There was a BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour event in NYC, and a few blogs got some hands-on time with the Dev Alpha, running a very preliminary version of the BB10 OS.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/19/blackberry-10-hands-on-video/?a_dgi=aolshare_twitter

If you look at the comments there, you'll see what I'm referring to. Admittedly, the video is quite dry and boring, but I don't understand how this translates to RIM being dead.

Open my eyes HN, let me know what you're thinking. Maybe I've drank too much of the Kool-Aid. Maybe you can rescue me.

If you've ever played this game you'll be startled that a computer can do so much, and the more you know about writing software, the more amazed you'll be that they managed to build something with such scope. Here's some links if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVOiVIXXrPE https://www.engadget.com/2013/11/19/electronic-arts-frostbite-battlefield-mass-effect (I have no connection to EA/Dice).

So what other software is so amazing that you think "its hard to believe they managed to achieve this"?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/26/birds-eye-ipad-app-lets-you-use-twitter-while-looking-down-on-i/

Fast forward a year later and I have since set up an alternative billing system. However, I still had about 5K subs on Patreon who did not switch. Just a few days ago, I got an email at 3AM [2] from Patreon: they shut down the site. I got no warning, they just deleted my page and cancelled all of my subscribers. AFAIK, they also haven't refunded any of the cancelled subscribers. So someone could have paid a day before the ban, then Patreon deleted the page, and the user never got their money back.

The reason was because "Due to updated credit card network guidelines, we are no longer able to support generative AI software that is focused on creating pornographic works. This is because this software can be used to create works that violate our guidelines on mature themes & pornography." For context, Patreon's previous terms said that pornography is allowed if it does not depict real people (i.e. art, comics, etc). AI porn was a grey area because although the content is photorealistic, the people are technically AI-generated.

My theory is that this ban was related to a controversy with another site called CivitAI. Recently, their cloud provider dropped them because CSAM and other unsafe content was generated on their site [3]. I have tried to avoid issues like this on my site by disabling free text prompting for image generation. Users have to choose from a set of preset, vetted tags. In addition, users cannot upload their own images to create deepfakes. I also have custom trained classifiers to detect unsafe content. And a human moderation team. I tried making AI porn as safe as possible, but it still wasn't enough for the credit card companies or Patreon...

Lessons learned:

- Don't use Patreon for any serious billing

- AI porn is still a rapidly evolving space, and credit card companies don't know what to do with it

- AI Safety is super important and most AI image generation services don't take it seriously enough. For example, you can just type in child, or the name of a celebrity, and it works.

[1] https://pornpen.ai/

[2] https://i.imgur.com/p6j9eec.png

[3] https://www.engadget.com/controversial-ai-image-platform-civitai-has-been-dropped-by-its-cloud-computing-provider-195530538.html

The timeline he suggested was 2 years. The questions I have are this:

- What do you think is a reasonable litmus-test for measuring this? (e.g number of employed workers in AI)

- He was willing to and I quote "bet my career" on the outcome of this. I have no need for his career. In the spirit of the bet what would you think is a prize that is worthy of this? (e.g something tongue in cheek like dinner at an AI powered White Castle[0])

I will be posting the bet on Longbets.org. I have attempted to leave my position/bias out of this post in relation to the bet.

[0] https://www.engadget.com/white-castle-flippy-2-100-locations-205023731.html

Any Android developers out there care to share their insights?

It made me think back to ten years ago, back when os x wasn't out just yet, and many hackers (including myself) were using desktop linux as a windows alternative. There were competitors such as BeOS porting to any x86 machine, and a slew of company-backed linux distros advertising themselves as the way to go.

Microsoft won the whole battle at the time because:

1) MacOS X was just shipping, and was sadly limited to PowerPC computers.

2) Linux distro vendors weren't investing much in providing a great user experience. They were at most (and still are) skinning Gnome or KDE and calling it a day. Doing any investment required creating X, which would be expensive for a post-internet-bubble company to undertake.

3) Microsoft shipped windows XP. It's ugly by today's standards, but it's surprisingly the most prevalent OS ten years later.

--------------------------------------------------

Now, after 10 years we come to a crossroads again. The gold is currently developing for smartphones and webapps, and the pickaxes for the most part don't need to run windows.

How WebOS will make desktop linux finally viable:

1) Last I checked, WebOS is based on the linux kernel. This is attractive for folks tired of juggling and making ports to BSD. The great interface to HP is partly a sunk cost due to it's development for the phone already.

2) WebOS on the desktop needs to quickly attract a crowd of developers. While they've made a great js-based platform for their smartphone apps, they need to go one step further for native desktop apps. My guess is that they're going to do a similar step to what sony was attempting to do recently and have some form of an openstep implementation. This is to attract the macos developers to quickly port desktop apps.

Some links:

Intel: https://newsroom.intel.com/press-kits/intel-ces-2021/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16407/the-amd-ces-2021-keynote-a-live-blog-from-11am-et-8am-pt

Samsung Chip will have AMD RDNA GPU in it: https://www.engadget.com/samsung-amd-exynos-gpu-update-ces-2021-191359122.html

WiFi 6e, New Laptops, new keyboards, etc. etc. I feel like there's lots of things to nerd out about right now.

So what's your favorite thing revealed so far? Any talks you're hoping to come out this week?

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4118122
    Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
    (nytimes.com)  
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4121266
    Windows 8 tablet 
    (cnn.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4128906
    Live from Microsoft's 'major announcement' event
    (theverge.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4128994
    Live from Microsoft's mystery press conference in Los Angeles
    (engadget.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129122
    New Microsoft Surface tablet announced 
    (theverge.com) 
    
    Discussion-> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129125
                 Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
                (microsoft.com)  
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129134
    Microsoft's new Windows 8 Tablet: "Welcome to Microsoft Surface."
    (microsoft.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129154
    Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows
    (microsoft.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129179
    Microsoft's Surface Tablet Official Video
    (youtube.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129556
    Hands on with Microsoft Surface 
    (theverge.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129563
    Microsoft Breaks The Cool Barrier 
    (mikecanex.wordpress.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4129798
    Microsoft’s Surface Tablet Takes On Apple’s iPad
    (allthingsd.com) 
    
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4130556
    Microsoft drops "Surface," its tablet product to go head-to-head with iPad
    (eweek.com) 

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4130731
    Last night's Microsoft Surface
    (Tablet) Keynote (Full MP4 Video) (ms-studiosmedia.com)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apples-app-store-review-guidelines-we-dont-need-any-more-far/

[1]:http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/mit-media-lab-newsflash-hands-on/

Google have listed this error as a known bug and have it up on their "known issues" page (http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/static.py?page=known_issues.cs)
but it's not fixed in the latest version of the market (from your article: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/01/android-market-v3-3-11-apk-now-available-adds-auto-update-by-de/) and has been evident for months -
at least since August (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=0fe7684aaf99d3cc&hl=en)

The issue here is that it's really hurting app developers - unless you're being favoured by Google and have your app featured, or is a top selling app it's very difficult to be found anywhere on the market.
This hurts new, smaller developers who have no way of making their new app visible, unless they're willing to fork out a healthy chunk of change to get their app advertised - usually forked over to Google themselves
via their Ad network purchase Admob. I'm not saying these facts are related just very aware that this is a problem which needs to be fixed.

Like many, I decided that when parts started falling off my iPhone 3gs, I would get a new phone. My wife and daughter have the iPhone 4, and it sure is a fine looking piece of equipment. So nice that I figured it's what I would get.

That is, until I laid my hands on an HTC One X for the first time.

Oh. My. Freaking. God.

More info here: http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/

Review here: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/02/htc-one-x-review/

Monstrous 4.7" screen, Beats Audio, Android 4.0 ICS... Dual core 1.5Ghz processors (Quad core in some versions), 4G speed that is TRULY unreal, 5-device wifi hotspot, tethering via USB (although with the hotspot, why would I need that?), dual cameras, continuous auto-focus... and on and on..

Maybe it's just me, but when I put the iPhone 4 next to the HTC One X, the iPhone looks like a sad little piece of Soviet cold-war hardware from the 1950's.

I just can't see buying another Apple phone when HTC and others are so very far ahead of the game. Android 4.0 is incredible, and the depth of apps for it is obscene compared to the iPhone, almost to the point of annoyance.

I will admit, there was some comfort in only having one or two different apps to choose from on the iPhone versus the 127 different mileage tracking apps on Android, but it's a hardship I think I can cope with.

So this is it. So long Apple. You've annoyed this developer with your stupid app censorship (err, I mean "approval" process) and over-priced, under-powered hardware for the last time.

When my family's iPhone contracts expire, I assure you they will be getting some form of Android phone. Perhaps even an improved version of the One X, if improvement is even possible..

I urge all you other Apple fan-persons to check out the HTC One X at Best Buy, AT&T store, Target, or any other outlet before everyone realizes how incredible this thing is and the supply dries up.

:)

It is more a mean for a company to get more data than ever possible.

The problem is that you can’t use an Android without connecting to your GMail account. Without identifying yourself.

This means Google know your contact list, your phone calls, SMSes (and their content), GPS coordinates (past and current), etc

It even gets worse! If you unlock your phone via face recognition or fingerprint, they have that too.

The last straw is that they don’t even let you choose what apps you want. You can’t remove the Play* suit, and not event Chrome.

Yes! Chrome! Microsoft was in the same boat a few years ago on Windows because they had IE installed by default, and they were forced to let other browsers be installed. Why Google can get away with that??!?

---

So I started searching for an alternative. The best promising ones, currently, are Firefox OS and Ubuntu OS... but wait! They all dropped their ambitions and both Mozilla [2] and Canonical [3] decided it was not worse it to pursue these paths.

Firefox OS was a great great idea in my opinion. Coming from Mozilla, you could expect to be respected as a person and feel that your data won’t be used against you. I’m starting to believe that their ambition came at the same time too late (Google’s and Apple’s domination) but also too soon (Number of privacy concerned people growing, myself included).

---

This is a cry for help. I’m starting to feel desperate that the only solutions are to accept our faith, giving every part of ourselves to Google or Apple, and hoping for the best.

So in a last grain of hope, I’m asking:

---

"Is there any viable alternative to Android or iOS that doesn’t require you to be www-authenticated to make a fucking phone call?"

[1] https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/09/23/why-im-leaving-chrome/

[2] https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone-matters/

[3] https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/06/the-ubuntu-mobile-dream-is-over/

[1] http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/JavaSnowLeopardUpdate3LeopardUpdate8RN/NewandNoteworthy/NewandNoteworthy.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010380-CH4-SW1

[2] http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/macbook-air-all-substance-no-flash/

[3] http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/today-apple-announced-the-death-of-the-optical-drive-in-its-laptops/

Gizmodo Live Blog
http://live.gizmodo.com/

Engadget Live Blog
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/live-from-apples-back-to-the-mac-event/

Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/liveblog-apples-back-to-the-mac-event-107-preview.ars

CNET:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20020060-260.html

Have others? Add them into the comments.

When would you expect (if at all) to see a Kinect based startup?

http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/25/google-now-inviting-developers-to-buy-glass/

Does this mean every developer that applies get accepted by default or what??? 

Please share if you had applied for Google Glass and whether you got an invite or not. 

Jobs is quoted saying from his iPad 2 launch that:

"It's in Apple's DNA that technology is not enough. It's tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities. Nowhere is that more true than in the post-PC products. Our competitors are looking at this like it's the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are pos-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive."

source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/live-from-apples-ipad-2-event/

Google has been promising it doesn't put it's own results first[1]. But this fly's in the face of that, and it feels disrespectful, I'm forced to see a result which deserves no where close to page 1 because google wants to promote it's brand.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/20/ftc-report-google-search-bias/: "While the FTC didn't sue Mountain View for its anti-competitive practices, it got Google to promise to change its ways."

I often keep my device silent and cannot feel or hear it vibrate if I am not near the device. Plus when I am out, the ringtone is often drowned by the surrounding noise. The only similar device I found was Fitbit Charge and seems too over-priced.

So I am looking for a reasonably priced durable device with good battery life.

We just released a new game of exploration called Strut. We'd love for you to try it out and let us know what you think.

http://strutapp.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strut/id606686716?ls=1&mt=8

(And it was written up on engadget yesterday: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/strut-tasks-you-with-exploring-planet/)

------

Imagine the entire world is covered in billions of tiles. How many can you open up?

Strut is a game of exploration where you compete with other players around the world to uncover the map of the earth.

––––––

TRACK YOUR TRAVELS

Whether you walk, run, bike, drive, sail, ride a goat or take a hot air balloon, use Strut to keep track of exactly where you've been in the world. Share your map with friends, or keep your wanderings private... we won't tell.

EXPLORE YOUR SURROUNDINGS

Take a new route to work. Go down that street you never walked through. Visit every nook and cranny of your city. See more of your neighborhood – who knows what you might find?

OPEN UP YOUR WORLD

Strut around, level up and climb to the top of the leaderboards – there's a top 10 for every city, state, country, and the entire world. There are also a ton of medals to earn, so keep exploring and see what pops up in your adventures around the globe.
------

Thank you, and keep on Struttin'
Dave & Mike
Thickpolicy