xcombinator

The Wacom tablet computers sells in the thousands, iPad is going to sell in the millions. There is nothing like a wacom for drawing with hi quality, but I'm sure Apple realise a "notebook computer" needs a pen and will add it in the future.

The capacitive stylus has very poor resolution, and is difficult to contrast with the part of the hand that you use for support on the screen. It would be simpler to use an optical,sound, radio or inertial add on.

I agree with the article, but I understand the reaction here. HN is a group of very smart people, and logical genius, that despise the power of emotions.

Human beings are not machines, and one of the most important things is how they feel. Apple knows that,that is what marketing is all about and this means for me that Ipad is going to be a success because:

1)When you rotate the screen, it feels responsible instantly.

2) When you touch, it feels responsible again because of the hardware accelerated touch screen.

3) People could use it to write without making sounds(silence).

4) No cables, no strings, it just "feels right" like a physical notebook.

5) No ugly keyboard.

6) No limits in the orientation.

7) First serious computer you can rotate to read a book right, when you use a laptop and rotate for changing the aspect ratio ugly keyboard gets on your way.

I'm happy for the ipad, it means computer competitors that don't get it will just copy it, like the iphone.

I don't believe that his strategy is the best one, but if he does, more power to him.

Burning your life only gets you so far. It must be terrible to see other people that seem lazy to overwork you.

In my experience, the best workers I'd known were lazy bastards, from that reaper that worked only in the morning because grass was fresh(dew) and did more in one hour that all we in the entire day to the CNC machine programmer nobody knew how he made simple programs in very short time and leave that surpassed our own in the company.

His "having it big is good" argument is flawed too, I have a friend with an enormous one that had real problems with girls.

:-D I'm waiting for the Apple tablet info the 27 of January. It seems too much coincidence that Amazon changes her policy now just at the same fees that Apple Apps Store charges.

They must know something that we don't and want to be first...

Is that idea pernicious?

Think in the animal world, is that pernicious that the best wolf leader is the only one that reproduce? Does it make (slightly) sense?.

Is pernicious that the best scientist, or athlete that dominates others in their field is somewhat more attractive to women? Does it make (slightly) sense?.

Maybe it is pernicious for those that are not that dominant.

Please, get out of this place.

Reading people comments a lot of people says this man has no backing information, but I got a similar experience in Spain.

What happened in USA with education is what happened in Spain with homes:

Here home prices exploded, and remain high today, a 30m^2 flat(322square feet)in Madrid sells by 180keuros.

Normal flats cost no less than 300keuros, the interesting thing is that the prices started rising just when Aznar(he wanted to help as the USA gob) removed the limitations in loans years, and backing money you need for making a loan.

Normal loans went from 8 years to 10->20->30->40 years. Prices went up because someone with less money you have will pay more with virtual money from a 40 years loan he got from the bank without putting a cent.

When people could not pay the loan, they refinanced the loans with more years. That worked until now, things are not going well.

In Spain it costs over 1.000 euros/year to get a quality degree in Medicine or Engineering from a public university, this is 10% of the real cost of your education (over 10.000euros/year) for the state.

I regularly see MIT and Stanford lectures on Internet. They are not better that the education I received, but is way way more expensive.

OK, that's right. But think for a moment the quantity and quality of the restrictions that needing a keyboard imposes:

-It is a big thing that requires a lot of space. -It is slow to learn. -It makes sound. -Gets dirty. -You can't write with emotions, or tone, nuances are lost.

On a laptop, makes it really difficult to rotate the screen(I'm writing on a rotated laptop right now, if you try it you will be slow at first, but I'm faster this way).

I'm experimenting with my own sound recognition programs and note taking, I thing that is the future. IMHO we will talk with computers, and the children of your children will see keyboards as awkward as they are.

"There seems to be an assumption that the average person finds writing with a pen the most natural way to record information."

This is a valid assumption, writing with a pen IS the most natural way for humans to record information, this includes drawing figures(how do you draw sketchs with a keyboard?).

The problem is that machines don't have a brain and find very difficult to decode pen writing, the first that solve this problem will win a lot of fans.

PS: I type very fast, but I don't like the keyboard as much as pen.

Agree, and failure is such a strong word:

Did Guttemberg failed because he spend all his life trying to make a mobile types print and he died poor?

Did facebook founders failed because their original idea didn't catch? Or the flickr people? or the Photoshop creator? or Googleearth inventor?.

Did Edison failed with every new light bulb he tried and burn?. The rocket engineers when some of their rockets exploded?

Stop calling it "failures", they are opportunities.

I love tablets!!

I believe they are the future of computers, and Apple will design the thing the right way, changing the interface if necessary.

A computer doesn't need to be attached to a typewriter machine.

It's good news for everybody. The acers and eees will copy the design and will make it affordable.

A very good idea. I made myself a blackboard of wood with a very expensive paint so I can use color chalks. I love it, but is bulky and heavy, and dusty.

I will try this need method.

As Oriental philosophy said "Stupid questions bring stupid answers". I propose new questions:

Why do so many terrorist have black or brown hair?. Why do so many terrorist are men? Why do so many terrorist are young? Why do so many terrorist are raised out of USA?.

Extracting conclusions from over generalizations is not only usefulness, it's dangerous.

HN is becoming more and more like reddit this days.

I love the article, and the Sherlock Holmes analysis too:

-Ohh, let me see... a professional photo could be manipulated by Photoshop or Gimp...

-mmmmm. It's photoshop what had been used.

He is truly a genius!!

I never understood what sensual pleasure a physical book gives you, and I'm a big big reader of books.

It could be that I have no psychological anchors like your grandfather gift, your lovers notes and so on some people have. Some people love sniffing the glue and the ink chemicals too.

Quite the contrary, I love books content, not continent.

I hate having to "break" a book for reading it because otherwise you won't have uniform lighting on the page, in fact you never have in a book.

I hate having to sustain the weight of a big novel.

I hate having to wash my hands because it gets dirty with the poisonous ink.

I hate having to carry around tons of books when I move.

I hate not being able to change the font size or the format in shorter lines so I could speed read it better.

So I started digitalizing my library long ago, and I'm not going back, I'm not the only one.

I met a man 10 years ago that had 1000 digitalized books library, I remember being socked when he showed me. Now more and more people are doing that and is quite normal to see.

I don't see anything bad with that. IKEA is a non profit and its rules apply. Dereck did that too:

http://sivers.org/trust

Ingvar Kamprad is the prototype of Calvinist, hard working, humble and low expenses man. When he came here to Spain, to visit IKEA's stores, he used regular line airplane, and public bus transport.

IMHO, he don't want to make his family stupid rich(think Gucci family,wasting on luxury, power, drugs, sex, fights for the money and murders between them) when he is dead, but wants them to have something they can make a life from.

Thank god for this mistake, this mistake makes c what it is good at: at low level programming. It just pass directions between functions. Light and fast,no abstractions.

I love it, a way of making assembler like coding but multiplatform.

If I want high level programming I will program in another language but when you want machine control you have c without all the bloat.

Well, I don't know what this startup is calling his innovation because I didn't tested its system, but what I understand for landmark based is something like:

+Go straight until you see a school at your right.

+Then turn right(left on India).

+Continue until you see a big fountain.

Is that innovation? I don't know in USA but in Spain and a big part of the world that is the normal way of telling someone how to go to a place, is not so strange that another human being has the same idea than you about doing with a computer what you do without it.

That is the main problem about software patents, people want to have a monopoly over ideas a lot of people spontaneously have.

Yeah, you are right. But that there are bad doctors and engineers and teachers doesn't mean there are no very good ones.

You are right when you say marketing is important and some very good writers are very bad at it. But there are people that could do both too. There are other books that need artists(text books of history, biology...) and other support people too.

When I say there is no need for publishers I mean the hard logistics and financial experts that today are needed. Other people will be needed, like web store experts, but you don't need to have a minimum of 20000 readers to print like today.

Today, like yesterday CD labels, publishers hold the rights because they have access to the physical market and you can't sell without then, they then get all the money and no cost in ebooks. This is going to change when writers don't need physical market because people buy digital.

I mean it is not only one man who makes the company, specially after 1983.

I had a friend in my University, he had spent a lot of time working and studying from what we call a "Distance Education"(They give you books and some video lectures).

He had a hard time doing that and valued a lot direct contact with the teacher. It resonates with me because I studied engineering but love psychology too and when I learn let's say NLP from video-audio made by masters I learn way more that in the same authors books.

Books are very good when you dominate the subject.

90% of the communication is not verbal. Nuances and emphasis are very important.

Well put. With computers you can replicate something ad infinitum. If you get to do something no one has ever done before, you can make input irrelevant.

Well, I can't understand this article, there is not "secret sauce". The google pagerank algorithm is open for all to see and understand. I myself made my own simple implementation.

Everybody could do it. This man is not asking for code, is asking for DATA only google has. It's like an atheist saying to a catholic what he must do because he believes. When this man gives something of value to the world,like google did(I remember the Altavista-Ad-flickering in your eyes days) then he could demand to be given by others.

It was one of the best companies when led by its original founders.

Fixed it for you.:-)

That Paul Allen didn't liked to show up on newspapers doesn't mean he did nothing.

Hello I never said it was simple, I say it has to be simple. But the human being is way complex and error reporting are so simple. Simple doesn't mean "easy". IMHO engineers try to do complex systems they don't understand, instead of simpler ones.

I have worked in automated real-time systems, and I was not bad at it. And yes, I have seen real industries working with duct tape fixes, hanging cables when there was parts movement,that was a calling for disaster, but I will never take responsibility of it with my handstroke because if I let them go I will go to jail if it happens. I know what is stopping a production chain for doing something the "right way" and having the owners eyes on you while they are losing thousands of euros every not working minute.

That is the proper and original meaning of Murphy Law, if you let something to happen, it will.

Even when proper training, people do stupid things just because they can when you let them. I had in my family an airplane pilot from the early days when 50% of their colleagues had died from crashes. A friend of him died trying a "macho" demonstration to her girlfriend with his little plane. If you try to do stupid things with a commercial airline, it won't let you unless you deactivate the automation(and give explanation of why you did so).

I disagree from the article. There is no paradox in automation, just a simple sensationalism desire from the authors.

Everyday, there are thousands of accidents in the world(mainly cars) just because human errors,like distractions, and if no automation existed there will be dozens of airplane accidents everyday, given the enormous number of flights.

It's not human intervention what is needed, it's just something as simple as a proper error reporting system. If an accelerometer fails and nothing happens, just report :ACCELEROMETER FAILED and problem solved. That a GPS failed, just report: GPS FAILED, and problem solved. Just change the redundant accelerometer, GPS when in land-port.

This is what human beings do, when one eye-ear-inertial information has nothing to do with the other, we got dizziness sick.

If someone designed the system badly, is not fault of automation, it's fault of the engineers. Debugging and testing is important.

As a critic myself, I don't think someone that is a good critic will disable comments(critics) in his blog.

In fact I bet my two dollars Apple is going to start the authors ebooks market with the Apple tablet making it outdoors-friendly and using their app store tech.

In the next years, any good book is going to be pirated in the net.In fact, it is today for those that know how to search.

Finding books are going to be easier as copying a book is made simpler and more people want to do it because they have e-reader hardware(people in the hundred of millions instead that in the thousands).

So people will have two options: 1)Decide to pay what the publishers want. 2)Decide it's too much and pirate it.

In the publisher wet dreams people don't have objection to pay the same quantity of money for something that has distribution cost, material cost, manufacturing cost that for something that has virtually null copy cost. People are not stupid.

What I think it will happen is this: Authors will start selling directly, as with music there is no need for publishers now.