dakrisht

Case in point: my current car does a variety of self-driving tasks such as:

- Autonomous braking

- Active lane keeping assist to steer you in the lane if the radar and cameras detect you are swerving

- PRE-SAFE collision prevention plus that will autonomously brake if it detects an imminent impact

- Pedestrian awareness system that will autonomously brake if it detects a pedestrian is entering the range of the long, medium and short range radar

- Distronic Plus that will accelerate and brake according to both the vehicle in front and behind you from 0 mph up to 100mph

- Attention assist that employs various sensor to detect drowsiness and alert the driver audibly and via haptic feedback if it's time to take a break.

- Active blind spot assist that will audibly, visually and via haptic feedback alert the driver that a car has entered your hotspot and prevent you from entering that particular lane

So while the Tesla camp is and should be excited about "self-driving" enhancements, Mercedes-Benz has been doing this for well over 2 years now with some of the technology above even becoming standard features on non-high end Mercedes vehicles such as the S-Class with the appropriate packages.

I don't really see much but hype with respect to Tesla's announcement.

Good link here: http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/safety

It was indeed a rude awakening a few days ago to find out via Twitter how Dr. Kalanithi had passed away. It seemed sudden, in your face, powerful, painful and relentless especially related to a man I have never met.

It shows you that disease, life, and ultimately death does not discriminate against anyone and can hit at anytime - even those who work day in and day out to heel others. It shows how precious, fragile and relentless life truly is, how lucky we are to be here, commenting on the latest Macbook or tinkering away at our projects. The world and time, like Paul said, doesn't stop for anyone, it just keeps going. And it's best to go with it and try to make the most out of what you're given.

If one can learn anything from his journey, and his eloquent writings, it is that we must always move forward at a constant rate and be grateful for each day, pursue it intelligently, happily and full of energy.

Our time is limited and when you see such a tragic case of life (and death) unfold before you, for many via the Internet - you stop for a second and think - but hopefully, only for that second as time just keeps ticking away.

I can't do traditional meetups here anymore, I've met maybe 2-3 technical people who even know how to code a basic webpage and I've gone to over 2 dozens in Venice/SM and some "notable organizations" - just tons of "biz dev" "marketing" and "media" people, great, but I guess WE are all looking for more hardcore tech-oriented people here.

I've met some great people at UCLA Venture Fund events (look them up) but what we should all do in this thread is organize a small HN meetup in LA.

LA is without a doubt growing, slowly but surely, and heading into the tech startup trajectory, even with all all the wantrepreneurs and media guys... Engineers and anyone with face stuck to screen for 10+ hours a day is going to have a tough time meeting like minded people in real life, hence is the nature of the beast.

What could be more powerful than bright people getting together to discuss cool stuff.

Additionally, you'll notice a ton of media/marketing/e-commerce in LA as this is what the culture really revolves around here. You won't see much enterprise or biotech as you would see in the Valley or San Diego, respectively. Social is also popular since kids these days love the idea of "build chat app, grow user base, raise tons of money, cash out." But most of knows these lottery tickets are extremely rare.

Personally, I don't understand how companies like Nasty Gal or Dollar Shave Club are tech by any means. Rolling out some e-commerce atop en existing platform / site is simply online retail / subscription vs. having anything propriety (they don't) but this is our my problem.

At my company, we do hardware, consumer electronics, software with AI and ML and more challenging issues. Sure, we love to have fun and do things that we enjoy but the whole "start another e-commerce site" is getting real old here. I too find myself in a pickle at times trying to find people in the area who love pure tech and can discuss and play around with things that matter. Way too much "biz dev" idiots here who think a blog is the next tumblr.

DM via Twitter if you want to chat.

Unfortunately, a lot of young kids are wired to look for the next Yo and or spend their energy and talents on things that don't really matter. It's crazy out there - the whole "make an app, get users and cash out quickly" mindset. It's very bad and is a major reason why we see so many crap companies and apps launching all the time. But this won't last. Andreessen had a good tweet today "your startup is not the next WhatsApp." And it isn't. The 0.01% chance of this happening, already happened.

There are so many exciting and important problems that need smart people to solve them. Everything you've mentioned from the downright garbage that are EMRs at hospitals, to massive medical devices that can be shrunk, to endless paper work for cops and so many other industries who still use scanning and OCR software to organize their databases. Large but seemingly not-that-complex (from an engineering standpoint) problems. These - these need to be fixed.

An inspiring little feel good article here for those 16 hour days when you just hit your head against the wall. Or for when you need a little inspiration.

Author is right - even in 2025 so many products will have been invented today and tomorrow. Does anyone really think Snapchat will be around in 10 years? The Internet is still in its infancy. Sure, we can communicate with multimedia and watch streaming video but think of the myriad of problems and challenges facing modern day society? Endless and endless opportunity. From biotech, hardware and sensors, energy, communication, health care, VR, AI, machine learning, etc. - all very, very early problems to work on. Each of which will create dozens of profitable and dynamic technology companies.

We have to work on the future and use the amazing platforms currently in place to make something that lasts and makes an impact. I remember 5 years ago what a royal pita it was to setup a physical webserver + app server. Nightmare. Now, it happens in a click. The platforms are getting better in better for entrepreneurs to build on top of them.

This is exciting and should be exciting for anyone and everyone who has a passion to build something. And the future is not 20 chat apps, 20 youtube's, or 20 e-commerce sites selling subscription underwear. The future is wild ideas, things that seem strange and things that don't even seem possible today. But seemingly impossible ideas on the surface today are the ideas that leave a mark in the future.

Let's get nuts.

My 3-year old CLS can do most of not all of these "new features." Including, parallel parking itself, alerting me to someone in my blind spot via audible, visual and haptic feedback via the steering column shaking, keep its distance from the car in front via Distronic Adaptive Cruise Control and slow to zero (0) during a braking situation, alert me via haptic feedback (steering column shake) if I swerve out of my lane and for shits and giggles has night vision (totally useless for me in the city at least).

But what's even more impressive is that the brand new S-Class I just picked up does all of this and then some: it has a pedestrian awareness system: the car will brake if it senses a collision with a pedestrian. It has magic body control: a system that scans the road ahead via stereoscopic cameras for potholes and uneven pavement surfaces and adjust the suspension in real-time for a smooth ride (this is an insane feature). It has active steer assist! It will keep me in my line by applying brake pressure to the opposing wheels and will not let you swerve out. It also has another two features that I simply can't think of at the moment. But there is a really neat video from Mercedes Benz on all of this somewhere.

I also believe Tesla's entire drive train and technology is made by Daimler-Benz.

Finally, like Animats pointed out - all of these features are not necessarily a good thing for the heavily distracted driver these days. These features open the door for even more careless driving (texting, fiddling with Google on your Tesla screen and etc.) I believe Mercedes actually have self driving technology working for a few years now (they have a freight truck that is completely autonomous) but decided to pull full self driving from the S-Class due to many of these issues raised.

I guess what irks me most about a lot of these Tesla drivers (from reading articles, blogs, posts and watching the news tonight after the unveiling) is that they are so hung up on the damn hype, they do not see past the issues that still remain for the company. Yes, Musk is a visionary guy, no doubt. But too much hype here. Some dumb women even said on the news when asked how she likes the new car "I'll let you know tomorrow morning." Clearly alluding to her caring solely about the lousy $20k of shares she probably has in the company.

I think another big problem for Tesla (and yes, going off track here) is the fact that not everyone can afford a $70k+ car. Tesla needs to get a sub-$40k car if they want to actually sustain this model. I just don't see how they can by selling a niche car to a niche market.

Finally, like others said, we need to go 100% autonomous or 0%. The middle ground is scary. I bought two Mercedes because I love how amazingly engineered they are. They are at the pinnacle of modern engineering and perhaps the best built cars on earth (most likely). I enjoy driving. I don't enjoy playing with a touchscreen or texting. The features I have on my cars compliment the driving experience, they make it better. I fear many people will start buying cars (whether Teslas or cheaper) for these "lazy" features that allude to you not having to concentrate as much any more. This is a scary premonition and I don't see it ending well.

If you don't know, there is a highly sophisticated US naval air facility on the island of Diego Garcia. The Navy does deep space reconnaissance over there! among other things...

And they didn't detect a massive 777 flying north/south in and around the Indian Ocean?

That area is saturated in complex radar. Diego Garcia houses complex radar and satellite communications systems and who knows what else that is still classified.

Additionally, there are over 1,000 operational satellites in orbit!

IMO, this was a carefully and planned mission.

For all we know (tin-foil hat time) there could be behind the curtain negotiations with hijackers and/or missions being planned to recover the aircraft in case of wild extremists theories flying around on the Internet (0.1% on this) And as we all know today, nothing is that extreme anymore in the world we live in.

Disabling transponders takes three clicks of a wheel and it was most definitely done intentionally, the sharp, almost hairpin turn, this jet made and then strategically avoided radar are all signs of a sophisticated operation here. The WSJ reports that circuit breakers were accessed in order to shut down transponders, clearly requiring a high level of skill for aircraft maintenance opps. Sure, pilot can break a circuit but they will spend 20 minutes reading the flight maintenance manual AND contact ground before doing anything like this.

Finally - there were a few important people on board, including quite a few high-tech people involved with government contractions.

Whatever is happening, it might never make complete sense - or at least the general public might be out the loop and get whatever information THEY want us to hear. I don't know who THEY are but this whole situation is very strange and gets crazier by the day.

Edit: this bird was hacked

It's a good product, but it will get destroyed due to scale, ultimately get acquired by Dunkin or Starbucks and everyone wins (founders, VCs) except for the customer. They always lose.

Yeah, maybe on Market Street, Tony. The majority of the country (and the world) isn't going to pay $6 for a cup of coffee. That's reality.

Seems like a purely hype driven VC play to invest in BB. They make a great product, yes, but the SF micro-niche coffee clientele will have a very tough time scaling to profit in a country where Dunkin Donuts is considered great coffee - and Starbucks.

Also, not sure why BB would raise this cash from VC vs. debt financing. Whole thing is hilarious.

I've emailed support numerous times for help - nothing. One response only literally 10 days after a few follow-ups. That's unacceptable.

Their OSX Client doesn't work with Mavericks (10.9) "not supported" was the answer I received.

Syncing is another issue, files not syncing, little explanation as to why, across systems without the Virtual Appliance. Confusing documentation.

I would love to use AeroFS or another private-cloud variant, but the above problems/issues have made both myself and my team very hesitant to ever using or trying this product again.

I think it's important for the team to hear this, and I hope you guys work on what's important to end-users.

What's important to note is that T-Mobile is quickly becoming a company that delivers a great product and is customer-centric. And when the incumbents start playing catch up (AT&T in particular) you know they're making the right moves.

I've been with Verizon for a few years and I can't say their service is what it's marketed to be. Data is fast but the inability to simultaneously do data and voice is just idiotic. The monthly fees are also totally insane. I pay $140 / month for a single data line (iPhone). In contrast to Verizon, with T-Mobile you get unlimited voice and data for a little over $70, no contract and stellar customer service. I called T-Mobile to switch last month and with a little negotiating, they sent me a _free_ iPhone 5S. No contract. No bullshit.

T-Mobile's latest announcement of up to $650 in credits for switching over will increase their subscriber base by millions of new users, no question. It's bold, aggressive and customer-centric.

I can't personally speak on AT&T's network but we all know it's one of the worst companies in the world to deal with. Their service is spotty for many, many users. Their customer service is non-existent. Their data practices are borderline unethical (with hidden data caps, throttling, etc). AT&T is just an awful company. I'm stuck with their uVerse Internet service and it's just a disaster. Unfortunately, many of us have no other choice but their lousy broadband product. Let's not even talk about Time Warner.

T-Mobile's coverage, from what I have experienced, is stellar. Up and down the California coast. Mexico. Europe. NYC. Seattle. I'm always at 4+ bars. Data is fast (~18Mbps downstream). International roaming is perhaps one of the most impressive features of TMO. I remember paying $20 / MB with Verizon and that's just absolutely criminal. And they can get away with it because many customers aren't even aware of this until they get the bill.

Legere is right - the mobile landscape is just horrendous and it's mainly because of AT&T and Verizon. I hope T-Mobile continues this push towards making customers happy and simply offering better products. Their bottom line will be the ultimate proof of how this is working out for them - and from what I'm seeing, their new subscriber numbers are growing exponentially. You could say they're disrupting the industry. And that's rare from these monoliths.

I totally understand where you're coming from. Full-time co-founder here with my counterpart having a full time job (a resident physician at that!). It's tough but it works somehow especially since we are at the seed stage. But once we start raising real money (1M ) there's no way he'll be able to continue IMO. It can work but it's best if everyone is full-time.

I do know of a company with a co-founder who is also a resident physician and they just raised $3M. So there's a real-world example of it working out. And being a resident physician at a top-2 school is a much more difficult position to drop out of - there's no going back.

Most investors will ask for 100% time commitments but if you spread responsibility it can work (like the above scenario).

What matters most is: are you guys getting shit done? Are you making forward progress? Things can always be better and more efficient but if you're moving forward - keep moving.

You'll know when you need to propose the ultimatum to your co-founder. If there's money on the table and he has to quit, it's easier vs. the assumption (risk) of money being there.

Finally - add a few more players to your team. Offset the work to great people. It will not only make you more efficient but will show investors that people want to work with you. And they're committed to your product without having real cash flow. As a CEO, one of the most exciting things is getting great people to work with you. It's a great feeling and proves leadership. And some good 'ole fashion convincing. Good luck.

Like you said, great schools attract smarter people (not all of them!) and that makes for a more competitive environment, which in turn churns out more driven/analytical kids.

I know a TON of idiots who went to Stanford and Berkeley. And I know a dozen or so extremely successful entrepreneurs who never went to college.

Dropbox is simply a great product and that's why it's such a great success.

I've tried so many different cloud-based storage services throughout the years and nothing really comes close in terms of ease-of-use, accessibility, sharing, speed, etc. Sure, DB has a few flaws here and there but nothing is perfect.

I remember being bombarded with marketing emails from the AeroFS team two weeks ago when I tried their products and while they were great in asking how they "could help" me, their software was broken. It wasn't working properly, crashing on colleagues' systems, etc. Worst part: emailing support four times never got me a reply. And to me, that's just an awful product (aside from it being super buggy). But I digress.

Great little read from Drew, someone who has created a simple product that we all need and use daily.

I remember tweeting with Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics about a year ago about autonomous package delivery from A > B. I'm sure Bezos and team started nerding out on this concept years ago.

Eventually, "vehicles" the size of UPS trucks will be delivering packages autonomously all over the world. This is definitely a glimpse into that day.

And it won't end at just packages, you're going to see food, produce, perishables, medicine (bye bye pharmacy pickups) and many more products delivered to the home via drone.

This is without a doubt the future.

However, like every awesome idea it comes with a boatload of challenges that need to be addressed and I fear some will be extremely difficult if not impossible to overcome.

Off the top of my head, I see a few issues with Amazon Prime Air, some will be resolved, and some won't, but that's the beauty and uncertainty when taking on rather innovative approaches to existing problems.

1. The FAA situation. Drones are going to have _very_ restricted airspace especially in populated metro areas, if the FAA grants them these privileges at all. If you look at Los Angeles/SF/NYC/DC/Boston, you see airspace that is so overcrowded that I just don't see how drones are going to be zipping around here. BUT, most US cities are urban areas, so if we lose delivery to the dense metropolis, this product could work very well. Just like you see in the video.

2. Aside from airspace regulations in popular cities, you have building density, apartments/condos that will make it tough to service (unless these buildings have custom built "delivery stations" somewhere, and that's a cool idea). So it's a glimpse into the replacement of the traditional mailbox. Now that's cool.

3. Package weight will certainly be a concern but Prime Air will still cover an enormous amount of items from Amazon. And I believe Prime Air will allow Amazon to actually expand their product catalog with previously-undeliverable items via traditional freight (food, perishables, medicine, etc.)

4. Humans. Humans are always a problem. You'll have kids/idiots trying to steal and shoot these things down. This is a minor problem that won't necessarily end, but people will get in trouble and they'll pay fines/etc.

5. Safety. Safety is important, Amazon will do whatever it can to prevent kids/adults from getting sliced by these blades but I think that this is inevitable.

6. Hardware failure. Sure, 4 rotors and redundancy. But we all know a few of these things are going to drop out of the sky with a box of wrenches and slam into someones car/face/house/bike/restaurant... That won't be good. But is it even possible to ensure this doesn't happen? Boeing airplanes fall out of the sky...

7. Weather. Be in no doubt these drones will drop left and right, lose course, altitude, etc. with sudden gusts of winds, environmental factors, etc. They're getting better but it's physics at play here.

All in all there are plenty of challenges to an awesome and risky endeavor.

What I don't really understand is WHY. What's the net-gain for Amazon. Will this ever fully replace UPS/USPS shipping for them? Maybe... But it will take at least 20+ years.

I somewhat see this as an experiment for Bezos and company. The R&D and hardware costs far exceed the pennies on the dollar they pay for UPS shipping. But it has that COOL FACTOR to it. It smells like the future. Would you pay extra for 30-minute delivery? Maybe a few times... I wonder about the utility here...

Happy thanksgiving to everyone.

Nanotechnology combining with advanced materials will lead to a better understanding of pathogens and ultimately how to eradicate them. These are great steps towards solving many real and serious issues facing society today. It's certainly refreshing to see different disciplines coming together to move us forward.

These [polymers] are years away from clinical use, but this is a glimpse into the not too distant future.

End of an era. Sad day.

That was great. Insanely great.

Steve Jobs is smiling down from wherever he might be. As we all are.

And wow, comments on HN that all agree with each other. No bashing. No hate. What a wonderful thing.

Beautiful