We Need to Break the Mobile Duopoly - <AUTHOR> http://a16z.com/2015/02/09/third-mobile-os-3/ <comment><USER2> He's asking for innovation in the wrong place. The OP conveniently ignores all the other mobile OSs out there such as Windows, Firefox, Ubuntu and also people like Fairphone. It's pretty lazy to just claim we need more, when what he really wants is one more (open) _winner_.

I say that he's looking in the wrong place because to "democratize the mobile operating system" is to ignore a critical part of what makes mobile worthwhile. All those cloud services and apps that do useful things for you. How about we democratize the cloud instead? There should be no real reason I can't point my iOS device at my own infrastructure to co-ordinate sync, backup and sharing of all my stuff (instead of iCloud). Must I sign up for yet another third-party service/app just to provide me with an incremental feature? Why can't I just install apps into my own little cloud backend that my phone can connect to and do useful things for me? Have _that_ be open for developers to target and maybe I can pay them for their work. Then it matters less what physical hardware I happen to be using. Of course, you can only access the plethora of sensors with a native app but most services I use don't need this much context. In any case, this is a concept many people are beginning to advocate for with a variety of reasons. FWIW, some of us are taking a clean-slate approach to tackle the distributed systems issues [http://amirchaudhry.com/brewing-miso-to-serve- nymote/](http://amirchaudhry.com/brewing-miso-to-serve-nymote/)

<comment><USER3> >>There should be no real reason I can't point my iOS device at my own infrastructure to co-ordinate sync, backup and sharing of all my stuff (instead of iCloud).

I want this as much as you and everyone else who upvoted you, but the problem is there is no obvious business model in it. Sure, techies will pay (app.net?), but the general population doesn't care enough to put out money for this.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, this is kind of a serious problem. People want to use popular, or at least well-advertised platforms. People also don't want to pay any money if they can help it. So we end up with advertising-funded spy-clouds and addiction-funded IAPs as dominant business models.

What I'd like to see, and hardly anyone is talking about, is the cooperative model for this. Servers run by a community of interest; paid staff to manage the things which really require central clearing (anti-spam and anti-abuse in particular) and develop the system; users paying on an ongoing basis and being given a voice and a vote in the way the system is run. Federation with similar systems.

Bits of this exist already, but only on a very small scale and with the political/organisational infrastructure - basically individuals running Minecraft servers and the like.

I suppose I could gather thousands of recruits for something like this if I said "blockchain" a lot, but in truth it's the opposite: a system that requires users to trust individual other humans.

<comment><USER5> That sounds like a commune

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The web is your 3rd mobile OS.

Sure the developing world still needs very cheap phones, and they require software close to the hardware.

But in the developed world phones and tables get closer to a full PC every day. They basically are tiny PCs.

And exactly how the web made Windows and OSX, and Linux less interesting, so it will make the mobile OSs less interesting.

Because even if you can't get close to the hardware, and might require user permissions to access hardware features, still a java script and HTML5 based web app can do almost anything you want on mobile hardware. History keeps repeating itself.

<comment><USER2> That's not the way the current evidence is pointing. People do like apps and so far the pendulum doesn't seem to be swinging back to the web.

See slides 11 & 30 at [http://a16z.com/2014/10/28/mobile-is-eating-the- world/](http://a16z.com/2014/10/28/mobile-is-eating-the-world/)

<comment><USER7> it's more nuanced than that. The web is now also reponsive websites. I'm bullish on mobile mostly due to that very presentation. I'm counting the web under mobile.

<comment><USER2> The graph on slide 11 is pretty clear that the trend is for _more_ time being spent in mobile apps than on the web. Unless you want to take issue with the data, there isn't much nuance there.

To whoever downvoted my earlier comment (if it wasn't the parent), please explain why. I don't have a strong opinion on app vs web so I'm keen to see data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "For OEMs/handset makers, choice means the ability to do more with software"

Please no, this would only yield to more bloatware. The move of Google is smart, moving the OS away from OEMs. [Most] manufacturers have demonstrated again and again that they cannot be trusted with software, since they only care about profit and putting more and more useless apps into the OS.

We might need more mobile OS, but not for this reason.

<comment><USER9> Yep. The thesis of this essay is that choice is unequivocally good for users, handset makers, everyone. Experience doesn't play that out. The experience of a curated, pruned garden vs. a wild west scammy bazaar isn't a good one for users.

Here's what happens when you search facebook on Windows Store:

[http://imgur.com/QDHcpG0](http://imgur.com/QDHcpG0)

Choice is great! You can "choose" to install a scam app or the official one. Incompetent OEMs can "choose" to override system behavior. After all, Dell, HP & friends were known for really improving the PC software experience.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure when that screenshot was taken but its probably an exaggeration.

Actual search results: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/search#q=facebook...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/search#q=facebook&s=Store)

You do have a point about a free for all. There was this great blog post about a month ago about someone installing the top 10 free downloads from download.com and the mayhem that ensues.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when- you-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-you-install- the-top-10-download.com-apps/?PageSpeed=noscript)

<comment><USER9> The screenshot was real, but from about a year ago. Maybe things have changed. Here's a blog post showing the cesspool that was search results less than a year ago:

[http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2014/08/microsoft-windows- store...](http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2014/08/microsoft-windows-store- seriously-sucks/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Windows Phone is not that bad.

Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services, but I think we can all survive without Hangouts (Telegram, etc) and Google Voice (who cares anymore) at this point.

<comment><USER12> WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected, and my experience running production code was always rock solid.

But the app situation is abominable, and getting worse. The Xbox program seems to have been all but abandoned. Microsoft seems to have largely given up even monitoring the app store; half the top/new games on the lists for the last several months have been blatantly pirated material, either blatant copies of whatever iOS/Android fad is running at the moment, or actual emulator ROMs of old console games running in a buggy, half-broken wrapper. They don't even have an actual category for reporting copyright infringement on the report form.

They've also made some missteps on a fair few occasions regarding their own apps, especially with the move to 8.1; replacing or breaking the existing functionality like the Xbox Games portal and the Music app.

On the technical side, there's also some issues regarding app support and limitations on both hardware and software. Manufacturers have to agree to very strict tech specifications in order to license WP, so very few other than Nokia have ever bothered to take them up on it. WP apps are heavily sandboxed and limited in a way reminiscent of pre-multitasking iOS, and the official line from MS seems to be that the only acceptable way to build WP apps is in C# with .NET on Visual Studio. Period. Very grudgingly, HTML5 apps are supported. Other options are possible, but largely only through workarounds, which often are grossly undocumented or hacky. Even MS' own other languages, like VB.net and F# are not officially supported, save as libraries in the latter case. (though again in the latter case, MS seems to not believe anyone should want to build full apps in pure F# _at all_.)

The OS and the interface themselves are great, and some of those limitations are no doubt part of why by forcing a more predictable environment. But a lot of it just seems to be MS repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, and I dread to think how much worse it would get if MS had any actual leverage on the market.

<comment> V-2 If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers 100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :)) for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone

<comment><USER13> Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers there.

<comment><USER14> In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for. Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging, analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store have.

Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Call me biased, but Firefox OS makes the web run on 25$ smartphones, is fully open and customizable because it's the web, has the biggest "app store" of the world because it runs any web app, is totally royalty-free (just like the other Mozilla projects), and is already being shipped on lots of devices all around the globe. How's that for an open, unlocked and innovation-friendly alternative?

<comment><USER13> It's just the reviews on such low cost phones runing FFoS are pretty bad, and once you climb to $65 or $100 , windows phone and android offer much better alternatives.

<comment><USER15> Most of these reviews are unfair (comparing a 25$ FxOS to devices at 2x the cost or more) but you make a point about FxOS not being attractive for higher- end. That's part of why it's currently being reinvented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We already have a 3rd mobile OS, it is called Windows Phone and is doing quite well (actually more than iOS) in a few European countries.

<comment><USER12> Pretty much only Finland, really, and that's because of the local Nokia brand loyalty and aggressive local pricing. With MS axing the Nokia brand, I see Samsung picking up the slack easily if they dare to compete on price like they do in other countries rather than trying to angle as a luxury brand. I'm already starting to see a lot more Galaxies and iPhones on the street in Helsinki and Tampere these days.

<comment><USER16> No, unless it changed the southern countries have a lot of them.

Windows Phone are the only alternative to Android, when you are buying pre- paid phones and not willing to shell out more then 500 euros for a mobile phone, when earning 400 euros on average.

Even the contracts are not an option for such users.

<comment><USER12> Fair enough. I haven't kept up with the numbers in a while.

I can certainly understand the price issue, it's the reason I went with a WP here in Finland: My Lumia 1320 was only 300€. Nothing comparable for Android or iOS was available for less than twice that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My biggest hope is that breaking the duopoly makes it essential that someone cracks the nut of cross-platform development - and hopefully forces the focus back onto web apps or a similar open technology.

Firefox saved us from an Internet Explorer world. This time round it seems that we need more than just one caped crusader.

<comment><USER18> "Firefox saved us from an Internet Explorer world. This time round it seems that we need more than just one caped crusader."

Or a whole lot more people joining us in the fight. Mozilla is as capable as you all make it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tizen, Firefox OS and Ubuntu are probably the candidates, but I think Tizen has a combination of things going for it:

1) It's not based on AOSP (unlike Firefox OS)

2) Supports both native and HTML5 apps (Firefox OS apps are limited to HTML5)

3) Backed by Samsung, still a powerful hardware player in most markets. Both Firefox OS and Ubuntu [have had/will have] a tough time getting device manufacturers to adopt their OS, but Tizen doesn't have that problem.

<comment><USER16> Sorry but I don't buy into Tizen.

They already did a full native API revamp a few times, with no upgrade path every time it was done.

First they threw out the APIs they got from Meego and replaced with straight Bada C++, then they did a facelift, but kept the Bada feeling to the APIs[0], now C++ is out the door and one is supposed to use EFL with C.

Also the documentation leaves a lot to wish for.

[0] Similar to the Symbian C++ dialect, dual step initialization, handles, macros for exceptions

<comment><USER20> Yeah, sounds bad. The constantly changing API is just too much to keep up with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the system will eventually implode. I'm actually here after my app got arbitrarily rejected by apple and I found Paul Graham's essay on how apple treats developers. I've spent the last year of my life learning iOS, first OC, then swift. I've dedicated thousands of hours developing, promoting, and even helping aspiring iOS developers on SO. I have been a loyal customer, developer, and investor, but today I sold all of my stock and pledged to never develop for or buy apple products again. It's just not worth it. We've all heard the saying the customer is always right, but in this industry it should be the developer is always right. The current system we have harms developers. Yes google and apple have incentives to keep it closed, but they can't hold forever. Although many will argue they are dead, I think web-apps will take over as more system Apis are supported.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure what the article is asking for exactly, we've had a third OS for quite some time.

We had Blackberry, iOS, and Android; now we have legitimate Windows Phone adoption, iOS, and Android; and if one of those three should die, we have FirefoxOS to fill in the gap.

<comment> V-2 It seems to be asking for the third OS to play any significant role, so as to exert competitive pressure on the Big Two. I also don't think that Windows Phone is giving them a run for they money just yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That sounds like a great way to increase fragmentation. Even the current duopoly situation is, to me, an anomaly and a general waste of resources, only existing because of how powerful are the backers and interests of both mobile OSes. These are two incredibly rich players in a fight for survival, which is why the market hasn't been completely overrun by one of them.

I'm sorry to say that, but if you want to get more choices and freedom, the most likely course to succeed is the legal one. Once the prominent player is attacked with anti trust litigation, they'll open up whatever needed to quiet things down. That being said, Google is pretty good on openness from the first place.

Another mobile OS would just mean an awful experience for users, fragmentation for developers and a temptation for device makers to create crap user experience. In terms of resources, if you want to see the mobile market moving forward and not sideways, better invest precious developer efforts in content and functionality, not on more cross platform madness and reinvention of the wheel.

Finally, users get a better experience when things are curated. No one can argue Apple's model doesn't work. People are less concerned about what they _can_ do with their phones, and more concerned about what they _actually_ do with their phones, which is why quality and polish win every time over choice and openness.

</comment><comment><USER24> Apps that I explicitly installed on my Nexus 5: Chrome-to-phone, Chromecast, Google Drive (maybe that one came installed?), a metronome, and WhatsApp.

What I'm getting at, is that apps _interfaces_ are generally better than web pages or "web apps", but _everything else about them sucks_. They nag you constantly with updates and unsolicited request to do some action, require to think about permissions, and crash often.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does this argument parellel Linux vs Windows vs OSX to anyone else?

I think the main problem is going to be getting people to develop for an alternative OS. MS had a paid developer per unique app program, which was called desparate by some. Comments here state that license to develop for the WP is a $100??? Jeez, I wonder what their growth team is thinking.

Developers are highly sought after, experimenting is fun, but a lot of people are looking for stable jobs either from the beginning or they want to try a start up / own their own business first. This is also a common problem with trying new programming languages, why choose a new one when established languages have large user base, jobs are plentiful, and not much worry it's going to be abandoned 2 years down the line?

There has to be incentives to overcome these barriers to gain large spread adoption. At the end of the day a lot of it comes down to livelyhood. Will a person risk time devoting on something new? If a person starts a company on this new OS, will other developers take that risk to join? Will the clients/customers be willing to make that switch?

<comment><USER26> I think the main problem is that if you want to play in the mobile space, you must invest heavily in lawyers:

[http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1153292](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1153292) [http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing- whom-i...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the- telecoms-trade/)

It's not the walls that keep people out, it's the sharks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> _Think about the type of deep integration that Apple-owned Siri has on iPhones, or Google-owned Gmail has on stock Android phones, for instance. Those apps operate much more contextually and fluidly, and far more powerfully, on those phones than 3rd-party apps downloaded from an app store would._

While I understand the point about Siri, Gmail (of all the Google apps) seems like a terrible example of the same thing on the Android side (Maps and its incestuous relationship with Play Services might be a better fit). What does Gmail do that Microsoft's Outlook app couldn't do if Microsoft were willing to invest the effort? Maybe I'm missing a feature I don't use, but the best I can come up with is being bundled with the device, but even there if Microsoft struck a deal with, say, Verizon, I don't think there's much Google could do about it.

<comment><USER15> I think a better example for Google's deep integration into android is the "Google Search app" (previously "Google Now") that is sort of a Siri- equivalent: you can talk to it, it can manage your phone, send emails, create new alarms, manage your calendar, assist your transit, even change the temperature at home if you have Nest.

Worth noting that this type of deep integration is totally possible with the Web: you can use many APIs like voice recognition, alarms, etc. "3rd-party apps" from the web can very well integrate deeply with your device, if you allow them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a classic network effects problem. The two OS's are dominant because they are powerful two sided networks (developers + users) and so breaking the duopoly is that much harder. As is typical with these sorts of networks you really need to solve a problem a user or developer has 10X better than the existing networks do. The few times we've seen this happen on the internet are when the new company focuses on a specific vertical (airbnb to craigslist) and/or is aided by a specific technology wave or breakthrough. I suspect the "third" "mobile" OS will succeed similarly i.e. it will either solve for a narrow use case and blow every alternative out of the water and/or be aided by some new technology. Definitely won't happen via brute force...not 8 years in at least

</comment><comment><USER29> "For OEMs/handset makers, choice means the ability to do more with software"

Well, that's what Google did with Android but the makers were so bad at it (making the Android worse, not updating...) that Google had to take back control by moving more and more elements to the Play services.

<comment><USER17> I think Google had mixed motives - it wasn't just the quality thing, it was that some OEMs were obviously trying to make a platform play of their own.

However the fact that quality was also an issue put me in the very weird position of applauding the increased centralization of Android.

I'm hoping Cyanagenmod can somehow square the circle here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> 1\. There's no chance of a completely different mobile OS succeeding at any point in the near future. An OS needs a huge platform of partners to work, even Blackberry and Microsoft haven't succeeded. The only chance is a fork of Android that can build off their software and apps, but look how hard of a time Amazon has with that. (Though obviously a16z is hoping their company Cyanogen can succeed.)

2\. The more OS's there are, the worse it is for companies that have to build apps for multiple systems. It would be easiest if there was just one OS, but like Communism, that doesn't work out. So a duopoly seems like the best compromise.

<comment><USER31> I agree with you on the first point. I think it might be worthwhile for MS to give up on WP and go all in with their own fork of Android, specifically because of how hard of a time Amazon has had. If MS joined Amazon with their own individual forks between the two of them, along with MS's services that could replace Google Play Services (Outlook for GMail, Cortana for Now, Maps for Maps, etc...) that might capture enough of the Android user base to incentivize Android devs to target all Android app stores and not focus just on Google Play. That would break the duoply not at the OS level but it would mean that Google would have to compete harder to keep Android users on their implementation rather than MS/Amazon/Cyanogen's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Duopoly? Worldwide, Android's market share has increased from under 60% in 2011 to around 85% by the end of 2013. Likewise, over the same period the iOS market share has gone from around 20% to just over 10%, while all other platforms have dwindled down to the remaining <5%.

[http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market- share.jsp](http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp)

The only sense in which this is still a duopoly is that the iOS platform, while a relatively tiny share of the total market, is still a significant share of paid apps.

</comment><comment><USER33> What? You haven't heard of Firefox OS? You totally should! Check out this blog post for a small sample of the amazing power of Firefox OS: [http://binary- choice.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/firefox-os-is-d...](http://binary- choice.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/firefox-os-is-developers-best-friend.html)

Seriously, if you want more mobile OSes, but you're not even considering Firefox OS you should probably shut up and start writing your super-powerful- mega-winner OS yourself and stop complaining.

</comment><comment><USER34> There is a viable 3rd ecosystem out there and it is Microsoft Windows Phone.

However, the existence of Windows Phone has proven that developers do not want to support more than 2 mobile platforms. It creates a barrier for entry and support updates if you want to keep all of your platforms at parity.

As a result, the fate of any 3rd ecosystem is a slow non-growth existence in the froth of the industry platform churn.

</comment><comment><USER35> We had one. It was called WebOS.

Too bad that bad execution and implementation killed it before its time. =(

<comment><USER36> Did the open-source project go anywhere?

<comment><USER35> Not really.

<comment><USER36> WebOS (or a variant) seems to be in LG TVs, [http://www.cnet.com/news/hands- on-with-lgs-webos-smart-tv-is...](http://www.cnet.com/news/hands-on-with-lgs- webos-smart-tv-is-simple-enough/)

<comment><USER35> LuneOS is probably more applicable. [http://pivotce.com/2014/09/01/official- release-of-luneos-and...](http://pivotce.com/2014/09/01/official-release-of- luneos-and-project-updates/)

LG hasn't given me a TV to hack on =) so I have no idea how much things have changed under the hood. I liked the Samsung TVs till the recent overly invasive creepiness (mic, ads etc.) Maybe I'll get a LG next time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What happened to fixing the desktop _monopoly_? Two decades with Microsoft >= 90% of the desktop. It wouldn't matter if it was Apple with 90%. One company with that much market share hurts innovation.

</comment><comment><USER38> I went from webOS to BB10. The market still offers us options (for now).

</comment><comment><USER39> There are Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 that are both excellent OSes.

<comment><USER20> BB10, yes. WP, not so much. It may be better than the older Windows mobile, but not really in the same class as iOS and Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's a shame Blackberry's new OS didn't take off...

<comment><USER20> Really. I liked the hardware and BB10 very much. They had lots of unique and innovative features which would've made Blackberrys a viable 3rd OS.

<comment><USER41> The Blackberry Classic would have been an excellent phone _five years ago_. Unfortunately, they've been playing catch up to Apple and Android OEMs for almost a decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > We Need to Break the Mobile Duopoly

Yes, we all know this—maybe the OP wouldn't mind also to tell how we or whoever should break this duopoly if even Microsoft is not able to.

</comment><comment><USER43> Huh?

I thought he was talking about AT&T and Verizon.

<comment><USER44> My thought as well. And a vastly more interesting conversation to have.

My sense is that with ubiquitous WiFi and IP based protocols, I can ditch my Smartphone for most uses, and with it the massive amounts of intrusion and data surveillance it represents. A small "feature phone" (with vastly superior battery performance) for general comms, and functioning as a modem in a pinch, with a tablet that's used in a cache-and-burst mode most of the time, and with more continuous connectivity where that's available.

Mobile phone operators are well on the way to making themselves obsolete.

<comment><USER43> He's a VC so he probably thinks that $10 a GB is cheap.</comment></comment></comment>


Wuhan Coronavirus API - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/pipedream/http-api-for-latest-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov-data-20jj <comment><USER2> How did I not know about pipedream workflows until now...</comment>


Lawmaker wants 4G carriers to disclose throttling and speed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/congress-considers-law-to-make-4g-providers-fess-up-on-speeds.ars <comment><USER2> Fantastic idea. To require carriers to define 4G like "at least X megabits per second transmission speed will be available Y percent of the time, costing Z dollars, with exactly these limits on data volume and this kind of traffic priority scheme."

Yes, there is always uncertainty in wireless communication and ISP service, but that's what the "percent of the time" part is for, and the carriers are free to under-promise and over-deliver.

What I'm sick of is ISPs and carriers promising "up to" some speed. "Up to" means "guaranteed not more than." How does that make sense? "We guarantee you won't get better speed than X!" That would only make sense if I _hated speed._ Or if I could pay them "up to $50" a month for service.

<comment><USER3> Defining 4G service like that is still a scam, as true 4G would be one of the fourth generation network standards. However, laissez-faire non-regulation from the FCC led to a marketing arms race where US carriers had to advertise 4G service even if they had nothing like it. What they have is LTE = 3GPP Long Term Evolution, which is better 3G, and it's barely getting deployed, and which they just agreed among themselves to call 4G.

Not that I'm against better defining consumer TOS, but don't call it 4G. When true 4G gets deployed, prepare for the confusion. This fraudulent 4G marketing could very well have killed investment in true 4G networks from US carriers: "Oh they're deploying 4G ? Big deal I thought all carriers already had that thingamajig." Try to explain this one to Joe Public.

<comment><USER4> Drop the acronym BS & call it what it is: another QoS/price option. Start with this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service#Key_qualitie...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service#Key_qualities_of_traffic) (but swap out-of-order delivery for bitrate) and let the providers get measured. Publish the results.

You can actually sell quite a few network services to people, once you start talking about them in real terms. Gaming network links, with better latency guarantees, make a lot of sense. So do high-bandwidth, high-jitter links for downloaders.

IMHO it's another case of the marketers completely fucking up the market, because they're too dumb to understand their own product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to see a minimum latency guarantee, too -- it's at least as important as throughput.

<comment><USER6> Yes, in my experience that's been a much bigger problem than bandwidth. I tried Clearwire, which advertises itself as 4G. The bandwidth was between fine and superb, but the latency was unbearably bad--many webpages would have various resources timeout, and load without CSS or not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why just mobile? These requirements sound equally important for land-lines.

<comment><USER8> because land-lines already advertise their speed in raw numbers. The problem with mobile is that everyone wants to call their network 4G even if the speeds are actually slower than 3G.

<comment><USER7> Really? Could you point me to a United States DSL/Cable provider that provides meaningful 'raw numbers' in their advertisements? Last I shopped for broadband the best you could get was a vague "up to x mbps" number, without any information as to reliability, not to mention minimum speeds.

(And with a wired connection you ought to be able to say pretty easily what the minimum speed is going to be 90% of the time.)

<comment><USER8> Hm, well usually when they advertise 10Mb down, a speed test usually confirms that number. Are you not getting advertised speeds on your land line? I don't remember a time when I didn't get a given advertised speed. Obviously reliability is a different story, but unless you're paying business class, you probably won't get a SLA anyway.

<comment><USER9> I reliably get 12Mbps reported from speedtest.net on my 12Mbps advertised AT&T UVerse service.

The problem is speedtest.net is useless since AT&T is clearly gaming me and them, prioritizing the traffic and bandwidth.

My normal surfing experience is clearly no where near 12Mbps, especially when Netflix routinely pauses/stutters. the iTunes experience is equally bad. The latency from AT&T's DNS is insane as well which just results in a garbage experience all around.

A few years ago 3Mbps DSL felt, if not blazing, reliably 3Mbps at least. These days my 12Mbps line feels, if anything, slower/less reliable. _Sometimes_ I might be getting close to that, but it's much more routine to feel like I'm getting pretty pitiful service more on the order of 768Kbps, but with DNS service that can frequently take _seconds_ to resolve.

Using alternative DNS seems to be hit and miss. Sometimes it helps, some times it actually appears to cause issues. It doesn't make any real sense to me from a networking perspective, but they're obviously doing something very weird when I can swap back to the AT&T DNS from Google's and suddenly my AppleTV video thumbnails browsing iTunes or Netflix start appearing snappily as they should.

I'd go FIOS or Cable in a heart-beat if I could. The AT&T/2Wire/UVerse combination is nothing but broken promises and frustration for what turns out to be a pretty pricey, underperforming service (the TV side is pretty good on quality, reliability and features, but I pay over $100/month so I expect that as a minimum considering I have no movie channels and am on a basic package).

<comment><USER8> How do you know it isn't netflix that is the slow one here? Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's Reddit that has the slow servers, not my connection. Try downloading a large file from a private Linode VPS and see what your speeds look like. At least for me, the speeds match very closely to the advertised speed.

<comment><USER9> The same sluggishness applies to iTunes as well.

Plus, one of the easier experiments is to swap in Google's DNS servers. Then the AppleTV is snappy for a few days. After awhile, slow-loading thumbs again. Swap back in the 2wire DNS, and snappy again.

I'm not sure the transfer speed to my Linode VPS really proves much either. It could be that video traffic like iTunes and Netflex are the big QoS targets, especially since they directly compete with the other half of the UVerse services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First thought — good idea, and it should apply to all ISPs (not only 4G wireless), at least voluntarily as a good tone.

Second thought — minimum rates to what? ISPs can guarrantee certain quality of service only up to their uplinks, they cannot really help with anything out of their network. And most customers do not directly care about this, they need to transfer the data all over the globe (and complain on this).

</comment><comment><USER11> While they are at it they should also make them state the actual price of the service instead of adding them on your bill. I am tired of having random charges on my phone bill.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really think it should be the user's responsibility to figure out the details, as long as no effort is made to cheat on the provider's part. Market efficiency will end up dictating the progress in the end anyway. Having laws like this just makes the services more expensive overall, and does no good to the majority of people.

How many people who don't at least have a basic understanding of 4G transmission speeds will know what a megabit or megabyte is anyway? Even in an university setting (which should represent a highly biased group of overall educated people), the majority of students just know basic facts like "my song is 6mb".

But hey! On the bright side, creating useless jobs will add to our GDP. Props to modern economics.

<comment><USER8> Why should people be responsible for knowing the difference between Sprint's 4G network and AT&T's 4G network? The speeds are actually vastly different.

This problem existed back in the days when monitor manufacturers liked to "round up" the diagonal length of the monitors and put the actual viewing size in fine print. Some manufacturers would add 3 inches to the actual size of the monitor, just so that they'd "beat out" the competition.</comment></comment>


OKCupid Falsely Matched Users in the Name of Web Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-07-28/okcupid-falsely-matched-users-in-the-name-of-web-science <comment><USER2> The referenced article, "We Experiment on Human Beings", is discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097415)</comment>


A new species of dolphin-like sea creature discovered in the Isle of Skye - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11338263/Was-this-Nessies-ancestor-Giant-prehistoric-monster-roamed-Scottish-waters.html

<comment><USER2> Darn, it's a fossil, not a live creature. Cool anyway, of course.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you attended an 'immersive dev school' or hired somebody who did? - <AUTHOR> Schools like AppAcademy, Dev Bootcamp, Flatiron School, General Assembly, gSchool, Hack Reactor, Hacker School etc... offer 9 - 12 weeks of intense/immersive training in various flavors of web development.
This type of school has not been around that long and have only graduated a handful of cohorts. There's no accreditation for these schools and I haven't found a website that offers reviews of these schools (maybe somebody here should make that site).
There are clearly going to be differences between attending this type of trade school vs. getting a CS Degree, but for employment considerations I would expect that 'outcome' matters more than 'education'.
If you attended a school like this, what was your experience? Were you prepared for employment as a professional developer after the course? If you encountered troubles, what were they?
If you've hired somebody from a school like this, how did you make the determination to hire that person over other candidates with similar skill sets. Also, how do you feel their performance compares with other hires from CS backgrounds?
Thanks.
(edited for structure) <comment><USER2> Haven't attended but really want to. One thing I wonder about the boot camps vs. teaching myself is: Even if I'm able to reach a level of proficiency equal to that of, say, a Dev Bootcamp grad, would I be able to find a job?

Graduates of these programs seem to be 'in' and can get hired much more easily. For a relative beginner learning to code, that's a great place to be and, I think, part of the value of a boot camp. My assumption is that a similarly skilled, self-taught newbie will have a harder time getting looked at by the same employers.

Maybe someone can comment on this as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I've read, half the benefit of these classes is the portfolio & exposure you get.

<comment><USER3> I think it also depends on how hard you feel you can work and learn on your own. I'm looking into the bootcamps right now because I learn better in a more regimented environment with clear goals (I'm terrible at setting goals for myself). Also, I have almost nothing in my portfolio that's programming related, and I think that a bootcamp will help me build it out more. I also want to speed up the rate of my learning, which is another advantage of the bootcamps, as far as I can tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am currently in Code Fellows. I just started so I can't give you a graduate perspective. The advantage I would say Code Fellows has over other programs is that we work in the Techstars building alongside new startups.

I am already a developer but I am not quite there yet in terms of skill level. I'm good enough to churn out WordPress sites and do basic PHP work which is what I have been doing through out my career. But I want a more serious development role and that's the purpose of a lot of these schools they take someone that is probably 60% of the way and gives them the extra 30% to make them more employable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did Hack Reactor. AFIK, it's got by far the heaviest workload (and highest tuition) of the above mentioned programs and it paid off beyond my expectations. I was looking for two things—hard skills and some social proof due to having made it into such a selective program.

The social proof didn't happen. The program was just too new and employers hadn't even heard of it yet. Fortunately, the hard skills I gained from the course were substantial enough that it didn't matter. I actually leap-frogged past where many of my acquaintances with CS or engineering degrees were. From what I understand, the current Hack Reactor classes actually are getting some significant name recognition along with the skills.

By the end of my course, I had serious interest from Google, Groupon, a Japanese game company, a cool consultancy doing cutting edge stuff with Ember and a couple of start-ups, one of which is building on Meteor. I went with Groupon, mostly because of the team and the tech stack. Another factor was that it's well enough known of a company that working there will pretty much ensure my liberal arts degree won't be held against me in the future by any but the most credential-obsessed companies. Only Google offered more in that regard, but I didn't get the impression that people there were too into JavaScript, or any dynamically typed languages, for that matter. It's possible I just caught the wrong interviewer, though.

Hack Reactor did well for me in several areas. Coming into the job at Groupon, I was being able to contribute right away and I was already familiar with the technologies in our office (Rails, Node, Backbone, CoffeeScript, CSS preprocessors, git, etc). Another great thing has been the network. I know tons of motivated smart people who are now working all over the bay area. When I set out to do a start-up, I'll very likely be teaming up with a fellow HackR Alumni. The final big help has been just a general solid CS grounding. Having already implemented hashes, trees, prefix trees, map, reduce, once, memoize, etc. has definitely been helpful. We certainly didn't learn everything, but we learned enough to have some idea what we don't know and where to go to learn more.

As for difficulties, I'd say the biggest was not being fully prepared for large codebases. It definitely took more time to get oriented and figure out where various data was coming from at work than it did on the projects I was working on at Hack Reactor. It was also a little jarring to see how OO-focused the programming world at large is, since I had been working more with functional maker patterns than pseudo classical patterns. Writing a scheme interpreter in JavaScript was one of the things I worked on as a personal project.

I don't know Java yet. That definitely causes a bit of friction when looking at general CS resources online. I'm not terribly concerned though. I'm pushing onwards, taking coursera classes and doing my best to maintain some of the momentum I've carried over from my 80 hour weeks at Hack Reactor, within the framework of a more balanced life.

tldr; The program was fantastic. It's already paid for itself and the network is amazing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Did you consider any other schools? Did you have prior experience with code like when you decided to apply?

<comment><USER5> I appreciate the encouragement! It's always a bit disappointing to get no karma from such a long thought out comment.

You know, I've actually written about that stuff on my blog linked in my profile. I also put up some videos of me reflecting on my time at the school that I hadn't initially planned on sharing since so many people have emailed and asked me about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll check out your blog tonight, thanks for the help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was absolutely the LEAST technical person I knew. I realized I wanted to do this last year, when I was in college studying Business & Finance. I was working on a side project/start up and realized I wanted to code so bad, and I wanted to be writing the code instead of business dev. That in and of itself, helped me get into these programs.

I applied to App Academy first. Because I dropped out of school, the no tuition appealed greatly. Ned and Kush are awesome. I was "accepted" pending the prep work and final interview. I was a total noob, and still had a PC so setting up an environment was hard. I didn't pass the final interview, but Ned was incredibly encouraging and said I could apply again.

I applied to DBC at the same time as AA and was accepted as well. I have the best parents in the world, and they bought me a refurbished MacBook Pro which helped immensely. I spent a couple months going to my local library every day for 4+ hours and made great progress. I went up to the Bay and saw the class room. I had regular "office hours" with Keith and Karim who are awesome and incredibly patient.

Unfortunately my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. I live in Orange County, and the 8 hour difference from here to San Fran played a role in hesitation. DBC also said I needed to simply wait another month or 2 (I was supposed to go in May) but because of the cancer, I decided to stay.

Around that time (late April) I applied to somewhere closer, and was accepted into General Assembly Web Development Immersive in Santa Monica. Because I had already been doing prep work, I completed it quickly and started class June 17. I am currently starting my 5th week of a 12 week course tomorrow.

So far we have been going really fast. The first segment was the class doing a résumé generator project in bootstrap, JavaScript, and a ruby backend also using MongoDB. We then paired off, and in groups of 2 the whole class is building any project we want, but it will be done in 3 weeks. Then with the remaining time left, we will build 2 more project each lasting 3 weeks (3 projects).

What I like most about General Assembly is after the program they have an Apprenticeship Program where you work for a local tech company (a partner company) for 3 months, 4 days a week. Every Friday you come back into GA and talk about what you did during the week, and then they offer more workshops to hone your skills further. I am working my ass off to make sure I am one of the students who gets accepted into the Apprenticeship Program.

I like the apprenticeship because of the subtle transition from student into junior dev. I like being close to my mom as well. The partner companies seem really cool, although GA hasn't told us that much about it, because they want us to remain focused.

If I can get into the Apprenticeship Program, I will obviously do that. I still want to get up to the bay as well. I applied to Catalyst (now Hack Reactor) in January because I like JavaScript, and am considering going to either DBC, AA or HR after this program, but that might be unnecessary and would put me in another 10-15k in debt on top of the 12k I am already in from GA.

Overall, these are great schools. Having had some experience with 4 of them, they are all awesome and have great teachers with great experience. From being a strictly bis-dev guy who is actually able to hold his own in the class...if I can do it anyone can as long as you realize it will be VERY hard and you have to make sure this is what you want to do.

If you have any other questions, my email is on my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback :) Glad to hear you're enjoying GA. The apprenticeship option sounds interesting, good luck!</comment></comment>


What Brexit Means for Afrika's Tech Giants - tefo-mohapi http://www.iafrikan.com/2016/07/14/what-brexit-means-for-afrikas-tech-giants/ <comment><AUTHOR> I disagree that DFID are likely to push more money into overseas tech. The premise is that the UK will have more resources post-Brexit. It's extremely unlikely. They will simply have less money, at least in the medium (5yr) timescale.

But one thing it could mean is an influx of highly skilled tech workers.

My partner and I have just relocated from Cambridge, UK to Nairobi, Kenya, along with our baby son and our small scientific software company. We were originally just here for the summer but after the Brexit result decided to stay.

One thing that helped make the decision is that the tech scene in Nairobi is exploding. There are 5 VCs to every startup and tech workers are in very high demand, especially software engineers and data scientists. There are also some very talented and determined people working to build capacity here to fuel the growth of tech. The possibility of being a part of that growth is really exciting to us.

Add to that low cost of living, wonderful weather and culture, high potential for social impact, and remarkably good mobile internet coverage and speeds.

If you're in tech and thinking of making a move internationally, Nairobi is a great option.

<comment><USER2> Are you serious?

Software Engineers and Data Scientists are in high demand? Last time I was in Kenya was 10+ years so I don't know what the tech scene is like back there these days.

What kinda tech companies are you referring to specifically? Compensation? The few startups I've seen operating in the country tended to have their main roots outside the country and only hired foreigners. I don't want to go on a rant about the ethics of this - that's for another thread.

Also somebody already asked - do you have any relatives (e.g. is your spouse Kenyan)? I feel like for a typical Westerner life in East Africa would require significant adjustment and a decision to make a move should not be taken lightly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am absolutely serious.

I've pinged some folks who know the scene better than I do to answer the detailed questions.

No family here for either of us. I completely agree that any international move is a huge deal, especially one that involves a complete culture change. Not suggesting anyone takes it lightly, but recommending it as an option for anyone considering a move.

Incidentally if anyone is interested I'm very happy to share the contacts and local knowledge I have.

<comment><USER2> > I've pinged some folks who know the scene better than I do to answer the > detailed questions.

I just sent you an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > These companies use London as a hub for many of their activities within > Europe and there will undoubtedly be implications for them with the UK > leaving the EU.

I'm under the impression that Ireland will massively benefit from the relocation of many businesses who still want an English-speaking hub for their EU presence.

<comment><USER4> If Scotland manages to successfully secede and stay in the EU, they'll be even more effective at poaching the UK's tech world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Afrika is spelled with a 'k' in the title, but with a 'c' in the article.

<comment><USER2> Possibly a play on the name of the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > A recent survey of the UK's tech workers by Juniper Research has found that > 65 percent of UK tech workers think Brexit will have a negative impact on > the global tech industry.

Wow. The one bit of FUD I absolutely want to happen!</comment>


Tail Risk of Contagious Diseases - <AUTHOR> https://www.academia.edu/42307438/Tail_Risk_of_Contagious_Diseases <comment><AUTHOR> click 'Read Paper' link at bottom of page to read online without downloading</comment>


Microsoft BizSpark includes free Azure access - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/azure/

<comment><USER2> Azure is awesome, especially for startups :-) It's really easy to develop for (you don't need to set up everything by yourself, just use the available libraries) and it support virtually every programming language. Furthermore it's really fast ([http://nasunicdn.s3.amazonaws.com/images/nasuni_infographic_...](http://nasunicdn.s3.amazonaws.com/images/nasuni_infographic_the_state_of_cloud_storage_2013.jpg)) and pretty cheap.

It's a shame it's being ignored by most of the HN community.

<comment><USER3> It's because of Microsoft's historically hostile attitude towards anything Not Windows which rubs many people in this community the wrong way.

That and Microsoft's siren song has gotten people into trouble before. Do you know any Silverlight developers that are still happy?

<comment><USER4> The iPad killed Silverlight, not Microsoft. The idea of a plugin-free web powered by HTML5 will ultimately benefit everyone, especially given security exploits and performance issues in browser plugins. A case of damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Silverlight still works on Windows 8 machines. What do you want them to do? Sue Apple for banning a Silverlight plugin from their tablets and phones?

The actual Silverlight and XAML skills are directly applicable to developing Windows 8 Store apps and Windows Phone apps.

<comment><USER3> So the iPod killed the Zune? And the old Windows Phone OS?

Microsoft can abandon anything that's not core to their survival, and right now that's Windows.

<comment><USER4> >Microsoft can abandon anything that's not core to their survival, and right now that's Windows

First, Microsoft has three major divisions bringing in somewhat equal amounts of revenue, Windows, Office and Server & Tools.

Second, if you apply the same metric to other companies, it would be foolish to use OS X, Gmail, Docs. App Engine. Android, and perhaps even Azure.

Third, Microsoft could've competed by making a better Zune, perhaps, but it's not the same thing as the iPad killing Silverlight, because that was done by not supporting plugins. Tablets are slowly overtaking PCs in sales, what sense does it make to push new versions of a plugin that will never run on most of them?

The transitions have mostly been smooth, VB apps still run on Windows. Hell, a game bundled with the Windows 95 CD still runs unchanged on a Windows 8 machine.

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/deskapps/games/public/AAS/Hover.exe

[http://www.johnlamansky.com/blog/the-legend-of-microsoft- hov...](http://www.johnlamansky.com/blog/the-legend-of-microsoft-hover/)

<comment><USER3> Google App Engine is a risky bet for the same reason as Azure, and perhaps even more so. Google could decide tomorrow that it's not worth supporting and tank it, or change the pricing model to make it no longer cost effective.

I don't think the same thing can be said for Amazon's AWS or other infrastructure providers like RackSpace where that would be as much as going out of business.

I'm not saying Microsoft doesn't take care of Windows, if anything they support it _too_ much, but anything that's not Windows is just one executive decision away from being shut down.

<comment><USER5> XBox runs on Azure from what I hear. Its not getting shut down anytime soon. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd even go as far as to say that Azure is the future of Windows Server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another thing to know about BizSpark is that it has higher tiers. If you are doing something interesting on Azure and it gets traction, you should reach out to Microsoft and let them know. They have a tier called "Bizspark One" where you can get $60,000 in free resources and visibility in their customer base by co-presenting at shows etc.

Finally, they also have an accelerator allied with TechStars in Seattle - where you can get all of this plus TechStars mentoring: <http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/accelerator/>

</comment><comment><USER6> BizSpark is really one of the best free/open resources for startups that I've ever seen. It's not as useful as, say, YC, but it's essentially open to any legitimate startup, and gives you fairly substantial benefits.

</comment><comment><USER7> Something that most people might not know about this is that you can spin up at least 2 small linux instances on this plan.

I run a Node.js app on a small Ubuntu instance with git based deployment (great guide here based on ec2: [http://cuppster.com/2011/05/12/diy-node-js- server-on-amazon-...](http://cuppster.com/2011/05/12/diy-node-js-server-on- amazon-ec2/)). Right now this server also runs my Mongo server, but as we scale I'll probably move it to its own instance.

</comment><comment><USER5> 2 small instances and storage for free. Its a great offer - we host our bootstrapped node.js application on Azure and it works great - and is net free for us.

<comment><USER8> I was looking for this detail - and not sure where it says you get 2 instances free. Can you post a link?

Edit: I did my math wrong previously. It is 1500 hours/month.

<comment><USER5> 1500 hours a month - so for a small instance that works out to 2 instances. Eli below has it right - you can scale that up as well and get a smaller number of free instance time.

<comment><USER2> Can you also choose to use (more than 2) extra small instances? They provide better bang for the buck than the small instances.

<comment><USER9> Sure. And you have 10 of those MSDN subscriptions, one for each developer. You can't use say 20 small instances for one site, but you can use 2 instances for 20 separate sites/services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Their VM depot is their equivalent to the AWS marketplace and is a good place to start if you want to launch apps on Azure <http://vmdepot.msopentech.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, reading through this and pretty psyched that people want to talk about this. I run community management in Mountain View for the global BizSpark program, which gives free software licenses to developers. I am all for helping you all know more about the program and helping get more information on Azure. If you all want to chat with me, you can email me at dcrets at microsoft. Thinking of doing a meetup on Azure and having some tech evangelists there. We would also livestream. Let me know if anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER12> It also seems at this stage of development Microsoft are putting a lot of resources into quality support. Someone at my office started using Azure for free through biz spark and got someone from Microsoft on the phone who knew the tech details answering their questions.

Something I couldn't imagine ever getting from AWS or google, especially before dropping some serious dollars for extra support.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm in a techstars-affiliated accelerator in Adelaide (Australia) and part of our perks include $60k in Azure credits, which is an absolute godsend for cash-poor startups like ours. There's no way we could afford to do what we're doing on AWS.

</comment><comment><USER14> My startup is in Bizspark and uses Azure. (<http://stackify.com>) We looked at AWS vs Azure and decided on Azure due to its PaaS capabilities. It has its quirks like anything done. Their support is fantastic. We have two local evangelist type reps, a local sales rep, and have talked to many people through their tech support. Even exchanged emails with their developers and management.

I really like their SQL federations and table storage. Both are designed for massive scale. Although they don't have a true NoSql solution, you can accomplish most things you would want NoSql for with those two options. I do wish they would allow secondary indexes on their table storage. It is possible to use VMs on Azure and use MongoDB or some other product. But part of the reason we chose Azure is we don't want to administer any of that junk.

Good news about Azure is they use the platform internally which will continue to drive it's innovation.

</comment><comment><USER15> As others have mentioned, BizSpark is indeed a great program. IActionable.com just 'completed' the 3 year program. Azure sure has changed quite a bit since those early days :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Ehh... Hasn't it always?

I was on Bizspark which gave MSDN which gave Azure usage as part of the perks :/</comment>


Ask HN: How can you do shared contact management efficiently? - <AUTHOR> I have been trying to establish a shared contact management system within my team for organizing and managing a Reunion for my Alma Mater.
Is there a way I can do that without having to use excel sheets (the database of 2012 is rampant with duplicates and multiple entries) and have control over giving contact access to different department members?
(Would be great if you could tell me before the mid of this week)
Thanks <comment><USER2> There is a very interesting and recent development that can help you woth this. I forget the name, but i think it's something called a telephone.

<comment><USER3> We've banned this account for trolling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Mixpanel Announces Codeless Mobile Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/27/mixpanel-codeless-analytics/

<comment><USER2> If it was any other company, I would be incredibly skeptical. But I had great experience with Mixpanel, even on Unity (where all SDKs come to die, including Facebook's — especially Facebooks), and they seem to be very solid on all fronts.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems a bit misleading. You still have to get everything set up through your application and that takes some Developer knowledge. What am I missing?

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's true - you have to install the SDK which takes some developer time (though minimal and nearly equivalent to copying and pasting a JS tag)

<comment><USER3> I'm really trying to stay objective here because I do love me some Mixpanel. However, I'm curious what the response will be to someone with nominal Developer skills who outsourced their app, but sees this as an opportunity to save some money to get data. Seems like a poor experience from a user perspective to get this codeless product going.

<comment><USER4> We tend to see it as there are many more people in the world who aren't developers that get some valuable data as opposed to guessing or using their gut. For developers, we still have a manual way to do this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf I'm typically skeptical of GUI-ish things, but I trust mixpanel (and their awesome support team who I harass on the regs) to make sure that I'll be able to get the info I need about our app. Should be interesting to see how this product plays out.

</comment><comment><USER5> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9936693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9936693), and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937153).

</comment><comment><USER6> Heap analytics is already doing this for desktop (and maybe mobile) if anybody is curious as to what it looks like. I find it amusing that Heap also just happens to have a job posting on the front page at the same time as this Mixpanel news.</comment>


Suggest HN : A black-list of apps that breach our trust? - <AUTHOR>

I installed Venmo Android app recently. Though I clicked "skip" when they asked me if I wanted to invite friends, they emailed my whole contact list anyway. I guess their rationale is that this email they sent out is a notification that I signed up, not an invitation from me.
My contact list includes my professional contacts. This is quite embarrassing.
I try to avoid mobile apps as much as possible for this reason, except when it is clear from the permissions dialog that they can't make me look like a fool. I still slipped up :-(
It would be great to have a blacklist of apps, especially the "popular" ones, that breach our trust.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I thought about an idea related to this. What if there was some kind of a browser extension/app that detects and notifies you if you visit a site that uses dark pattern or have been known to employ stupid tactics like "send us an email to cancel paid subscription and we will get back to you". May be make it more specific use case when you are actually trying to sign-up or entering your credit card details, then notify you of their shady practices. The information will be submitted by users themselves. So if you come across a dark pattern site, you immediately click "Report this" and may be even fill in the criteria like "cannot cancel online" with some comments. It then gets centrally stored on the server and everytime another user visits that same site who has installed this browser extension, they get a minimally invasive notification of some sort ?

</comment><comment><USER3> You have to work with white-lists, not black-list when dealing with such high numbers of shitty apps. In theory this should be done by the app store provider, just let in non-malicious software.

</comment><comment><USER4> Make a blacklist app!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely do it even if there is a little bit of interest. I'm thinking a small set of check boxes that you can click for an app ("spams contact list", "downloads your email" etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> LinkedIn is one such app that should be blacklisted.</comment>


Password leaks bigger than first thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Password-leaks-bigger-than-first-thought-1614516.html

<comment><USER2> "And one amusing detail – although eHarmony implores its users to use strong passwords including both upper and lower case letters, it saves the passwords in all upper case"

This is truly beautiful - made my day :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Unsurprising that >95% of the password hashes have been broken. I remember being annoyed when I signed up for LinkedIn (just checked my tweet history - it was 2010/06/10) because they were only allowing 16 characters in the password field.

EDIT: Whoops, guess I should have done some napkin math before claiming that there are rainbow tables that cover that area. /me slaps wrist

<comment><USER4> I mean... there are surely _not_ rainbow tables that span all 62^16 16-character passwords consisting of alphanumerics only: that is 646,081,519 _zettabytes_ of hashes (62^16 * 128 bits).

There are clearly rainbow tables which span a more useful dictionary of passwords, though--and certainly all the most common passwords.

<comment><USER5> Even if we conservatively assume that you only need lowercase characters, and that you need one bit per password, that's _still_ 26^16 bits = 4.6 ZB, about fifteen times the total capacity of every hard disk sold by Seagate in 2011 (330 EB).

<comment><USER6> They usually use less than one bit per password.

<comment><USER7> People here don't know what rainbow tables are. If you asked them to build a rainbow table, you'd get... a table. (You're right.)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the contentless comment. Instead, you might consider offering a more interesting algorithm, its tradeoffs, and why it is beneficial to take more computation time?

<comment><USER7> A rainbow table doesn't store every hash for the password space it's built for. I'm sure you already knew that, but decided to pretend otherwise when calculating the size of one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Last month Last.fm admitted to having received several reports of spamming involving user data._

Over the last 6--9 months I have definitely noticed an uptick in the random "connection" requests I get on LinkedIn. I don't know if this is because their userbase has grown and more people are just shotgunning connection requests, or if these represent first steps at an attempted social engineering attack via hacked accounts on which I appear in the "people you might know."

So far none of these have been from people I actually know even remotely, so I'm guessing it's just simple spam (and I report it as such).

</comment><comment><USER9> I find it really incredible that this companies were so careless. Really. I know that security practices are rare to come by, but come on! LinkedIn, eHarmony and last.fm! These are some of the biggest websites.

<comment><USER10> I'd argue that security practices are not that hard to come by:

<https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Password_Storage_Cheat_Sheet>

<comment><USER11> This page, when I read it a couple days ago, was pretty bad.

<comment><USER12> What reference would you recommend instead?

<comment><USER11> Coda Hale's page.

<http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/>

Let's be clear-eyed about this: we're talking about an OWASP page that says the "1-2-3" rules to do passwords well are "use SHA256", "pick a cryptographically random salt", and "iterate the hash".

Well, #1 is a suggestion that makes virtually no difference; your outcome won't be meaningfully worse if you use the (broken) MD5 algorithm than it will be if you use SHA-2.

And #2 is also a suggestion that makes virtually no difference; the (relatively unimportant) attack that "salts" blunt does not depend in any practical way on predicting salt values. Strong salt, weak salt, same deal: rainbow tables stop working, everything else still does.

Rule #3 is the only thing that matters on this page, but, of course, simply iterating your hash 64,000 times is an inferior solution to PBKDF2, bcrypt, and scrypt.

This page is a wiki, and I called it out on Twitter a day ago so the odds are some of this stuff has been "addressed"; but, I thought about taking a stab at fixing up the page and realized I'd be trying to incrementally improve that 1-2-3 advice. And, to the specific point of this thread: whatever better advice is there today, it wasn't there last week for LinkedIn or eHarmony to take advantage of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unsalted hashes. Wow. What a bunch of amateurs.

Also, 10 internet points says at least one other major website will fall too within 2 weeks. Someone has found a new exploit & is trying various sites & collecting hashes.

<comment><USER14> It doesn't _really_ matter if you're salting or not when you use really fast general purpose hashing functions. Consumer video cards can calculate half a billion SHA _/MD_ hashes per second nowadays. You're talking minutes vs seconds. Unacceptable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The API was developed 9 years ago, and appears not to have been updated since."

Last.fm could have updated this, except it would have meant making all their users do something.

<comment><USER6> Why not use lazy rehashing? On login, the password is availible and so can be rehashed properly.

<comment><USER16> You can do better - if they're storing MD5s of the passwords, all they need to do is hash those again with another salt:

        BCRYPT(MD5(Password))

Running BCrypt or SCrypt over the current MD5 hashes is easy, and they can do it right now for every password. If someone (else) grabs the database in ten days time they get no MD5 hashes of passwords instead of half of the userbase.

<comment><USER15> I believe the legacy api required md5(md5(password) + time) or something like that. Which means they needed to store the md5 of the passwords or modify all third party clients that used this method.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What do people think about outsourcing your authentication to someone else?

Full Disclosure: I'm currently working on a brandable authentication host (<http://www.authic.com>) that will outsource the pain of storing your password hashes securly and provide your web app with slick a user account UX.

<comment><USER18> I'm offering my users Browserid and/or Facebook in order to login. Works great and passwords are definitely something I'd rather not deal with. Also saves me from having to implement all sorts of stuff like forgot password, forgot username, etc.

<comment><USER17> Do you also offer your own login forms?

<comment><USER18> Nope. Feel free to play around and try it yourself. I think the experience is not 100% perfect but is pretty darn good. That said, I'm always open to constructive feedback. www.voo.st

<comment><USER17> Looks nice. My biggest feedback is that there is no "Join now" link/button, just a login. I presume that if you try and login without an account it will go ahead and sign you up, but it is not obvious.

Also the line "All events on Voost are managed by an _organization_ " - I'm not sure what that means, what is an _organisation_? Is that me?

<comment><USER18> Great feedback, thanks. The button is 'sign in' since we don't really need the concept of login. Adding another button seems more confusing, what would it do?

As for the text, sure, we can work on clarifying that more.

<comment><USER17> Having two buttons doing the same thing wouldn't necessaryily be confusing. People would probably not notice.

Or how about change the wording to "sign in/up".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does the number of passwords in the hashed list matter in terms of how easy or hard they will be to crack? Does this have implications for a rainbow table- type attack?

<comment><USER20> I guess the more you have, the more information you have about the salt used. I'm not sure it'd be useful though.

And many of these hashes aren't salted anyway.

<comment><USER17> Often people will store the password salt alongside their password hashes*, so if someone has the user table they would have the salts.

\---

At Authic.com we are investigating the practicalities of storing salts in a separate database from the password hashes.

<comment><USER21> Just use a hardcoded application salt (significantly large, >128 bytes is more than enough) in addition to your per-user salt (stored in the DB, or derived from a DB field). That way, an attacker would need both code access and DB access to crack the hashes, and if that happens you're basically screwed beyond redemption anyway.

<comment><USER17> We really want to go the extra mile with Authic (it's going to be main selling point of outsourcing your webapps authentication with us), so we'll consider adding as many different aspects as possible.

And yes, you do have big problems if someone has access to your db AND code, but if you have done your job properly at least it will be very difficult/expensive/time consuming for the attackers to crack your hashes.

In the worst case scenario of someone dumping your entire database, you want there to be as much time as possible to contact your user base to let them know of the breach so that they can update their passwords before the crackers have finished the job.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is it Pokémon or big data technology? - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1kckcq_uv8dk9-W5rIdtqRwCHN4Uh209ELPUjTEZJDxc/viewform <comment><USER2> I have a living pokedex in Y (718 in PC, one of each). I thought I knew my pokemon. This one is called Avalugg, not Crebase. [https://www.dropbox.com/s/1puw4bgdtw3hyye/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/1puw4bgdtw3hyye/Screenshot%202014-05-01%2018.14.46.png)

Using the americanized Japanese names is not right. Either use the native Japanese names in the correct alphabet, or use the English translated names.

<comment><USER3> Romanized would be a better description than americanized. Rōmaji is not just about America.

<comment><USER2> Sorry I did not know any of this terminology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having grown up with pokemon and being a tech worker, I am a little appalled at how many of these I got wrong.

<comment><USER5> Ditto. I still got all the gen one Pokémon, but the rest was a failure.

<comment><USER6> Ditto is one I recognize. That one is definitely a Pokemon.

<comment><USER5> Ha! Glad someone saw my pun ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > hadoop is a big data system for counting words

<comment><USER8> I have to admit, this made me laugh out loud. For those who don't know, the word counting example is the "Hello, World" of Map/Reduce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Tokutek claim to improve MongoDB performance 20x. Unclear if this also mean lose 20x as many documents." ... ahaha .

Can anyone elaborate why he said so?

<comment><USER10> My experience with MongoDB (granted, this was five years ago) was with it losing half my dataset for no particular reason, so I can certainly relate with the quote (and found it very funny).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The first one, "Crebase", turned out to be a Pokemon, but that's its Japanese name (クレベース); it's Avalugg in English, which sounds a lot less like actual technologies like Couchbase or Graphbase.

</comment><comment><USER12> Similarly, "Startup or Pokemon?":

[http://evilbrainjono.net/pages/startup-or- pokemon.py](http://evilbrainjono.net/pages/startup-or-pokemon.py)

Which appears to have been submitted thrice in the past: [http://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/startup%20or...](http://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/startup%20or%20pokemon)

</comment><comment><USER13> I really hope this is a precursor for a big-data type breakdown post of how people responded to this survey. Would make for a great follow up

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought about naming a project rapidash before realizing what I've done.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was kind of hoping to see Flareon[1,2] included, even if it is not #bigdata per se.

[1] [http://www.solarflare.com/Flareon-Server- Adapters](http://www.solarflare.com/Flareon-Server-Adapters)

[2] [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Flareon](http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Flareon)

</comment><comment><USER16> I got 2 wrong.

Disclaimer: I created the (currently) most popular browser-based Pokemon fan game. So it's pretty sad.

<comment><USER17> > I bring shame upon famiry.

Just because it's a meme doesn't make it right.

<comment><USER18> Eh, still chuckled.

Consider the accent affected by #BigDataBorat...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Hadoop is distributed system for counting words"??? Really?

Yeah, indeed it's funny (because I know about Hadoop), but for someone that's learning with this, it could be taken as a serious statement.

<comment><USER20> The final page says that if you got them all right you should apply to Big Data Borat Labs. If you're learning from this, you're an idiot (or a genius, the line is thin).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We all know that only the first 150 (151?) pokémons are the true pokémons.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was expecting a summary of right/wrong at the end!

<comment><USER20> There's global stats, though they may well be fake: [https://twitter.com/BigDataBorat/status/457657512011898880](https://twitter.com/BigDataBorat/status/457657512011898880)

Summary "Tokutek is database most likely confuse as Pokémon"

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Company names, product names, code names...they are neither more nor less strange or meaningless in #bigdata than anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was waiting for a trick question of a real bigdata project named after a pokemon character.

</comment><comment><USER25> What's with the hashtag?

<comment><USER26> Maybe they are implying that "big data" is trendy at the moment? As far as I've seen on HN over the last year or so, lots of people are talking about what is and what is not big data.

Or the company who made the post uses #bigdata on twitter. In case you missed the "if you got 100% send us your resume" on the last page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Pure Fun to play :D</comment>


Would you use code-review-as-a-service? - <AUTHOR> http://www.paidcodereview.com/

<comment><USER2> I most definitely would. I was searching for this kind of service in the past. The closest is [http://codereview.stackexchange.com/](http://codereview.stackexchange.com/) but the problem is that we cannot make frequent changes and ask for more feedback. Also, we cannot submit an entire project and try to get feedback.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just an idea for you: Make the service an integral part of a system that customers can use themselves with or without your additional help. You could start the business model with more of a contracted service approach but eventually transition to a hybrid human resource + SAAS model.

Code review is something that many organizations need some bootstrapping on and perhaps some periodic mentoring, but at some point I think they want to be able to wean themselves off of relying on an outside contracted service for something that will be used so often.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of [http://www.sergioschuler.com/startup-lessons-learned-from- my...](http://www.sergioschuler.com/startup-lessons-learned-from-my-failed- startup/). Test the waters before you give a commitment. Personally, I would like to see what the review includes (syntax, tests, patterns?)

<comment><AUTHOR> I did basically what Sergio did with CameraLends.com last year. I've learned from that and want to "date around" before committing to an idea this time ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I want to sign up as a reviewer, but couldn't figure out how on the mobile iOS version of the page. I put in my email but that didn't clear it up either. Will try it later on a laptop, but just FYI!

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope that's it. I currently don't have a way to differentiate "I'm interested in having code reviewed" vs "I'm interested in becoming an expert." I plan to send a follow-up Google Survey to everyone who signed up to get a better sense of who's interested in this service.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know this can come off as shameless self promotion and this site is just a landing page and signup form in it's present state. I recently quit my day job to try to work on my own projects, and this time around I'd rather get early feedback before really even building an MVP. That said, I do think this would be a useful service and would be happy to build it, if enough people like the idea and would want to use it. I'll be putting on my tough skin now, if anyone has any feedback at all. Thanks!

<comment><USER6> I would not use this because:

-I can't have my company's source code existing in yet another system. It's already in github and after CircleCI's security failure my desire to have another entry point to source code is very low.

-More importantly: I, and most experienced developers, don't use code review to find simple syntax errors or fix stylistic issues. Code review is a way to socialize your changes and make sure they make sense in the larger system. The code reviewers on a site like this will not understand the larger system with enough to detail to find issues that are not simple syntax errors.

Just my .02

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanksk for your thoughts! As I mentioned in another response, maybe this is best aimed at coders picking up a new technology (or non-coders becoming coders), similar to AirPair.

<comment><USER6> Definitely could be a lot of room there. I can't imagine O'Reilly guides are the best way to quickly learn a new language...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like to do a _good_ code review, the reviewer needs to know the scope of the code they're looking at, and where it fits in the big picture. Hell, maybe even the big picture too.

If you outsource code reviews, you lose that perspective and it comes down to "will it compile, and does it look vaguely correct?" which isn't super valuable.

That being said, if you can overcome that problem then the idea becomes a lot more enticing :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good perspective. "will it compile, and does it look vaguely correct?" can still be helpful though. Imagine you're learning Rails, and haven't learned all the idioms yet. Me leaving comments such as "this would be better as a before filter", "try to avoid metaprogramming unless you have to (and you don't have to here)", etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes. I would certainly use it and frequently. I signed up. Please contact me as soon as this is available. My email is in my HN profile.

</comment><comment><USER9> No! If my team can't write readable code, I'll get a better team!

</comment><comment><USER10> Would you perform code review yourself on a big, unknown code base?

No.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can dig it.</comment>