Jabra: we know our Bluetooth headsets don't work with laptops - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@daniel_36042/jabra-we-know-our-bluetooth-headsets-dont-work-with-laptops-sorry-no-refunds-80ed4cb2fc6f <comment><USER2> "Wait, are you saying the headset can't connect to a computer via native Bluetooth? And you knew it the whole time? While you asked me to try a different device, to update drivers, to install Jabra software, to meet with your technician… You were just trying to wear me down?!?"

This encapsulates what is most wrong and abhorrent about US customer service. This methodology is employed by thousands of companies, it is ingrained in the culture of their customer service reps. It is a "Never Back Down" attitude. They will consistently string a desperate customer along, through a maze of reps and procedures, knowing that the customer is more likely to burn out and give up before realizing that the road they are being led down does not result in resolution of the issue.

There are companies that do not engage in such behavior, yet they are primarily B2B rather than consumer facing, and usually in regard to items that are being purchased in the dollar range of tens and hundreds of thousands.

<comment><USER3> I work in the B2B space. One thing I've noticed is that if Enterprises aren't happy with the product they signed up for or the product doesn't deliver as promised they will refuse to pay (The ultimate motivator).

I feel like in the customer space you have less leverage and it's more of a headache to simply not pay or get a refund (in this case).

<comment><USER4> It's surprising to me how much power enterprises have over every aspect of a business relationship. Our company was acquired by a Large Consultancy. The first thing they did was tell our (corporate) landlord, "We pay everything 90 days late, and we will not pay late fees. Period." And that was that. Anyone else trying to violate the terms of a contract would be told where to go but the landlord swallowed it without a second thought.

<comment><USER5> That's not enterprise 'power' \- that's leverage. The landlord could have told them to go kick rocks and your boss would have had to come up with a new offer or would have been scrambling to find a new office that optimized for your needs. This suggests that the market for office space in your city favors renters. Just wait and see what happens to your 'contract' when the market shifts!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the time my wife cancelled our internet with Vodafone and three months later we got a letter to say our arrears were being referred to a debt collection agency. I spent an hour on the phone, talked to 8 different people to only end up back at the 1st person. They claimed we only cancelled the direct debit and not the account, I agreed that they would pull the call and if that was the case I'd pay what was owed. As soon as I was off the call I got a mail to say that it would cost me €6 for them to listen to their recording. I got mad and looked up the CEO of Vodafone Ireland and found her direct email on a chamber of commerce website and email her a polite description of my experience. 10am next morning I get call from the head of customer service apologising and advising me that all fees had been waived, a win so I thought. A week later I get a call from HR asking if I had emailed the head of Vodafone from my work email, we had a corporate account and Vodafone complained that I had emailed their CEO using a work account on a personal matter. I could see the person in vodafone who checked who I was on linkedin the day before I got the call from HR. That was over five years ago and I still get annoyed, gits!

<comment><USER7> Is the implication here that even after going all the way up to the CEO, Vodafone still only fixed it because of your association with your company?

<comment><USER8> I think the implication is that despite contacting the CEO through a personal email address, Vodafone looked up his employer on LinkedIn and complained to them. From the sound of it, this would be petty revenge from the customer service department, who didn't like having been put in the spotlight for poor customer service.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Reciprocity- The customer complains to the CSE's CEO; the CSE complains to the customer's CEO

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I once made the mistake of buying Jabra wireless sports headphones.

You know there will be a problem if you open the box and the first thing you see is a piece of paper and a phone holster, obviously thrown in at the last moment. The piece of paper says you have to use the phone holster to attach the phone to your right arm. Yes, your _right_ arm, the closer to your right ear the better. The instructions were very specific.

As it turned out, the wireless connection was indeed so crappy that it required holding the phone right next to the headphones. Don't like to attach the phone to your upper right arm? Tough luck.

I have stayed away from Jabra ever since.

<comment><USER10> Plantronics does the exact same thing with their Backbeat Fit line.

<comment><USER11> I can speak from experience here, I have had both Backbeat Fit 1 and 2 (I'm using the 2 right this moment) and they are very good. The range is decent, not huge, but you certainly _don't_ have to have the phone on a particular side of your body.

I can walk out of the room and still have audio, but also to be fair that's not really their use case.

<comment><USER10> I had the 2100, and the connection was spotty when I had my phone in my left pocket. Their proposed solution was to carry my phone on the right pocket. My accepted solution was to return the defective device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've never known Bluetooth to not produce a miserable experience at some time or another. It's inconsistently bad in some cases too. I hate setting up bluetooth on my car the most, I need to "Talk" to my car, and I can't just do it while stopped at a red light, I have to shut off my car and do it before I go. I still havent redone it since I upgraded phones last year... I just plug into the aux port _while driving_.

<comment><USER13> AirPods completely changed my view of BT devices. Before, I avoided BT completely because I could never get them working well with an Android phone I was using at that time. Headphones I was using would always disconnect after some time and the quality would drop intermittently and there was no way to fix it. The "fix" was to wait for the battery to drain and then the headphones would restart. I tried few different headphones over the years and always went back to wired ones because of that.

After trying AirPods, I haven't had a single issue. Everything works fine. I'm even content with a BT keyboard and trackpad now.

<comment><USER14> Have I won the lottery? I've never had a single Bluetooth issue with any device I've ever had, except my current vehicle:

"All New" 2019 Ram 1500 (If anyone works for Uconnect, please email me.)

iPhone, iPhone 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 5X, Nexus 7, Razer Phone, Thinkpad Yoga, Thinkpad Book, self-assembled desktop, Toyota Corolla - all have worked perfectly with various, cheap, Bluetooth devices - keyboards, mice, speakers, earbuds, and each other for BT file transfers.

(It's really sad that a Corolla has a better Bluetooth experience than a Ram which is 3x in cost.)

<comment><USER15> > Have I won the lottery?

Yes.

My experience with Bluetooth and kids while driving:

1\. Dad, my headphones aren't working.

2\. Ok, did you try turning them off an on again?

3\. Yes

4\. Did you turn BT on your iPhone on/off?

5\. Yes

6\. Did you "forget" the BT connection and re-establish.

7\. Yes _child rages_

8\. Are they ... charged?

9\. Child now fully enraged: YEEEESS DAD! I'm not an idiot!

9\. Ok ummmm, did you try steps 2, 4 and 6 a couple of times each?

10\. _child continues to rage_ , stops asking for help and proceeds to frantically toggle everything on/off/on/off while "tapping" their phone aggressively.

11\. 10 minutes later ... Dad they're working now!

11\. Awesome, so glad we got you those BT headphones.

<comment><USER16> There's a step you forgot — turn your phone on and off. It's annoying but it can fix problems with headphones when it's not actually the headphones' fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do wish we could collectively arrive at a better standard for customer support than "Support by Public Shaming".

I'll admit to having used the "Send an email blast to the company executives" method in the past for dealing with airlines and telcos, but I feel like even _that_ was a tad more discrete. At least it was an internal email and not a Twitter rant or a blog post. Regrettably, most companies seem to be removing their executive emails from public-facing pages, making the social media bomb the last and increasingly most common resort.

I suppose if we had a federal consumer protection bureau that actually _had teeth_ , this wouldn't be necessary.

<comment><USER18> It's not up to the customers to improve this state of affairs. It's entirely in the hands of the companies.

<comment><USER19> The customers can rally their elected officials to legislate guaranteed 1+ year warranties... this is what European customers did a while back.

<comment><USER18> That won't stop companies from giving customers the run around, therefore it won't obliviate the need to publicly shame companies to get issues resolved. It's not even clear what "1+ year warranty" would mean for many industries in which there isn't a physical good being sold.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for business regulation. I support mandatory warranties and the like. But it's not going to resolve the _perceived_ social issue of customers shaming corporations for bad behavior, because companies will always find new bad behavior that skirts the law. Even if you have a legislature that's on top of the situation, there will still be a delay between when a company invents new bad behavior and when the legislature can create a new law against it.

If it's not clear, I disagree that this behavior is even an issue. People shaming companies isn't the problem; companies doing things worth shaming is the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The no-questions-asked 90-day money back guarantee was one of the best decisions we ever made at Fog Creek. Try this: use Fog Creek Copilot for a full 24 hours, call up three months later and say, "hey guys, I need $5 for a cup of coffee. Give me back my money from that Copilot day pass," and we'll give it back to you. Try calling on the 91st or 92nd or 203rd day. You'll still get it back. We really don't want your money if you're not satisfied. I'm pretty sure we're running the only job listing service around that will refund your money just because your ad didn't work. This is unheard of, but it means we get a lot more ad listings, because there's nothing to lose.

Over the last six years or so, letting people return software has cost us 2%.

\- Joel Spolsky ([https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/02/19/seven-steps-to- rem...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/02/19/seven-steps-to-remarkable- customer-service/))

<comment><USER14> I think you posted in the wrong thread.

Did you mean to post in _Ask HN: Did offering a money-back guarantee help your business_? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19085526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19085526)

<comment><USER21> While that is a good fit for this comment, it _does_ fit in this thread as well. Others are talking about how common terrible support is, where getting money back for a terrible product requires invoking the court, etc. The GP posted an example of _excellent_ service, the kind that most vendors should aspire to -- and included notes that doing so doesn't seem to have a big impact on the bottom line.

The counterpoint is, if your product genuinely is terrible, the cost of such a guarantee would be too high to bear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Even if the OP had gotten the headset working with bluetooth they'd be disappointed.

On Macs at least, using a headset with mic via bluetooth you get 8khz sampling, even if the headset can do more.

Sounds terrible. Tried a bunch of esoteric plist changes to fix it.

I switched to a USB wireless setup which works much better.

Supposedly there are fixes ([http://ssrubin.com/posts/fixing-macos-bluetooth- headphone-au...](http://ssrubin.com/posts/fixing-macos-bluetooth-headphone- audio-quality-issues-with-hammerspoon.html)) for this, but none worked for me.

<comment><USER23> How odd. In Ubuntu it's just a case of changing the Bluetooth audio codec from a dropdown in the sound control panel. I set it once for my earbuds and it's worked fine ever since.

<comment><USER24> A2DP (the one that doesn't sound terrible) doesn't work with the headset microphone so you'd be using your computer's microphone instead. It's a shame that Linux generally only supports two profiles that aren't all that great. IIRC there is some traction behind another profile somewhere but it isn't ready yet I assume, otherwise we'd see it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We have a Fischer & Paykel vent hood, which we bought while renovating our kitchen specifically because of its advertised low noise level. It sounds like a jet engine revving up whenever it's running, even on the lowest setting. F&P sent out two technicians in succession, both of whom confirm (as registered, for example, by a decibel meter on our phone) that it's about 70% louder than advertised, even on its lowest setting; and then they straight up lied on their reports, saying (in so many words) that we were imagining the noise, or merely that we were 'dissatisfied'. Months in, and the only resolution we've got is that they've offered to give us a discount on another vent hood—which, presumably, also won't perform to specifications ….

There's got to be some reliable form of—excuse my optimism; I'm sure there isn't, but there _should_ be some reliable form of redress for a product that simply, in a documented fashion, doesn't perform up to specifications. Companies advertise what they feel like without fear, because they don't experience repercussions for this false advertising.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd think that if the reseller sold the device as being capable of working with bluetooth v4 and the A2DP profile, only for that not to be the case, then you absolutely have the right to take it up with them.

Surely by their not advertising the dongle limitation, that's a problem of their own making & they should honour your return. If they've a problem with that, they take it up with Jabra but leave you out of it.

After all, you've got a device that speaks Bluetooth so you've got something that the product declares it'll be compatible with, and the product just.. Isn't!

<comment><USER27> Does any computer properly speak Bluetooth, in all its possible configurations, with no bugs? I'd like to take a look at that stack if so, because I've never seen it.

That's not an excuse for the devices also being buggy, but I'm well beyond expecting anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Do you not have a small claims court in your area? Here in the UK if a product is not as described then you are entitled to a full refund from the supplier (not the manufacturer). As they are the ones you have a contract with. The supplier can take it up with the manufacturer. No help from the supplier? Then sue them, I've done that several times, it's cheap, easy and quick. I've never had a failure suing a business for a consumer protection issue.

[https://www.smallclaimscourtgenie.co.uk/money-claim- online/](https://www.smallclaimscourtgenie.co.uk/money-claim-online/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems to be a clear-cut case of false advertising if not wire fraud. Have you contacted the FTC?

<comment><USER29> Maybe it's not all headsets and all laptops?

I have the Jabra Elite Active 65t that I've successfully paired and continue to successfully use with a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 running Windows 10 -- no complaints.

<comment><USER30> I have the same model the OP posted about, exactly the same issues as him. This whole time I've been thinking it my systems fault. Despite the fact I had it on a Surface Book and a Toshiba Portege and a Surface Pro 4.

I've resigned myself to using the dangle and not using it when away from desk (dongle is plugged into the Screen on my desk).

I'm going to stop buying Jabra and will probably stop the company buying them as well. Bluetooth is _meant_ to be a universal standard. This is bullshit and shouldn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's too bad, because they got very good products.

I love my jabra elite 65 t, they are the first ones that allowed me to make peace with the dreaded wireless ear plugs. I basically live with them, I can't recall the last time I put my phone on my ear or put the music on speakers.

But yes, I can't make them work with my Ubuntu laptop.

This sucks, especially for a 180 euros product.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm confused by the PPS:

 _A few weeks later the reseller informed me that the authorized repair shop accepted my headset as defective and replaced it with a new one under warranty. I guess I am going to auction it off for the benefit of the local foster home institute._

So was this another lie, or was his headset actually defective?

<comment><AUTHOR> Call it a lie or a corporate policy - they simply replace a handset that does not work as advertised with a new one that will not work as advertised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is weird. I'm wearing this headset RIGHT now it is the ONLY BT headset that works, with HD quality on both my mac AND my Pixel 2 cell phone.

It is amazing..

<comment><USER32> This is a sample of USB and BT connectivity tests.

<comment><USER32> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKDchhDUlNw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKDchhDUlNw&feature=youtu.be)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Anyone have a Bluetooth earbuds that works flawlessly with Ubuntu?

I recently got a pair of Funcl AI buds, works great with my phone but I connect on computer and there's constant skipping. I gather this is a common problem.

<comment><USER34> Unless I missed something, if it works it'll be with the SBC codec and it's not very good.

For music the BT profile is the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). But this is just a transport, and on top of it there can be many codecs. The only mandatory codec is SBC [1], which is BT specific and not very good. YMMV, but I prefer using a wired headphone than BT SBC.

There are other options, but then you need support on both ends. The best are AAC (Apple world), LDAC (Sony, all recent Android) and AptX HD (Android, Win10 I believe but TBC...). Those are supposed to be transparent, and for LDAC at least (the only one I have personal experience with) it is to my ears. Unfortunately last time I checked only SBC was supported on Linux... So I stick to wired on my Linux laptop, and use BT with LDAC on my smartphone only.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBC_(codec)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBC_\(codec\))

<comment><USER35> There is support for better codecs on Linux, it's just not shipped by default on most distros unfortunately. [https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules- bt](https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt)

<comment><USER36> Why are these not upstream ? Are there patent issues ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > I guess I am going to auction it off for the benefit of the local foster > home institute.

As a foster parent, thank you for that.

</comment><comment><USER38> Is there a perfect BT headset out there? I'm still using this: [https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Headset-H390-Noise- Cancellin...](https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Headset-H390-Noise- Cancelling/dp/B000UXZQ42/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1549472816&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=logitech+headset+with+microphone&dpPl=1&dpID=31DUeeauN-L&ref=plSrch)

Because BT audio sounds horrible to me.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm surprised.

I have the exact same headset (Jabra Evolve 75) at work and have had no issues at all using it on my 2018 MacBook Pro.

I use it daily for Slack and other VoIP calls as well as to listen to music. I usually have it paired to my phone as well, but it works just as well connected solely to the Mac.

That said, I did have an issue once with it when trying to play a game on Steam. I couldn't hear the in-game audio, only other players speaking.

<comment><USER40> Bluetooth uses different Profiles for the same functions but different purposes:

A2DP is for HiFi (ahahah) stereo audio uni directional.

HSP is for headsets, it supports "LAB" audio and headset controls (e.g. volume, answer/hangup).

HFP is for hands-free in cars and support "LAB" audio and overlaps HFP with controls.

AVRCP is for media controls which overlaps HSP (e.g. play/pause, skip/previous, volume)

So a problem with Bluetooth is that a device can support all of these profiles but usually not all at once. They have no built in Mux so can't take audio over A2DP and HSP and combine them. So the host must negotiate all of the Profiles and then decide which is the most appropriate to use since it can't do all at once.

I occasionally have a problem in my car where it establishes the A2DP connection and streams audio but not AVRCP so I can't control it.

On Windows 10, when you have a Headset connected that supports A2DP, HFP, HSP, and AVRCP things get interesting. If you're listening to music it will be streamed via A2DP to the headset, but if you get a VOIP call Windows switches to HSP to access the Mic but your headset can't Mux audio so it kills the A2DP connection. Windows will then helpfully stream your music either over HSP which sounds like ass or it will pump it out the laptop speakers. The solution I came up with is to disable HSP/HFP on Windows and route all audio capture to the build in Microphone instead of the Headset's.

Based on your description of playing Steam, I'm guessing MacOS is doing something similar. The headset can't Mux audio so it's dropping A2DP in favor of HSP audio, which would explain why you lose in-game audio but not VOIP.

I'll have to play around with my Mac and see how it handles this.

<comment><USER41> There's a subtler issue where you can use a number of different codecs with something like A2DP. There should be a lowest common denominator of common support mandated by the spec, but you can get into fun with codec negotiation.

<comment><USER40> Yeah, I didn't mention that though because even the lowest quality A2DP codec is light years ahead of HFP or HSP which are both optimized for low bitrate monaural audio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I really like my AfterShokz Trekz Air headphones. They work with all my devices. They reliably pair and don't oddly lose pairing status between any of them [0]. They are comfortable and sound pretty great once situated correctly. Not the greatest sound (a bit thin in the bass if they get out of alignment), but they are bone conducting and I generally use them to listen to music and still be able to hear the outside world. The behind-the-head band also makes it really easy to use them with all sorts of other head-mounted devices I have, like my brainwave sensor or my VR and AR headsets. For about 100USD, I've used them a lot more than my Sennheiser HD 4.50 BT headphones, which have a very annoying, periodic click when used in BT mode.

[0] Having worked on Bluetooth devices, this basically happens in devices because they reset their own hardware ID on complete power loss. Which is stupid. The hardware ID need never be reset unless explicitly requested by the user.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think this is just a simple case of Bluetooth being terrible on PCs and hard to develop for.

FWIW, I've been using a BlueParrott B350-XT for years. It's worked on MacOS, Ubuntu, and IOS, although multi-pairing gets kind of weird sometimes so I keep it single-paired to my iphone.

I chose it because I often do calls in noisy environments and it has both great volume and the best noise canceling of any other headset on the market that I could find. From what I can tell, the company got its start selling to OTR truck drivers and gained market share against Plantronics and Jabra because their products suck so much.

Not shilling, no relationship to the company, have bought a couple of these with my own money and will immediately pay to replace the one I currently have if it ever gets lost or is broken. If anyone is considering their products, the ones listed as "blocking 96% of background noise" have their in-house developed noise canceling that everyone raves about.

<comment><USER43> ...and it looks like Jabra acquired them a while back. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> My Jabra Move headset does technically work with my laptop, but I have to perform some kind of reset because just switching the headphones on doesn't connect fully to my computer. It will look like it's connected, but nothing plays through the headphones. Only way to get both iTunes and computer audio to play through them is to hold the on switch for a few seconds until I hear a ding and a voice speak "To connect Move, go to the Bluetooth menu on the phone, and select it from the list"

I also tried installing that shitty Jabra app that basically was a huge waste of time. Didn't try contacting them, but I assume they'd just try to throw the problem over the fence and say my Bluetooth drivers in macOS were shitty or something.

It's not the most amazing experience, but they do sound very good.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm wondering about the technical issues they have with on-board bluetooth, specifically saying they only provide support for a USB dongle, and not on- board BT.

I have routinely, with multiple computers seen that on-board BT has been flakey (MBP 2015, Zotac EN960, Zotac EN1060K, and a custom built PC w/ Intel on-board BT) with multiple devices (Bose QC35 headphones, multiple different BT keyboards). The experience has always required me to get a dongle, which works significantly better.

Is there something to this, or is it just the standard issue of interference with the built-in bluetooth, or perhaps just bad luck on my part? On top of this, I have never had any issue with any non-bluetooth RF wireless device, from mice to headphones and others. They seem to be significantly better.

<comment><USER46> One of the problems with achieving a good bluetooth experience is that there is not really one thing called "bluetooth", but rather a big stack of specifications that are implemented by different parties. A USB 2.0 BT adapter is very generic and probably well supported by more bluetooth devices and software stacks than integrated BT adapters.

<comment><USER45> Hmm this is a good point, I imagine just by sheer volume it must be well supported.

I would've assumed the Intel BT chipsets and the Macbook Pro ones would've been as well, though perhaps I had duds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I also have a Jabra headset. I bought it from Amazon I chatted to amazon support about the issues I have with it and they told me to keep a headset and issued a full refund

</comment><comment><USER48> I use a pair of Jabra Evolve 75 headphones and use them over bluetooth on my Apple Macbook Pro nearly every day. I love them because the microphones do an excellent job of transmitting my voice and suppressing of the chatter from people nearby.

I don't say that no one else should have a problem but just to counter some of the comment here that imply that these headphones never work with Bluetooth.

Now about that customer support...

</comment><comment><USER49> Along those same lines, I've gotten extremely reluctant to buy any paid subscription to any internet service, because virtually all of them have a bad cancellation system. Almost all require either calling or emailing support to cancel your account, which hopefully won't keep you waiting long or spend a while trying to convince you not to cancel after all.

</comment><comment><USER24> I had the Jabra Evolve 75 at my old job and they worked fine with my Dell XPS 13 running Ubuntu. I never had to use the dongle but during video calls it used the terrible HSP profile that is the only call profile Linux supports. I ended up keeping it on A2DP and using my laptop mic instead.

</comment><comment><USER50> A bit different, but as a curiosity my AirPod also does not work my Macbook in a high speed train. The connection with an iPhone works perfectly on the other hand. I wonder what's the challenge for laptops to make bluetooth work properly.

</comment><comment><USER51> TLDR: I think this guy just received bad customer support, and likely an actual defective device. Author seems to be overdramatic about a mistake by their support team.

Their Jabra Evolve 75's are actually solid. I have 2 of them in my office, and we recently just purchased another pair. They work with and without the USB dongle. The reason why the USB dongle is there is because the bluetooth spec for live calls are not in the HD profile. It's likely not in HD to reduce latency. Therefore, they originally created the Link 370 dongle to use their own proprietary connection to get HD microphone quality, and instant pairing; this is a MUST in a busy office environment. I'm 100% certain their support made a mistake and said the device only works with the dongle. I've also tested it's bluetooth with USBC Macbooks and it works perfectly fine. I suspect he had a defective unit.

Other notes about this 75: \- Connects with two devices at the same time, and switches between them over bluetooth ala Bose QC35 bluetooth. \- Does not charge over USBC, but over Micro USB. \- There are regular firmware updates for the Link 370, and their other Jabra devices.

</comment><comment><USER52> I bought an Asus Chromebook recently and one of the intentions was to pair it to my iPhone to get internet connectivity while commuting to work. Turns out Chromebooks can't pair with phones, I have to use a wifi hotspot instead.

<comment><USER53> Until just this week, Chrome OS's Instant Tethering was exclusive to Google's Pixel and Nexus phones, and was clearly advertised as such. Even now, the feature is only available for a small selection of phones (relative to the vast number of Androids in the wild).

Just use your phone's hotspot feature. The amount of time saving between using your native tethering vs Instant Tethering is negligible.

<comment><USER27> The instant tethering function actually doesn't use Bluetooth, except to set things up. If you pay attention, you'll notice the phone disconnecting from any WiFi network it might be connected to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I have Jabra Move bluetooth headphones. They're really good, but have slight bluetooth issues. I have to constantly delete and re-pair them. But I have it working with iOS, Windows, Linux, etc.

</comment><comment><USER55> Was unable to get my Jabra Elite 65t to connect to my Surface Book at work. Glad to know it wasn't any fault of my own. Will avoid Jabra in the future.

</comment><comment> who-knows95 i am always glad to see this kinda thing.

i'm currently talking to a game dev team that don't seem to understand that their TOS doesn't overshadow my countries law.

</comment><comment><USER56> I know people love the wireless thing. But if you want some nice over ear cans, and dont mind a wire. Sennheiser HD 280 i think , should be around 100 bucks. Not sure who Jabra is but if it's some kind of fancy startup making headphones. No thanks. I will stick to people who do actual audio work to make my headphones please.

<comment><USER57> Jabra has been a leading manufacturer of ear pieces since they became a thing in the dumbphone era. Not a startup.

<comment><USER58> And to add to that many of their telephony products are best in class. I sometimes regret that my biz-2400 has a wire on it, but it has the best noise cancellation of any headset I have ever used and is a pleasure to use all day. Not a shill, but I use their headsets for hours a day and my experiences with their wired products are overwhelmingly positive. I think this is a shoddy BT implementation.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Finding data science and analysis contract work - <AUTHOR>

Background: I am an entrepreneur with a relatively successful, small, first-year consulting firm.  In addition to running the day-to-day business and selling, I constantly want to grow my knowledge and keep challenging myself with the next set of in-demand skills.  I have worked with databases/SQL for almost 10 years and am six months into learning R.
Goal:  I would like to find additional work in data analysis and data science fields, but am unsure where to look.  Contract work is preferable - I have tried oDesk and Elance in the past but was disappointed in the listings and expected pay.  I love staying busy and much of my current gig is cyclical, so I want to prepare for any downturns.
Question:  What's the best advice for beginning the search for contract work?  Is it worth reaching out to local recruiters in the area as a "consultant"?  Get back on oDesk and do some small jobs?  Browse Kaggle constantly for the white whale? <comment><USER2> What type of consulting do you do? Are you familiar with any specific industry vertical? How do you get clients for your consulting business? Acquiring contract work in data science is no different that selling in your business. It is same as selling any other consulting services.

In my experience, it is very difficult to get data science and analysis work (except in tech/web analytics) unless you understand a specific industry segment. I have been able to get data analysis contract work by focusing on a specific industry niche.

Identify a niche, do data analysis in that niche on your own, share your findings with the people working in your niche, participate on forums in your niche. Stay patient, keep diving in data analysis for your niche, and leads will come to you. Clients need to know you exist, you know their business, and you have unique/interesting insights that can help them in their business.

Become a data-backed industry specialist instead of just a generic data scientist/analyst. Kaggle, Elance and oDesk are not worth spending time on for data analysis work unless you see a project in your targeted niche.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm currently in a niche vertical and am one of a small group of firms who service the industry. My goal is to move beyond this sector into others, to broaden my client base. Most of my clients do come from personal/word of mouth networking.

Good advice on doing some independent work in the niche I'm interested in. I'll look further into that. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a medium-term investment of time, but my advice is to network. In my experience, personal connections are the best way to find the kind of work you want consistently. Show up to user groups, recruiting events, conferences, seminars. Work with recruiters to get started if you need to, but be sure to make connections with every client with whom you come into contact (posting on HN counts as networking too, I think).

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree - I'm involved in the local data analysis and statistics groups and take advantage of those whenever possible. They happen monthly or so and have proven to be a decent method to meet folks.

One thing I may try in the future - during intros at those events, ask to stand up and announce I'm available for contract work. Companies often announce jobs at these, so why not announce my availability?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Email me. I could def. hire you for a few small jobs - michael at realpython dot com.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, will do. Thanks Michael.</comment></comment>


Data do not back cloth masks to limit Covid-19, experts say - <AUTHOR> https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/data-do-not-back-cloth-masks-limit-covid-19-experts-say <comment><USER3> I suggest clicking through to the NAP paper, which unlike this reporting fluff/hype piece, is very reasonable.

This is part of the standard academic fake science pipeline. The researchers did reasonable work (best summary: "We don't know how well they work"). The university PR departments turned that into hyped-up nonsense to gain publicity and brand recognition. Next step will be science reporting, which will exaggerate the press release, and finally, popular news, which will use this to bash random policy decisions.

Direct link to the original paper:

[https://www.nap.edu/read/25776/chapter/1](https://www.nap.edu/read/25776/chapter/1)

In general, NAP pieces tend to be well-researched and well-written summaries of what's known. This one is no exception.

<comment><USER4> You forgot about the other half of the cycle: time passes, another wave of publicity bashes the initial hype, people assume the scientists themselves are responsible (even though they have been freaking out about their work being misrepresented), scientists lose funding, people don't trust scientists.

<comment><USER5> You forgot about the third half of the cycle: scientists exceedingly rarely submit a correction note to tone down the hyped up claims made by the PR departments / science press. They are very good at keeping the freak out to themselves. A systemic problem, not sure how to solve for, if even there is a solution.

<comment><USER4> Yea right, it's just so weird to deal with this problem as a scientist unless you do work that is regularly in the news and you have opportunities to learn how to better control what is written/said and deal with instances where the wrong message is getting out. Vast majority of scientists are doing work for an audience of themselves, other scientists and funding agencies, and are working for respect, not fame or media attention. So when a their research suddenly gets churned through this bullshit cycle, they're really troubled but don't necessarily know the most effective way to control the message once it gets out of their hands. It can be really unfair and stressful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like there's this bizarre impedance mismatch in communication - <USER2> the internet lends itself to passing around headlines without associating the proper context/nuance. So in effect, an academic article that ultimately says that there's no easy way to gauge the effectiveness of cloth masks is passed around as "Data do not back cloth masks." No one is lying or deceiving, but the perception received broadly will be wrong.

This echos the same thing that happens with the WHO. And given that these are huge, central institutions - they need to take more care around how their pronouncements are received.

<comment><USER7> IMHO it happens mostly because of perverse incentives of AD supported media: controversial statements attract more clicks (and more revenue). Point that "masks don't work" (even if it is not stated directly, but assumed) is more controversial than: "we don't know if masks work".

With COVID-19 I see fair amount of articles when a scientist says "We don't have (strong) evidence for X" and an article hints that X is not true (without saying this explicitily).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Masks have become a political issue, unfortunately. If everyone using masks doesn't deprive healthcare workers of PPE I'm all for it.

I don't think it's fair to criticize people who said masks aren't effective, though. It happens everywhere I look. China's anti-US propaganda video mentioned this. It's even here on HN. The reality is we don't know much yet, and this is supported by current research. My understanding is it's a better safe than sorry measure.

What really bothers me is this is just one example of people turning against each other. Now more than ever we need to be united, not fighting.

<comment><USER9> "it's a better safe than sorry measure" is itself a bold claim to be making.

It's entirely possible that cloth masks are net negative due to: 1. False sense of security meaning people interacting closer to each other or 2. People touching their faces nonstop adjusting their mask

People had the same line of reasoning for treating people with HCQ, and it's beginning to look like HCQ might be safe for healthy patients but a death sentence for COVID patients. Even if this ends up not being true, it is absolutely possible that it is — which is why we need to learn more and do so very carefully.

Life sciences is _full_ of counter-intuitive results, many of which were learned through tragedy. That's why the scientific community is so gosh darn careful about statements like, "it's better safe than sorry."

If we don't know whether it works, then we also don't know whether it's better safe than sorry.

<comment><USER7> False sense of security argument repeatedly used against the use of bicycle helmets, but I'm yet to see evidence, that having a helmet actually changes how a person rides a bike in any significant way. And I expect behavior with regard to masks to be very similar.

In a short term a person without protective equipment (e. g. helmet) may behave more cautious, but after some time I expect behavior to regress to a normal pattern regardless the use of PPE: it is very hard to be on high alert for a long period of time.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like a good question to do some scientific research on before resorting to intuition in either direction (which of course shows the weakness of intuition).

Just like what we should be doing with regards to masks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This title seems misleading to me.

The title implies that we have data showing cloth masks don't work, but what the article actually says is just that we don't have data.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have heard that while the virus may spread via microparticles, that's probably not the main method of transmission or else it would have spread much more already. Therefore it seems reasonable to believe that homemade masks might help.

</comment><comment><USER12> The title is inaccurate, they acknowledge on the first paragraph that it captures large droplets. that's reason enough to wear the mask

<comment><USER13> But large droplets drop to the ground rapidly, so if social distancing is done, they're unlikely to infect anybody, anyways.

Also, most governments advice people with a cold/fever/… to stay home. If they do, and given the current estimate of infection rate, those droplets aren't likely to contain the virus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's really odd about the linked article is that it's supposed to be a summary of this paper:

[https://download.nap.edu/cart/download.cgi?record_id=25776](https://download.nap.edu/cart/download.cgi?record_id=25776)

The actual paper consistently says that homemade masks really DO work, at least to some extent.

</comment><comment><USER15> Masks are not a risky medical procedure. Anti-mask truthers are the ones who need extraordinary evidence, not mask supporters.

Video of droplets blocked by a mask:

[https://twitter.com/i/status/1254535446509412353](https://twitter.com/i/status/1254535446509412353)

Why we should all wear masks:

[https://masks4all.co/](https://masks4all.co/)

</comment><comment><USER16> This mask discussion makes me think like I am taking crazy pills. Can someone explain to me how placing a barrier in front of your mouth and nose can possibly be a BAD idea when the purpose is to reduce the entry of particles into the system? Why do we need studies to prove this? If you are inhaling it is likely to stop some particles from getting in. If you are exhaling it is likely to stop some particles from getting out. Sure, particles might still get in or out but HOW CAN IT BE WORSE THAN LITERALLY BEING EXPOSED ALL THE TIME?

This feels like the parachute example to me that was posted here a few days ago. You don't need to do a study to prove that a man hitting the ground at 10km/h would be more likely to survive than one hitting at 150km/h. Sure, parachutes can fail, but how can they be worse off than NOT wearing a parachute?

It almost feels like the health agencies were caught with their pants down telling absolute lies about masks for over a month and are now scrambling to salvage some dignity from the affair by throwing studies at us. Just imagine how much we could have reduced transmission if Americans had started wearing masks in late February or at least early March.

This lie has literally cost the world billions of dollars, not to mention thousands of lives.

<comment><USER3> No one honest can, because masks do help. What's not clear is how much they help. They'd have a huge effect on large droplets, but potentially a very small effect on bioaerosols. Until we know more about how COVID19 typically spreads, we don't know how important they are.

In contrast to the intentionally dishonest UMN fluff PR piece, that's what the NAP paper it claims to summarize says.

The one really big effect not talked about is that it also means I can't unconsciously touch my mouth or nose. Remember the "don't touch your face" campaign?

<comment><AUTHOR> _" In contrast to the intentionally dishonest UMN fluff PR piece, that's what the NAP paper it claims to summarize says."_

The article title is "data do not back cloth masks to limit Covid-19".

The NAP paper says:

 _" The evidence from these laboratory filtration studies suggests that such fabric masks may reduce the transmission of larger respiratory droplets. There is little evidence regarding the transmission of small aerosolized particulates of the size potentially exhaled by asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals with COVID-19. The extent of any protection will depend on how the masks are made and used. It will also depend on how mask use affects users' other precautionary behaviors, including their use of better masks, when those become widely available. Those behavioral effects may undermine or enhance homemade fabric masks' overall effect on public health. The current level of benefit, if any, is not possible to assess."_

It seems like an entirely accurate summary of the contents of the paper.</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby on Rails Startup Heroku Gets $3 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/08/ruby-on-rails-startup-heroku-gets-3-million/

<comment><USER2> fantastic, congratulation guys!!

Designing, running and monitoring high performance and highly scalable websites is still part art and part science. Abstracting that part away for developers is a very lucrative market to be in.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to see some of this cash go towards supporting simple db or couch as an alternative to Postgres for some app types.

I love Heroku. Some of their opensource bits are nice too. I'm enjoying building my app in the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great job and congrats. I have an invite from Heroku, and the little I have used of it has been an amazing experience.

Abstracting away deploying, scaling and monitoring from the developers and allowing them to think about the problem they are working with is truly a boon.

And clients dont have to worry about managing hardware or dealing with redundancy. Love it. Now only if I could find a client who's willing to work with me on Heroku.

Congrats again, guys! You really deserve it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been getting the impression rails is on it's way out. It'd be neat to see this abstracted to apply to django too.

<comment><USER6> What gives you hat impression?

<comment><USER7> TechCrunch

<comment><USER8> <http://www.crunchboard.com/opening/detailjob.php?jid=4125>

<comment><USER7> I'm of the opinion that TechCrunch knows a thing or two about technology. But writing sensationalist headlines and then attracting all the loons to come out and post comments about Rails suck and so on...

My point is this: some people look to TC as an authority now and when the articles and comments reflect one perspective on something it's going to sway some people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gratz guys. Been using them for a while. Forget the browser based editor, you can deploy to them with git. Scaling without thinking (they're backed by EC2 & S3) is great, and they launched before appengine.

</comment><comment><USER10> Heroku is awesome. PG says "make something people want", and Heroku definitely embodies that for me. Congrats to them!!

<comment><USER11> Now I want Heroku for PHP ^_^ Coincidence, I also posted something about heroku here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184317>

<comment><USER12> I was about to refer you to AppJet, but apparently they're switching back from PHP to Javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why we still don't have that kind of site for Django? just a thought...

<comment><USER12> Google App Engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Congrats Adam and Heroku! Now move back to Burbank. ;)

</comment><comment><USER15> cool service.. will be interested to see what they have in store

it currently seems like the ideal type of service to go dhh style profitable with no funding

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow - fantastic. Good work guys!

</comment><comment><USER17> Heroku guys: any chance you'd extend some invitations to your YC friends? :-D

<comment><USER3> I have an invite. Tweet me.

<comment><USER18> It just could not get any more web2.0 than that comment ;)

<comment><USER3> Let me try again:

I have a free invite. Tweet me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't wait to hear DHH chide these guys about trying to be a startup instead of a small business.

[bracing for the karma hit]</comment>


How my first project won 6000 stars on GitHub in 5 days - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@thedaviddias/how-my-first-project-won-6000-stars-on-github-in-5-days-6340ec99829e <comment><USER2> It's not a numbers game.</comment>


Ask HN: "CoffeeScript for Go"? - <AUTHOR> 1. Is there anything out there that provides a "syntax-sugary" language very similar to Go which compiles to Go, kind of like CoffeeScript for JavaScript?
2. Would any Go developers be interested in using such a language?
I've always thought it could be a cool idea and is something I personally wanted. I've been considering hacking together something like this, but I'd have even more incentive if others were interested.
I don't think I'd do away with braces and use significant whitespace like CoffeeScript does. Rather, just provide sugar for many common operations, probably with a Python or Ruby feel. Things like negative indices, something to reduce repetition for the most common cases of error handling, and one-line anonymous function shorthand.
Obviously this conflicts a bit with Go's fundamental principles of simplicity, but I'm wondering who would consider it a worthy tradeoff and use such a language. <comment><USER2> As far as I know, Agora is kind of what you are looking for: [https://github.com/PuerkitoBio/agora](https://github.com/PuerkitoBio/agora)

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks like a really cool project, but is not quite what I'm looking for. It adds some good new features, but also kind of seems to cripple Go a bit? No goroutines, no channels no multiple return values, no slices, no maps, not even optional static typing.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk says he will perform same tasks as injured workers in the factory - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/06/02/elon-musk-tesla-injury-factory/ <comment><USER2> > Going forward, I've asked that every injury be reported directly to me, > without exception. I'm meeting with the safety team every week and would > like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well, so that I can > understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will > then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they > perform.

This is brilliant. Better make sure you were actually hurt before reporting something to the boss, so the numbers go down. And if there actually is a problem, its sure as heck going to get fixed before or while the CEO has to do the same task. I like this guy :)

<comment><USER3> I've been quite a vocal Tesla skeptic at times, and at times I think Elon is disconnected from what is possible, but I get a feeling he is a genuine person and actually cares abut making things better. For all his faults or things you don't agree with him, you've got to have respect for the guy.

<comment><USER4> Genuine or not he's a businessman and Tesla is company that sells ethics. A big part of its selling point is that it's a more ethical alternative to gas powered cars. If it comes out that they behaving unethically with regard to their employees, that could be fatal for them. I don't think Elron had much choice other than to take the drastic measures he's taking now.

<comment><USER5> I do not think that these things are this tightly coupled.

If Tesla car is more environmentally friendly than diesel cars, then even when they really are unethical towards their employees then there will be choice between this and other companies who have been lying to their customers and state authorities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "I'm meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform."

Whether it's true or not, once again Elon's genius shows in a solution that makes him a PR dream for his companies and a titan leader for his employees.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is tempting me to go work for Tesla and fake an injury, so I can finally meet Elon.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm guessing it's going to be difficult to detect repetitive stress injuries by spending an afternoon on the shop floor.

<comment><USER9> Or you could focus on the positive part - that he actually cares, and shows interest in learning more about the problem to better understand how to solve it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> for a life time?

</comment><comment><USER11> Right, and Steve Jobs is going to pay himself $1

<comment><USER12> I assume Steve isn't paying himself anything right now, given that's he been deceased for 5 1/2 years.

<comment><USER11> obviously.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm Grateful About the State of the Web 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://mertindervish.com/why-im-grateful-about-the-state-of-the-web-2019/ <comment><USER2> Anyone understand the HN ranking algo well enough to explain how this made the front page?

No offense to this guy, but there's not a lot of there there.

<comment><USER3> My initial reaction was that it was gamed. 7 upvotes at time of reading is doable by a small group, and it's off peak hours in the US (where I assume most of HN's traffic comes from).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about the really terrible things? More emoticons in unicode 11 for example?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well done.</comment>


Jaron Lanier on dystopia, empathy, and the future of the internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/8/16751596/jaron-lanier-dawn-of-the-new-everything-vr-interview <comment><USER2> Lanier has the bias that he thinks musicians should be important. For most of history, musicians were nobodies, outranked by bartenders. For part of the 20th century, some musicians were a big deal because of the mass economics of radio and record distribution. Now that everyone can record, mix, and distribute music easily, musicians are mostly nobodies again. At peak, there were several million Myspace bands.

(I met him back when he had the first VR rig on a pair of SGI machines. I've worn his gloves and goggles. Kind of neat, but at the time, lag was about a full second. Turn head, wait for head tracking to catch up. Early magnetic head tracking was awful.)

<comment><USER3> Yeah the irony is that most people are attracted to music because they are narcissists. The professionals I've met are very humble and grateful to have had a chance to get paid to have fun even if it's a lot of work the successful ones I know are grateful people. But the majority if would be musicians pine for the era when you didn't need to be the very best of the best to carve out a small niche. Technology has moved on, today you get fame and fortune not by emulating Jimi Hendrix but by emulating Don Buchla and Bob Moog and George Lewis. If you're not making interactive music software and or hardware then you're stuck in the 1980s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been reading interviews with Lanier since the 90s and i have come to the conclusion that one of us is really dumb, but i'm still not sure which of us it is.

<comment><USER5> I think he is a good example on why attempting to put people on simple "dumb- smart" axis might not be such a good idea.

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate on that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy is fascinating to listen to. I think the facade of techno-utopianism has really started to crumble in recent years and this sort of critical eye is what the world needs right now. Anyone know which books of his are the best reads?

<comment><USER8> "Who Owns the Future?" is IMHO very much worth a read, as it points out some of the issues we face as a society dealing with the the big social-data-silos in terms of 'us' being the product for sale, what that means, and maybe how to combat it.

<comment> salt-licker When I read "Who owns the future" three years ago I thought his diagnosis of the Internet's issues was spot on but his solution of compensating online creators with micropayments was outlandish and technically impossible. However, the rise of cryptocurrency (e.g. Basic Attention Token) made me feel short-sighted and I put a lot more stock in his ideas nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He did an interesting interview on the Tavis Smiley show last week (actually the interview went into 2 shows). You can also read the transcript.

I found the interview interesting because he clearly loves technology/internet/ai and is optimistic, but that doesn't stop him from looking with a critical eye on things and pointing out what is going wrong/ mistakes that were made.

[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/computer- scie...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/computer-scientist- author-jaron-lanier-part-1/)

</comment><comment><USER10> He gave an interview on Nightline, I believe, back in the late 90s or early 00s where he was contrasting biotech and digital tech. He concluded that digital would lead almost entirely to good things and biotech would lead exclusively to bad things. It's been a long time, but I distinctly remember how glib and categorical he was. I lost all respect for him.

<comment><USER11> Would you say that, so far, his predictions have been less than accurate?

EDIT: Why is this inquiry getting downvoted? Does anybody have an idea?

<comment><USER10> For instance, he didn't consider loss of privacy, the ability for governments and companies to surveil people, or the effect of information bubbles, for instance. Those seem like objectively bad consequences, or at least things that he'd agree are bad.

Condemning the genomics revolution as "entirely bad" is really laughable, though. The genomics era filled the drug development pipeline with thousands of new targets, and was the necessary precursor to the coming era of precision medicine and precision health.

(Also - HN has downvotes?)

<comment><USER11> Those sound like good points to me. Thanks for sharing. I am not enough educated on biotech to draw a conclusive opinion myself. What I understand about Monsanto's exploits into corn production seems devastating, though.

Once you have a certain amount of karma, you can downvote comments. I don't know what the necessary amount is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Its ironic that I've chosen not to buy his new book on VR yet, because its only available in hard and softcover, not audible.

That being said Leron's work is phenomenal and I'd recommend "who owns the future" to everyone.

<comment><USER13> It is available in audiobook format ... I just listened to it via audible :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Always good to hear from Mr. Lanier.

It was also vindicating to know that I'm not the only one who believes the gamergate => alt-right connection:

" _When women got together to try and improve their lot in the gaming world, it turned into Gamergate, which turned into the alt-right._ "

<comment><USER15> It is nice to know that whatever you believe, someone on the internet agrees with you.

<comment><USER14> Not just someone. Jaron f-ing Lanier. If I'm going to be crazy, at least I can do it with good company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Vr as an empathy machine is not a concept I buy.

The military uses vr to reduce empathy to out groups and increase tribalism.

Plus I see no reason VR gained empathy will last the moment someone gets into a resource conflict in the real world. Somethings are zerosum.</comment>


The Minuum keyboard project: mobile keyboards reimagined - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/minuum

<comment><USER2> My (irrational) fear is that if this becomes a modest success, there will be an aqui-hiring with much talk of it appearing in some upcoming edition of Blackberry or Windows or whatever, and then nothing will be heard from them again.

I think I need a little more sunshine, I must be low on Vitamin D.

<comment><USER3> Once something like this becomes somewhat popular, even if it's killed by acquisition, there will be clones popping up everywhere. I have Swype on my N9 (once considered state-of-the art input innovation) and I remember anticipating it being on every smartphone. That didn't happen, but now you can find dozens of clones in the Android market.

That's how technology moves. Ground-breaking technology becomes a commodity, often laying the foundation for bigger innovations to take place.

<comment><USER4> "...but now you can find dozens of clones in the Android market."

Android 4.2.2 comes with a swipe keyboard by default. I have it on my Nexus 7 --I don't use it all the time, but it's useful when I am tired or I want to type longer sentences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vaguely reminds me of Dave Mackay's (sadly now neglected) Dasher research project[1], in that both can be used to enter text with input devices that only have a single axis.

Dasher's seems like it fits better with continuous/'analogue' input methods, though (it uses inherently continuous input, Minuum's just using the analogue entry systems to simulate a single-row keyboard).

[1] home: <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/>

gif showing the concept: [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/images/largedasher...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/images/largedasher.gif)

play store: <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dasher.android>

<comment><USER6> Dasher is really cool, but it suffers from two major problems:

1\. It's inherently slow. It just takes a long time to get from one letter to the next, even when you're following along the expected path.

2\. It's exceptionally distracting to see alternate expected words pop up along your way as you type, and I find it tends to derail my line of thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Video: Loud music, lots of bass, dude is a quiet talker. I couldn't make out everything he was saying.

Also: Touch typing on the full size iPad is extremely pleasant, and not bad on the mini. Screen real estate is quickly reclaimed when you quit typing. It's nice to have the same text input interface between your laptop and tablet.

<comment><USER8> They did not mix the audio correctly. So many people miss out on mixing and end up with all audio fighting to be heard. If you're not going to invest in a sound engineer to mix your audio, at least learn about using a simple compressor with side chain fed from the voice channel; it'll let people hear what you're trying to say even with loud music in the background.

<comment><USER9> I really appreciate this comment.... I always wondered why it's so hard to make music quiet behind voice tracks. But the words you used don't make any sense to me and they're not that easy to Google. I did poke around a bit though, and I think what you're talking about is referred to as "ducking"?

For those who want to apply this technique, it's built into GarageBand: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulfKubMdxPA>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I personally hate auto-correction, false corrections are highly annoying.

I use Messagease on my phone. It took me around a week to get to 30 WPM. With two fingers it's possible to have around 50 WPM.

If you are looking for alternative keyboards, I recommend to try it:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exideas.me...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exideas.mekb)

<comment><USER11> Hmm decided to try MeassagEase out. It's a neat little thing. It's the first touch keyboard that I would consider punching code in with. Most tablet keyboards require too many button presses to get to the symbols and lack the deliberate nature this seems to have. Would be nice if it had some predictive text for when I'm just chatting but oh well.

<comment><USER12> I tried it, too. It works great. Check the add-ons available, one appears to be an English word prediction pack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks interesting, but the music is mixed waaaay too high. I have to really strain to hear his voice over the background music.

<comment><USER14> That does concern one when it's a video regarding a user interface project, doesn't it? :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think the ideas quickly presented near the end of the video (~1:30 onwards) are the most exciting part of this project. Right now, text entry using a video game controller isn't exactly pleasant, and there are no shortage of use cases for technologies like Google Glass where voice recognition wouldn't be appropriate. This area is ripe for innovation; good luck Minuum!

<comment><USER15> Alternate keyboards seem to die quickly.

Frogpad was a one handed keyboard.

The Twiddler was another which is probably a good fit for Google Glass. (<http://youtu.be/gS8wGePlknM?t=1m19s>) (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzgJR8uAQvc>) -- but note that Twiddler2 was about $200.

<comment><USER16> You forgot the AlphaGrip[1]!

[1] <http://www.alphagrips.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To summarize without having to watch 2 minutes of video: squash three rows of querty keyboard onto one row and auto-correct.

</comment><comment><USER18> I love the concept, especially if it degrades gracefully when one needs extra precision (ie, when typing things like names that are guaranteed to fail autocomplete). Looking forward to trying it out.

This is also yet another reason for bailing out of the iOS ecosystem. Hope this finds its way to Ubuntu Mobile! :)

</comment><comment><USER19> My problem with this (as a non-native english speaker) is that such solutions often only support latin based languages and cyrillic is completely left out. This will probably make it impossible to write, as auto-complete will not work well.

Otherwise, it looks interesting, but I am a bit skeptical. good luck to the dev team

<comment><USER20> Most non English languages don't work with these. My main language speaker count is 1 miljon. I am not going to get auto-correction for this anywhere soon(assuming it uses it). And my language happens to have some special letters, so without changing keyboard, you can't just switch vocabulary(we bypass it by using numbers, but this makes text non computer readable).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm on my phone, so I can't watch the video.

My problem with keyboards that rely too heavily on autocomplete is that it makes it too hard to use the web. Email addresses, domain names, and passwords aren't going to be in the autocomplete dictionary.

<comment><USER22> Would <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzYCZm-ces0> be of any help to you? I'm not familiar with how iPhones open various URLs, but I can open that in the YouTube app on my Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If the autocorrect is good this could actually be pretty neat. I found that because you stuck with QWERTY I could "eye type" on it pretty easily, unlike some other concept keyboards.

This should really be implemented as a feature in a full-size keyboard. Like a button with a down arrow that causes the keyboard to shrink into "one dimension" when you want the screen space. Or if 1D must be the default, it should at least be able to expand to full size when a lot of typing is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER24> This project reminds me of Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" and ensemble coding.

I personally consider this book a must read for every aspiring entrepreneur in software and hardware.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there a version of the video without the music? I can barely hear what he's saying.

<comment><USER26> Incidentally, I really love the soundtrack. Does anyone know if this is just stock music from somewhere?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You guys should build it if you think it is worth building, why do you need backing for software keyboard ?!

I am not backing this and it is getting ridiculous. And video, there should be Bootstrap for Kickstarter videos, a template you can just add to.

I would be happy to try this out when it comes out. I expect it will not work for me as I am bilingual and those keyboards only work well for english. But good luck, don't spend all the money at one place.

<comment><USER28> _why do you need backing for software keyboard ?!_

It takes time to make software. Backing gives you the money to dedicate time.

<comment><USER29> i can imagine it takes time to build something like this, but there are a lot of people building cool stuff without the money (open source is all about it).

In my opinion there is no reason why they couldn't start with a first beta for android (payed app) and interrate from there.

If more people like it, they'll buy it.

Kickstarter/etc. is just marketing, i hate the development of this "strategy" for software.

<comment><USER30> Again, building software takes time and money. Much of open source has been "subsidized" by people either working on getting a degree, or by their employer when they build and release something that solves a problem for the company.

Kickstarters and other similar crowdfunding platforms are a great way to gauge interest in a concept before starting to build it. If thousands of people are willing to pay for it before it exists, then even more are likely to pay for the finished application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting approach, at first glance I was not really convinced, but seeing the possible applications in wearable electronics, this might be the ideal solution.

</comment><comment><USER32> There is a layout on Greek phone keyboards (not smartphones) in which every letter possibility is divided in 3 letter segments of the alphabet (i.e. one segment is ABC (or ΑΒΓ) another DEF (ΔΕΖ) and so on and so forth). Normally, you press the key as many times as the letter you wish to write (i.e. one click for A, two for B, three for C) or in this different layout you click once for a letter that exists in the word in the series that it is shown then another series in which the next letter exists etc. The phone then creates a word out of those possible letters and spits out the closest result, with no fail.

For example, you want to write the word 'and', you press the sequence 'ABC', then 'MNO' and lastly 'DEF'. Then it creates the word 'and'.

I haven't found something like that in American phones, albeit I use an iPhone now. It's more intuitive than it sounds and it makes texting a lot faster.

If anybody can bring more input about this happening in English phone keyboards is welcome to do so. (It also might have a name that I am not aware of)

<comment><USER33> This sounds like <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)> which was quite popular in the US before smartphones took over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm not convinced for smartphones, but the tail end of the video shows some real promise. The watch and game controller in particular.

It is interesting that they are using QWERTY. Im curious if thats a decision based on trying to gain acceptance. It seems that if you're looking to really reinvent user input, theres likely a more ideal layout.

<comment><USER35> I think the choice of QWERTY is purely for acceptance reasons. Everybody can air-type on an imaginary keyboard, using a new layout would be a massive barrier to entry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> For the part with typing for your watch and glasses, I think MYO + ASETNIOP, enabling typing on any surface (such as discreetly on your thighs) with zero interface, will be much more practical.

<comment><USER37> I'm excited about MYO too, and thanks for bringing ASETNIOP to my attention.

But I think "practical" is the wrong word for the advantages of both of those technologies (separately and also in combination). "Powerful" seems more to- the-point.

Myo requires specialized hardware. ASETNIOP requires specialized training. Minuum doesn't require the former (beyond an accelerometer), and almost none of the latter.

I think Minuum would combine well with Myo.

Links for the curious+lazy:

<https://getmyo.com/>

<http://asetniop.com/>

<comment><USER38> ASETNIOP's got a learning curve, but a MUCH higher ceiling. I'm seeing 37 wpm quoted as the top speed for Minuum, whereas here's a demo of an _average_ speed of 65 wpm sustained over three minutes: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nygdYinzpmk>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> They should sell this on Cydia to replace the iOS default keyboard.

It looks pretty interesting but I do not really have a problem with the default keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER40> Did swype ever get acquired? this looks interesting, and could be a useful acquisition target for samsung/apple/google

<comment><USER41> Swype was acquired by Nuance. Nuance has quite the portfolio for input entry whether it be by speech or typing.

Reinventing text entry/editing is something I've always wanted to do/see done. Wish there were more solutions that weren't based off of QWERTY, though. I realize it's been the standard since the typewriter, but if we really want to see huge gains in speed and efficiency, we should shift away from it.

<comment><USER42> I was always surprised that Apple did not acquire Swype. It is a fantastic input method, the kind of "magic" people expect from Apple. Now that the Google has implemented gesture typing for Android's stock keyboard, I assume Swype must not have patents strong enough to block imitators. Maybe that's why Swype was not acquired by Apple or Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jae- Looks like it will be painful to get used to, but we said that about the QWERTY keyboard and look where we are today.

<comment><USER43> I don't even think so. It's just QWERTY without Y axis, after all. I guess that you'll be accustomed to it after a couple of minutes of typing.

What's hard is adapting to entirely different layouts such as Dvorak (which, by the way, could probably increase autocorrect accuracy greatly).

<comment><USER41> This is likely true for those of us who have already become accustomed to typing using QWERTY, but there are many who are just learning or have yet to learn to type, most notably children.

If at some point an input method that is faster and more efficient than QWERTY gains real traction and is taught or exposed to our youth, I'd expect a shift away from what's become convention.

This is by no means something that will just happen overnight, but I'd be a little saddened if in the last years of my life, QWERTY remains as the dominant method of text input. It's certainly a good solution, but no where near an optimal one.

<comment><USER43> The "gaining real traction" part is exactly the issue. Of course, we'd all love our governments to force everyone to learn Dvorak or something similar, but usually, no authority worries about our keyboard layouts, and people just use what others use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If you're interested in alternative keyboards, take a look at GKOS. It's a thumb based chorded keyboard.

<http://gkos.com/gkos/index-gkos-com.html>

</comment><comment><USER45> I think the keys can be grouped in way that you rarely will need to press the same key twice in a row. The typing speed could be increased and would be less words options for each typed sequence. It's just a though...

<comment><USER43> Sure, but that will require users to get used to a different layout. Dvorak (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard>) does this. It isn't very popular though, as it's few people want to spend time relearning how to touch type.

<comment><USER46> Comparing touch typing to touch keyboards is quite a stretch, pardon the pun.

<comment><USER43> How is that? Somebody who doesn't know how to touch type is usually having a pretty hard time locating the keys on a QWERTY keyboard. Tactile typing (I just made that name up) doesn't require exact knowledge of the key placement as you need it when touch typing, but you still need some kind of muscle memory if you want to achieve a reasonable speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This has some potentially amazing possibilities for accessible devices. I hope they get some people with various limbs and digits missing for testing.

(The music drowns out the voice! That's a shame.)

</comment><comment><USER47> Tests will show how correct it will be. May I suggest to also try swype with this?

<comment><USER48> I like swype, and the new swiftkey flow (basically swype + swiftkey), but even with 2D querty it's frustrating how often either of those misinterprets what I'm trying to enter.

If it got still less info -- particularly as this is being developed with far fewer developer resources than Swype and SwiftKey have at their disposal... -- I don't have much hope for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I want this in Ubuntu phone.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think the most interesting use of this would be typing via eye-tracking.

</comment><comment><USER51> Off topic: This was filmed in the Bahen building at U of T! Go DGP!

</comment><comment><USER52> Ugh, just give me back my candybar qwerty already!

</comment><comment><USER53> Yet, it's still in QWERTY.

<comment><USER42> That's the point. Users don't need to learn a new keyboard layout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> If they could jimmy something up for the Windows phone, I'd be very happy. Its a great idea and aesthetically it looks cool.

</comment><comment><USER55> >Fact

>People have difficulty typing on mobile devices. (Your experience may vary.)

Uh.</comment>


Formspring is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://formspring.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/formspring-is-shutting-down/ <comment><USER3> Would love to see a retrospective. Why didn't it succeed? What did you try? Did you say no to early acquisition offers?

<comment><USER4> This was my first time visiting their website. I'll not sign up for a service when they don't show me what they have.

I like StackOverflow because they show their content, they allow you to use their service without signing up. You will signup when you got familiar with the service enough.

My rule of thumb is, show user the content, the value and then expect them to sign up. A video or some nice buzz words are not enough.

<comment><USER5> Formspring does let you see someone's questions and answers without having an account if you go to the profile. I guess they could highlight some accounts on the homepage, but people mostly used it to ask their friends questions, so that wouldn't really reflect the normal use of the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very surprising the company didn't end up acquired by a major player, I remember it was all the rage in 2010. Good luck in your future endeavours Ade and team.

<comment><USER7> Being on the other side of it, they crushed AWS services in 2010!!!

<comment><USER8> Oh yes we did :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is what happens when you don't win the "acquisition lottery" in the game of startups. This could've easily been the fate of Instagram, or Foodspotting.

On a side note.. the most politically correct way to shutdown a service is to let users export their data.. but I wonder if even 1 person is going to want to do that here.

<comment><USER8> Why wouldn't they? Many people have dedicated hours of their time to craft thoughtful and funny responses, I'd assume they would want to keep a record of this.

<comment><USER10> I think you should contact <http://archiveteam.org>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the question here is, how could one make stats like those profitable - with 20M unique monthly visitors, it solves some particular problem (not sure if it's a pain, though).

</comment><comment><USER12> Would be interesting to get a comparative retrospective on why these guys lost while Quora seems to have come from nowhere solidly into the mainstream.

<comment><USER13> Mainstream? Isn't Quora still mostly US tech crowd. It's very little known and used in Europe outside startup/investor community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you'd like to sell the domain to a broke student I'll pay $100 for it. Either way, hopefully the future will shine upon you!

<comment><USER8> You are apparently not the only one :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's unfortunate. Some (non-teenage) people actually use it. Case in point, I'm aware of a rabbi in NY who uses it to answer questions from his congregants [1].

[1] - <http://www.formspring.me/rabbiblake>

</comment><comment><USER16> My girlfriend used Formspring a lot for the photography related posts - <USER2> love to know if there was a simple way to scrape posts for future reference. She was upset when I told her FS was shutting down.

Good luck for the future, FS team!

</comment><comment><USER17> They couldn't be that profitable since the average of people using it was 12-13 lol.

And I'm guessing the other reason they shut down is that ask.fm took over, pretty much took the exact same idea and now all the tween's are using that now...

<comment><USER5> They lost a lot of traffic, and it started before ask.fk took over: [http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=400&h=220&o=f&c...](http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=4y&u=ask.fm&&u=formspring.me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this really the official FormSpring blog, with only two entries?

<comment><USER8> We `reset` the blog a few months ago. That's why there are only a couple of posts.

<comment><USER18> Sorry to hear the news. I hope you and the team go on to new and greater things.

<comment><USER8> While it's heartbreaking to have to shut down something you've poured your heart into for many years, we have learned many things along the way that will help us for what's coming next. Thanks for the kind words.

<comment><USER19> Can I ask how much (low/mid/high x-digits) the raw AWS hosting costs of a site like this are?

I'd love the idea of trying to take over something like this, but I have a suspicion I might be in way over my head...

<comment><USER20> I still don't understand why anyone would want to use AWS unless you had money to burn. I haven't followed the prices as of a couple years ago but I'd say most people on here are smart enough to find cheaper solutions that can achieve the same thing. If saving money is your goal you can make it happen-- there are providers out there with the right APIs that allow you to build something that can scale (or adapts) at a fixed/linear cost. If you have the money and it isn't worth your time to setup the infrastructure then AWS would be the right decision. I just don't understand the infatuation.

<comment><USER8> The real benefits of AWS is scale on demand, if you need it.

Formspring reached 1 million users in 45 days. How do you plan for this on typical hardware? Especially when you had no idea ANYONE would use your little side project?

AWS isn't cheap. It offers building blocks upon which you can "easily" build and scale a website. Not for everyone, but good enough for us.

<comment><USER21> Do you always have to operate expecting sudden spikes and that prevents you from moving to a cheaper hardware? If traffic gets over what you could serve, display 'our servers are busy' message and perhaps that way you could have kept the service alive if costs halved..

<comment><USER8> > Do you always have to operate expecting sudden spikes and that prevents you > from moving to a cheaper hardware?

In short, yes. This is inherent to the nature of Formspring – or to some extent social networks.

Since most of your actions on the site are being `broadcasted` to all your followers, and since the distribution of followers follows a pareto distribution, it is very difficult to predict load at any given time, as one single action by a very popular user could trigger hundreds of millions of events (publishing to everybody's stream, sending emails, push notifications, updating counters, spam filtering, etc.)

We benefit greatly from the elasticity of AWS, and `scale up` accordingly to deliver this event in a timely manner.

If we were not concerned by `delivery time`, we would be able to smooth it out, but at the expense of engagement… and as you can imagine, engagement in a social network is quite important :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember when Formspring.me took off on Tumblr a few years back. Then Tumblr took notice this little doodad everyone was passing around begging for questions and cloned it. Then ask.fm just tore through with the traffic.

Oh well, great run. At least Formstack still works great.

</comment><comment><USER23> Poorly named co

got smashed by a Quora.

Name or app to blame?

<comment><USER8> Call me when Quora has 30 million users ;-)

But more seriously, the name Formspring originates from what Formspring used to be, and has been renamed Formstack: <http://www.formstack.com>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Finally... Living in Indy and knowing several people behind this, I knew it was doomed from day one. Social plays like this try to do nothing more than capitalize on trends without adding any real value. They pivoted from a form generating site to a virality play, which was never even executed well to begin with.

...and now they shoot for a photo app. <sarcasm> Good work </sarcasm>

<comment><USER25> Seriously? 30 million users at FormSpring's peak seems to be executed relatively well. It was no Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, but 30 million users is a damn good failure as far as I'm concerned.

Now if you want to talk about social plays that capitalize on trends with without adding any real value that are not executed especially well, then we can talk about Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning"s travesty that is Airtime.

<comment><USER24> 30 million users generating no revenue.

edit: and retention rates were abysmal. 30 million people signed up is a vanity metric. actual "users" was a very, very small fraction of that

<comment><USER26> I have a hard time criticizing someone for taking a ride on something that was grew from 0 to 30 million uniques in 6 months, just to see where it goes. You're right it wasn't super sticky and failed to drive long term utility for users, but I think most of us here would want to take a swing at that kind of growth and turn it into something that had long term value.

<comment><USER25> Thank you for summarizing what I was really trying to say here, chaz. Even half of YC's consumer focused tech companies should be so lucky.

The team, the direction they took the product, and the VCs/funding aside, Ade's clearly massive effort is inspiring and should be congratulated rather than completely drown out with sarcasm.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best piece of software you use everyday? - <AUTHOR> Inspired by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23803539 (Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?), but with a more optimistic slant.<p>Great software is rare, but not unheard of - which software you use everyday is delightful, useful, rock-solid and pleasant to use? <comment><USER2> * neovim

* 1Password (caveat I work for 1Password)

</comment><comment><USER3> Vscode

</comment><comment><USER4> IntelliJ

</comment><comment><USER5> vim

</comment><comment><USER6> iTerm</comment>