skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Absolutely. I would say that around three quarters of the people I know who have Android devices have never downloaded more than a tiny handful of apps (my mum, who got one passed down to her when my sister got a different Android device on a free upgrade), didn't even realise she could download anything and I doubt she even realised that she'd got an Android phone. It was simply a phone that she could now get email on.

For iPhones, the vast majority of people I know with them use then constantly and have a wide range of apps on there.

Of course, Android still has its power users, who are probably even more passionate about Android than the average iOS user is about iOS, but like you say, they are still in the minority at the moment.

As an example, my company has a mobile app out there for Android and iOS. Over two thirds of the downloads we've had so far have been on iOS, and they typically use the app far more frequently that the Android users.
Still: how many currently deployed devices running iOS are you going to be QAing that application on? Two, maybe Three? How many versions of iOS are you going to be seeing on those devices? One or two most likely, iPhone users tend to upgrade with their software with much more conformity and faster. Compare that to Androids upwards of fifteen (and growing) widespread devices, and a heinous amount of API levels in the wild. That's one of the more objective factors which make Android easier.

Also, you can say that the API level differences don't matter because they are hidden by compatibility libraries like The Support Package, but the truth is that those are just the newer APIs re-implemented against the old interfaces. You pay for that extra abstraction with wasted cycles and bloat, and it's an ugly solution. Even still, those libraries aren't perfect: there have been subtle bugs or incompatibilities introduced by their use which are notoriously hard to find. Finally, even if the newer APIs are present on the device, The Support Library will still be used (last I checked, though I think they are working on this).

Less objectively, it's a matter of preference. Some people just prefer objective C to a JVM compilable language.
This is really, really cool. An obvious use of it would be for someone to upload that one massive xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1110/

A couple people have already mentioned what would be my first suggestion for improvement, which is change the URL less often, so the back button works. I'd also suggest not having an animated transition when new tiles load. It makes it take longer for the image to properly display, and is, IMHO, distracting.

Also, Leaflet (or your app?) seems to assume it's working with an image that repeats horizontally, which isn't actually the case with many of the pics on your site. It would be nice if it didn't wrap or allow going beyond the boundaries of the image.

Thank you for sharing your code. Is there supposed to be a license file? I couldn't find one in the repository.

RQ looks amazing. I'd love to tinker with all the stuff you used to make this.

I think you've created an excellent interface for browsing large, high-resolution images. Well done.
> The loser in a case like this may not necessarily agree with the judge's conclusion. The judge forcing them to say something, is tantamount to forcing them to tell a lie.

But by doing business in that jurisdiction, you agreed to the laws. And part of that agreement is to abide by the rulings of the judges in the land they choose to do business with.

Having an opinion doesn't inherently make you right, and because what they were discussing were purely legal incarnations, believing anything other than a legal ruling with regard to a legal status is a bit crazy.

While Apple might believe they were in the right, the facts of the case are founded on legal rulings. It's one thing to be forced to change your opinion, but to be asked to state fact?

Regardless, it comes down to this: People should not be forced to say things.

I still think it's an important distinction that people did not say things, Apple did. And corporations are not people. And I really think that is an important distinction.
Fairly sure it refers to the locked down os-and-hardware bundling of Apple, vs. the install Windows on anyone's hardware, back in the day.

Microsoft won that battle and Apple barely scraped through.

Will Android win this time round in a similar fashion?

Apple sells more iPods than Macs.
The folks on #mcdevs on Freenode had done the hard work for me, they had reverse-engineered and documented the Minecraft Classic protocol. It's a very simple binary TCP protocol with only 16 packet types.

And why as a project? Well, I saw the protocol was simple enough, and it seemed like a fun thing to do since I liked playing Minecraft Classic. There were already loads of other Classic servers, but I wanted to make my own so I could do things my way and add silly features. Yes, there's plugins, but sometimes I like reinventing the wheel.

I added some features, for example, "Zombies", imitating those in Minecraft Survival/Indev/Infdev/Alpha/Beta/Release. I sent packets as if another player had spawned, and I set up a minecraft account with the right skin, so that when a player with the same name as that account was spawned, they would look like a zombie. The AI was very, very stupid. It would always turn at right-angles, making them easy to trap. Still, it was fun. Also, at the time I did not understand recursion, so the "physics" for things like spreading water didn't work properly.

The code I ended up writing, in C using WinSock and zlib was... horrible. Ridiculous levels of nesting, and almost everything was in the main function. This was a result of getting it working before getting it right. However, I never really refactored it much, and it became an unmaintainable mess. At various times I have refactored it a bit, as recently as a year ago, and it's the refactoring-in-progress version you can find on my GitHub page.
It's a little more like MS-DOS clones vs. the Apple II line. The Apple II had an early lead in the personal computer market, especially for businesses. The IBM PC eventually took over, but mostly thanks to third party PCs running licensed MS-DOS. Microsoft never built their own PC to run MS-DOS (or later, Windows) until just now.
Exsmple: Judith Miller of the NYT and her reporting on Iraq.
Except that Google is slowly but surely having its wings clipped. So this idea that it will be able to leverage Android at will is misguided.

Its unified privacy policy is already under threat in the EU and it is facing multiple anti-trust investigations in the US and soon to be EU, SK et al. Not to mention all the competition issues with Google News and Google Search.

Combine all of that with the lack of online usage and engagement amongst Android users and everything isn't quite so rosy.
That, and I don't think that store fracturing would get anyone profits in a longer term.
Even if OS-wars don't matter as much as they used to, Android vs iOS is shaping up to be an interesting one. Android has taken the lead in features. Every new release of iOS is packed with things that Android has had for years. Android is still lagging behind in polish, and iOS is utterly dominant when it comes to gaming.

Google spends more than twice what Apple does on research (that's after Apple bumped up their R&D budget too!). Apple is going to be playing catch-up in terms of features for the foreseeable future. Google has taken some steps to improve their polish, such as project butter, but that bright future is most unevenly distributed. Google's attempts at polish will likely be thwarted by the same thing that scares off game-writers: fragmentation.

In the near future, I think Android will take the lead and become the better OS, except for gaming. Google is putting too much effort into polish not to catch up quick (with their premier devices at least) while Apple isn't doing enough to close the feature-gap and is actually falling further behind (e.g. NFC, wireless charging, etc.). If Google ever manages to solve their fragmentation woes that'll basically be it for the iPhone.

Windows 8 phones are, of course, a bit of a dark horse. WM8 appears to be a nice mobile OS that is going to come on some very nice hardware. It might be WM7 all over again, or it might actually catch on. I'd love to see another front opened up in this war!
Dwindling market based on what facts ?

I haven't seen any evidence of Apple's App Store revenues dropping markedly. Pretty sure the market would be VERY concerned if that were the case.
Weird. I found Android to be a nightmare.

The emulator is atrociously slow and every manufacturer seems to have different implementations of UI controls meaning it is expensive and time consuming to test.
Here you go:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050703004351/http://www.nybooks...
On the other hand, it is easier to walk a well-worn path, especially with money in hand. Samsung has the best hand here. Reading http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/08/smartph..., it has 30% of the world market for smartphones. The big problem would not be replacing Google Play, but replacing Google Maps and, to a lesser extent, GMail. In the current climate, one would not think it, but I do not rule out reading a 'Samsung and Apple collaborate in mapping' or 'Samsung and Microsoft collaborate in mapping' headline in a few years time.

Also, companies can mutate 'their DNA'; it is not frozen at birth. For example, the Tabulating Machines Company (nowadays called IBM) has reinvented itself several times, and Nintendo started as a manufacturer of playing cards, and DSM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM_(company)) started life as 'The State Mines' and mined coal, but now is, quoting their site "a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials".
You don't need to show ID to buy a prepaid SIM in Ireland.
He's referring to the competition between Apple's Mac & MS Dos + Windows in the late 80s to mid-90s. The compressed version of the narrative is:

Mac was innovative, brilliant, early but too expensive & without enough applications.

Windows was late, copied & sucked but was cheaper (because of commodity hardware) had all the dos apps from the 80s and got gradually better. By 95 the network effects of the developer ecosystem had locked windows in to 20 years of dominance. It also helped that by 95 windows didn't really suck much.

The moral of the story is (supposedly) that OS Platforms have one winner. Developers develop for the largest user base and users buy the cheapest platform with the most apps.
As a sociological experiment I wonder what would happen if the cameraman was replaced by a mobile robot with a camera. Would people still react in the same way?
I've been hearing the same and apparently the most popular Samsung device is the model that looks identical to the iPhone 3GS.

I am curious how much of an advantage Android has by allowing pirated apps. In price sensitive markets the cost of apps has to be a key factor. If it is a big factor could be ominous signs for Nokia in particular.
I've done some work with high current motor control boards - one of the problems we've had is '100 Amp' boards with capacitors on - when first plugged in, they draw more than 100 Amps as the capacitors charge.

If you have spare boards and a hankering for destruction, you could repeat your test with resistors instead of hard disks, to verify the current drawn by the hard disk is as advertised.
New requirements for passports, another small step towards tyranny
I'd sooner bet my money on FirefoxOS than Windows 8. Can't wait to develop natively with little more than what gets me on browsers. And I'd similarly sooner bet on FOS going head-to-head with iOS with a non-fragmented system than on Google getting his act together.

Especially since Android is expanding to so many other kinds of devices, it's fragmentation is it's biggest trait and I think it's a pretty hard trend to revert. That's like asking Internet Explorer to become the zeitgeist standards-compliant browser--they have taken too long, much as they try to revert (and they are) other browsers have already taken over it's share and will continue to (especially now that Microsoft guaranteed the non-longevity of it's desktop OS going forward).

To be clear, I don't mean they can't solve the fragmentation problem, only that they have left this breach open long enough for a competitor to become the new cool kid before they could hope to pivot their behemoth operation. That's my prediction at least.
and is it still 20-50x slower? i haven't done measurements, but it feels like a factor of 2 or 3 these days, to me (single threaded).
"Please give us a valid Bitcoin address and price."

It doesn't work for me?
I don't get why people keep talking Samsung forking Android. Samsung also sell Windows Phone and will sell Tizen phones. Not to mention, they've already failed with their own OS. They're better at hardware and software overlays than providing an attractive ecosystem.
Behind the Scenes Blog of a Start-up Chile Entrepreneur
Ask HN: Are password managers secure?
OK so I've come to like a certain password manager.

I'm sure the data itself is secure in its raw encrypted form.

But, if I were an evil hacker, I'd be aiming to target the User Interface somehow. Since once I enter my password, the app is unlocked and my passwords are all there to find through the GUI. I'd aim to siphon out data through the OS and windowing system somehow, after the user has unlocked.

How much of a threat is this, do you think?

Also having a Chrome plugin just feels like an extra hackable interface?
Slightly off-topic, but when will we see such an implementation of Ruby (most importantly, speed)?

Rubinius looks like a similar project, but it's not even as fast as MRI 1.9.2/3.
A life lesson, a good deed and Guy Fawkes - James Brooks
> Moreover, it's highly unlikely that anyone's full-time job consists solely of watching the one camera that happens to point towards you.

That was my point of view a decade ago when video surveillance came to my city. I saw that mostly as backup if something bad occurred, since nobody could process that much data.

Then came stories about TrapWire. Whether they are true or not, one thing is certain : it is possible to automatically process those data, and therefore at some point, we will do it. That's too much valuable for anyone with the mean to do it to simply discard it as unethical. There will always be any kind of "greater good" argument (war against terrorism, order, police efficiency over cost of patrols, you name it).

We can't simply say : we won't use those technologies. It won't happen. As individuals, we probably will even encourage it, carrying tracing devices like mobile phone or google glasses everywhere. Because, those devices offer so much to our day to day life. Who wouldn't say mobile 3g phones with google maps changed their life ?

Yet, when you activate google account report and has an android device with geolocation features opted in, google tell you precisely where you went past month, lists your friends addresses (without mentioning they're friend home, just "you went there repeatedly"), tell you how much time you spent at home, and how much time you spent at work. And that's perfectly natural to them : you said you were ok to send data about your location.

If we just let things go, we will have to accept privacy is a deprecated concept in a few decades, and enjoy the almost omniscience. I can't see privacy being a first class human right without any strong political will. But right now, even if we speak of it from time to time, most people don't care about privacy that much.
The trajectory of present technology seems to be towards a constantly greater state of communal knowledge and awareness and I can't see a way to avoid that. Once one person knows something these days, it is easier and easier every day for that knowledge to be made known to others.

I don't think the interesting debate is about whether or not we should fight the seeming inevitability of this, but rather what we can do in response to it.
Can please explain the relation between the title and the article? How did Apple kill Gnome, again?
I attended 25C3 four years ago and really enjoyed it.

Some thoughts if you're considering going:

1) You should go. :)

2) Being only able to speak English (aside from picking up helpful words like "ein" and "bitte" :) ) was fine. Talks are listed as being in English or German so you know which ones you'll be able to follow. (And I think the majority are in English--it tends to be the more "local issues" talks that are in German.)

3) Arrive the day before and volunteer to help set up. It's a good way to get to meet some people. (The network help desk was where I ended up much of the time--I learned that the only German word I needed to know was "Neustart". :D )

4) When a local offers you a Club Mate to drink, accept it. Then try not to spit it out when you drink it. It's a rite of passage. Quite possibly the most disgusting tasting beverage I've ever consumed. Some people claim to like it.

5) If you've been to DEFCON before, CCC is IMO a very different vibe. DEFCON seems a lot more about the parties whereas CCC seems a lot more about the hacking. (People stay hacking in the venue 24 hours a day.)

6) If someone invites you to go to Vienna and visit Metalab say yes. And if they don't, invite yourself--it's awesome and they're a great bunch of people.

7) You should go. :)
my 5 year old website has dropped traffic 3X suddenly, I was shocked, who to blame now, Google? https://dl.dropbox.com/u/45940875/google-negatively-affects-...
It's not Apple's fault

It's the fault of 'the inmates running the asylum' thinking that visual gimmicks + removing functionality until the product is lobotomized == User Experience

And don't give me the BS that Gnome cares about UX, they don't.

How do you know you care about the user? They like you. Sometimes they even like you enough to give you money.
Mayer's answer actually starts at 44:34 and gives the proper context: she's talking about the order of links in the OneBox (the area at the top that shows the current stock price and a plot), not the order of links in the main results. Danny Sullivan wrote a long post about this:

http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-...
The Evolution of Google's Search Page
I use gnome because my computer can't run unity. :)

I didn't wanted to change to other desktop because as it always happens to me, something goes wrong and i can't use my system for half a day. (Today i'm upgrading to 11.10, the support term is over for .04, I hope it goes well...)
> I only got to the frontpage once. I never mentioned my young age, because it's not relevant.

You didn't get to the front page. This person did. Why do you think the problem is with the way that he describes his project, and not with the way that you describe your project? Your marketing needs work.
Run one of the x86 images and the emulator is plenty fast. It takes a while to start up but after that the speed difference compared to the iOS emulator is negligible.
Said the exact thing his other post said:

Enter profile information
Your profile and +1's appear publicly in search, on ads, and across the web.
Concurrent Hello World in Go, Erlang, and C++
7 Prerequisites For Successful Fundraising
You missed the part where the Nexus 4 out specs the iPhone? And many do? And many outperform the iPhone?
I'm wondering what people do exactly hate so much in Gnome? I'm working right now in Gnome 3.6. It's not perfect, but it suits me pretty well by being simple elegant and not in my face.
Processes are a bit like abstractions in software engineering. They allow you to build on top of it to avoid having to think about everything, but if you don't understand your abstractions, in the long run, you're not going to do anything great.

To paraphrase Bezos, the problem is not process, but the mindless application of them (see this interview: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/bezos_pr.html).
The difference between userbases is that not great currently. It's 500 million Android devices to 400 million iOS devices. The iPhones had a great head start, and only recently Android devices managed to pass all iOS devices.

The 75% to 15% is only for the last quarter of sales, but if the sales can be sustained, and they probably can (they kept growing so far), then eventually the userbases will look like 5:1, too (for phones at least, considering iPhones are only about half of iOS sales).

And Samsung will not fork. They will lose all the apps, and considering they are nowhere near starting their own app store, it's impossible for them to do that within 18 months. I don't know why this idea comes up every now and then. I guess it's the tech press' love for the melodramatic, and from their point of view it would make for great intrigue if Samsung tried that, but when you look at things objectively, that outcome is nowhere near close to a possible reality right now.
Revenue is skewing ever more heavily to the handful of big players at the top. For the typical developer profitability is a moot point.
Oddly I've found that since I've got my iPad I've switched to using Paper over, well, paper.

Note, my basic diagrams and workflows and other concept sketches would make most people cringe in horror, so high fidelity is not a big sell for me.
42 here, checking in, also been recently able to support myself quite well with the good ol' C chops, for some reason its just still quite a good way to get things done, even in the floaty-boaty layers of the FOSS/newlang bleeding edge hegemony/cultural-psychosis, underneath a lot of it, if not nearly all, is still some C-lib being faithfully hammered on.

Love that.
I have had way more mystery bugs on the 3gs than I have on any Android phone.
You can also do B2C but have a B2B product. If everyone uses it, landlords/management will see the benefit and be interested.
4) You get used to it. (hey, that's actually the slogan!)
I didn't expect them to, but then I assumed that Google would stay clear of the hardware market. Now that they're essentially shipping phones at very low margins, they're a direct competitor to Samsung. Why buy an S3 when you can get a NX4 for hundreds of dollars cheaper, and get essentially better hardware (modulo LTE)?

To respond to this will require care. They can go with the razor-margins approach, and have their margins eaten away to virtually 0 (i.e. Dell etc). However, this only props up an ecosystem that benefits Google. They could, I suppose, find a way to out-build the entire rest of the market and get decent margins at the very low end of price (but I find that unlikely). Alternatively, they find a way to differentiate, which is most cheaply done at the software level.

Anyone picking path #1 is basically going to have to own the market to make any money in the long term, but will keep decent balance sheets in the short until commoditisation is completed. Anyone picking path #2 has more risk in the short term, but a lot more to gain in the long (e.g. as Apple has).
From my personal perspective, me not having a degree doesnt matter in the slightest and i think that it probably helps due to my personal preference, because i dont think id want to work for a company that decides my vast amount of experience is irrelevant because i dont have a degree.

It doesnt matter as much because of a number of factors, first, im a contractor and would never take a permie job, also i sucked at school. I left school at 15 thinking i was dumb because i got bad grades. After leaving school and finding computers and learning them myself, i finally realised i wasnt dumb and after a few years in shitty jobs while learning in the off time, i eventually started making an income from my passion.

Fast forward to today and my portfolio and technical knowledge in my field speaks for itself. To me, going to university would have just delayed my career by years and im already kicking myself for not getting my act together quicker.