Hacker News Reader

zrgiu_on Essential Raises $300M

I may be biased here, but I think almost everyone here is missing the point. Yes, Essential raised $300M because Andy Rubin is at the helm, but the bet is not on the phone they just launched. Its on the Smart Home. Here's a quote from Rubin himself:

    The long-term vision for Essential, Rubin said, is more closely aligned 
    with the Essential Home, which Rubin hopes you’ll put in your kitchen or 
    living room and use to control all the connected devices where you live.

Apple has HomeKit, Google has "works with Nest" (a joke, really), Samsung has SmartThings, etc.. If he follows the same path he has with Android and decides to open up the Essential Home platform [1], then its going to revolutionize a market that has the potential of being as valuable as the smartphone. If that's not a company that's worth $1B, especially led by someone with Andy Rubin's track record, I don't know what is.

[1] I mean truly open, the way he's done with Android. The Essential phone will already be more open that most phones on the market (unlocked bootloader), there's good reason to believe the Home will be too.

zrgiu_on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2016)

if you're getting ads after you uninstalled, then you're blaming the wrong app.

zrgiu_on IoT’s killer app is not home security

    IoT finding its footing in augmenting other systems rather than revolutionizing them

This is key. All the companies that are trying to start from scratch and build something big are failing or are hitting huge roadblocks due to high learning curves. On the other hand, those that are starting with simple, one-feature, even buttonless devices (philips hue, chromecast, echo) are the ones that are staying afloat.

I'm in this niche, and have been hit hard by this reality. IoT is definitely coming, but right now it is SO young, immature and fragmented, that it takes a pretty skilled person to use it in any meaningful way.

People need to be educated, and the best (read: only) way to do that is to introduce them to IoT one piece at a time. And these pieces have to be reliable and consistent. Until then, the switch on the wall has nothing to worry about.

zrgiu_on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2016)

SEEKING WORK - Remote, travel OK

Location: Mountain View, CA

Specialty: Android, senior level

I have 8 years of experience in Android - I started working with it the day it officially went out of beta. I'm one of the first 100 people to ever publish an app for Android, and the first to publish an In-App Purchase. I've worked on a wide-range of apps with all kinds of technologies, from simple lists & galleries, google maps integration (gps, location, navigation), to complex Bluetooth 4.0 LE enabled smart home apps.

Previous work:

- Lead Android engineer at a YC startup (Circle)

- Lead Android & founder at a smart home startup (AnyMote)

- Lead Android & founder at a security startup (40+ mil users, acquired in '11)

- LAMP stack, AWS (EC2, S3, ELB & more), scripting & similar when the job requires it

If you need someone to get a prototype started quickly or get your app off the ground very quickly, using the latest tech & guidelines, reach out to me at sergiu@colortiger.com

zrgiu_on My Heroic and Lazy Stand Against IFTTT

Nobody is even answering our emails/applications for an IFTTT channel so I'm going to shamelessly hook in here and ask: who do small companies (that's what startups are, right?) have to bribe to get bigger companies to even look down at us and exchange an email or two ?

And PLEASE don't tell me to "just fill out the form at http://ifttt.com/platform", tired of that already. We have hundreds of thousands of active users of an IoT service and you're just ignoring us.

PS: I'm grossed out by the fact that I had to resort to a HN comment to try to get someone's attention. Go ahead and downvote to the abyss.

zrgiu_on When hardware Kickstarters ship

I believe boundlessdreamz is talking about Smart IR Remote [1]. We named our app "Smart Remote" 2+ years ago, and after a month, Peel (the preloaded app) also renamed itself to Smart Remote (from Peel). We've held on to our name, and they've held on to theirs, which has caused a lot of confusion.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.remotefair...

zrgiu_on Amazon Underground

This is Android - what about apps that run mostly in the background ? A music player, fitness tracker, activity tracker? What about apps that run continuously, like a launcher ?

zrgiu_on Amazon Underground

remember that you paid $4.64, but 30% of that went to Amazon anyway. Generally, about 2-3% of the people who would download a free app would also pay for it, which could make Underground a good choice. People who haven't paid though, aren't as invested, and are more likely to quit using that app sooner.

Also, there's the niche issue: it's very possible that fighting fantasy fans are more likely to pay for their apps, which means none of these numbers applies to them.

zrgiu_on When hardware Kickstarters ship

Like this ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkk0Wqc_keg

zrgiu_on When hardware Kickstarters ship

That's maybe a discussion for another medium, but we're actually updating the app right now with a customizable notification - so you have access to your commands from anywhere (including lockscreen) without any kind of intrusion. Also, we already have a floating remote (facebook chathead-style) that shows on top of the lockscreen. Best of all - you can configure it to show only while you're on the home wifi.

Since they make money only with advertising, Peel is only focused on TV-watching. While we're going to have the same feature soon (tv guide with auto-switching), AnyMote is meant to do let you do much more than just control a TV and Set Top Box. It has all kinds of wifi lights support, receivers, media centers, etc.

zrgiu_on When hardware Kickstarters ship

As a hardware maker on Kickstarter who is about to ship [1], I can sort-of agree with what the article is saying. Yes, one of the most important things is to find THE right partner in China, as that can easily make or break your product.

However, if you're afraid to build your own hardware (or at least drastically modify something pre-existent), you're severely limiting your flexibility and the areas where you can innovate. Maybe it worked well for Koalasafe, which sounds like could have very well be built as just a modified version of OpenWRT with a simple installer. But it certainly wouldn't work for more than half of the other hardware projects out there. Look at the most succesful projects - Pebble, Coolest Cooler, The Micro, Dash - none of these could have gotten where they are without custom firmware.

Going back to KoalaSafe - the $100k they raised may sound like a lot of money, but it's certainly not enough to develop the kind of hardware they are using. It's enough maybe for the software part and some prototypes. You have to set your expectations straight too, and I do believe they did the best anyone could do with that money. Congrats on delivering!

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1635386542/anymote-home...

zrgiu_on Show HN: Disco Fingers – Easily create funny beats

Android only recently released APIs for sound that are accurate enough for these kinds of applications. As the % of devices running Android 5.0 starts increasing, we'll see sound mixing (and similar) apps there too.

zrgiu_on Google Play Game Services

assuming it's the same anti-piracy mechanism they use for paid apps (and it looks like it is), then you really shouldn't rely on it. Sometimes it takes hours to report an install as "licensed", and crackers have developed tools (apkmania, i'm looking at you) to automatically strip and recompile apks that contain this license check.

The way to do it would be to give developers an API they can use on a server (something we've been asking for a while), but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

zrgiu_on [dead]

Of course the author is going to bash WiFi and Bluetooth - they're promoting the only tech they use, 433Mhz radio. But what about Bluetooth LE ? It's already present in all modern smartphones (iPhone 4s+, all Android flagships from 2013+), works great, the connection lag is less than the 2sec advertised for RF in the article, and was built for the IoT.

The IoT has been struggling to break the surface for a while now, and it's not just the ability to attach a communication and control device to your door lock. It's also your WiFi-enabled TV, sound system, or even thermostat. The IoT is evolving, growing, and doesn't need "saving". Of course the Apple will help, but not for the reasons the author thinks. The real helping hand is coming from iOS 8 and it's Home Kit, bringing a standardized (and user-friendly) way of connecting everything to your phone.

zrgiu_on With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

No, they're not really. We're building Smart IR Remote (universal remote android app) and AnyMote (hardware, now on kickstarter), and we applied on IFTTT's link over a month ago, without any reply. Didn't even get back to us.

zrgiu_on Quantum Random Number Generator Created Using A Smartphone Camera

that's the beauty of it: the randomness is "bigger" for objects illuminated "just right" (half way through completely dark and 100% bright), but it still works for pictures taken in less than ideal conditions. And it's all because of the imperfections in all smartphone cameras. Out of 100.000 pictures taken in the exact same position with the same camera, do you think you can get two 100% identical ones? Even if you could get the exact same conditions (illumination, position, etc.), there are always factors like that tiny little bit of degradation that happens each second you expose the sensor to light.

zrgiu_on Hacking Sonos

Please, please, bundle the Mac OSX volume controls in an app and put it somewhere for download. I'd totally pay for that! https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*AzZdjG36qm90...

zrgiu_on Boy Who Hid in Plane’s Wheel Well Beat Long Odds in Surviving 5 ½-Hour Flight

Not 100% true - I've received steel cutlery even in an airplane (economy class, if it matters). Non U.S. flight, but it did happen.

zrgiu_on Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing

Would you mind sharing the contact details of the designer & 3d printer with me (email in profile) ? Thanks!

zrgiu_on Google permanently bans popular application from Play for not using IAP

Romania.

zrgiu_on Google permanently bans popular application from Play for not using IAP

I had one of the first 100 apps ever published on Google Play (then called Android Market). After a few months being live, I eventually implemented my own in app purchases using PayPal. Back then Google had no support for any kind of paid apps (only free apps were allowed), and Apple hadn't introduced IAPs. Still, Google removed my app 3 times before I gave up republishing it. Also, in the classic Google style, when I tried to reason with them, I was simply ignored.

PS: my country still isn't allowed to sell apps, although it's an EU country.

EDIT: I want to add a clarification: Google always had this thing put in Google Play's terms and conditions. It was there when Android Market was unveiled, although another year and a half passed until they slowly started allowing people to sell apps. And they did it knowingly, just to push free apps which have ads as the only way of monetizing. Google IS an advertising company after all (98% of their revenue, right?)

zrgiu_on Facebook can now read your texts

Like others have said, on Android you can use App Ops, and if you're on 4.4.2, App Ops X ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.colortiger... disclaimer: I developed it). It still sucks that you're on an "open" platform but you still have to root/jailbreak your phone to keep your privacy.

zrgiu_on Awful app review trend among Turkish users

We had the same problem, but with Russia. Ours being a paid app and our reviews being in the low 1000s, every 1-star rating was hurting us badly, so we removed Russia completely from our distribution. We added it back a month later and things went back to normal, but that's definitely something that we shouldn't need to have done.

zrgiu_on Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

Color Tiger dev here - actually with our version and root access you can install a recompiled version of AppOps with a few extended features as well - rebranded as AppOps X

zrgiu_on Show HN: Gmail.js – JavaScript API for Gmail

I'd love to use this but I can't figure out what's the action/event for when I open an email to read it. I'm sure it's there, I just can't see it ..

zrgiu_on Who needs 'internet' when we have fax? An 'expert's' view from 1996

They buried something. And now it's reaching out, calling us in. And you came. So when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? I'll tell you why. Because it was there! Brilliant! Human beings. You are amazing!

The author notices that people use the internet to discover things they didn't know before, but fails to recognize how HUGE that is. People are suckers for information. One characteristic at the base of our existence and development is curiosity. Curiosity got us to 1996, when the internet was just starting up, but curiosity also got us to the fax machine and the phone.

Yes, there will also be business people. There will always be people trying to make money off it, because that's another thing that characterizes most of us. But at the core, all we want to ever do is be better in any way possible, we want to simply .. know more.

zrgiu_on Nokia was developing an Android phone before the Microsoft purchase

Nokia was experimenting with Android, as any serious business would. You have to explore every option, so that if upper management decides to go that way, they are ready. It's completely normal. Hell, they'll probably continue experimenting, even if it's just to see how Android compares to Windows on the same hardware in terms of speed.

zrgiu_on Stanford scientists use DNA to assemble a transistor from graphene

This is a great achievement towards developing new methods of creating usable graphene, but they key word here is "usable". As the article says, not all created graphene follows the pattern required for usable transistors, and it's a process that's going to get exponentially harder to refine as you try to get closer perfection.

Until we get there, I'm tending to treat this as another graphene vaporware, since I haven't actually seen anyone use any form of graphene for building some kind of usable (and more efficient) piece of tech larger than a few microns. I truly believe graphene to be "the real next big thing", but we're not there just yet.

zrgiu_on Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

What kind of computer was it ? What OS ?

zrgiu_on The Wikipedia layer has been removed from Google Maps

Almost all Osm apps on Android I've tried freeze completely when you zoom out to more than 1/4 Tokyo level. Is this any better ?

Edit: just downloaded the full version, and I can confirm it's a lot better than every other Osm apps I've tried. I'm using a Galaxy S4 by the way