for their Fire line

</comment><comment><USER84> Predictable from Day 0.

</comment><comment><USER85> That was written all along. What a waste of time and money.

</comment><comment><USER86> That was expected.

</comment><comment><USER87> It was a piece of crap.

</comment><comment><USER88> And yet again, the masses are infatuated with the royal wedding/funeral.

</comment><comment><USER89> :(

</comment><comment><USER90> be excited.

</comment><comment><USER91> I wonder if Essential is just not a very popular smartphone, or if Samsung/Apple colluded to pressure suppliers in making it 100x hard for E to get anything done. Either is equally probable.

<comment><USER44> It was not popular, they had dismal number of orders when they launched.

I'm curious what suggested that suppliers caused problems - one of their investors was actually Foxconn.</comment></comment>


Microsoft and Law Enforcement Transparency - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/27/when-transparency-alone-isnt-enough/ <comment><USER2> How about plugging the hole you made on Skype? That would be a great start :)

ie.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/snowden_leak_shows_m...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/snowden_leak_shows_microsoft_added_outlookencryption_backdoor_for_feds/)

[http://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-docs-boast-now-we-can- wiretap-s...](http://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-docs-boast-now-we-can-wiretap- skype-video-calls/)

[http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-unlocked-skype-chat- backd...](http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-unlocked-skype-chat-backdoor-tip- insiders-26240382/)

<comment><USER3> They're just asking for the laws to be changed, actual civil disobedience is a bit beyond that.

<comment><USER4> It would not be civil disobedience. There's no law requiring you to turn over cleartext if you don't have it, and Skype used to be structured such that, not only was cleartext not recoverable, there was no practical way to find the Skype packets.

<comment><USER3> Sure, I'm reading between the lines a little here. But they deliberately restructured skype to be less secure and more expensive. Unless your opinion of MS's competence is really THAT low, it seems reasonable to conclude that they were compelled to make the change.

<comment><USER4> Induced, convinced... but without a law "compelled?"

<comment><USER3> Sure. Otherwise they would fix it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's good to finally see Microsoft step up on surveillance reform. Obama and Cameron's plan to mandate backdoors and outlaw end-to-end encryption will only hurt the tech industry in the long run. Here's hoping Microsoft puts their lobbyists where their blog post is.

<comment><USER6> I agree, especially when we already have laws (HIPPA, PCI DSS, etc) that basically already require end to end encryption that cannot have backdoors.

And, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the financial and healthcare sectors (and any vendors that work for them, ie, every major vendor including Microsoft and Google and Amazon) would just ignore Obama and Cameron: being fined by the government for using real encryption is a lot less money than being sued by your customers who rely on certain standards.

Due to the political climate lately on HN, I expect to be downvoted, but I don't care. The sooner we dump this political baggage the better, its simply not profitable to keep kowtowing to the Republican Party and the foreign equivalents.

<comment><USER7> To be clear Obama is not a member of the Republican party. You mention Obama specifically and then dumping "this political baggage" and follow it up with the "Republican Party".

<comment><USER8> On Surveillance, war on terror, war on drugs and war for fun, Obama is republican. All his policies are continuation of Bush era ones. They diverge on social issues.

<comment><USER9> Regarding the war on terror and foreign policy in general:

Bush-era policy was actually a 180 from what he campaigned on in 2000. Bush campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy while Al Gore pushed for "Nation Building". Nation building was consistent with operations and campaigns carried out during the Clinton administration. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act making it the official policy of the United States to support regime change in Iraq. A few months after signing we carried out the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign in Iraq. There were other operations and similar polices as well.

Granted you can probably continue this line back through George H.W. Bush and prior, but my point is I'm not sure Obama's policies on surveillance, war on terror, & war on drugs are all republican stances. Rather they are a continuation and expansion of policy that has been in effect at the national level for decades. Party is irrelevant.

<comment><USER8> I stand corrected. Anyway the inclusion of Obama in the debate was appropriate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


EFF: How to Deploy HTTPS Correctly - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/pages/how-deploy-https-correctly <comment><USER2> Yes we already know HTTPS is secure.

I am sick of the articles saying enabling HTTPS is not going to impact performance "much".

Even without pulling out jmeter, apache bench, or load runner I can tell you just hitting F5 on a HTTPS page makes it take longer. It's the responsiveness. I don't really care if it takes 10% more CPU. CPU cycles are getting cheaper and cheaper. I do care a lot that it takes 50ms more.

Yes I know you can tweak things so that the HTTPS connection stays open and doesn't have to handshake everytime. But really, is there anyway to get that handshake down to something acceptable?

<comment><USER3> Actually that's really interesting. How can you keep the https connection open?

<comment><USER4> I don't know HTTPS, but it should be just HTTP over SSL. That means regular "Connection: keep-alive" should work just as well on HTTPS as HTTP. In both cases it will keep the connection alive, allowing several requests after one another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They are correct that everyone should be using HTTPS. It costs as little as $12/year for the certificate, there's tons of tutorials on how to set it up in Apache, and there's only a couple of hundred sites in the world that need to be concerned with the performance hit (no, I doubt your blog is on that list).

<comment><USER6> https incurs a heavy performance penalty for everyone. Server load isn't the problem; a large increase in latency for every single connection is.

Your typical blog is probably going to suffer even more from enabling https globally when compared to major sites because not as much effort has been put into combining js, css, and images into sprites.

<comment><USER7> I wish I could uprate you with more than one vote.

Seriously, https performance sucks from start to finish. If the average user doesn't care about https, but _does_ care about performance, who are they going to go with - you or your faster competitor?

<comment><USER8> Probably depends on if their account gets hijacked at your site or the site of your fastest competitor.

I agree that anonymous or non-logged-in activity has no need of HTTPS, but anything that's transferring cookies, passwords, or other important user or session information should be HTTPS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Correct me if I'm wrong but one problem is multiple domains on a single machine. Each SSL cert should correspond to a unique IP, and if you don't have wildcard SSL, that means every single domain and sub-domain.

Separating requests through host header / name-based virtual hosting is not supported on https. Startups discussed on HN will most probably own the machine, but it's problematic for small sites.

<comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Client_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Client_side)

It's possible, but needs XP to die before it's practical.

<comment><USER11> Wondering if one could practically implement a site with TLS+SNI for browsers that support it while letting browsers on XP and others that don't support it hit the site with HTTP unencrypted.

Of course, not appropriate for all sites, but definitely a step forward for sites holding out due to incomplete support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How would you handle the mixed content e.g. on a secure forum where some content sent by the users contains non-secure elements like images?

<comment><USER13> Good question. If you mean specifically getting around the "some objects on this page are insecure" popups, a trick I've seen work is to cut off the http protocol portion of remote URLs, forcing them to look like "//www.example.com/to/file.jpg".

<comment><USER14> That's just a link that's relative to the protocol, the same way /blah is relative to the protocol + host. If you load an https page with inlined image links like that, it'll attempt to hit those images over https as well.

This is fine if you control the source and can handle both http/https serving. It doesn't help for content inlined by users, though, it'll just result in broken images.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One objection to using HTTPS for everything that I occasionally see is the loading of 3rd party scripts (facebook, ad networks, etc.). The premise of the argument against using HTTPS is that these 3rd party scripts are only accessible via HTTP, so users of old versions of IE would get scary popup warnings.

The other interesting item from this article was that you should always load resources via HTTPS, because a malicious script would have control over the DOM. It seems like there is a need for some facility in browsers to let pages delegate limited privileges to 3rd party scripts (maybe only able to read/write in a certain div or something?), so that users can still be confident that their connection is secure.

<comment><USER16> If you have third party scripts on your page, you've already given away control of your page. A compromise on the third party's servers makes your site vulnerable as well. The safe thing to do is to fetch third party content server-side, massage it and then pass it on to your front end.

Naturally, this requires more work, and you'd probably end up getting rate limited since all API requests now come from a single IP (your server's) rather than each user's IP.

Alternately, you can iframe third party scripts (or depending on privacy requirements, you may need to double-iframe them), but this means that the script cannot directly interact with content on your page.

Trade-offs everywhere, which is why the architect of your system really needs to know what he or she is doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It'd be nice if HSTS also allowed you to limit the root CAs that should be signing your site's certificate.

</comment><comment><USER18> This does not fly with our BAFHs. They need to know the content :)

It would be nice if we can have integrity and authenticity without confidentiality.</comment>


My friend made an iphone game, just felt like sharing it, HUNGRY MONSTRS [VIDEO] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnli9E3GZU4

<comment><USER2> I enjoy games that utilize the power of the platform, this looks like a fun game that plays well with multitouch. Hopefully there is more to it though, at least increased complexity and gameplay challenges.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh wow, this would be SWEET with a TUIO-enabled multitouch. Imagine dragging like fifteen of those guys around at once. It'd be epic.</comment>


Introducing Courier Prime - <AUTHOR> http://johnaugust.com/2013/introducing-courier-prime <comment><USER2> My normal reaction to new versions of Courier to to cry ``Heresy!'' and back away from them. In this case, though, I'm actually really impressed.

I wouldn't use it in my terminal (I use Menlo), but for hardcopies, it's a great option. Courier New has always been a dreadful option.

</comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't figure out if it was about the typeface or if somebody slapped two Asus touchscreen panels together with a RaspberryPI.</comment>