dakrisht

Increasing complexity is not what's concerning here. Being able to adjust the ride height of your car (air suspension) is not that uncommon. My current vehicle has adjustable air ride suspension for city/highway. It automatically drops an entire inch at speeds over 60mph to reduce drag and allow for a lower center of gravity. It's great.

The concerning issue here is someone hacking this vehicle's OTA software update and causing accidents. Or even tapping into the vehicle control system(s) and causing havoc.

Unlikely, but possible vs. current vehicle technology requiring a trip to a dealer by an authorized and authenticated trained tech to make these changes.

I imagine every critical system on the Model S is accessible wirelessly.

This actually bring me back to Michael Hastings accident where theories are floating around that steering, breaking and acceleration systems might have been compromised wirelessly causing the accident.

The bottom line is that there's simply way too much convenience technology in cars today and that might not be such great thing. It's a tough call as safety technology is important and the more the better. However, certain things such as OTA suspension and other critical system updates need to pushed and completed intelligently. I want to assume that any updates to these vehicles are done when they are off (overnight) and redundantly checked for integrity to ensure the update was successful.

Another vote for Synology here. Have been using them for a good 6 years now. I think I might have had one of the first DSM setups.

Just solid NAS products.

Upgraded recently to the DS213 and the WD RED 3TB disks in RAID-1. Running all sorts of services from SMB, AFP, UPNP, Surveillance, Backups, Etc. Performs flawlessly. Incredibly fast, DSM is an elegant UI (and powerful) and just couldn't be happier for all my wireless/wired client.

I backup the Synology once a month to a standalone 3TB disk via eSATA for even more redundancy.

Agree with both comments in here. Some good insight.

For some pure market research Q

Couldn't agree more. 10 products launching on HN today to solve convenience issues so you can pay for your $7 croissant and decaf soy milk latte with vegan cinnamon and not be forced to carry around 4 credit cards. Good god.

Without a doubt.

Coin actually increases the complexity of an already complex and archaic system.

The product manages to create more headaches for the consumer and the merchant by consolidating various credit cards in a digital device with a nice "cool" factor but lacking any real solution to the many problems associated with the complex back-ends in the payments space.

Conceptually, it's not a bad product, and it sucks that the founders are probably reading hundreds of people slamming their hard work. But it's reality.

Absolutely not. The old crusty layer is everything you don't see running in the background. The banks, the payment systems, the clearing houses, the entire system as a whole.

As someone who's been actively involved in engineering Bluetooth LE devices, believe me, with constant daily usage, it will NOT last 2 years. There are so many factors involved with BLE, not just limited to usage, but with respect to range, environmental conditions, etc.

What's your point? None

I actually forgot to add something to my original critique: if your device (iPhone) dies, and Coin isn't authenticated you can't use your card(s)!! Haha

Can't believe I missed this. There's another bullet of flaws to add.

Their FAQ is vague and doesn't really answer any questions, especially the important ones. They attempt to give clever and confronting responses to serious questions and most people can see right through that. Comments on their FAQ like "Should last" and "a lot can happen between now and Summer 2014" - get out here. If you want customers to pay (a premium) for an experimental product - be concrete and firm.

I understand what randomizing a number means.

But this doesn't answer the question of how the terminal/processing system knows it's your account being debited?

The whole concept of randomization with payments (or anything for that matter with respect to authentication) is impossible. There will ALWAYS have to be some sort of static identifier in order for this to work. Common sense I think.

The idea is interesting but I'm not sure exactly what the idea is!! :)

If you have an AMEX and you randomize the account number on each transaction, AMEX still has to IDENTIFY your account with something? A name? A PIN? A unique ID? AKA an account number.

We are all deeply moved by the future of bar tabs not holding credit cards :)

In all seriousness, most bars hold a CC and ID for a tab.

Very good point.

Add another item to the list of problems.

You're missing the point here.

It's about losing all of your cards when you lose one. And most people aren't going to spend money ($100) on one - yet alone TWO - cards vs. the free cards they get from their banks 24/7. If I lose my Amex, I can walk into an Amex office and get a free card in under an hour. Or have it overnighted for free.

Match? How? With OCR and image processing?

Currently, one assumes you can take a picture of any card and store it for visual purposes. There's zero explanation of how they authenticate a physical card (photo) with the swipe data.

Absolutely.

Not only this but they're entire FAQ is vague and doesn't offer any concrete answers whatsoever. It's a half ass job.

Surprised (sort of) that this is a YC company with all the vetting, mentoring, perfecting and whatever else happens there. They have a lot of problems and a lot of holes.

Payments are HARD but this doesn't make them any easier. Quite the contrary.

I like this randomized credit card numbers idea but I don't understand how it would work?

How would the terminal know it's debiting your account?

Where would the authentication take place?

Where would the randomization take place? And what would this be based on?

Credit cards are actually very simple in nature (and why there are billions of dollars of fraud occurring every year). It's simply an account number printed on a piece of plastic. But this account numbers is solely responsible for the transaction behind the scenes.

Who does this random number now? I've been studying payments for years and have never heard of this.

You wouldn't.

You actually increase the chances of fraud/loss/theft/errors with Coin.

It creates more problems than it solves (which is unfortunate, since it does have the "cool" factor going for it) That only goes so far.

Apparently, you don't seem to understand that this is how things works in the United States, where this product is intended for sale.

Perhaps learn/read about how the payments process with respect to credit card transactions and chargebacks work in the US before commenting.

Additionally, read about Coin, which doesn't work in Europe and doesn't support EMV.

:facepalm:

Anyone with half a brain knows the NSA and other agencies have been capturing data from telcos for decades. That's the nature of their business. And frankly, given the world we live in and the amount of sick fucks roaming the land, I don't blame them for doing some intelligence work. PRISM, MUSCULAR and whatever else we don't know of (yet) are without a doubt abuses of power and they have simply gone way too far. So this is wrong and needs to be changed. But the Internet will never be the Internet of the 90s.

Companies like AT&T have dedicated rooms for the NSA with spliced fiber to dumb daily terabits of data to. For decades. This is nothing new.

with regards to payments and consumer awareness of breaches and security issues, well, consumers today are becoming more AWARE of these facts brought on primarily by the Snowden leaks. Sure, a lot are still clueless and that won't change but there is still an inherent reluctance to trust new products/services/technologies especially when it comes to banking and finance.

The status quo are not early adopters. Never have been, never will be. The mainstream products are the success. When you sign up for an Amex or a Chase card or whatever bullshit they're selling on TV, they sell a sense of security, confidence, TRUST.

The problem with a startup like Coin (aside from the dozen or so issues mentioned above by me and a few others reading the thread now) is a narrow focus. They aren't really solving a problem, rather they're creating many more.

They've created a product that a handful of people in the SF Mission district will use to buy a $7 coffee and a croissant while they Tweet about it (from the Coin app hopefully). But this focus forgets the rest of the world (which is a big and lucrative place).

I think this is the problem with a lot of Bay Area startups. They're so caught up in the YC dinners, the SF startup scene, the networking, and the conferences that they limit their focus to a very narrow audience.

It's a neat concept, but I just don't think this gets anywhere.

Dead in the water - as much as I would personally like to see them succeed.

The biggest problems here are security.

() Merchants will hate it since there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card. This will lead to chargebacks in favor of the customer. So this alone kills this company/product.

() Banks might change their terms forbidding customers to create digital copies / clones of their card. As per card holder agreements, if you (or Coin) has ever read one, you don't own your card. You're fully bound by the terms of the agreement.

() There is the issue of PCI-DSS compliance. They mention they're "in the process of earning" it but this is a lengthy, difficult and _costly_ process ($100 k). They're using a loophole to ensure consumer peace of mind but this won't last at all.

() Adding a card seems flawed. You're asked to take a picture of the physical card after swiping to "prevent fraud" ok but unless Coin uses some advanced image processing/OCR to validate the card with the swiped data, you can take a picture of any card. So big fail here.

() Coin seems to access a cloud service. Another major reason that this simply isn't going to work. If you've paid any attention to the NSA situation within the past 6-months, ordinary/average consumers (not the HN crowd) are becoming weary of cloud/hosted service. Not to mention, Coin will never ever work outside of the US (or San Francisco for that matter).

Practical usability problems:

() Most users are totally fine with credit cards and big wallets. It's actually empowering to them. I spoke to a guy who loves the fact that he has every color Amex card! So in essence, this is geared towards a micro-niche of tech savvy SF/NY/LA crowd.

() Selecting a card by tapping the button - great. What if the waiter taps the same button? Or someone you're paying does? So many issues with this button here.

"We’ve designed the button to toggle cards in a way that makes it difficult to trigger a "press" unintentionally" -- yeah, well most of the time, credit card fraud is an intentional act. What a stupid response. And quite frankly, offensive to anyone with half a brain.

() The obvious issue of losing Coin and losing everything. People like backups. It's a mindset.

() Battery issues with digitizing a non-battery product (credit card). Be in no doubt that more than half of users will forget to charge their credit card (as if we don't have enough things to charge). So you'll see people having lunches and presenting a dead Coin. And since you don't have any plastic, well, now you're screwed.

Products are supposed to make life better, easier, more intuitive.

Conceptually, it sort of makes sense. But the execution is flawed in so many ways.

You're being sold a product that now requires more steps than you did before. And that is the killer fellow HN'ers.

I don't want to have to sync, take photos, select a card by pushing a button, make sure it's within range to my device, update the app when needed for it to work, deal with merchants who won't take it, CHARGE my credit card (!), deal with issues because I tapped/selected the wrong card - vs - take out and swipe. Done.

Fuck that.

The product is inherently flawed

Some great comments from everyone here. Glad to see an intellectual and factual discussion on HN vs. the usual flaming someone or something!

We need more VC's like Mike Markkula today, no doubt.

Great little read. Uniquely portrays the cultural differences between the two schools but more importantly, shows just how different the West vs. East Coast mentality is when it comes to technology startups, products, innovations, etc.

Not saying there isn't much "pure technology" coming out of Stanford (there most certainly is) but you get the feeling that Boston-area startups are wired to find, as Peter Thiel would say, the 0 to 1 markets vs. the 1 to n markets of globalization (the West Coast).

In Boston, there appears to be a bigger emphasis on hi-tech vs. the latest subscription service or cloud provider coming from SV. But the SV culture encourages that, VC's cut checks for products with "traction" and more often than not, skip pure technology (be it medical devices, therapeutics, chemicals, hardware, and hard/expensive/timely ventures).

This is rather unfortunate since we are in need of better startup companies and technologies, and they are in need of funding. There are many reasons for this (one being the "easy way out biz model replication" phenomenon used in the ammonia subscription model example in the post). And another is the lack of talent, particularly great talent going to well-funded SnapChat #4 and other similar, non-groundbreaking companies.

Unfortunately, I don't see the face of venture capital changing much with regards to funding innovative and risky technologies. They of course are wired to big returns on 1/100 social company exits (most at least) and "technology" doesn't really matter (again, to most).

Can you imagine SV putting money into Fairchild Semiconductor or Intel today? Won't happen.

Don't let the excuses of "we infested in Barracuda and Cisco" fool you - the focus is on "how many users do you have for the latest hype driven app on the App Store."

I think the major problem is the lack of risk being taken on great technology vs. the easy way out. AKA, some VCs should grow some balls and invest in the future vs. the very-near future. Being an MBA out of a top-10 school and having check writing power to fund "startups" is also a negative since a lot of these guys know the spreadsheets - NOT the silicon.

But I digress.

Both schools are unique in their culture but share similarities in brilliance. The best outcome is too see great business as marketing intersect with powerful technology. Then we can have real great companies on the horizon again. As a West Coast founder myself, it's actually an honor and a humbling experience to be working with people from both schools and it's clear as day just how different the mindset is.

I completely agree with you - twisted pair has go to go and fiber needs to terminate in the home.

It's actually a embarrassing that this country can neither build a somewhat simple healthcare website and has some of the slowest access speeds in the world.

I remember going to Bulgaria over the years for business and you can get a 100Mbps symmetrical connection for - wait for it - $40 USD.

WISP is an interesting concept and has a better economic model. If you look at proposed 5G wireless speeds, you're looking at 10Gbps+ Even LTE today at 30-50Mbps is better than any non-Gig Fiber to the home (aside from the FIOS service available to maybe 10,000 people in LA)

The biggest problem is and will be AT&T and TWC with their collusion. Government regulation needs to intervene here otherwise private sector simply stands no chance.

Trust me - I want even 100Mbps connection. It's frustrating.

Going back to the concept of a WISP - now that's some innovation if you could make it happen.

There was a company on HN a few months back that made long-range WiFi domed Tx/Rx units that could be mounted on poles, etc.

Anyone have that link?

Right on. And it will 100% go over budget given the amount of work needed, ancient infrastructure, non-compliant landlords and the "I just don't give a shit to change" LA attitude.

I remember two years ago when I was the CTO of a 100 employee company in Beverly Hills just how difficult and annoying it was to get a single 10/10Mbps Fiber link to our offices.

It took 6 months from the date the order was placed to the provisioning. And it took another 2-months to go from 10-20Mbps. It's totally insane that these things take so long and it was 50% the fault of AT&T and I kid you not - 15 employees at AT&T dealing with this - and 50% the fault of the building who didn't even know what Fiber was and thought it was a back link from their telco room to our servers.

Insanity

Great in theory, but I just don't see this happening with the telcos (AT&T and TWC) controlling the entire broadband footprint in SoCal. It's called collusion, look it up.

These two telcos (the worst in the world most likely) base their entire business and offerings on providing high-speed internet of yesteryear. AT&T UVerse service is a step up from traditional ADSL with speeds up to 25Mbps (I get 19Mbps regularly and live about 2 miles from the CO). Telco execs have been quoted as saying "consumer just don't need higher speeds." And most probably do not, the niche consumers (probably the HNers) would love 1Gbps speeds for reasons unknown (perhaps to host their own in-house EC2/S3!) but the niche consumers are the 1% and telcos don't care about us.

The biggest problem with this concept of Gigabit internet in Los Angeles is who will pay the bill, which will most certainly exceed the estimate.

AT&T already has plenty of fiber running to the pole with copper to the household. There are tens of thousands of old buildings in LA that make it impossible or extremely difficult to run fiber to the home. Not to mention, a ton of landlords will simply not care to tear up their infrastructure even if it costs them nothing. There is a VERY serious disease people in LA have which is "We just don't care."

Additionally, the "free" access of 2Mbps - 5Mbps is redundant since these are quite frankly ancient speeds regardless of their price economics. So with that said, if you do a simple analysis of how many customers would actually pay for high-speed (>100Mbps) access vs. the "free hoarders" it would be dismal. And would never cover the costs of the roll out.

Finally, EVEN if the economics made sense, the telcos would simply fight it, create problems for potential bidders, collude enough to force bidders out and continue their shitty business.

Maybe because they're unprofitable? Maybe because what's the point of pinning random items on a virtual pin board? Maybe because what's the need for $500M in capital for a website? Maybe because what good does Pinterest do for anyone or anything aside from waste time?

In Twitter's defense, while they might not "need" 100 engineers to rewrite their code, they are certainly infinitely more than just a glorified status feed.

Twitter has allowed millions of people across the globe to share insight into what is happening in their back yard. While for us Americans, this might include the dog taking a shit on a Macbook, in the Middle East it's far different. Twitter and FB have been responsible for a lot of insight and uprisings, especially during the Arab Spring.

Additionally, Twitter is an innovation in communications. Just like Skype is, but perhaps less so or just differently. Marc Andreessen said it perfectly: "Twitter is instant global public messaging - for free." That has some value vs. pinning my dress on a pin board.

Point is - SnapChat is worthless, Pinterest is less worthless but still has little value. Sure, advertisers and brands flock to the net since their old-school TV/print models are being replaced by technology - but very few "apps" are companies/businesses. And young users, particularly teens are very prone to jump ship like fleas off a dog when the "latest and greatest" comes about. Do you see SnapChat existing in 10 years? I don't think so. Pinterest? There will be something newer. FB? Twitter? Dropbox? Yeap, they'll still be around. And probably doing better than ever.

Please be sure to include Pinterest in this one.

They might be valued higher than Genentech at this point.

Yes, yes they do.

But like you said, that's fine.

Props to the SnapChat guys for cashing out, raising a ton of venture from sheep VCs and getting millions of users? YES, absolutely.

Props to the SnapChat guys for creating something of value, substance, technology, IP, etc. None, zero. Just another BS app riding the wave of the top-10 in the appstore.

It's not a WIN for society when you create garbage that has some sort of value to it. It's just more clutter. But maybe it doesn't matter, people need entertainment, people need dick picks, bad Hollywood movies, Miley Cyrus - these are all business commodities. And if you're capable of that vs. nothing else, good for you.

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.” Warren Buffett

Totally.

It's how the wind blows these days in "tech". It's reminiscent of a bubble with all of these mobile apps calling themselves "companies" when most aren't even profitable. It reminds of the early 2000s when "how many eyeballs do you get monthly" was the question of the day.

Does Pinterest really need $400M+ in venture to operate? What are they doing over there? Advanced robotics with neural implants? Burn rate of $30M a month?

Utter bullshit.

Like I said before, VC's aren't dumb but they're also not very smart, most at least - they don't need to be. They flock to whatever's hot and popular (trendy) and invest. Their exit strategy is simple: a highly overvalued IPO where the public market will buy based on hype or an acquisition.

These unsustainable trends in extremely overvalued companies/apps will continue for a while, unfortunately.

Until the shit hits the fan and one of these giants of venture capital infusion tank.

Unfortunately, it's so much more than an issue of Snapchat being worthless, it's a large chunk of the tech community today being generally worthless by looking for the EASY WAY OUT - building some stupid app, getting 5M+ users for a few years of engagement and raising large rounds and cashing out. There's no intrinsic value of any kind in this.

It wasn't like this before the App Store.

There is still great technology being developed out there, but most people (and human nature in general) flocks to the easy way out, the replication factor, globalization, the art of copying something, or as Peter Thiel would say" "the 1 to n of globalization."

Yelp, no way in hell. Uber, closer for sure. Uber is a valuable service at least in the Top-20 cities.

Yeah, and then all of the sudden it starts raining and the kids flock to another beach with a newer DJ and fresh faces.

End game.

Zynga was/is just a glorified spamming enterprise built atop Facebook's platform to get cheap and massive volumes of traffic. They've never created anything even remotely original (have basically ripped every single Maxis title since Sim Farm) and their ex-CEO was/is a complete scumbag who defrauded the public markets and early employees from everything under the sun.

SnapChat isn't much different. Just another "trendy app" that VC's love to throw money at since their partners invested in a previous competitors.