Ask HN: What's a good response to "It's fine, I've got nothing to hide online"? - <AUTHOR> Whenever I try to explain my concerns about online data privacy to other people (family and friends, mostly), the most common response I get is:
"Oh it's fine, <Facebook/Google/etc> can collect whatever they want, I don't have anything to hide."
I try to explain that the kind of data collection (and use/sale) we see from these businesses can be a much bigger concern than just "Facebook knows where I work", but I can never really articulate my thoughts well.
What are some good ways to explain to (primarily non-technical) people why it might be worthwhile being more aware of what data is being collected on them? <comment><USER2> I would ask to rifle through their phone right in front of them.

There's a subtle difference between something you'd want to hide (because it could be incriminating) and something you don't want made public (because it could be embarrassing). I have nothing incriminating, but I have embarrassing stuff on my phone that I would rather nobody looked at.

A phone is an intensely personal device where a lot of your private data resides, and it can reveal a lot of intimate things about you and your relationship with others. Many people do understand this (at least at an instinctive level) and would balk at the idea of someone invasively reading all this stuff on their phone.

It's one I plan to use on airport security if they ever order me to decrypt my phone without a warrant.

<comment><USER3> Why would airport security care about your reasoning? They don't need a warrant when you're still outside the border, and they most likely are not in a position to bargain with you on what they may and may not do — and they probably won't respond favourably to any attempt to do so.

<comment><USER2> True on all counts, but it might make the person actually doing the search question their own motives for doing so. Just because they have the power to conduct random warrantless searches with no prior suspicion (which I totally abhor as it likely leads to racial profiling, like Stop and Search here in the UK), does not mean they need to use it.

Then again, I'm a university-educated white male. It'll probably never happen to me, but will disproportionately to others.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that security people have "motives" \- I think they have jobs. If their job requires asking random people to decrypt their phones, then attempting to enlighten them is only going to annoy them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think most people here are missing the point. You need not convince them that they _do_ have something to hide, or that other people have good reasons for hiding things.

The key point is that _you do not get to decide if you have something to hide_.

When you share data extensively with companies or the government, they now have the power to use it to make decisions about you. They may use that power in ways you disagree with. They may punish you for things you don't think are wrong, or deny you employment for reasons you think are stupid, and so on. It's not _your_ decision that you are perfect and have nothing to hide; _they_ get to use your data and decide that.

Daniel Solove has expressed a version of this argument before, that privacy is really about power, and it is compelling: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565)

Moxie Marlinspike makes a similar point that positive social changes, like acceptance of homosexuality or marijuana, require the ability to do socially disapproved things in private. With no privacy, the changes would never happen, because nobody would have been able to, say, privately have a same-sex relationship. [https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to- hide/](https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/)

<comment><USER6> The issue at it's most fundamental level is that people are putting things on Facebook (and other social networks) with an expectation of privacy in the first place. If you post something on Facebook, you have in fact decided that you do not have something to hide.

I care about my privacy, but everything I've put on Facebook is public as far as I'm concerned. I don't care that they are using that information to profile me and serve ads for things I might like because I posted there with full knowledge of that. If I want something to be private, I don't put it on Facebook (or other social networks).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember seeing a documentary featuring Edward Snowden, where he said something along the lines:

"Saying "I do not care about my privacy, because I have nothing to hide", is like saying "I do not care about freedom of speech, because I have nothing to say""

This explanation stuck with me, because I find it extremely useful in situations when explaining the importance of privacy online to non-technical people.

<comment><USER8> While a nice quote, It's not addressing _why_ privacy matters. Most people already have an understanding of why freedom of speech is important, but might not think privacy is as important. They could easily call this "comparing apples and oranges", a similar scenario to the one in the original post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A more aggressive example that seems to get the idea through to people:

> Would you be OK with the police installing a camera in your house? Don't > worry, they'll only look at it if they think you've done something wrong, > you can trust them on that. Totally. You've got nothing to hide, right?

I think non-tech people don't quite realise what sort of footprint they leave online, whereas the idea of a camera being in your home where someone may or may not be watching makes people feel quite uncomfortable. This is an opportunity to draw a parallel between the two.

I have found this argument to be effective in changing people's views on this topic.

<comment><USER10> I have found that many people are not really too concerned about it. There is a home security company here that sells an alarm system and one of the indoor movement sensor units has a built in camera.

No you do not have any access to the camera. No, there is no indication that it is active. No, you can not opt out. No, you can not see any source (I asked). "But it will only ever be used when there is an alarm to verify".

And most of the people go: "Sure, sounds reasonable!"

<comment><USER9> This feels maybe a little bit more reasonable because you installed the camera yourself and have contracted a company to monitor it. You can opt out by cancelling the contract.

In my example, the user has no choice, just as you frequently have no choice but to allow your web traffic or activity be monitored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've often found that people don't fully understand the staged process. The fact that, most of the time, it's not what you directly supply to a 3rd party (as that's often innocuous) But the fact that this can be used as a stepping stone to gaining other, more private details.

The example I often use (as it's actually happened to people) is the different usage of the last 4 digits of a bank card.

Some companies will freely throw this info around, as a convenience to the user. In emailed order confirmations, etc.

Other companies, however, use the last 4 digits of a card as a security measure To confirm you are the account holder, please supply the last 4 digits of the card used, or whatever.

Using social engineering, you can play these 2 companies off of each other, and possible gain some extra information A name, a billing address, or whatever.

I try to emphasis that you, the user, are not involved in this at all This is a person going back and forth between various company's call-centres using the info to gain more It's a to-and-fro, initially with only the innocuous information, but by the end you possibly have the authority to order something using the legit card and billing address but delivery to a PO box (sorry, UK terminology here, unsure what the US equiv. of a PO box would be, but delivery to a post office for collection)

I try to steer away from the more outlandish stuff (while true, and in use, people seem to dismiss them - like the recent psychological manipulation used on Facebook) I try to keep it simple, someone ordering some jewellery on your card and collecting it from a PO box, all completely without your knowledge

I also try to emphasis the importance of securing your email account. As someone with access to your email can run through the "I forgot my password" things on various popular sites.

I like the "last 4 digits of a card" thing, as most people have come across this difference User convenience vs. security measure But it's never registered as a potential problem

<comment><USER12> >I like the "last 4 digits of a card" thing, as most people have come across this difference User convenience vs. security measure But it's never registered as a potential problem

As someone who is against the facebook data slurp, this is something I'd never really noticed till just now either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well first remind them of the difference between secrecy and privacy:

"Hide? We all know what is done in the bathroom, yet we still close the door."

Then you might point out that it is not about _them,_ but the worst of everyone else, globally. Worst in business ethics, willingness to influence, extent of tracking, or criminality to steal a pw database - it matters little as there's someone covering _all_ of those options.

"Nothing to hide? What is your most unusual sexual fantasy, mother's maiden name, first pet, credit card PIN, FB and email password, SSN? I'll only mention them in one place online, delete after a day and pay back double what I spend."

<comment><USER14> The difference between secrecy and privacy is the key here. Emphasize that. People think they have nothing to _hide_ (implying secrecy or guilt), but they'll admit that there are things they want to keep to themselves.

There was a speaker on stage (sorry I forget the source) that asked an audience member up. The speaker asked the individual to read aloud her credit card number to the rest of the audience. She refused. He took it a step further -- he asked her to remove her clothes on stage. Again, she refused. Was she hiding something? Was she wielding a dangerous weapon under her clothes? Or was she reacting like most people presumably would by refusing to undress?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is maybe a controversial approach, but it works really well.

Agree with them and say it is fine you have nothing to hide at this moment, but you are not important now. There are politicians, high ranked officials and a lot of other people that impact your life without you knowing that they can be influenced/blackmailed because of the lack of privacy. Maybe your future self really dislikes your lack of hiding right now or some family member is becoming a public figure and you are a weak link because you can be blackmailed. You don't control the future, so you don't know what to hide.

This argument always worked/works for me :)

<comment><USER2> You could even paraphrase Martin Neimoller's well-known (if not the author himself, I didn't until I looked him up) poem[0]:

        First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

        Because I was not a Socialist.

        Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

        Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

        Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

        Because I was not a Jew.

        Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I think the message is just as relevant (and powerful) to personal liberties as it is to groups of people.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ask them if they are comfortable sharing their private facebook messages, emails, snapchats, contacts, map locations, and pictures with you upfront to look at.

Then show them this: [https://youtu.be/TX8MSZy5I3I](https://youtu.be/TX8MSZy5I3I)

Facebook, Google, Snapchat and other services that are "free" are doing this with your personal information for profit. If the CEO of Facebook doesn't want to give out his personal information carelessly, why should you?

</comment><comment><USER17> I always ask them to give me their phone for a few minutes so I can check their messaging history, invariably they refuse. Just ask them why.

<comment><USER18> This always works best yes, up until a person doesn't mind and you get to see things you rather not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

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

</comment><comment><USER20> Using police as an example since I don't trust Facebook at all.

For me the turning point was when I realised that while I have nothing to hide from police or governments today I might have something I wish to hide from governments in 2030.

For a real world example of this, see Turkey - a country that was quickly approaching western standards but turned around in less than 2 years.

Also, while I trust local police that most of them will not abuse their knowledge I don't trust them to keep that data safe from hacking for decades to come.

Also, while I've used (local) police as an example of someone I trust i do _not_ trust companies by default.

<comment><USER2> In the early years of Mao Zedong's China, the government appeared open and willing to listen to common people's ideas on how it should be run. Many, especially younger generations, were encouraged to openly express their opinions.

Shortly thereafter, Mao backtracked on the whole thing, surprising everyone, and labeled anyone who had spoken out as opposition; because people had publicly spoken out against the government, they were easily tracked down and imprisoned.[0]

What the government gives with one hand, it can easily take with the other. There is no reason to think such an event could not happen again, and that what you freely share today could be used against you at some time in the future.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd start with "it's not always about you" because it's likely to stop them in their tracks long enough to get a real explanation in. Stalkers, harassers, identity thieves, and other criminals routinely use perfectly innocent information about people to harm them. So do some parts of the government, unfortunately. Even if _you_ are not a target (which is less likely than you think), others certainly are. Children have nothing to hide either, but we still take extra privacy measures to protect them.

<comment><USER22> This is the argument I am using most of the time. Most people agree that there are malicious actors out there, and that many would be able to exploit free access to a person's personal data in some way.

Would you trust a burgular with your location data when you're on vacation? No? Neither would I.

Would you trust a business you barely know anything about to keep your location data out of the hands of someone who commits crime for a living? In my case, not a chance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I usually ask "So, if you have got nothing to hide, would you shower naked on your balcony for everyone to see?"

Normally you wouldn't, because there could be effects you find displeasing in the best case and harming in the worst case, such as getting ridiculed/discriminated/ostracized/etc.

Collecting private data about you can get you categorized in a similar way, carrying the same potential ill effects.

</comment><comment><USER24> "You're not just sharing your data with Facebook. You're sharing your data with Facebook _and anyone Facebook subsequently gives access to that data_. That's companies, governments, and individuals. You may trust Facebook, but do you trust _everyone_?"

</comment><comment><USER25> "The Netherlands used to keep track of people's religion as part of the public records. The intent was noble as always: by keeping track of how many Jews, Catholics, and Protestants there were in a city and its different parts, you would be able to plan for an appropriate amount of synagogues, Protestant churches, and Catholic churches, their proportion to one another, and so on.

Then, World War II came around.

There were almost no Jews at all in the Netherlands after World War II. According to Wikipedia, less than 10% survived (14,346, compared to an earlier population of 154,887). As it turns out, it was very convenient for the… new administration… to have access to the collected data, and it was indeed used against the citizens, as it always is in the end." \--

<comment><USER26> And that is why a proposed Muslim registry is chilling.

I don't know for sure, but were census records used to put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps in the US in WW2? Or was that based purely on looks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One might have nothing to hide from one's neighbor either, but one might wonder why he is keeping a detailed log of one's comings and goings, visitors, the times the bathroom light is turned on etc, as well as attaching tracking devices to one's car, bike, skis, and even clothing. One might get really uneasy if one finds out he has been collecting detailed information about one from the grocery store, gas station, movie theater, and restaurants etc.

Even if one is not doing anything wrong, one might feel uneasy about having a "permanent record" of all one's movements tied to one's full biometric information.

</comment><comment><USER28> I thought Senator Durbin phrased it well: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rTIKWURvbQ4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rTIKWURvbQ4)

</comment><comment><USER29> It is important to point out that the quality of the data is not important. There is no such thing as dangerous vs harmless data, because that quality completely depends on the context.

So I usually give a context in which "harmless" data can be misused to build trust for scamming schemes (something, that most people, that do not care about data privacy, fear a lot as real threat). I look, for example, in the fb-timeline of my counterpart and immediately come up with a story, how I, as a stranger with scamming intentions, would ring their doorbell and tell some story why I need to enter the house or collect some money or the like, making myself believable with the information I collected from the social media sites. In the same way I describe how I would draft a spear phishing mail, pretending to be some member of the inner circle by using public information of that circle.

Finally I point them to the contradiction, that they ask their neighbour to empty the mailbox during their vacation, so nobody can see they are away, but then they provide a live-coverage of their trip in social media. Once they get the picture, that the burglar might not be walking down the streets looking for overflowing mailboxes but rather investigate his potential victims on facebook, they start to reconsider the "I have nothing to hide"-opinion.

The trick is to set the topic into a context that is comprehensible and likely. People can often not imagine how their average lives could be interesting for corporates and governments - it is a perceived unlikelyness on a deeper level: not only do they believe that corporates and governments would not misuse privacy data, they cannot even see why such a misuse could be of any value. In their perception, there is no misuse, because there is no reason for misuse.

</comment><comment><USER30> IMO the economical argument is the most robust. I see it like this:

There is a big margin between

1) the amount of information that you are legally obligated to provide to public and private sectors

2) the amount information that can be mined about you through facebook and other services (+smart data-crunching)

Safeguarding that information that falls between 2 and 1 is not a matter of moral standpoints or having something to hide. It has only to do with a properly informed rational decision about your personal economy and your well being.

That information that you are willfully leaking will weaken your position in any future negotiation including, financial credit, insurance and employment among others. After Cambridge Analytica it is more clear than ever that it will also weaken your ability to protect yourself against well armed psychological manipulation.

and that is all assuming that public and private institutions do not make mistakes, that legal boundaries and procedures are flawless and that you leave in a well executed democracy.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Ok, then please tell me your pin code.", "How many times a week do you copulate?", "Can I take a look inside your house please".

"No? Why not, you had nothing to hide? So an automated system is allowed much more detailed information about you and making money with that data? But I can't have a look inside your drawers?"

</comment><comment><USER32> I always say "Oh, you might not, but some day somebody you love might find themselves in trouble, and your transparency may harm them. Example, if your kid says they were with you as an alibi when accused of a crime, but your Facebook profile says you were in Hawaii, your kid might be in serious trouble.

We also know that the government has stated in Congressional hearings they make networks of 6 degrees of separation. You might not be doing anything wrong but just happen to find yourself 2 degrees removed from a major child porn investigation. God forbid the way you connect to those awful people seems interesting to prosecutors. They will be so far up your backside, you will be tasting the law. Even if you are innocent, your life will be ruined with legal fees and you will be shunned by your community. This is my worst case scenario."

</comment><comment><USER33> I think the concerns over privacy online are overblown for many people but I try to be smart about what I do and put online. So I think part of it might be the framing of the situation. Rather than trying to convince them that they do actually have something to hide, it might be more effective to try to convince them that their attitude should be more like, "Don't put anything online that you don't want everyone to know" and also explain that there are people who do worry about things like people who have been in abusive relationships, people who might be in places where not being straight and cis gendered is not accepted and so on.

I think it might also be good to ask yourself, "What do I want to accomplish by convincing this person to be concerned about online privacy?" and think about ways to accomplish that goal.

</comment><comment><USER34> Some ones I've seen and liked -

"If you're not doing anything wrong in your living room, why draw the curtains?"

"We should save paper by sending people their bank statements on postcards. If you're not doing anything financially shady, you should be okay with the postman seeing it."

<comment><USER35> "Bank statements on a postcard"...this is the first time i heard this one...but, man, its a good one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Would they like FB, Google, eBay, Apple et al to know which banks they hold accounts with, how often they access them, from PCs and from their phones? Or what religion you may follow? Or your other personal preferences? Would they like such organisations to put together a profile of what they think the person is like, based on the web sites they use, when they use them, what they buy from them and more? And then for those profiles to be used by credit rating organisations, or by employers during recruitment processes, or by customs officials when entering a country? All of the above without your explicit permission, perhaps because someone you know has thought it was ok, and with no verification that their assessment of you is correct?

</comment><comment><USER37> Ask them what do states have to hide by having stuff classified as "top secret" or why do they run secret services. And why should I, as an individual, be transparent with an entity that is not transparent to me?

<comment><USER38> > Ask them what do states have to hide by having stuff classified as "top > secret" or why do they run secret services.

I'm as tinfoil hat wearing as they come but will still say that's a terrible answer. States have intelligence agencies and maintain secrecy for both security reasons (nuclear codes shouldn't be public right?) and privacy reasons of citizens involved (innocent till proven guilty).

> And why should I, as an individual, be transparent with an entity that is > not transparent to me?

The first half of that is enough to stand on its own. You shouldn't have to be transparent simply because that's your choice to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've been playing with this analogy for years and used it a few times but I don't know how effective it is.

Imagine you're having a party with friends. Just a regular party.

Now imagine a uniformed policeman says "I'm just going to attend your party hold this tape recorder. Don't worry about me. You won't have to interact with me. I'll just hang out and sit there. You aren't in trouble at all. I'm doing it in everyone's house."

Would your behavior change? Would you be slightly nervous? Will people truly let their guard down?

That's exactly what surveillance is. Except we don't see that cop in the room so it's hard for us to imagine.

</comment><comment><USER40> Would they be fine with random dude sitting in their kitchen watching them cook and what they put into fridge and take from it? Would they be fine with that dude watching their spouse, friends and kids too?

I think easiest way to get point of privacy to people is through their kids. Are they fine with some random people gathering a lot of data about their kids?

Besides all the analogies you have the right to privacy. Nobody should violate it just as nobody should violate your freedom, etc.

</comment><comment><USER41> I myself didn't care what information was collected about me. I liked the idea of having a smart digital assistant that knew more about me so I was fine offering up my info.

Then I realized that companies tracking me might financially cost me. Maybe it doesn't happen now, but if an airline knows I really need to get to my mother across the world because they know there's been a family death, they can charge me more? That thought made it click why I care about privacy.

<comment><USER42> This airline example has helped me convince many people that online privacy matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have enough of other people's secrets to protect even if I've got nothing to hide. Other people's secrets are not mine to reveal.

Who is secretly pregnant, who is gay or bi and travelling in areas where that is bad, who is cheating, medical history, information about smaller law transgressions.. All of these topics and more are taboo on electronic media for me.

</comment><comment><USER44> They may not care about their own privacy but they should care about privacy online as a whole because there are most definitely people who have legitimate reasons for privacy such as journalists, activists or politicians. If they don't care about online privacy ask them if they also don't care about racism because they are not black or a minority.

</comment><comment><USER45> Have them read this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security)

Relate to them how how little bits of data on Facebook is exactly the same exploitation vector for scams that enemies use in warfare (no exaggeration, it is literally the same).

<comment><USER3> Look at the page you are linking to though; it starts off with twentieth century propaganda posters — and just read that first paragraph!

Their response will be that they are not a target for such scams. They'll say they don't have any enemies. That they only share their holiday pictures after they get back (so criminals won't know that they are away, they're not stupid). OpSec? They'll kindly let you know that it doesn't apply to them.

And besides, admitting that leaving your private data all over the place means you'll be tracked, manipulated, monetized, and cloistered from anything outside of your comfortable bubble, would also mean accepting that the vast majority of society got it wrong.

Try overcoming that cognitive barrier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I tell them about this study I've read a few years ago: "it's possible accurately to predict divorces 18 months ahead using credit cards history". Then, I explain to them how much do fb/google/verizon knows about them. This is usually enough to get them to understand why privacy is so important.

</comment><comment><USER47> "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu)

</comment><comment><USER48> Tell people everything is sprayed with pesticides, and they respond "well I have to eat something".

Being aware of something isn't much help, they have to take action, so what action is required? Firefox? Linux? Tor?

If you enumerated all the steps they need to take, the effort required might start to seem unreasonable.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'd ask you what are you trying to hide..

Seriously though, this is a good read that still rings true. The author does a lot with both privacy and surveillance..

[https://www.danielsolove.com/nothing-to- hide/](https://www.danielsolove.com/nothing-to-hide/)

</comment><comment><USER50> The most correct answer is in fact, yes I do have something to hide from you. All this reasoning and rationalizing is a distraction from that main point. I have stuff I dont want other people to know, and there is nothing wrong with that.

</comment><comment><USER51> Lots of good responses here so I will add a tangent. I have often wondered what it would be like if we had total openness and everything everyone did and said was recorded and available to everyone. Would it be a nightmare or not?

<comment><USER2> I'm thinking of something along the lines of 'The Invention of Lying' but I don't think I can imagine anything worse...

<comment><USER51> It would certainly be very different. Everybody could lie, but probably nobody would given how easy it would be to check. It is certainly a thought I will explore as the consequences don't appear obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I would ask whether they would like a future employer to know they'd Googled the address of a Marijuana dispensary. Or their employer to know that they'd looked at [insert kink here] porn.

</comment><comment><USER53> I have nothing to hide about my bathroom activity, but I'd feel uneasy having a Dump Indicator Light installed above my front door.

</comment><comment><USER54> You're wasting your time arguing with people like that.

Explain the facts and if they choose to stand naked in the street wearing a "kick me" sign then that's their choice. (just an expression)

</comment><comment><USER55> Ask them:

"Why are you wearing pants? Are you hiding some kind of grotesque deformation under there?"

Then tell them they can be a data-nudist if they really want to, but that's not how you like doing things.

</comment><comment><USER56> I always use the holocaust argument where nobody cared who knew their religion they had nothing to hide, ppl dont realise how horribly seemingly harmless data can be abused.

</comment><comment><USER57> When the nazis took power in some countries and they could just get out official lists about who is jew and who isn't.

</comment><comment><USER58> May I suggest reminding people of Martin Niemöller's famous statement post WWII? It begins "When [they] came for the socialists, I remained silent. I was not a socialist." It ends, "When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."

This exaggerates the downside of handing over lots of information to a third party to use however they please. But it points out the assumption that "I", whoever "I" happens to be, am somehow privileged above "them." It's remarkably easy for "I" to turn to "them."

<comment><USER2> Ah, you beat me to it, I quoted it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> "so, show me your deductions on your taxes for the last decade. no reason, really, i'm just curious..."

</comment><comment><USER60> "You many not have something to hide, but you have something to protect"

</comment><comment><USER61> Just ask them to post their social security number and credit cards.

</comment><comment><USER62> Will you disclose how much money you've in your bank a/c

</comment><comment><USER63> In this day and age you should be able to convince them pretty easily by saying imagine Trump/Hillary (choose according to their anti preference) has access to this data and uses it to surpress dissent.

</comment><comment><USER64> "I do."

<comment><USER65> yeah, pretty much this. The problem with people willing to share everything is that they don't realize they're also sharing data about other people. Classic example would be address books that many apps are allowed to read.This can be dangerous for journalists or whistle blower as it becomes easier to infer their whereabouts.

The more general problem is that social media gives away a high resolution model of how a certain society is functioning. The danger here is that someone else knows more about a group of people than the members themselves. Anyone who gets hold of the data can use it as a great foundation for social engineering. Be it rulers of countries that slipped into dictatorship, black hat hackers or terrorists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Shhh, adults are talking.

</comment><comment><USER67> If you need to post this here because you can't come up with a good response yourself, it's because they're right. And no, I'm not trying to troll</comment>


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I just got the landing page live to see if people like the idea. Feedback's welcome/

<comment><USER2> That seems interesting. I have some understanding of technical indicators; any good reading material, you suggest?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a little on medium to help explain how few indicators can be used. check them @ [https://medium.com/@shakks](https://medium.com/@shakks)

Also, check out [https://www.barchart.com/education/technical- indicators](https://www.barchart.com/education/technical-indicators) for details of most of the indicators. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now this looks some top end tool which I was looking for. Love the work this team has put in. Hoping to see a lot of success for you guys.

</comment><comment><USER4> Love the UI. Looks so neat!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, A awesome friend of mine helped us out. He is really talented designer. I will convey your message.:-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Month in San Fransico, what to do? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am a computer science student from Latvia. (Studying my masters now in Italy.)
With the university we are making a trip to Silicon Valley from 20.07 to 29.08. The first two week will be visiting a lot of companies. Of course Google campus :). The 4 weeks in August I will be having a observatory internship in StartupHouse. But the evening and weekends I would like to use as good as I can.
Anyone wants to drink a coffee with me? Any meet-ups in August you would suggest me? Looking forward to an amazing time in the Valley. <comment><USER2> I am new to the valley and always enjoy meeting new people, shoot me an email when you get to town, I'd be more than happy to grab coffee or whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, will definitely do.</comment></comment>


Mark Cuban Is Wrong. If You Work, You Should Get Paid for It - <AUTHOR> https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/mark-cuban-wrong-paid-172936643.html

<comment><USER2> Mark Cuban has been a long time supporter of Objectivism, its not surprising he'd be dead wrong on a lot of basic political and economic commonalities.

As an example a quote from Objectivism's Founder:

"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent."</comment>


Mailgun IMAP/POP Mailbox EOL - <AUTHOR>

Received this from mailgun: "You are receiving this email because we have identified you as a user of Mailgun POP3/IMAP mailboxes. We've previously communicated that we will be disabling all POP3/IMAP mailboxes."<p>Obviously they (rackspace) can't give away something they would prefer to sell for $5/mo. Has anyone found a similar service that hasn't sold out yet and is not priced per mailbox? <comment><USER2> Mailgunner here. That's actually not the reason we end of life's the product. It just wasn't very popular unfortunately. If it was, we probably would have keep it. This was actually what we thought would be one of the coolest features of mailgun, but it never took off. Sorry you won't be able to use it anymore. Obviously you were a happy user. I wish there had been more! Btw, Rackspace email is $2/box not $5. Any they have reseller plans that cut cost even more. Not free but still really cheap. Good luck with your search!

<comment><USER3> I started using Mailgun recently - and I wasn't aware that you had this as a feature, or I would have been using it.

The only use case you really market is as an API. At least that I've been exposed to, across several channels, after actively investigating which ESP I wanted to use, after actively paying attention to marketing from you and your main competitors for several years. So...yeah.

I can find documentation easily enough now that I know to check the docs for it, but maybe it's more an issue with publicizing this aspect of the service?

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the comments. We hid the feature for a year once we announced the end-of-life so that's probably why you didn't know about it. Before that, it was a major part of our website/marketing. This is one of the tough things about a SaaS business, figuring out where to focus. Curious how others have handled making end of life product decisions.

<comment><USER3> That's often the best way to handle it, yeah.

I'm curious what motivated the switch-off - compared to the LTV-weighted number of users attracted or retained, was it consuming too much support time, compute resources, dev maintenance hours, team mindshare?

It seems like a case of "this isn't working for us so we need to stop having it on our list of things to think about," but maybe there were other inciting factors for the EOL decision?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Macintel: The End Is Nigh - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/08/03/macintel-the-end-is-nigh <comment><USER4> _What would happen to the cost, battery life, and size of an A10-powered MacBook Air?_

It would be worse in almost every aspect.

The cost wouldn't change much, and Apple wouldn't profit much more from the switch. The cited CPU cost is the _suggested retail price_. Apple's volume lets them negotiate huge discounts.

Battery life would go up a bit, but battery life is already pretty good on Apple laptops. My 2013 11" Air gets 8 hours easily, but can go as long as 12 or as short as 2 depending on screen brightness and CPU usage. Unless you're keeping the CPU busy, the screen is the biggest consumer of power. Cutting CPU power consumption in half would only increase battery life by 20-ish%.

The PowerPC to Intel transition worked for several reasons. Most importantly, Intel CPUs were much faster than PowerPC. In everyday usage, the fastest ARM chips are 10x slower than a quad-core Haswell. Moving to x86 also increased the features of Macs, allowing them to dual-boot Windows and efficiently virtualize other x86-based OSes. Switching to ARM would backtrack on both fronts. An ARM-based Apple laptop would have no boot camp, no Windows virtualization, and no efficient emulation of legacy applications.

CPUs are only a small part of why tablets have longer battery life than laptops. Tablets have no keyboard, trackpad, or hinge, so they can basically be a giant battery with a screen attached. The iPad has a bigger battery than the 11" MacBook Air, despite the Air weighing 50% more and taking up 30% more volume. (Edit: This has recently changed. The 11" Air has a 38 watt-hour battery. The iPad 3 and 4 had a 42 watt-hour battery, but the iPad Air has a 32 watt-hour battery. Still, it's even smaller than the earlier iPads, massing less than half the 11" Air.)

In short, it doesn't seem worthwhile to do all this work and sacrifice so much performance for some incremental increases in battery life and profit.

<comment><USER5> You say that ARM chips are 10x slower than Haswells, but the difference isn't actually that large anymore and for Apple's A7 it's around 3x versus a normal desktop chip like the 4770 and only 1.7X versus the 4250U you'd find in a Macbook Air[1]. Diminishing returns is a constant factor in engineering and I'd expect it to be very hard for Apple to make up the remaining distance between themselves and Intel, but we shouldn't exaggerate how large that difference is. And it is possible that some hypothetical A8 could be made competitive with Intel in the 15W range due to not having to make the compromises required to hit 4 GHz.

I do agree that the ~10W you'd save by using an A7 versus an 4250U in a Mackbook Air would be a false economy.

EDIT: To explain that bit about targeted power ranges a bit more, to hit high frequencies at a given process node (like 45 nm or whatever) you need to break up your logic into a fairly high number of simple stages separated by clock driven latches. A core that doesn't worry about hitting high frequencies can divide up it's logic into fewer stages, simplifying design and requiring fewer transistors for latching.

[1][http://www.computingcompendium.com/p/arm-vs-intel- benchmarks...](http://www.computingcompendium.com/p/arm-vs-intel- benchmarks.html)

<comment><USER4> I think GeekBench is a poor benchmark, since it's measuring peak CPU performance in a narrow domain, but the table you cited shows that the 4770 is 6.5x faster than the A7 (16774 vs 2564). Even at the same frequency and core count, Haswell is 1.8x faster in the benchmark.

Whatever the exact number, it doesn't invalidate the point I was making: Switching to ARM will ruin performance for x86 programs, which need to be emulated. ARM has to be significantly faster than x86, or else the emulation overhead will make users hate the transition.

This is a huge challenge for the Mac Pro and rMBP, which are all about performance. Generally, a given microarchitecture can only scale TDP by a factor of 10 by changing frequency and number of cores. Satisfying the pro line would require a new microarchitecture. Considering an x86 to ARM transition would take 1-2 years, that's asking a lot of Apple's chip designers. If Apple was going to go through all the trouble of building a new ARM core for high-performance, high-TDP applications, they might as well build their own x86 CPU. It would save a transition and the necessary emulation overhead. They could roll it out for the MacBook Airs first, then address the Pro line at their leisure (or not and just use Intel CPUs).

<comment><USER5> I was looking at the single threaded numbers because those are usually more relevant to what you would be doing on most Macbooks.

<comment><USER6> Citation needed.

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law) perhaps. Single threaded speed is most relevant to software because it's difficult to make it take advantage of multiple cores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The aging x86 architecture is beset by layers of architectural silt accreted from a succession of additions to the instruction set... Because of this excess baggage, an x86 chip needs more transistors than its ARM-based equivalent"

I wish people would stop saying this. On the inside, x86 CPUs are basically RISC. There is a translation layer from the publicly facing instruction layer to the internal representation. The transistor and power budget for this translation layer is absolutely trivial.

Intel has an enormous amount of expertise in the actual manufacturing and design layers, as evidenced by the rate of improvement in their Atom CPUs (striking range of ARM, actually), integrated GPUs, and quasi-GPU compute cards. They are not in danger of "losing" in the long term in a performance or performance / watt race. The risk is they get disrupted due to all CPUs turning into a commodity in roughly the same way that RAM is a commodity.

<comment><USER9> Intel chips even support 16-bit processing. How is that not baggage?

<comment><USER10> An 8086 had <30k transistors. Haswell is well over a billion. They could add a hundred dedicated 8086 cores to Haswell and you wouldn't notice the difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the article:

      > Because of this excess baggage, an x86 chip needs more
      > transistors than its ARM-based equivalent, and thus it
      > consumes more power and must dissipate more heat.

This is true but it ignores the primary reality of "desktop class" processor design today: _RAM is the bottleneck in a really major way and most of a desktop class CPU 's transistors are dedicated to overcoming this._

In the ancient days, CPUs ran synchronously (or close to it) with main memory. Hasn't been that way for decades. CPU performance has ramped up so much more quickly than that of main memory that it's ridiculous.

And this is where most of your transistors are spent these days - finding ways to allow the CPU to do some useful work while it sits around waiting for main memory. Look at a modern i5 CPU die:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=intel+core+i5](https://www.google.com/search?q=intel+core+i5)

Things to note: \- Tons of L1/L2/L3 cache so we can keep things in fast memory. The transistors dedicated to cache _dwarf_ those allocated to the actual processing cores, let alone the parts of those processing cores dedicated to those crufty ol' x86 instructions \- Lots of transistors dedicated to branch prediction and speculative execution so we can execute instructions before we've even waited around for the data those instructions depend upon to arrive from slow-ass main memory

Sure, mobile ARM chips are tiny and efficient! They run at 1-2GHZ while paired with fast RAM that's not _that much_ slower than their CPUs. They don't need to devote gobs and gobs of transistors to speculative execution and branch prediction and cache.

But all that changes if you want to scale an ARM chip up to perform like a "desktop-class" Intel chip. You want to add cores and execution units? If you want to keep them fed with data and instructions you're going to need all that extra transistor-heavy baggage and guess what -- now you're just barely more efficient than Intel, _and_ you can't match Intel's superior process technology that's been at least a transistor shrink or two ahead of the competition since the dawn of the semiconductor industry.

Eventually, yes, the ARM chip makers will solve this. RAM will get faster and processes will be enshrinkified. Just understand that transistor size and pokey RAM are the bottlenecks, not that nasty old x86 instruction set.

<comment><USER12> Problem here is that you are mixing memory latency and memory bandwidth together. We have memory that can easily sustain 16 simultaneous cores in bandwidth (and honestly, memory bandwidth potential is mostly untapped - <USER2> only see higher bandwidth benefits for integrated GPUs because they have many more execution units demanding more data).

Meanwhile, the latency has been getting worse. The refresh rates increasing abates it slightly but all the indirection to make high bandwidth ram, plus the commoditization of ram to make high capacity rather than "fast" (transitor only memory like cache shows what is possible for orders of magnitude more complexity and cost).

Adding more cores doesn't impact that latency at all, it just demands more bandwidth. If anything, the diminishing returns of what Intel has done - dedicating a lot of per-core die to prediction just to throw away computations because the per core power is too high - make less sense than just putting a lot more dumb cores on the die.

But then you get GPUs. Shitty latency, huge bandwidth, huge flops, terrible context switching, etc.

It is worth mentioning that both sides of the equation are doing the same thing, though. RAM makers are dedicating a majority of the silicon on ram modules to controllers to accelerate lookup, rather than actual capactive storage.

For the average user, you don't need that hugely complex Haswell logic. Tablet class performance for the web, office suites, and even programming sans compiling are all perfectly competent. If we wrote better software that utilized all the available cores sooner, we would have gone down the route of 16 - 32 core main CPUs instead of extreme precomputation. That has a lot more potential performance, but it requires the software to use it.

ARM is kind of uniquely poised to do that as well. Most of its ecosystem is fresh, it went through an extremely fast multicore expansion, and its architecture lends itself to more cores instead of trying the "dedicate everything to offsetting slow memory" problem. If software architects started writing their programs to be core-variable as possible, ARM might be the first realistic platform to break consumer 16 core computing, because the Windows world is frozen in time.

<comment><USER13> 1\. Memory isn't just slow because they went for capacity not performance (except vacuously), it's slow because of the laws of physics. c.f. L3 memory is made of the same stuff as registers but takes about 30 times longer to access. 2\. No, adding lots of dumb cores makes no sense. 3\. GPUs are useful because many tasks are embarrassingly parallel. Many more are not. 4\. 'If we wrote better software' adding many more cores increases the difficulty of reasoning about software hugely. Many tasks are not easily performed in parallel, or the speedup is not impressive enough. Most operating systems (my guess is that OS X is included) will choke if you give them too many threads - performance drops hugely, or many threads are left totally idle. This is due to lock contention etc. 5\. Of course no-one 'needs' that Haswell logic - <USER3> it's sure nice having my computer do stuff quickly. My top-of-line phone struggles to play through its animations properly, and loading websites frequently takes a while. Good-enough is not really a good place to be. Furthermore, greater performance motivates more demanding applications. 6\. We dedicate everything to offsetting slow memory because it's the only way to get good performance from the majority of tasks. Sure if your task can be handled by a GPU, by all means run it on a GPU. For those that cannot, we have a CPU. There's a reason why the iPhone and iPad only have two cores - it's not worth their while adding more but does add lots of cost and complexity.

<comment><USER11>
      > Memory isn't just slow because they went for capacity
      > not performance (except vacuously), it's slow because
      > of the laws of physics.

Yes. The farther away RAM is from the CPU code, the more stuff needs to happen before it can get into those precious, precious registers. Even if data from main memory didn't have to travel over a bus/switch/etc between the DIMM and the CPU, it's not physically possible (in any practical sense) to have main memory running at anything close to the speed of the CPU once we're talking about multi-GHZ CPUs. DIMMs and the CPU are running on separate clocks, you have the sheer _distance_ and the speed of electrons through the metal to consider, etc.

      > There's a reason why the iPhone and iPad only have two
      > cores - it's not worth their while adding more but does
      > add lots of cost and complexity.

Yes! There's a reason why the A7 in my iPhone 5S blows away the quad-core ARM chip in my 2012 Nexus 7. That reason is because "adding more dumb cores" is not the answer to anything, aside from marketing goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it's funny that the main reason people cite the need to switch from Intel to ARM is power consumption. A big reason to stay on Intel is that a lot of people have real needs to run Windows software (whether in Bootcamp or a VM). Switchers feel a lot better jumping to the Mac if they could fall back to Windows if they wanted to.

Regarding battery life: The latest MacBooks get 9-12 hours of battery life. I haven't experienced battery anxiety on a Mac in a long time. In contrast, my iPhone is dead by the end of the day and watching it creep below 50% makes me start thinking about the nearest Lightning adapter (yes, I understand the Mac has a _much_ larger battery and cell radios are power hungry).

Put another way, max power consumption on an iPad Air is ~11W[1]. The max power draw on a Haswell MacBook Air is 15-25W (~50% improvement in battery life from 2012 to 2013, which had 21-34W max draw)[2][3]. Given that Macs have more space available for batteries due to larger screens and the need for keyboard and trackpad, I don't see power consumption argument holding water.

[1]: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air- review/3](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air-review/3)

[2]: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/6063/macbook-air-13inch- mid-20...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6063/macbook-air-13inch- mid-2012-review/7)

[3]: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/7180/apple-macbook- air-11-2013...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7180/apple-macbook- air-11-2013-review/2)

<comment><USER15> I recently switched back to Mac for the first time since 2006 and one of the factors in my decision is that I can run other x86 compatable OSes. I haven't felt the need to but it is nice to have the option.

<comment><USER16> Compatibility with x86 is a lot like why people don't buy purely electric cars. Being able to run another OS is much like being able to take a very long road trip.

<comment><USER17> That's why I like BMW's solution for their i3. It's a purely electric car, but if range anxiety is an issue, you can option a tiny petrol engine from a scooter that acts purely as a generator to charge the battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The real weakness of Intel in power consumption relative to ARM hasn't been so much in the chips as the chip sets, software and the balance-of-system.

To create a low power system, ALL components need to be low power, and it is easier to start from a system built to be low power and scale up capabilities rather than go the other way around.

For instance, I have a Windows-based laptop which is a great machine, but if I have a web browser open, any web browser, the fan spins, it gets hot, and battery life is less than 1.5 hours.

Is it the fault of Windows, the browser vendors, the web platform, adware, crapware, who knows what? It doesn't matter, but controlling power consumption on a legacy platform is a game of whac-a-mole that doesn't end.

Because Windows users expect to plug in devices that draw power from USB, a Windows tablet has to have a huge power transistor to regulate voltage, a power supply system scaled up so it can supply enough power through the USB port to charge an Android tablet, at this point you might add the fan and then you are doomed.

<comment><USER19> To me it seems mostly a problem of unwalled garden. When Apple owns the platform from the silicon to the development environment, it's easier for them to manage power. Wintel on the other hand has so much variety all the way down the software stack and even into hardware, it is more difficult to control... x86+Linux (Lintel?) suffers the same problem.

The unwalled garden can still be made low power. Android has set an example of tackling that problem with the battery tracker, which profiles which application is chewing up battery.

For power over USB, what do you mean? My Android cell phone can power keyboards, flash drives, and the like with an OTG cable. It certainly has no fan.

<comment><USER20> If you think Android isn't a walled garden (unless you mean non-Google Android?) then the devil has convinced you he doesn't exist.

<comment><USER19> It is at least much _less_ of one than iOS

<comment><USER20> Which may appeal to you as a developer, but from a user perspective, that isn't a good thing.

Consider this analogy: Would you buy an "open-source" deadbolt for your house? Great feature for aspiring locksmiths! But very likely not such a great feature for 99.9% of home owners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apple does look like it's making chips to handle heavy workloads, not just to compete with the latest Krait or whatever. But I'm not sure ARM Macs are the direction they'll take that.

It'd make some business sense for them to instead position iOS so it can take over more and more traditional Mac duties. The IBM push could be an example of that. Investing in iOS gives Apple the tight control and the 30% cut they're used to from that space, and it avoids the Windows-RT-ish heartbreak of "why is this ARM OS like my Intel OS but without all my apps?" (If there _were_ Mac-on-ARM, I'd expect it to be Mac App Store only.)

Anyway, the A7 is already a beast ([http://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples- cyclone-microarchi...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone- microarchitecture-detailed) does various measurements, [http://cryptomaths.com/2014/04/29/benchmarking-symmetric- cry...](http://cryptomaths.com/2014/04/29/benchmarking-symmetric-crypto-on- the-apple-a7/) is an interesting case study), and there are still future process nodes and microarchitecture changes that will let them make better chips. I don't know if an ARM MacBook Air is specifically where this goes, but they're certainly making ARM capable of more serious stuff.

<comment><USER22> > why is this ARM OS like my Intel OS but without all my apps?

The problem should be much smaller on OS X than on Windows. Apple has a culture of breaking things regularly, instead of worshipping backwards compatabillity.

The result is that most Mac apps are kept up to date by the developer. Recompiling for an arm-based OS X shouldn't be an issue.

<comment><USER23> > The result is that most Mac apps are kept up to date by the developer.

That's _maybe_ true for indie developers. It's not generally true for things like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, MATLAB, Mathematica, Skype, and dozens of other major titles that would likely be complete dealbreakers for a pretty significant portion of their userbase.

<comment><USER24> Apple kept Carbon (the OS9 to OS X transitional bindings) around for so long because of Photoshop and Office.

From personal experience, I can tell you that this does not happen with big software. Apple released the first Intel Macs in early 2006. The next year Intuit released Quicken 2007 which was PPC only.

The first version of Quicken to be x86 for Mac was Quicken Essentials 2010. First of all that's _four_ years after the transition. Second, Quicken Essentials was crippled. Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

> Some of the features of Quicken are not present in Quicken Essentials for > Mac, such as the ability to track investment buys and sells or to pay bills > online from the application.

So unless you wanted something ultra-basic you were screwed. Intuit's answer was that they'd give you a free copy of Quick '08 for Windows. All you needed to do was buy Parallels (etc.) and Windows.

This was a big problem because OS X finally dropped PPC emulation support, called Rosetta, in 2011 with the release of Lion. So after 5 years Intuit, a VERY big company, was unwilling to update their software or provide a real equivalent for their Mac users.

If you look at the announcements for each version of Adobe Creative Suite for Mac you'll find references to starting to use features of the OS that Apple introduced years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm saddened that nobody ever brings up video games when talking about these architectural shifts. Practically all PC games in the past few decades have been written for x86, and most of them will never be patched for ARM compatibility. These games are as important to many of us as movies or music, and yet I fear they're destined to disappear from our cultural memory if this shift ever happens. Virtualization just won't cut it; most modern games barely even run with Wine, to say nothing of performance. And given the slowing of Moore's law, we can no longer count on emulation to give us seamless reproductions a few years down the line. Does nobody care? Why doesn't anyone say anything? I love my Mac, but if I have to choose between ARM and my Steam library, I'll choose Steam and begrudgingly go back to whatever Windows version still supports it.

On a related note, I think it's important to differentiate between utility software that's assumed to be temporary, and one-off pieces of software that are intended to live forever. I wish there was an easier way to write software in such a way that it can easily be guaranteed to run in the future, no matter the architecture. (Open source is not a guarantee. Ever try compiling the source to a AAA game?)

<comment><USER26> > I wish there was an easier way to write software in such a way that it can > easily be guaranteed to run in the future, no matter the architecture.

Opening the source would help quite a lot with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If this happens I hope entry level Mac's get below $500. I bought a MacBook Air for use as a Windows machine with the plan to learn iOS development at some point. It was worth the cost since I can use it as my day to day machine running Windows. I wouldn't be able to justify spending $1000 on a Mac Laptop that could not run Windows. I could justify $400 for an entry level Mac Mini running ARM but not a lot more then that.

<comment><USER28> I find the "Apple is too expensive" argument to hold little water when you really look at it. I won't argue that up front you will pay more for the lowest-end Apple laptop/desktop over a Windows laptop/desktop but in my experience Apple products hold their value much better than any Dell/HP/etc product. Even if you hate OS X then you still are better off buying an Apple laptop and running Windows than you are buying a Windows laptop. The hardware is more reliable, the resale value is greater, and they look 100x better than anything else out there.

Comparing a Dell XPS to a Macbook Pro Retina with the very similar stats (CPU/RAM/HD), the Mac has a few better specs, leaves us with a price difference of $100 in Dell's favor but I can promise you that the MBPr will resale for much higher than the XPS in 1-2 years time. I had friends in college that always would joke that I paid a small fortune for my MBP ($1500) however these were the same people who would buy a $500 laptop every year or so because their bargain bin laptops just didn't last long before they started having hardware issues or massive slowdowns. My MBP ran quite smoothly for 2.5 years before I needed a faster CPU (I'm a developer) and I sold my machine for $900 which resulted in an operating cost of $240/yr for the period I owned it.

<comment><USER29> It is exactly for this reason my next laptop will be a MBP running Linux (I have zero interest in MacOSX).

I bought a mid level Vostro a while back and it is absolute piece of shit.

Touch pad detects my palm from across the room but is inaccurate when I actually touch it, screen is mediocre and lets dust in constantly, keyboard is mushy with no positive click.

The spec looked good and Vostro's _used_ to be ok, the Vostro 1700 I had prior was a fine machine.

It's so bad I've found myself using my ancient Thinkpad (Celeron M) when I have to do a lot of typing.

<comment><USER30> Check out the current Thinkpads; they might also have something that suits you.

<comment><USER29> Thanks I will :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> These arguments make no sense. Aside from anything else, the computing power of the Mac I'm currently using—quad 2.4GHz Ivy Bridge—is so far in excess of anything that is available in the ARM architecture that it's difficult to see this being the case at any point.

<comment><USER32> There are people building serious 64 bit arm chips, for server type applications. No idea what actual performance will be yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm probably in the vast minority, but I tend to use apple hardware to run windows... so I'm hoping this doesn't come to pass. I use OSX occasionally, but the thing that got me to switch to apple in the first place was bootcamp.

<comment><USER34> It's quite possible that ARM Macs will run Windows. Windows RT already runs on ARM, and Microsoft seems to be moving in the direction of embracing alternative platforms (see how they push Azure for iOS). They'd sell more Windows licenses and gain more users, and at worst they'd lose some Surface sales.

Whether Apple would allow it is a different question.

<comment> shawn-butler WindowsRT is a dead man walking.

I wouldn't predict a long maintenance life for it. Surface2 and the Nokia 2520 is about all the hardware left running it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Losing native Windows virtualization seems like a big deal. That was a huge selling point with the switch to Intel. It's become indispensable for many Mac users and was the reason many Windows users were able to switch.

Unless Microsoft also drops Intel, I don't see this happening.

</comment><comment><USER36> The "transitions" comments leave out a big piece of functionality; certainly big for me, and I imagine big for others. That's VMs for Windows and Linux. I have all kinds of Linux VMs I run on my Mac, and I imagine others that need "that one Windows app" run Windows a lot in VMWare and VirtualBox. Going to ARM would torch a big part of Mac functionality for me.

</comment><comment><USER37> From what i've understood from benchmarks and reviews the latest Intel atom processors have a better power/performance ratio then arm processors. I'm not sure if the performance/price ratio is better though, does anyone know?

</comment><comment><USER38> If Apple were to switch from Intel, I'd probably have to (reluctantly) go back to a Windows laptop. I love my MacBook, but most of my money is still earned working with clients who use Windows environments. There's still some software that never made the jump to Mac either, for which I still have to use Parallels Desktop. The best bit of having a Mac is that I can run OS X, Windows & Linux all on the same box.

Of course, if Apple is also making their own x86 compatible chips, that's a different story. I don't need an Intel chip specifically, I just need something that runs Windows / x86 perfectly....

</comment><comment><USER39> As much as i want this to happen. I dont see this coming in the near future. Why would they release the new MacPro with Intel Xeon if they had ever planned to switch away? And would MacPro be staying in x86 land if Apple decide to switch the rest to ARM?

Another obstacle is Thunderbolt. This DisplayPort + External PCI-Express Cable is totally in control by Intel. AMD's version is based on USB 3, which is an ugly hack that Apple will unlikely use.

The performance gap between Haswell and A7 is huge. Watts to Watts, at Notebook / Desktop power range Intel wins hands down. Although the gap is shrinking with each Ax SoC.

Then there is the part about Intel Atom losing on performance. Which is wrong. Intel Atom SoC performs really well. It didn't get much wins simply because of its ecosystem and prices.

The Mobile SoC market are operating at thin margin comparatively speaking. Even if Intel are offering Atom at the same price, why would any OEM wants to be bound by Intel & x86 again? So Intel decide to offer those SoC at a lost and what happened? On the Western world it is dominated by Qualcomm where it offer better solution or cheaper TC with its integrated Modem. In Eastern World or China it is hit by "8 Core" marketing team from MediaTek. Everyone thoughts more Core = better.

I dont see how Intel is going win this Mobile battle. Apple will pretty much drive Intel to where they want, which is to Fab SoC for them.

</comment><comment><USER40> I blogged about this in April. [http://vishaldoshi.me/2014/04/25/apple- intc/](http://vishaldoshi.me/2014/04/25/apple-intc/)

It looks like Chromebooks are a very popular format and I think an ARM based 'AirBook' could compete in that space.

Napkin Math

MacBook Air current generation (mid-2013) retail price: $999 ($1099 for 13″ model with same CPU).

Intel Core i5-4250U, Tray: $315, [http://ark.intel.com/products/75028/](http://ark.intel.com/products/75028/) (sure Apple will be getting large discounts on this, but it can't be that large, since $INTC has ~60% gross margin overall)

Apple A7, Tray: $20 (estimated)

Intel Atom E3827, Tray: $41

Tray = 1000 pcs;

The Core i5 has a 15W TDP; 1.3 Ghz clock (turbo to 2.6Ghz); 2 cores, 4 threads. Sunspider 250ms.

The Apple A7 has a 2W TDP; 1.3Ghz clock; 2 cores, 2 threads. Sunspider 397 ms.

[http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4250U-vs- Apple-A7](http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4250U-vs-Apple-A7)

It's not looking all that different! Esp. when you take into account that the A8 will be twice as fast (think Tegra K1) – i.e – a Sunspider score of 200ms maybe?

</comment><comment><USER41> Had a hard time loading it, so here's the cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SDIaXc5...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SDIaXc5Z72sJ:www.mondaynote.com/2014/08/03/macintel- the-end-is-nigh/)

</comment><comment><USER42> The Windows kernel guys were evaluating ARM systems for us, and the gist was "Run away, don't walk; the memory systems on those things are terrible."

I like the ARM architecture a lot. It's simple and easy to write software for, all the way from embedded controller stuff to "real" operating systems. But they're not all that great at doing massive computation. We were going to use one in the video path of a popular gaming system for a while, and it turned out to be inadequate by at least an order of magnitude (probably a factor of 100, but comparing CPU cycles to GPU cycles is pretty unfair).

Intel is executing really well, and it'll probably take an alien invasion to dethrone them.

<comment><USER43> When was this? ARM historically has abysmal memory systems, but there have been significant improvements over the past few years (I don't know that they've caught up, but they are in a different league from about 5 years ago or so).

<comment><USER42> Within the last three years, but projecting availability out about a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Apple needs x86 to run existing apps. Who would accept a a big slow down for a slightly cheaper laptop. x86 intel chips are a RISC design with a glue layer which grafts x86 on the outside. Could Apple design an x86 chip with an ARM RISC core hidden inside? Sounds pretty complicated, I doubt they have a big enough hardware engineering team. If there was an ARM core inside could it be exposed for recompiled software to take advantage of it? Big issues managing state/contention between 2 different ISAs?

</comment><comment><USER45> This is a horribly low-quality article. The central proposition is _entirely analyst speculation_ , with no actual information to hook it onto that doesn't date back years. The author appears, from how he gets details subtly wrong, not to actually know anything about the history of CPUs (and not to have bothered e.g. checking Wikipedia).

There is nothing here that is backed-up news whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER46> According to Geekbench the current CPU in the iPad Air (the A7) scores about the same as a Core 2 Duo from 2006 (the E6600). Nothing to sneeze at and definitely getting close to the low power Haswell CPU's in systems like the Macbook Air. But I reckon it'll be a few generations of A series CPU's before they reach the point where they can challenge Intel for the crown

</comment><comment><USER47> For someone who's not very knowledgeable about architecture shifts, what software changes would be require to make this happen? I'd assume that the Mac OSX itself might be able to make the shift easily, given that Swift and ObjC code seems to run on both iOS/ARM devices and MacOS/x386 machines. What else will have to change? Or is this purely a hardware choice?

<comment><USER48> The fact that iOS shares a _lot_ of the same code as OS X will make this a much easier transition. Apple can take a lot of the low-level stuff from iOS, where they've had years to figure out how to get Darwin working smoothly on ARM.

Beyond that, all apps on the OS X app store will have to be recompiled and resubmitted. None of the binaries installed on current OS X machines will still work, unless Apple includes an x86 emulator like they did for the transition from PowerPC.

This will also open up the possibility of running iOS apps natively on OS X, but I doubt Apple will pursue that at all (for UX reasons).

<comment><USER49> The transition will be easy for applications that rely on Apple's APIs only, the fun will be for programs that use proprietary third party components all of which will need to be rebuilt, as well as all binary plugins to applications.

I can imagine this might be a huge job for some of the more heavyweight production programs for Mac , as well as AAA games.

It would basically spell doom for Parallels and other virtualization software which give Mac switchers an escape hatch back to any Windows programs they might use.

<comment><USER50> Another negative in the same vein is that it would prevent fast emulation of Windows and many Linux/BSD distributions in something like VMWare.

<comment><USER51> Most Linux and BSD distributions are available for ARM already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> _If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe_

How far does Apple want to go? The rabbit hole is pretty much infinite. Do they want to make their own plastics and paints and metals? Do they want to mine the materials for all of the above? Do they want to make the mining machines for their mines? Etc, etc, etc.

</comment><comment><USER53> An ARM based Air might make a nice facebook machine but what about Pros/Desktop and the high performance market? I really doubt there are any ARM chips anywhere near the performance of an i7. What are they going to do segment their PC lineup or just abandon the high performance side? I doubt they are willing to do either.

</comment><comment><USER54> I wonder if this will mean the end of Flash Player for Mac? Will Adobe bother releasing an ARM version?

<comment><USER55> > I wonder if this will mean the end of Flash Player for Mac?

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I wish Flash on Mac would die die die. Youtube has the ability of showing me non-flash video on a Mac. And yet they often won't. The exact same video that won't play on a Mac will play just fine on an iPad. Evil bastards! With Flash dead, Google wouldn't be able to demand I use it.

<comment><USER56> Activate Developer Tools in the preferences of Safari. This gives you a Developer menu in the toolbar. When a site refuses to play video on your Mac because it needs Flash, you tell Safari to pretend it's an iPad. The site invariably serves you the video you wanted, without Flash.

<comment><USER55> I read this advice previously on HN, and it worked for a while. Then Google changed something, and it stopped working. I don't know, maybe I was screwing up. Or maybe it's just easier for Google to roll ads ahead of the video when it's in Flash. Or maybe Google wants me to download Chrome, which has a built in Flash player. Not gonna do that until it supports NoScript. YMMV, obviously.

<comment><USER56> No, it still works just fine. I was using it just yesterday...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I think the article's prediction is incorrect (see my other comment for why), it did give me an idea: Why doesn't Apple design their own x86 CPU?

Their work on the Ax series has probably taught them quite a bit that could be ported over to x86-land. Also, Apple could leave out x86 cruft they don't use: legacy addressing modes, PAE, etc. And of course, they could design the CPU specifically for their products instead of searching for the closest match sold by existing vendors (or cajoling Intel to tweak their designs).

Apple already has strong relationships with fab companies. They have the talent and teams to design such a CPU. One wonders if they're already working on such a thing. Even if it never shipped, it could be used to negotiate lower prices from Intel.

<comment><USER57> > Why doesn't Apple design their own x86 CPU?

There's the small matter of getting an x86 license. Which would mean buying Intel or AMD, since it's vanishingly unlikely that Intel will be handing them out any time soon.

<comment><USER55> > Which would mean buying Intel or AMD

Apple could afford to buy Intel, but antitrust considerations would probably prevent that from happening.

Apple could buy AMD, but the Intel/AMD x86 cross license probably terminates in a "change of control" situation. Which might mean a restart of the Intel/AMD lawsuits of years gone by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> What seems more likely to me is a hybrid ARM / x86 machine that switches dynamically between processors, kind of like how some macs can switch dynamically between their integrated and discrete GPUs.

</comment><comment><USER59> Very interesting, wouldn't surprise me if we saw an AMD/ARM acquisition by Apple by this time next year.

</comment><comment><USER60> I actually see Apple branding A7 as 'desktop class' to leverage better CPU price from Intel.

</comment><comment><USER61> apple has been known in the last decade for picking the best hardware for the job. i don't see how ARM chips can compete with intel chips in terms of performace or performance per watt - unless you want a 4W macbook. (hint: you probably don't.) ARM competes very well in performance per dollar - but AMD does, too, and I don't see macs with AMD CPUs in them.

i can see a laptop-sized ARM-based product from apple, but it won't replace any of the macs, it'll be something completely new - let's call it a macpad.

</comment><comment><USER62> > Googling "Mac running on ARM" gets you close to 10M results.

Why should we listen to someone who doesn't know what quotes do in search queries?

</comment><comment><USER63> Seriously, Not really.

</comment><comment><USER64> Half right, but only by accident.

</comment><comment><USER65> The transition from powerpc to x86 was surprisingly relatively painless. There was some pain but most apps ran fine in the translation layer and eventually the native apps moved over.

It'll probably be even easier the next time since apple has done it once already and knows how to provide the proper dev tools.

<comment><USER66> They've done it twice, not once. They moved from 68k to PPC in the early 90s, again with full emulation. In that case it was even more extreme, as much of the OS ran emulated in early PPC releases (yet it was _still_ quicker than running on actual 68k hardware!).

<comment><USER67> You've highlighted the big difference this time. Switching from Intel to ARM would be a step _down_ in performance, or at least not a step up. There's no headroom for a legacy emulation layer.

<comment><USER68> However, it does work with the playbook of going ever closer to computing appliances from general-purpose computers.

In the beginning there was the motherboard and a CPU. Then, before homogenic PC era, we had dedicated chips that took care of certain operations. The SID chip in C-64. The blitter chip in Amiga. (Can't remember the name, I'm sorry.) Even the x87 math coprocessor in the 386/486 age!

With advent of PC and the megahertz wars, dedicated peripheral chips became less common - except in SoC environment. Where the x86 world went with raw processing power, embedded world had to find ways to fit specialised chips on the board.

My experience is mostly centred around crypto accelerators, but I know from _very painful_ experience that all Maemo devices had on-board DSP units to handle some sound decoding, and pretty much all video processing. So the pendulum swings: CPU for everything, then peripheral devices for specific high-intensity jobs. Some of the most commonly used get integrated into CPU's, making entire classes of chips irrelevant ... until the next CPU-intensive thing comes up, and the main processor is again too slow.

Apple is banking on their ability to both predict _and_ dictate the direction of near-future computing needs. I expect the A7/A10 boards to come up with all kinds of integrated support chips to handle the heavier loads.

As long as their predictions are correct, all is well. Any bets on what's the next CPU burner that will require a dedicated ASIC to preserve even the semblance of battery longevity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> this is about the most poorly written article i've ever read! well, second that to some of the trash on techcrunch. how about some benchmarks of compiling code on intel vs arm instead of saying that since ipads (arm based) cost more than macbook airs (intel), so therefore intel will fade from apple's line of laptop/desktops. i think arm processor laptops are going to become mainstream, but not for most of the arguments specified in the article. i believe this fate is still far away as x86 still offers total raw compute power over arm, even though arms are more energy efficient.

also, the self noted digressions in the article arent even funny, feels like someone with an english degree and subscription to "i can spell x86" magazine wrote this article</comment>


Doing Bayesian Data Analysis On the GPU: Examples - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uncomplicate/bayadera/tree/master/test/clojure/uncomplicate/bayadera/examples/dbda <comment><AUTHOR> Characteristic examples from the book Doing Bayesian Data Analysis 2nd edition [1] programmed in Clojure and OpenCL to run on the GPU. Much, much faster than Stan or JAGS!

The library used (Bayadera) is still pre-release, so much polishing is still needed, so this can be considered a preview. But, it is still very useful, and not more complex for programmers than the mainstream Bayesian tools.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Bayesian-Data-Analysis- Second/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Bayesian-Data-Analysis- Second/dp/0124058884/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469897741&sr=8-1&keywords=doing+bayesian+data+analysis)

<comment><USER2> Any hint how much faster? Not looking for defensible benchmarks, but are you talking an order of magnitude? Multiple orders?

Does it make the same probabilistic guarantees as the methods used in Stan etc? Or is it trading validity for speed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing is universal and guaranteed, of course. YMMV, and all that.

For example, robust linear regression from chapter 17, that fits 300 points over 4 parameters (easy, but far from trivial) runs in 180 seconds in JAGS and 485 in Stan, in parallel with 4 chains, taking 20,000 samples.

Bayadera takes 276,297,912 samples in 300 milliseconds, giving much fine- grained estimations.

So, depending on how you count the difference, it would be 500-1000 times faster for this particular analysis, while per-sample ratio is something like 7,000,000 (compared to JAGS).

Of course, JAGS and Stan are mature software packages, while Bayadera is still pre-release...

<comment><USER2> Thanks. About the second part of my question - are you doing much the same stuff as JAGS/Stan? Like, they do a lot of work to make sure that their MCMC is validly converging to the posterior - does Bayadera make similar guarantees?

Is the speedup coming from a better implementation, or because GPUs are just way faster, or because it cuts statistical corners? If its cutting corners, are they sensible?

<comment><AUTHOR> It uses different MCMC algorithm - affine invariant ensemble MCMC. The difference comes from the fact that this algorithm is parallelizable, while JAGS/Stan's isn't. So, many GPU cores are the main factor. But, the algorithm is also a factor, in a sense that parallel chains always mutually inform each other.

They may do a lot of work to make sure that MCMC is validly converging, and Bayadera also does its stuff on that front, but the truth is, and you'll find it in any book on MCMC (Gelman included) that you can never guarantee MCMC convergence.

<comment><USER3> Looks very nice. I wonder if the upcoming Xeon Phi will make the task of parallel sampling simpler. Or at least compiling and optimising automatic parallel samplers on the fly. Macros might be great for this. That's the ultimate probabilistic programming goal. Write the model and get efficient sampling for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I doubt that XeonPhi would be any faster than my old AMD R9 290X, and the 10x price tag is also not inviting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just of out curiosity, how hard would it be to write a compiler that takes JAGS or STAN model files and compiles it to the s-exps needed to use the library?

</comment><comment><USER5> I must be missing something. Is there any output that we are supposed to be seeing? Plots of the fits or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Run the tests in the REPL. Call (analysis) to only invoke the fits and get the timings, or call (display-sketch) and then (reset! all-data (analysis)) to see the plots. It is only done like that in these examples; for actual work, you are free to use any meaning combination of functions that you like.</comment></comment>


Google Wallet Likely Launching Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/18/google-wallet-launch/

<comment><USER2> A month ago, I wrote a paper on the emerging mobile payments ecosystem, which devotes a section to Google Wallet, its strategy and the challenges it face. You can read the whole paper here: <http://www.box.net/shared/fsiv1bu7ugrpp814aucx>

Google's Strategy:

Google has indicated that it will not collect an interchange fee on transactions made through Google Wallet which shows that it has its eye squarely focused on the Payment Context. Google understands it stands to gain very little from the current revenue and expense sharing arrangements in place today for traditional payments. Google expects to employ a strategy similar to where they made Android a compelling "better than free" option to handset makers by offering to share a portion of search-based advertising revenues generated through the Android ecosystem.

Google also plans to lease space on its wallet solution to banks for free, compared to ISIS who will charge a rental fee. Google however has not made clear as to whether it plans on controlling the secure element outside of Nexus S, on handsets that run Android, despite not being in direct ownership of the master keys.

Challenges to GW:

Google Wallet's secure element resides on the handset, which is different from Carrier led mobile wallet initiatives(e.g. ISIS). Google Wallet is designed to be interoperable, so as to attract more partners, but so far its olive branch has not been met with reciprocal affection from other players in the payment ecosystem. If ISIS Carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile & AT&T) mandate that any and all mobile wallets must work through ISIS to function on their carrier networks, Google may be forced to modify Google Wallet so as to work with a SIM based secure element.

Also Google Wallet's launch outside of U.S may run counter to European mobile operator's current business model where they charge fees to banks and other service providers for putting their NFC applications on SIM cards owned by the Telco's. As Google attempts to court European banks to be part of the Google Wallet initiative, this could deter European mobile operators from adopting Android handsets if Google continues to unilaterally control the embedded secure element. Even though Google Nexus S supports SWP (Single Wire Protocol) that allows a mobile operator to put the secure element in the SIM, Google has opted not to enable this capability in Nexus S.

It would be great to hear other opinions on what I outlined above, and within my paper.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really excited about how this is all going to play out. I'm hoping for lots of NFC support with upcoming phones, but if the stickers are really easy to get I'd be willing to try them out as well.

<comment><USER4> hey, YC company here that can help you get some stickers easily - www.tagstand.com. We are S11, seeing decent traction right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone got any comments/info/insights on the tap and pay thing?

I haven't read anything on the security model but from a high level it seems like its going to be a cluster f/k of fraud to me, loose your phone and you're loosing direct access to your finances.

I've had a few conversations here and there but everyones opinions seem to be the same as mine... anyone with anything to placate my fears? because this seems like something I'm going to avoid by a huge distance.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't sound any worse than regular credit card transactions, where signature verification and ID checking are never done. It might even be better, since you can lock your phone, and presumably wire it to wipe remotely or after some failed guesses.

If the wallet is something you have to manually summon and isn't running in the background all the time, it'll be safer than the contactless RFID credit cards out there now.

If you're in the US, if your card does get stolen you'll only be responsible for the first $50[1], just like if you were paying with plastic or online.

1: Legally; some cards protect you from the first $50 too, but none will make you responsible for more than $50.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I wouldn't be impressed with that. My cards don't have any amount to pay when I get compromised. Which is good as I booked a trip around Thailand and used my personal credit card for it, and used pre pay cards when I got there.

I got back and within a few weeks I started getting transactions booked to personal card. I delibratly didn't use that card this time (as this happens all the time when I head to Asia) and hence why I got the pre pay cards. But either Bangkok Airways, Air Asia, or JetStar have had there systems compromised, as sure enough like clock work the fraudulent charges started.

Luckily you mention asia and credit card fraud and you don't even have to supply evidence, Master Card just roll the transactions back immediatly and cancel the card. I guess its cheaper for them to do that waste time getting evidence for each incident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I noticed Google Wallet tap and pay 'receivers' (registers?) at the Peet's Coffee on Howard and 1st St. in San Francisco last week.

</comment><comment><USER8> The last thing I want google to have is a record of all my financial transactions.

<comment><USER9> Are you aware of how much data collection agencies have on you? It makes Google look like a bunch of rank amateurs.

<comment><USER8> Those data collection agencies that work within the boundaries set by the law have absolutely nothing on me.

<comment><USER10> If you live in the US and don't use cash for every purchase, I think you'd be surprised how much leeway companies have here. Many logical and straightforward protections won't ever be put into law until _after_ some new privacy crisis comes up. This is one reason why it was so infuriating when google and apple were called in front of congress but AT&T and other cell companies were nowhere to be seen...I assume Congress is OK with that data collection (if they didn't collect location data, who could they subpoena?) but it would have been nice to at least get some of that breathless blog and news coverage aimed at the telecoms.

The hard part is disambiguating customers (which is why loyalty/discount cards are so great for them), but it is really horrifying the amount of credit card history, demographic data, grocery store purchases, _prescription_ information (seriously) etc etc that companies can collect, cross reference, and sell while staying within the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anybody know if using Google Wallet for a transaction still produces a paper receipt? I'd love to finally be done with those...

<comment><USER12> It will depend on how the particular store is set up. Wallet will certainly digitally keep track of all sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good for the google wallet team =). I wish them all the best!!

</comment><comment><USER14> Wouldn't this kind of thing be perfect for integrating Bitcoin payments into it? Or does it need Google's approval? I think Bitcoin would really take off, once we'd all have NFC phones and all the infrastructure in place.</comment>