Zynga May Have Just Laid Off 100+ Employees From Its Austin Office - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/23/zynga-layoffs/ <comment><USER2> Conceptually, I love every bit of bad Zynga news. I like to be reassured that a company will, in the long term, fail when its products are cynically designed to manipulate. That a company will fail when their strategy assumes it's okay to blatantly, consistently, continuously lift design from other firms and products.

Practically, though, bad Zynga news feels _terrible_. Because the guys who architected this repugnant exploitation machine _already got paid_. They made millions selling their stock before the market truly understood what a shit business they were running. Meanwhile, front-line employees sat with their plummeting stock locked up.

So any bad Zynga news is nothing more than notice that yet another group of hardworking folks is, somehow, getting fucked over, despite their leadership enjoying tremendous rewards.

Very frustrating to watch.

<comment><USER3> As a software developer who lives in Austin, I find it disconcerting whenever I hear about developer layoffs, especially in our city.

I hope this is just an isolated incident of bad company strategy than an overall industry trend.

<comment><USER4> Come to some meetups here in Austin. I can't get through a meetup here without a company announcing that they are hiring. Especially the more niche meetups like the Python Web Meetup: [http://www.meetup.com/austinwebpythonusergroup/events/880678...](http://www.meetup.com/austinwebpythonusergroup/events/88067882/)

My startup is based out of Capital Factory, and if you even just walked in the door during Friday happy hour and announced that you were a developer here in Austin looking for a job, hungry funded startup owners would descend on you like wolves.

All that to say: You have nothing to be worried about. And also, come to more events...especially ones held at Capital Factory. :)

<comment><USER5> Python Web development is still niche? Are any of these companies looking for remote work, by any chance? :-P

<comment><USER6> There's some serious the-future-isn't-evenly-distributed stuff going on with programming languages and cities. I have a friend in Memphis who tells me that Rails is just starting to get noticed there (!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Startups are hard.

Even big startups are hard. Zynga is startupy, even though they're public.

There's a lot of schadenfreude on HN when it comes to Zynga. Articles about Zynga's problems regularly make it to the top of HN.

Some people think games are frivolous. They're not. Entertainment is (almost) a basic human need. Some people think Zynga players are somehow being tricked. They're not. They're being entertained.

Some people say that Zynga steals ideas. Firstly, I'm guessing 99% of the people who say that are just repeating something they've heard. The other 1% should know that everyone steals from everyone. Unless you're the first guy to ever make a dynamic website, have usernames, top-bar navigation... you stole a lot of ideas too. And the ideas you stole are more fundamental than the plot of a game.

(also, if you know my history (i used to make fun of companies like this for a living) yes, i understand the irony of me writing such a supportive comment.)

<comment><USER8> I agree with the almost all your points except about them stealing ideas. Ripping off the same game from indie developers is wrong. It isn't them using basic ideas like a top nav or usernames, there are examples of them copying entire games[1]. 1\. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/25/everything...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/25/everything- wrong-with-zynga-in-one-image/)

<comment><USER7> > It isn't them using basic ideas like a top nav or usernames

By "basic ideas" I assume you mean "ideas that are better and more useful, and therefore more widely ripped off."

Your argument reminds me of when people say such-and-such band is so original -- yet it's another four guys playing guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

<comment><USER8> My argument is that Zynga stole another band's style and lyrics but changed the presentation slightly. They did not build on the 'basic ideas' like having a certain set of instruments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The irony of all this is that just less than 3 years ago Mark Pincus and Zynga was riding high.

Pincus was voted as the CEO of the Year at the Crunchies. He was chosen to be the closer to Startup School, he projected Zynga as a place for people to want to go to there: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1041758>

This is a story parallel to Lance Armstrong's own rise and fall. About how if you were to drill down, really drill down, to find the next ethical, justifiable company that used Facebook to great benefit for humanity you're going to be looking for the 27th, 28th, 29th place organizations. Because frankly, as cynical and as well-duh it is now, what did we spend the greatest of our generations will and brain power on?

A Facebook ponzi scheme.

Now the tide is turning, pendulum swung, omega alpha etc etc and all those wonderful metaphors.

Where to go now? Go fixate on and fix something else. But remember, be nice to everyone on your way up. They're going to be the same people you see on the way down.

<comment><USER10> That's not what a ponzi scheme is.

<comment><USER11> Word.

Awful, Zynga is.

A ponzi scheme, it is not.

Let's keep our criticisms to what is correct - there's _so much_ of that to go around already.

<comment><USER12> While I agree "Ponzi scheme" is tossed around a bit too liberally, Zynga is pretty close:

 _A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation._ (Wiki)

The fact that the early investors cashed out like kings from the IPO, and later investors shouldered all the losses and may not even recover the liquidation value of the assets is pretty close to the definition. All that is missing is the "fraud" part, but that's a bold accusation and hard to prove. Then again, this story isn't over.

<comment><USER10> Cashing out at an IPO isn't a ponzi scheme - it's selling assets directly to new investors.

Just because the new investors were not smart in their investment does not make it a ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER12> A Ponzi scheme inolves paying returns to investors out of the investment capital of subsequent investors. That's the definition.

The executives and VCs of Zynga built up a product and took their returns from the public by selling the public shares, which is a right to the future profits of the company[1]. Only, it turns out that those with the best knowledge of the inner working of the company probably knew there were no profits to be had, nor any on the horizon. This is made evident by the inside selling and relatively fast decline of the the company's share price.

So, while I don't go around claiming Zynga (or any such bust up) is akin to Madoff, I don't think the difference is as large as you think. It's all about intent, and we'll never really know. The rest of the pieces are there.

By the way, I'm long Zynga January 2014 calls. They may have been the recipient of loose SV money, and as such got lazy, but there is demand for this product if they can get it together. There's a real business here, so I guess I'm in the non-Ponzi crowd.

[1]If you aren't investing with the intent on earning the future profits of the company, but instead are looking to sell at a higher price, you are _speculating_ , not investing. I don't feel sorry for speculators, it's the nature of that zero sum game.

<comment><USER10> By your convoluted logic, the entire stock market is a ponzi scheme.

Buying a share _does not_ give you the right to future profits in a company. It gives you ownership and control over a percentage of the corporation, and does not guarantee a dividend.

By selling shares to the public, the shareholders are trading control of the company for money with the public investor. Whether or not they bought a lemon is the fault of the public investor.

It is _not_ a ponzi scheme, it is the exchange of assets. __

<comment><USER12> > _the entire stock market is a ponzi scheme_

It isn't "my logic", it's the definition of a Ponzi scheme: early investors were paid out by later investors, with the bottom falling out for the later investors. That hasn't happened, because the story is still unwinding. It might not ever happen. It will only be obvious in hindsight.

Besides, I own many stocks, and they return income to me.

> _Buying a share does not give you the right to future profits in a company. > >it gives you ownership and control over a percentage of the corporation_

For someone critical of "logic", those two statements contradict each other.

A company is expected to be profitable, and owning a stake in it entitles me to a share of those profits. What do you think Zynga is promising when they sell me a share of the company at IPO? Do you really think they are saying, _"Here's part of this company. It might make money, or it might not, but perhaps someone will buy it from you for a higher price at a later date"_?

Good luck with your portfolio if you base it on a different philosophy.

> _Whether or not they bought a lemon is the fault of the public investor._

Well, I'm sure the SEC would disagree with you on that statement.

> _It is _not_ a ponzi scheme, it is the exchange of assets._

One does not preclude the other. Ponzi's original fraud involved the exchange of assets. The scam is in what they tell me the asset is worth and what it is actually worth.

<comment><USER10> >It isn't "my logic", it's the definition of a Ponzi scheme: early investors were paid out by later investors, with the bottom falling out for the later investors.

 _Definition [1]: A form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors._

This _is not_ what selling stock in an IPO is because stock is not non- existent. A share of equity is a very real asset. You are committing a No True Scotsman fallacy by trying to redefine the term to fit your needs.

>Besides, I own many stocks, and they return income to me.

Just because you own equity does not mean you are an expert. Case in point: You don't know the difference between company net income, returned earnings, and dividends.

>A company is expected to be profitable, and owning a stake in it entitles me to a share of those profits.

No it does not entitle you to a share of any net income.

All it entitles you to is vote of power. This is _how corporations_ work. It's basic business, for christ's sake. [2]

>Well, I'm sure the SEC would disagree with you on that statement.

Why? Did Zynga falsify an annual filing or their 10-k? No? Then the SEC doesn't give a shit.

>One does not preclude the other.

Yes, it very much does, because in a ponzi scheme you give up your money to an investor for their service. In an IPO, you give up your money for shares of equity, which you sell later.

I'm not going to go in circles with you on this any longer. You've either have a case of confirmation bias or you're trolling. It's a shame because you're another example of a rational but unintelligent investor.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?oq=define%3Aponzi+scheme&s...](https://www.google.com/search?oq=define%3Aponzi+scheme&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=define%3Aponzi+scheme&safe=active#hl=en&safe=active&q=ponzi+scheme&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=WEeIUO2CEInciQLxpoG4CA&ved=0CB4QkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=80ef5323c76d6b79&bpcl=35466521&biw=984&bih=664)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_(finance)>

<comment><USER12> > _This is not what selling stock in an IPO is because stock is not non- > existent. You are committing a No True Scotsman fallacy by trying to > redefine the term to fit your needs._

Wait a minute, you looked up a definition that used the specific term _non- existent_ to bolster your argument, then accuse me of warping the definition?

In fact, there have been a variety of "Ponzi Scheme's" over the years, some of which have used stock, bank deposits and land.

> _Case in point: You don't know the difference between company net income, > returned earnings, and dividends._

Huh? Okay.

> _Why? Did Zynga falsify an annual filing or their 10-k? No? Then the SEC > doesn't give a shit._

I was talking about your statement, which is that:

"Whether or not they bought a lemon is the fault of the public investor."

Completely false, mainly because the public information is _provided by the company_. By the way, the SEC _has_ looked into Zynga.

> _I'm not going to go in circles with you on this any longer._

Good. I'm sure it's been exhausting for you, looking up all these finance terms on Google. Between the arrogance and personal attacks, you're not adding much here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey Zynga people, we're based in Austin and hiring for front-end. And our culture is pretty much the anti-Zynga: bootstrapped, slow growth, sane hours, no deadlines, strong design focus, and respect for our team and our customers.

Let's get coffee at the downtown Medici: <http://www.paperlesspipeline.com/jobs>

<comment><USER14> Great design and love your jobs page. Very well written and quite refreshing. Not qualified for this personally but may be some day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> During the Apple event, no less. Maybe I'm very cynical, but that seems like a deliberate attempt to bury the story.

<comment><USER16> Which is exactly the opposite of what will happen. People are talking about it more because they tried to bury it during the Apple event.

<comment><USER15> We are, but we're hardly a major news destination. No mention of it on NY Times or BBC (still early days, admittedly), but look at The Verge homepage:

<http://www.theverge.com/>

Top bar is _all_ Apple. Zynga story is an entire page scroll down.

<comment><USER17> This might also have to do with the fact that the story isn't really confirmed yet...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The general consensus is that they timed it to coincide with Apple's announcement, so that the news of them laying off employees would be buried by all the Apple press.

<comment><USER19> I think it has more to do with getting the cuts out of the way before their Q3 earnings report comes out tomorrow. Facebook just mentioned in their earnings call this afternoon that they've been hit by a 20% YoY drop in revenue from Zynga, so you know Zynga's results are going to be bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That ship is sinking fast. Heart goes out to those who are now out of work, but a part of me can't help but be glad that the "exploitative spamming social games" market might be dealt a mortal wound.

</comment><comment><USER21> Based on this I don't think they'll have a hard time finding new employment:

[https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=zynga+%22ping+me%22+OR...](https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=zynga+%22ping+me%22+OR+message+OR+hiring&src=typd)

<comment><USER22> Very few of those are for Austin. Many are from CA/NY companies.

<comment><USER23> Very few Zynga employees were from Austin, many are from CA/NY.

<comment><USER24> The article only mentions layoffs from the Austin and Boston offices...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also rumored to have shut down their Boston and Chicago offices.

<comment><USER25> The Boston office did the Adventure World game. I tried it out and found it pretty frustrating - you can only do a few things before you run out of energy and need to harrass your friends or wait 24 hours. It's not a mechanic that works well with an adventure - nobody wants to chop through a few bushes and then wait to enter the temple. Plus there's this gratuitous Indiana Jones thing which is just glommed on.

<comment><USER20> >you can only do a few things before you run out of energy and need to harrass your friends or wait 24 hours

This is a theme that exists throughout most Zynga games.

<comment><USER25> The difference I think is that in a sandbox game doing a handful of things every eight hours or so can feel fairly satisfying but in an adventure game there's a sort of story and you're interrupting it after you're just getting started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm surprised to see so many people suggesting that Zynga's problems are purely moral. I think that gives them too much credit. I personally have no problem with their business practices from a strictly moral point of view. Caveat Emptor.

No, for me the problem is much simpler. Its a shitty business run by very poor business minds. That may sound dramatic and sensational, but let's consider the facts: they paid $250 million for a company of 15 developers whose most valuable asset was a mobile version of Pictionary that had been on the market for just three months. Completely unprofitable, they built a multilmillion dollar state of the art office in San Francisco. That's something you do when you are wildly successful, maybe. I work for a company many orders of magnitude more successful than Zynga and our office looks like a dungeon. So what? That's being wise with cashflow. That's a company I want to invest in. Finally, a friend of mine works for Zynga and he was regularly taking all expense paid trips. For his one year anniversary he was sent to England and Ireland as a reward.

I don't think of Zynga's management as sinister evildoers. I think of them as immature and completely unfit to manage a company. I say good riddance but I do hope those laid off find better opportunities soon.

<comment><USER27> I'm gonna call bullshit on your friend's claim of all expense paid trip purely as a one year anniversary gift from Zynga.

Here is when you get such perks at Zynga:

\- You win some sort of company-wide award at the quarterly meeting. You (or your team) did something awesome and you are getting rewarded.

\- You get a big quarter-end cash bonus and you spend it on your trip.

\- It's not actually a vacation. You are on a business trip and maybe you convince your manager to delay your return and you take off for vacation time at that time.

\- 25% of your stock options vest on your first anniversary and you cash in and spend on your trip. Assuming you got a boatload of options if you take into account the stock price.

That's all I can think of.

But what DO you get as a prize for your one year anniversary? Some studios put your name up on a poster... That's about it. The rest is by merit.

And as to your immature and completely unfit comment: I call bullshit on that as well. People like that do not get the type of funding that Zynga got. They do not get superstars on their board like Zynga does (Reid Hoffman, Bing Gordon, Jeffrey Katzenberg, etc). And people like that definitely do not get a company to go public. So, yeah, I call bullshit.

<comment><USER26> I think if that's the only point in all that which you find fault with, then my point is pretty well proven.

Oh, and you can point at the board of directors and all of their past successes as if that somehow proves that the company is well run. I can point at the balance sheet and stock price. Facts are stubborn things.

<comment><USER27> At the end of the day critics are a dime a dozen. This is not the forum nor do I have the time nor do I care enough to argue, so I won't bother to poke holes in your logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It seems to me that Zynga's biggest mistake was 1) not expecting that social gaming craze to take a dive and 2) not figuring out early enough what to do next when the social gaming craze died down ... those two things are related.

So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming, Zynga is in a tough situation where they're facing the harsh reality as it comes. As a result, they're stuck with a huge, bloated company not prepared to quickly pivot or create innovation in new product categories.

I don't know what else Zynga can do right now but to downsize and to refocus the company on building what's next and not what was. It's almost like they need to find a new product strategy and business model. And it will take a lot of insight, leadership and team to get it done.

What they have going for them is that they have a lot of cash and a lot of experience in the social gaming genre.

But what they have going against them is momentum which includes employees losing faith in the company.

<comment><USER12> > _"So rather than predicting and pre-empting the dive in social gaming"_

I agree with your post, outside of this.

They most definitely predicted it, and cashed out their stock to benefit from it. How else do you explain them cashing out so much, so early? That's the hard part for me to get over.

Other than the shadiness of the VCs and execs, Zynga was a decent idea that didn't work out, like so many before it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't know why everyone is so critical of Zynga trying to hide this news among the Apple stories -- what is the argument for not doing so? "Hey guys, lets make sure EVERYONE hears that we're closing down offices and laying off employees, this is going to be important"

Would you have acted differently?

<comment><USER30> Lay them off last friday and save your shareholders a man-year of salary?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If any of the Zynga engineers are reading this article, we are looking for a few good engineers where I work. We develop with Unity3d and Obj-c for the front end, and Scala for the back end. We also are willing to consider remote for great candidates.

email@example.com

<comment><USER32> Why don't you guys put some stuff up on your website? Every section is just empty. As an indie game developer using Unity3d (and funnily enough an ex- Zynga employee too) I wouldn't even bother contacting your studio when every section of your site is just empty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Way to try sweep it under the rug by announcing it during all of Apple's product news. Classy act Zynga.

<comment><USER34> Because other companies don't announce news on Friday at 4:00pm...

Or because the White House doesn't make important news announcements on Christmas Eve when nobody's paying attention...

I don't think this is a Zynga dick-move. I think this is a typical company move to bury a non-flattering story.

<comment><USER35> The fact that other organizations also make dick moves does not negate this dick move.

<comment><USER36> Is it a 'dick move' that Apple releases their products at a time calculated to get maximum media exposure? Or that every other smart company in the World also times bad news?

There are many things one might accurately criticize Zynga for, but this is not one of them. If they hadn't done it this way investors would have yet another reason to sell the stock, it would be evidence the company is run by idiots.

<comment><USER37> Hiding information is worse than spreading information, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Has this been corroborated outside of that tweet yet?

<comment><USER39> I'm also waiting for this. I feel suspicious even though it wouldn't surprise me much from Zynga.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This was bound to happen. What goes up and steals other companies designs and game ideas must come down. It's unfortunate the front-line employees who worked for Zynga and only did as they were asked and weren't the perpetrators for coming up with game designs to rip off have been shafted in this situation.

They're nothing more than a money hungry company that deserves to perish. The real question here is: will this have a knock on effect for Facebook stock and perhaps have a chain reaction?

If I were Facebook I'd seriously be considering an acquisition and then priority number #1 being turn the image of Zynga around, perhaps even re-brand to Facebook Games.

</comment><comment><USER41> If I were them, I'd head straight to the bar. I'll buy a few rounds for anyone who got laid off in Boston because... that just sucks. I also recruit for 100+ local startups, and can help you transition.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is anyone else unable to access the article? I'm getting 404s - although this exact url is linked from the front page. It's techcrunch, so this must be a sign of interesting politic.

</comment><comment><USER43> I feel bad for all the Zynga people. Not for being so unceremoniously let go, but for the flood of recruiting emails they'll be receiving already. Good luck, people!

</comment><comment><USER44> Good to see Zynga starting to focus on profitability ...

<comment><USER22> Exactly. Zynga laid off employees from a failing division? What's the problem? Who cares when it happened. Those employees should have seen the writing on the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It is just me , but do you need 3000 + people to run a social gaming company , even if it is a big one ? Sorry for those that have been fired , but didn't anyone put the brakes on the hiring somewhere along the track ? That payroll must be mind-blowing.

</comment><comment><USER46> I just can't believe that my tweet launched the entire story. That was insane.

My friend IM'ed me at 11:27a PST yesterday saying "Dude, my whole studio just got laid off. We have 2 hrs to vacate. Can you email someone?" Hit twitter, and it was off like a rocket.

</comment><comment><USER47> Farmville was a great social game and their Words with Friends acquisition was very good... then they started making Farmville clones, blatantly ripping off competitor's games, and paid $200 million for Draw Something.

<comment><USER10> Farmville was a blatant ripoff of _Happy Farm_ \- it just happened to be the first clone to hit the U.S. market from China and be successful.

<comment><USER48> Which was a ripoff of the classic mid-1990s SimFarm.

<comment><USER49> Not sure I would call SimFarm (SimAnt or SimIsle) classic. SimTower on the other hand.

<comment><USER50> SimFarm was a classic but rather I'd hesitate to call FarmHappy a SimFarm clone. SimFarm is perhaps the most complex Sim game, I had an easier time with even SimIsle. Gameplay wise there is almost no intersection.

What disappoints me about the current social gaming genre is how many games what would have otherwise been decent tycoons are ruined with slot machine mechanics.

<comment><USER51> I've been wondering what the big deal is since these games just reminded me of Tycoons anyways, but you have a point with the "slot machine mechanics" bit...though the Tycoons could get pretty slot machiney. I think a lot of the backlash is the fact that these are popular with casual or non-gamers, so they have an image problem with "real" gamers.

You're the first person I've "met" who got SimIsle. Maybe I need to give it another try...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Not a big surprise, especially after having spoken to a few people that have worked at Zynga before. High turnover of employees, quality over quantity, etc. Can't say I'll miss their products or their techniques.

</comment><comment><USER53> I forgot I'm living in a world where people equate jobs with prosperity.

</comment><comment><USER54> ...It's interesting how companies like bring their skeletons out on the days Apple makes their product announcements.

Sort of softens the blow of it; at least a lot attention is diverted to Cupertino.

</comment><comment><USER32> Any idea what kind of severance package the developers received?

</comment><comment><USER55> Startups are risky beasts, but this action appears to lack backbone and tact.

This concerns me because this is Zyngas leadership tone on display. It does not invoke confidence.

</comment><comment><USER56> Zynga is clearly a household brand you can trust.

</comment><comment><USER57> Done during the iPad Mini rollout no less, while the press was distracted. Nice one, Pincus.

</comment><comment><USER58> Zynga is such an horrible company.

</comment><comment><USER59> With classy moves like this, I can't understand why we all hate on them so much...

</comment><comment><USER60> really gutted for the talented people who work there. 100 people have to find jobs tomorrow, that's never easy.</comment>


Excellent, deep series on Uber's Ponzi-scheme economics - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2016/12/07/excellent-deep-series-on-uber.html <comment><USER2> Discussion on the first article in the series: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079023)</comment>


Clouds, a Documentary Shot With Kinect, Explores Beauty of Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/06/clouds-code-kinect/

<comment><USER2> Parts of the footage really had me convinced I was looking at an ordinary film recording of a human being, which is pretty damn impressive given that it's actually a textured 3D model - and they seem to be doing post-processing on it to make it look less than real. I can't wait to see what's possible with the inevitable 'second generation' of Kinect (that probably includes a better depth camera).</comment>


German Ham Radio Operator Takes Picture of Solar Eclipse From the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/sonnenfinsternis-vom-mond-aus-fotografiert-hobbyfunker-gelingt-spektakulaeres-bild-a-1282377.html <comment><USER2> Spookily good translation of the article (which is interesting in its own right):

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fweltall%2Fsonnenfinsternis- vom-mond-aus-fotografiert-hobbyfunker-gelingt-spektakulaeres- bild-a-1282377.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The translation says he's licensed to operate the Chinese satellite. Is that right? Did he have to get approval to issue the command or was this him on his own? Quite a nice picture for a satellite that is now defunct. Was the Chinese satellite's mission already done or did it fail prematurely?

<comment><USER4> It sounds like he's part of China's version of DSN, which is pretty cool! It seems strange that China is using amateurs instead of just building their own around the world, but a great opportunity for this guy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, call me naive, but I hoped this was how he made a visual photo based off radio waves bounced off the moon somehow. Doesn't sound possible, but then that's where the title sent me!

<comment><USER6> We did leave a mirror on the moon

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone in here wondering the article states that he added a command to download the picture to the list of commands he got from the chinese.

The satellite Longjiang 2 was destroyed on the moon (as planned) so you guys can't get permission "to operate" it ;)

It's times like these where I wish I was a ham operator myself.

</comment><comment><USER8> I too am curious how I can get China to give me instructions on how to operate their satellite. Any pointers?

</comment><comment><USER9> Amazing that the Chinese teamed up with an amateur, instead of an other space agency. It is really impressive how much of an impact amateurs can have in astronomy and space research.</comment>


Ask HN:  Can you create custom mobile apps with forms? - <AUTHOR>

I'm not a programmer, so bear with me.  Is there a way to create standard code for a iphone, android or blackberry app that is can basically take an informational form that is filled out online, and take that info, fill in the missing blanks in the code, and generate an app?  Basically, a person goes to a website, fills out some basic info in a form as to what they want included in the app as for as info or media from a drop down, click send, and then the site will email them a link to download a custom mobile app based on their entered info and their particular phone.  This would bypass the App Store or Google Play Store, etc.  Of course I understand that you probably could not them send out auto updates. <comment><USER2> Is something like that possible? Maybe, but by your own admission "I'm not a programmer" I don't think you will be able to accomplish it.

From what you wrote I am guessing you want to make a dumbed-down interface for creating full featured iPhone/Android/BB (Why even bother with BB) apps such as appmakr.com. This endeavor will not be worth your time, apps like these are super low quality and suffer from the cookie-cutter-app syndrom (Yes I think I just made that up).

No some should be polluting the eco-system with more of these, especially someone who doesn't even know how to program, no offense it's just this would be hard to begin with and it's an impossible problem to solve. You just can't create a product like this that puts out quality apps.</comment>


My Media Query Mixin - <AUTHOR> http://alwaystwisted.com/post.php?s=2013-04-01-my-media-query-mixin <comment> stuart-robson Here's a fun little post about a simple media query mixin. That can do a lot.</comment>


Against magic: animations slow down interfaces - <AUTHOR> https://macwright.org/2018/06/19/against-magic.html <comment><USER2> Animation certainly can help with transitions. Try keeping track scrolling an a stock emacs jumping half a screen per wheel tic.

Most of these animations totally make sense: [https://material.io/design/motion/choreography.html#transfor...](https://material.io/design/motion/choreography.html#transformation) Look at the 2nd "don't" at "Complex transformations" to see how great animations are.

I do however get mad with apps that use page flip transitions. Such a simple and often used feature in a reading app is super annoying and should be possible to turn off. As in many cases: the power user needs no hinting and can even live with undocumented keyboard shortcuts, but for a smooth ride you from the start you need hints.

<comment><USER2> The suggested speeds of the material guidelines is quite alright too though [https://material.io/design/motion/speed.html#controlling- spe...](https://material.io/design/motion/speed.html#controlling-speed)

Speeds are appropriate to the actions and even a but shorter than the numbers say, if you consider the last 1/4 to be just the slow stop of things (I hope they are already actionable there).

I like the double speed transitions android offers for devs :)

Even with ultra high speed you could use animations. One can learn from games (e.g. 1 frame smears): [https://youtu.be/Mw0h9WmBlsw?t=945](https://youtu.be/Mw0h9WmBlsw?t=945)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Animations slow down interfaces

To be pedantic:

Animations can introduce latency to interfaces.

This is the main point that people need to understand. So long as you aren't making the user wait (even just a few milliseconds) for an animation to happen, you should be OK.

Granted, it's easy to go overboard. I certainly prefer a cleaner UI.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of the animation principles are there to help take actions instead of conveying the actions that are taken (Staging, anticipation, exaggeration etc.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Dont be ignorant. That's like saying movies dont need special fx. Story is all you need.

<comment><USER6> FX in a movie don't block you from getting something done. You're in a passive mode when you're watching a movie.

Imagine being in your car and stepping on the brakes, then having to wait for a dashboard animation to complete before the braking actually started.

There's a place for UI animations but it should be possible to turn them off once the novelty wears off.

<comment><USER7> Windows 10 has these settings, the tradeoff offerered is Visual Quality vs System Performance.

While I like these setting and only have a few turned on, Clear Type, Transparent Drag and such, I take umbrage at the idea that my preferences are some how of lower visual quality.</comment></comment></comment>


Team Room in Flex2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://geniteam.com/pod/TeamRoom.htm As part of its ongoing commitment to provide human capital, GeniTeam (www.geniteam.com), today announced alpha release of "Team Room" to support their virtual team model. This product is designed to enhance collaboration between team members dispersed across different geographical locations. The business model coupled with the product, shall allow high tech startup to hire remote teams and save significantly on operating cost.
Beginning in January 2008, GeniTeam will also include video conferencing in application. Startups hosting their virtual teams with GeniTeam will be able to enhance management of their virtual teams through Team Room, after beta launch, expected in winter 2007. The application is developed using Flex 2.0, hibernate 3.0, spring and Java. <comment><AUTHOR> I think we choose Flex for following reasons of Flash 1\. Components are far more improved 2\. Data integration is lot better 3\. Charting components

I found a good article for comparision <http://www.flashmagazine.com/1061.htm>

I hope this answer your question. Btw : Did you like the concept ?

</comment><comment><USER2> I would like to know ,why you chose flex over flash IDE for development. Time constrains?

<comment><USER3> I think in adobe flex its easy to work, i don't know why they chose Adobe Flex. But my personal view about Flash Vs Flex. For developers its really easy to work in Flex as compared to Flash.</comment></comment>


Sleep or die. - <AUTHOR> http://yourlocalsecurity.com/in-good-measure/sleep-or-die

<comment><USER2> I knew I liked my sleep! All those people that make fun of me for going to bed at 10, well I win.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love it! Very interesting, I will have to test out the theory.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. According to this I should be dead, very soon...

<comment><USER4> ...and I was right. I'm dead.</comment></comment>


Minimum Viable SEO - <AUTHOR> http://contentini.com/minimum-viable-seo-content-strategy-tip/ <comment><USER2> My problems with your analysis: 1) Content strategists happens to be a very low competition, low volume search term. It shouldn't be especially hard to make the first page. 2) You did in fact optimize your URL for the page that ranked for the target search term. (As well as your H1 tag.) This doesn't support your argument that one can rank well without attention to these items.

Meanwhile, I am interested to know how a new blog got links from Boing Boing and O'Reilly Radar. That would be more interesting and useful if you are willing to share.

Edit: By the way, low volume is not bad if well targeted, so I'm not disagreeing with your strategy, just with the conclusions drawn about SEO based on this data.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're correct that the target phrase isn't particularly high competition and that our Wordpress installation is already fairly SEO optimized, so yeah, I guess it is a little misleading. Good spot.

WRT Boing Boing and Radar, it's really just a case of writing content that appealed to those demographics/authors. We wrote an article that analyzed the changing use of language in UK parliament (all parliament discourse is available in XML files), which BB picked up on. Then we also wrote about potential open source bias in Wikipedia editing, which Radar picked up on (let's not get into that discussion here though!). So no particular secrets, just spending some time doing some research and writing some content off that research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a good practical example of what to do when you're starting off with SEO. There are many posts that overwhelm you with information when you begin. Plus, they're able to show that it works.</comment>


Surveillance Backlash Could Cost Tech Companies More Than $35B by 2016 - T-A http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/06/09/u-s-surveillance-backlash-could-cost-tech-companies-more-than-35-billion-by-2016/

<comment><AUTHOR> They deserve any backlash they get. I've worked for many of the big software and hardware vendors over my career - and their executives talk about security but they don't really care. They will do just enough to convince buyers that they are secure - even when their own engineers tell them how easy it is to break in to the system (those engineers that haven't been fired already for actually caring about customers.)

</comment><comment><USER2> Their tax breaks and corporate subsidies will more than cushion them in their hour of supposed need. And I imagine PR like this will enable them to also raise prices here and there, so extra win.</comment>


Everyone Who Tried to Convince Me To Use Ember Was Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.wekeroad.com/2014/03/22/every-who-tried-to-convince-me-to-use-ember-was-wrong/

<comment><USER2> Nowhere does the article say what problem the author was actually try to solve by switching to Ember. It sounds like his only reason for this painful experience was that he didn't want to the last one in his group of friends who wasn't using this cool, new framework. And that's not a good basis for a business decision.

<comment><USER3> The post is satire of sorts, although in the course of writing it I found such a common cause with Yehuda it was crazy. His pain learning Vim was my pain learning Ember. And the payoff is just as fun (to me at least).

Read this post here: [http://yehudakatz.com/2010/07/29/everyone-who-tried-to- convi...](http://yehudakatz.com/2010/07/29/everyone-who-tried-to-convince-me- to-use-vim-was-wrong/)

And hopefully you'll see the genesis of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Can you tell me a way to switch that will not significantly reduce my > productivity for the first few weeks.

The only way I can imagine doing this is to time-travel and give myself a crash-course in all the stuff I struggled to figure out in the beginning. Now I feel like I could give myself a complete tutorial in a day.

The trouble is partly that everyone coming to Ember has a different way of thinking, and the documentation can't target all the sets of prior skills and assumptions. I always thought that for a great book, the reader should meet the writer half-way. In this case, however, the reader has a long way to go before they can move easily through the range of Ember's capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm glad that you finally found a way to get up to speed. I find it very challenging helping people over the initial jump of Ember learning so any feedback about what worked for you is great to have.

I'll probably have lots of conversations about this next week at Emberconf!

</comment><comment><USER6> I need an Ember expert to compare it to ExtJS. I've skimmed over Ember. It feels like it'll take the same amount of pain as ExtJS to get through it, but the overall feature set is inferior.

</comment><comment><USER7> Connery seems to make his mark by being a professional douchy complainer. Just saying take whatever he says with a dose of "if I didn't write it, it sucks" type attitude.

<comment><USER3> Also - thank you for the new Twitter bio. You've motivated me to be a better person. I shall never forget you Mr. 5-day old HN account...</comment></comment>


The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-sad-case-of-unreal-engine-1-on-mesa-and-linux-in-2020.15915 <comment><USER2> Argh. Unreal engine 1 can be a real pain, even on windows!

Just recently I tried running Deus Ex and had to use the hacked .exe files and a custom graphics mode for it to not have serious issues.

Tim Sweeney said he'd like to release the Unreal 1 source code one day (5 years ago) and it's stuff like this that would be sooooo much better even if we could only get Unreal itself and not further forks like Deus Ex.

(For instance, with doom modding they had to totally reverse engineer STRIFE but it properly works on modern systems now!)

<comment><USER3> I've been playing Deus Ex from GOG.com on Linux (under Wine) myself and it has worked great.

But I think that an open-source release of Unreal Engine 1 that could potentially give us the power to fix these issues, would be great. The final thing that Deus Ex needs before becoming perfect is an open-source engine (kinda like OpenMW).

<comment><USER4> > But I think that an open-source release of Unreal Engine 1 that could > potentially give us the power to fix these issues, would be great.

It'd also let us mod things way beyond what's reasonably possible by default, port the thing to other CPU architectures, port to other OSes..

I'm quite disappointed that the games industry at large doesn't care about their customers enough to open source their code.

<comment><USER5> For anyone who missed it, EA just announced that they will release the C++ source code of Red Alert 1. (It's not completely clear whether they will release _all_ of the source.) [0]

You're right though, it's a pity this doesn't happen more often. As we've seen with Quake and classic DOOM, it doesn't even have to amount to a giveaway, as the game assets can remain payware.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I started hacking on this again as well (especially classic Unreal Tournament/UT99). Would love to play some Facing Worlds, but was not able to get it to work on a modern 64-bit MX system w/ nvidia binary drivers.. however, did get UT2004 working! (no sound so far though)

But, heads-up, maybe this will work in your Unreal Engine 1 hacking: the awesome Icculus put together a small tarball of the needed libc5 libraries..

[http://icculus.org/updates/cod/gcc3-libs.tar.bz2](http://icculus.org/updates/cod/gcc3-libs.tar.bz2)

Check out the thread where I found this -- it's quite a read:

[https://icculus.org/pipermail/ut2004/2005-June/002249.html](https://icculus.org/pipermail/ut2004/2005-June/002249.html)

And, as much as I hate to say it, reading that old 2005 thread still rings true: Windows apps still tend to work, even 25 years later, but Linux apps don't tend to work even a year or two later. Backwards compatibility hasn't really been a thing in Linux, but it should be.

Also see [https://www.smokin-guns.org/](https://www.smokin-guns.org/) (based on Q3A) and my 64-bit build of it from a few years ago: [https://github.com/jamiesonbecker/smokinguns](https://github.com/jamiesonbecker/smokinguns)

<comment><USER3> Linux has a "fix the source and recompile" mentality to backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER7> _Linux_ (mostly) doesn't have a problem with binary backwards compatibility. It's everything around Linux that is generally the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I created a Dockerfile to run Unreal Tournament 1 in Linux using Docker. It works quite well.

[https://github.com/zedr/docker-unreal- tournament-99](https://github.com/zedr/docker-unreal-tournament-99)

</comment><comment><USER9> The most ironic part is that all the failing games are easy to run with Wine.

<comment> m-p-3 Now I'm wondering if they'd run better through Wine in WSL.</comment></comment>


Show HN: THREE - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/three-swap-pop/id890491274

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my first mobile app. It's paid, so here are some promo codes:

J9FREXHYMYRL

7AYETXMJAN6L

F3MPYHPPE6KF

FW664HHKPHRA

64AAWRYPF77A

J3PW9NLY7JAT

WMFKHL3AEEXF

NMKMM6WHHXRH

WFNFA79W7PAF

LEEHYF7TRW7Y

479YAFR7RKJY

NMXW363FKP6W

M73AJ99XF6EL

374E6KXH9AWH

7KR69W7MTA3F

MJ6EMERX7ATW

7AHLEKWTNRPT

EX4NJ66LYWHW

967LWLJNWLLR

NY936YJ7NLR6

Please let us all know which promo code you have used.

</comment><comment><USER2> 7KR69W7MTA3F. Thanks. Very smooth animation.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome, and thank you.</comment></comment>


N.S.A. Will Not Be Allowed to Keep Old Phone Records - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/us/politics/nsa-will-not-be-allowed-to-keep-old-phone-records.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> GCHQ, meanwhile, is not restricted from storing or querying such a database should they obtain a copy. Further, the NSA is not barred from asking GCHQ to return queries against the content of databases they hold. Lastly, GCHQ would be wise to automate the servicing of such requests, as a cost saving measure.

So this restriction has the potential of slowing the NSA's phone record snooping by roughly one RTT across the Atlantic. A delay that could amount to as much as 0.15 seconds.

<comment><USER3> FVEY really is a neat arrangement. We can all circumvent laws about spying on our own citizens by having our closest allies do it. Hail Britannia, I suppose, except instead of owning the waves they now own the packets.

GCHQ also seems to punch way above its weight for such a small country. And yes, the scenario described is exactly what an intelligence officer would think, in order to handle the situation.

<comment><USER4> Britain closest?

I think not. Canada is one of the five and is much much closer. GCHQ is in the news, but much of the cross-boarder legal fiction stuff happens via Canada. Britain controls the international routes two and from europe, but when it comes to domestic spying Canada is the much closer partner.

<comment><USER3> Mmm... I'd need a citation on that. CSE isn't just overlooked in the news, it's a much less powerful agency (about ~50% greater budget for GCHQ according to news sources.)

Additionally, every high level collaboration, according to news reports, involved GCHQ as the chief partner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This time.. THIS TIME they're follow the law and tell the truth. Because they have such a great track record.

Remember, this is the Administration that first claimed they weren't collecting anything, then they were but not on Americans, then they were but only for suspected terrorists, then they were but only for people connected to terrorists, then they were but only metadata. How dumb do they think we are to believe _that_ story?

And - as others have noted - GCHQ probably has a copy of everything too so this is yet another paper tiger.

</comment><comment><USER6> But will that actually stop them from doing it anyway?

It seems the NSA doesn't care about any laws it breaks domestic or international since there are no repercussions.

<comment><USER3> No, they care. When it was discovered that a target had once _applied_ for citizenship, rendering him an USPER and thus off limits, Alexander had the man's file printed out, erased from the system, and then burned it in front of the entire NOC to make a point.

Yes, their procedural controls suck. Yes, "collect it all" is likely an illegal mantra. And if someone bad gets their hands on this data the result could be horrific. But right now, it's being mainly used to target and neutralize actual foreign terrorist threats.

<comment><USER7> > But right now, it's being mainly used to target and neutralize actual > foreign terrorist threats.

And civil liberties groups and charities. And foreign businesses in allied countries. And allied politicians.

<comment><USER8> [citation needed]

<comment><USER7> Do you really have to ask after the last year or more of news?

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/08/snowden-council-of- europe-t...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/08/snowden-council-of-europe- testimony/)

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/22/gchq- surveill...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/22/gchq-surveillance- two-human-rights-groups-illegal-tribunal)

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq- targeted...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq-targeted-aid- agencies-german-government-eu-commissioner)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/22/nsa_gchq_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/22/nsa_gchq_spying_on_humanitarian_groups_like_unicef_medecins_du_monde.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/world/nsa-dragnet- included...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/world/nsa-dragnet-included- allies-aid-groups-and-business-elite.html?_r=0)

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying- braz...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil- petrobras)

I mean, these are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. I've got a pretty good record of everything leaked over the last year or so on my home computer.

<comment><USER8> Oh you mean an intelligence agency whose mission is foreign intelligence is gathering intelligence on foreign entities?

<comment><USER7> You just asked me for citations, implying that you didn't believe what I wrote.

I gave you citations/articles and you reply with basically

"Well, well... of course they do that!"

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, when you said "Civil liberties groups and charities... and allied politicians" I thought you were referring to domestic organizations/persons.

Shrug.

<comment><USER9> Is that a meaningful distinction?

<comment><USER10> To the law? Yes, a huge one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And by 'will not be allowed to keep', they really mean transfer to a contracted 3rd party to 'delete' it, until it might be needed or become more legitimate to be keeping... during the next crisis.

</comment><comment><USER12> And who is going to check that? On a rolling basis? May I please go there and check?

<comment><USER13> Why of course not, silly prole. YOU do don't get to check. It's way above your clearance. Just pay your taxes and shut up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The word "Allowed" does not weigh much in the ears of NSA employees.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's not enough. This says they have to purge the phone records on a rolling five year basis.

Collecting phone records without a warrant is still a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

</comment><comment><USER16> Weren't they already not allowed to collect them in a first place?

</comment><comment><USER17> Yea, I believe that... not.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wink wink, nudge nudge?

</comment><comment><USER19> At least the French are honest, we are taking everything and there is nothing you can do about it.

</comment><comment><USER20> ...but they will anyway.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Not allowed"... haha.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't use the phone. Pretty much ever. I want to know what's happening to my emails, online tracking etc.</comment>


Algorithms can't be patched - <AUTHOR> https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2017/12/14/algorithms-cant-be-patched/ <comment><USER2> I think the explanation is weak. Especially the line 'dedicated hardware can't be patched, though.' By that logic all was have to do is make all future hard ware with FPGA boards so they can be upgraded on the fly.</comment>


Qualcomm accuses Apple of giving its chip secrets to Intel - sahin-boydas https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/qualcomm-accuses-apple-of-giving-its-chip-secrets-to-intel.html <comment><AUTHOR> We've heard bits of this before [1] but maybe discovery is confirming some of qualcomm's theories.

> Qualcomm claims it has reason to believe Apple flouted its rules, and cites > an incident in which an Apple engineer CC'ed an Intel engineer in a message > containing confidential material. The chipmaker also says Apple engineers > working with competitive vendors merely obscured references to Qualcomm in > messages rather than restricting the flow of protected data.

[1] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/02/qualcomm_sues_apple...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/02/qualcomm_sues_apple/)

<comment><USER2> That's hardly "stealing", though. Sounds more like "really dumb mistake".

<comment><USER3> I've been the point engineer in these types of interactions(over on the GPU space, but still plenty of IP to worry about there).

You're _very_ , _very_ careful to make sure this doesn't happen, up to and including having two discrete teams that work with different vendors to make sure it doesn't happen(sometimes mandated by contracts).

In my last gig where I did this our group was the one part of the company that most vendors came to precisely because we didn't disclose techniques or approaches. Someone just casually mentioning "Vendor X" does Texture Compression with "Y" in discussions is enough to get them to never talk to your engineers again.

(I've seen very senior engineers do this in order to try and move the needle with a vendor only to completely sabotage the whole relationship without even realizing it.)

<comment><USER4> Not quite the same level but I remember before gen 4 game consoles were announced, for a while the NDA hoops we had to jump through and the care we had to take when discussing them internally was intense. For a long time we just called them "gen4a" and "gen4b" (a legacy that still lives in our code base to this day), and you weren't allowed to verbalise which one was which. This was followed by more code words, so you then had to remember which code name matched up with gen4a and which one was gen4b. SDK and firmware drops were strictly locked down of course, and we had to hide the dev kits when any kind of video crew or photography was taking place around our work areas even though the kits were pretty much unrecognisable and even if it was for an internal purpose (but that's to be expected, anyway). Also you could not stack one particular kit on top of the other one because it was known to overheat faster than a pug in summer.

<comment><USER3> Oh yeah, I was in gamedev before this and NDA process back then was quite involved. These days with the ability to run on production hardware that's a lot less restricted.

I'd say that SoC vendors are a bit more strict about NDAs vs GameDev where it was pretty wide knowledge who worked on what. Once you were in the industry there were very few secrets given how small it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> what's up with all these glaring defense of Apple?

Apple's success has been narrowly focused in on designing, marketing, and a few technical areas -- wireless tech pioneered and dominated by the likes of Qualcomm, Ericsson, etc for decades is not where Apple's strength lies.

Further, Apple has been accused and convicted of orchestrating ebooks price- fixing ($450M fine in 2016) and colluding with other tech companies not to poach each others' employees (another $450M fine for all tech companies involved in 2015). A US jury also found Apple willfully infringed VirnetX's IP's (ie, facetime VPN OD). So yeah, sure, Apple, however big or successful, is fully capable of engaging in unethical, anti-competitive/trust, illegal activities to gain advantage over others.

Also, let's not forget, Qualcomm's lawsuit (or counter-suit) is just a small subplot of the greater feud between Apple and the wireless industry. Apple, having challenged the wireless industry for a full decade and lost or settled every lawsuit (and failed to squeeze their wireless suppliers), allegedly colluded with mobile OEMs around the world to launch regulatory attacks against Qualcomm. Sure, there are some aspects of Qualcomm's licensing practices that are clearly illegal/anti-competitive (especially respect to their chipset competitors), but Apple's direct accusation (eg, kickback for exclusivity, violation of FRAND -- unreasonable royalty basis and rates) is probably just blatant lies that Apple fabricated to rile up regulators in South Korea, EU, and Taiwan. It's no wonder that Qualcomm is so pissed off and they are engaged in a bitter lawsuit over frivolous IP theft that Qualcomm would have looked away otherwise.

<comment><USER6> 1\. We have no evidence that Apple did anything wrong. And so until a court rules either way we should default to them being innocent.

2\. Qualcomm is unquestionably more dodgy than Apple. They have been convicted of market abuse and have engaged in anti-competitive practices for quite some time now. I don't think anyone should feel sympathy for them.

3\. You have made unfounded allegations that Apple lied to countries around the world. So I would question your bias in this case.

<comment><USER7> Qualcomm has been found guilty in two separate antitrust actions recently in the EU, with a third antitrust action getting underway in the last couple of months.

They are currently the subject of another antitrust action in the US.

In addition, several other nations have recently found them guilty in antitrust actions of their own.

Given their behavior, and the Billions in fines they have recently been ordered to pay for said illegal behavior, I'm not certain why anyone would still be willing to accept their claims without proof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Last year S/A wrote pretty interesting article about this situation: [https://semiaccurate.com/2017/11/06/qualcomm-opens-apple- leg...](https://semiaccurate.com/2017/11/06/qualcomm-opens-apple-legal- filing/)

<comment><USER9> _As another example, an Apple engineer working on a competitive vendor's product asked an Apple engineer working on Qualcomm's product to request assistance from Qualcomm relating to a downlink decoding summary for carrier aggregation._

 _On February 28, 2017, Qualcomm requested an audit under the MSA. To date, despite Qualcomm's repeated requests, Apple has refused to permit Qualcomm to audit Apple's compliance with the provisions of the MSA. Qualcomm seeks specific performance of Apple's obligations under the MSA to provide sufficient information to Qualcomm to confirm that Apple has at all times complied with its obligations related to Qualcomm's software._

Those, if true, are not going to go well in a court. The section gets worse and worse the farther you read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ehh, the secrets that were shared really should be public anyway. Qualcomm have single handedly distorted the American mobile device market by working trade secrets and patents into the LTE standard.

<comment><USER11> Qualcomm's ridiculousness with things like CDMA set back the American wireless industry almost a decade.

<comment><USER12> I'd like to learn more, any recommendations/links?

<comment><USER13> [https://www.patentprogress.org/2017/01/27/no-listen- qualcomm...](https://www.patentprogress.org/2017/01/27/no-listen-qualcomm/)

      I wrote about the KFTC action recently, in which the KFTC fined Qualcomm about $850 million and ordered it to stop its abusive licensing practices. The KFTC found that Qualcomm dominated the pool of essential patents for the CDMA cellular phone standard, and it used those patents to monopolize the market for CDMA chipsets:

      It refused to license to competitors, even though as part of the standard-setting process, Qualcomm had committed to license to anyone on fair and reasonable terms

It forced handset companies to separately take a patent license if they wanted to buy Qualcomm chips. That was on top of the purchase price for the chips. It forced handset companies to give Qualcomm licenses to their own patents, for free.

[https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/10/11/qualcomm-antirust- war-...](https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/10/11/qualcomm-antirust-war-patent- licensing-issues/id=88891/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And we have reasons to believe either the Intel Modem or its Antenna Design are not working as well as expected.

[1] [https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/antennagate-reduxs- if-s...](https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/antennagate-reduxs-if-so-what- can-apple.html)

<comment><USER15> > Intel needed to deliver a modem that would rival Qualcomm for several years > already and possibly had to cut some corners to show faster LTE speeds

[https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-the-mobile- reception...](https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-the-mobile-reception-on- the-xs-max-even-worse-than-iphone-x.2140854/page-22#post-26563951)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Similarly, I was expecting the GPU situation to come to a head, meaning : Imagination technologies starting a lawsuit. The fact that this hasn't yet happened, led some commentators to conclude that a confidential Apple-IMG settlement has taken place.

</comment><comment><USER17> What information gleaned from Qualcomm code would actually be useful or applicable to Intel improving their totally different hardware?

<comment><USER18> Device drivers and firmware often contain workarounds for bugs in other products.

Here[0] is an example from Windows Vista.

[0] [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060330-31/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060330-31/?p=31723)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The headline doesn't match this statement, which makes more sense: "Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm's confidential information and trade secrets for the purpose of improving the performance of lower-quality modem chipsets."

The complaint could amount to Apple having characterized the performance of Qualcomm's products in a way Qualcomm believes is not allowed. It is unlikely Apple literally broke into Qualcomm's R&D infrastructure and stole source code.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is the same Qualcomm whose CEO said Apples 64 bit A7 is a gimmick!

<comment><USER21> No.. ironically he[1] is one of the finalists[2] in the running for the CEO position at Intel.

[1][https://www.slashgear.com/qualcomms-cmo-anand- chandrasekher-...](https://www.slashgear.com/qualcomms-cmo-anand- chandrasekher-reassigned-censured-following-a7-gimmick-lambasting-26303193/) [2][https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/09/05/intel- ce...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/09/05/intel-ceo- candidates-shortlist-intc.html)

<comment><USER22> I take it anti-competes and lawsuits over forwarded vague emails are only for the scrubs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Assuming there is something that is similar or copied in Intel Chips that came from Qualcomm, isnt it protected by Copyright and Patents already? Besides, Almost everything in hardware can be reverse engineered, there isn't a trade secret than cannot be unravelled just by analysing the output of the chips. Hell Cyrix did just that in the previous century to create better chips than Intel. There isnt a reason why Apple would do something which Intel can do on its own.

<comment><USER23> > isnt it protected by Copyright and Patents already?

No. Generally this is trade secret territory.

> Almost everything in hardware can be reverse engineered,

Not in time to get a RE'd product to market before it's obsolete. We are talking about very, very complex designs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth and > subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm's confidential information and trade > secrets for the purpose of improving the performance of lower-quality modem > chipsets

I'm so skeptical whenever I read something like that. Even on small scales, deceit and conspiracy are rare. They seem even more unlikely at a company with the scale, success, and talent of Apple. Coordinated corporate espionage would be a Really Big Deal, and something I doubt Apple would risk over modem performance. (VW's diesel scandal is the closest thing I can think of. Of course, there are other examples in finance like Enron.)

Maybe I'm biased from my experience at Google. (I know they're a favorite HN punching bag, but we try really hard to do the right thing regarding PII, privacy, ethics, etc.) I can't imagine anyone with the power to condone a trade secret stealing conspiracy at a company like Apple would do so.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

<comment><USER25> I agree it's good to be skeptical, but that's hardly the first large-scale shady thing some of these places have been involved in:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge- approves-415-mill...](https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge- approves-415-million-settlement-in-tech-worker-lawsuit-2015-9)

<comment><USER24> Fair point. Still, a gentleman's agreement between frienemy titans of industry (though illegal) is understandable: "Don't take my guys, and I won't take yours".

I have a hard time believing someone at Apple said "let's engage in a multi- year conspiracy to siphon Qualcomm trade secrets to Intel."

<comment><USER26> That's not a gentleman's agreement. It's the exact opposite when you actually consider the target of abuse in the agreement: their own employees, people, whose lives they were seeking to actively harm.

If they'll actively, illegally, seek to harm their own people, who could question whether they'd illegally try to harm a competing company? It makes perfect sense that that would be in the realm of consideration.

<comment><USER27> You can also see it differently: When the supply is locked out, they have to compete on price harder from the beginning and have less opportunity to fire. If there's an oversupply, of course it's a bit different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What does Qualcomm have to gain from making public statements about allegations like this? Isn't it like talking to the police voluntarily, where it could only hurt your position?

<comment><USER9> Stock price, probably. Plus, frighten off anyone else thinking of jumping ship to Intel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nobody can yet say for sure, but this smells like sour grapes from an ex- vendor who just lost a very large buyer.

</comment><comment><USER30> If only it actually helped intel make better chips.

<comment> 5874-4b22-a4e0 Maybe Intel was in an even worse position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yeah - because a company like Apple doesn't know taking away source code and giving it away to a competitor like Intel is a gross violation of any legal standard out there. And Intel, on their part, would be like sure, give it to us because this is totally cool!

I bet this is a narrative fueled up by Qualcomm vs. any basis in reality. If it is real, then most likely this was done inadvertently.

<comment><USER32> "If it is real, then most likely this was done inadvertently."

That's probably not going to help much, even if it is true.

<comment><USER31> Read my first sentence too.

<comment><USER32> No one cares why someone broke a law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> looks like an attempt to direct attention from something else. the quotes read like they were said by politicians running for posts instead of a business commenting on a lawsuit.

<comment><USER34> I'd imagine they were heavily vetted by corporate lawyers given this is the start of a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

<comment><USER35> > start of a multi-million dollar lawsuit

1\. This isn't the start, it's been ongoing for over a year

2\. Add a few more zeros to that number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Url changed from [https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/qualcomm-apple-stole- source-c...](https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/qualcomm-apple-stole-source- code/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER37> Qualcomm is just mad. Their attitude to hide everything behind NDA, even most basic tools and documentation sucks.

Examples: QMI Documentation, DM-Port Tools, drivers for all of their Android phone related stuff.

</comment><comment><USER38> Sounds like an excuse for a fishing expedition.

Qualcomm seems to be aspiring to be the new Rambus.</comment>


Innaptics: See what people do in your app with visual screen flows and heatmaps - <AUTHOR> http://inapptics.com/?ref=hackernews <comment><AUTHOR> Heard about this pre-launch, now it's finally out. Pretty amazing, it's a whole new way of looking at mobile analytics and showing you what your users do in your mobile app, way better than anything on the market IMO.

</comment><comment><USER2> Your customers will love having they mouse movements tracked every second of the day!</comment>


Ask YC: Any successful start-ups which outsourced their product development? - <AUTHOR> My personal experience tells me that product development is the last thing that a start-up should outsource. You don't outsource your core competency, and the core competency of a start-up is product development.
In fact, I've seen some start-ups fail quite badly after outsourcing their development (and, in my opinion, that was because they did so). By contrast, every start-up that succeeded spectacularly seems to have had some serious engineering talent involved right from the start.
However, to keep an open mind, I'd be interested to know whether anyone knows of successful start-ups (i.e.: made a good profit, and are reasonably well-known in their niche) which did successfully outsource their product development. It'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like China or India, and still succeeded.
Thanks for any information on that matter! <comment><USER2> We originally outsourced development of one of our products to some Russian guys who had been doing work for us for a year or so. They did a great job and the software started selling - and still does now. What I did though was after paying them and after seeing what a good niche business I had... I made them (2 guys) partners - and they were over-joyed by it. They were brought into the core team and have supported and improved the product over the years. In terms of income, its not fantastic (around $100,000 per year) but its nearly all profit. Hope this helps

</comment><comment><USER3> Since this board is populated in large part by entrepreneurial software developers, you're bound to get a biased, emotional answer to the question of whether offshored developers are cost-effective.

</comment><comment><USER4> MySpace was mostly written by contract developers, in the early days, though I guess they have staff developers now.

</comment><comment><USER5> All of our development for <http://massify.com> was done in house, but we outsourced graphic design to an awesome shop in China, <http://plusfactory.com/>. Run by ex-ad agency folks from NYC.

It was great since they're 12 hours shifted from us to be able to give them a spec at 5pm and have something to look at in the morning. And their work is top notch.

</comment><comment><USER6> digg

<comment><USER4> Why is this being down-voted? It's always been my understanding that Digg was originally written by contract programmers. Have I been lied to?

<comment><USER7> It was contracted to Owen Byrne, an news.yc'er

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ojbyrne>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At the end of the day you have to find resources at a rate you can afford. I simply could not find local resources. Or put another way, I could not afford the going rate of the local scarce resources. So I went offshore and have not looked back. The people I am working with a good guys and I consider them to be friends.

And the good ones are not dummies. They know they going rate for development work and charge a healthy sum for their services. So it is not always about the lowest cost provider.

Long way of saying that if you _have to_ , don't be afraid to offshore/outsource.

</comment><comment><USER9> "It'd be particularly interested if there are any such start-ups which actually outsourced their development to a low-cost location like China or India, and still succeeded."

Stata Labs' s(<http://www.statalabs.com/>) product Bloomba (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomba>) was developed in India. (I was part of the team for a short period). Stata Labs was acquired by Yahoo. Traces of Bloomba can be seen in Yahoo Mail v 2.0.

</comment><comment><USER10> It works when you have the money to buy up better talent.

Zoho is the best example of this. They're based entirely on outsourced development.

<comment><USER11> Zoho development is not outsourced, rather thier entire development team is in India's zoho office. Thier biz dev is in US. Thier hiring is very different and interesting. they hire many kids out of high school. In india, normally ppl who drop out of high school almost always do so,bcos they cant afford college education. Very rarely do ppl drop out t pursue thier passion due to society pressure of importance of education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Skype was developed in Estonia by outsourced developers.

I think it's fair to say they've been pretty successful.

</comment><comment><USER13> I believe Ryan Carson outsourced at least some of his product dev... <http://carsonified.com/>

He's not wildly successful (from a product POV) but I think he's making a few bucks.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's important to make the distinction between outsourced developers and remote developers.

The key is to have people that are very bright and passionately ommitted to the startup's cause.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm willing to bet Zoho is at a competitive disadvantage long-term because of outsourcing their development. I can see the advantages of hiring some great outsourced developers quickly up-front when the money is there but I don't see how it truly pays for itself long-term (especially when what you sell is the software product built by 100% outsourced teams).

</comment><comment><USER16> What do you think are the ABSOLUTE in terms of the competencies on the start- up team?

</comment><comment><USER17> Well,IMO while its really unsafe to have everything developed outside, certain tasks not related to core functionality of your product, maintenance work, etc is best delegated. However, I'd rather find freelancers to outsource to, than whole companies.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ars Technica?</comment>