Hacker News Reader

There's a very interesting quote from that page towards the bottom:

"Jim and I believed in the Jeffersonian ideal that a inventor has a lock on an idea for a limited period of time. There were many ideas in this code that could have been patented, however we chose not to pursue it. We chose the Trade Secret route. Because of that, this code did not end up in the hands of a Patent troll. Now it can be mixed back into the culture, to be recycled and reinvented."

The ability to control the RGB notification LED (and the vibration motor) via the audio engine made for some really nice notification effects (and the ability to differentiate between dozens of different types of notifications at a glance, or even at a feel) was great. There were a lot of HoH people who loved the fact that notifications were differentiable by feel.

trivia lovers will note beatnik was founded by thomas dolby