amartya916

While it is indeed true, this isn't a very unique talent and I really don't think that any nurturing is required. I comlpetely agree with the first comment that this seems to not fall within Hacker News guidelines. While the aesthetic quality of the photos is indeed quite high, I fear for Hacker News being "reddit"-ified.

The biography is a complete disaster. After I finished reading it, I found that there was nothing to take away. Actually, I highly recommend John Siracusa's point-by-point dissection of the biography at 5by5, the show is called Hypercritical and listen to episodes 42 and 43. Link: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical

Siracusa pulls no punches and each and every one of his criticisms is well thought through.

I don't know why your comment is being down voted. It's perfectly okay for people on Hacker News to be expected to add "_nomap" to the SSID but for most people, they just won't even be aware that Google's collecting this data, let alone figure out how to opt-out.

I love Google as a company but it seems that more and more of it seems to be getting shrouded behind lawyer speak. It makes me uncomfortable.

It seems that the sandbox may allow for easier iCloud syncing. Since even Apple's apps like Pages, Keynote etc. cannot sync data to iCloud, it seems like an obvious feature to implement. I hope they allow App store curated 3rd party apps iCloud access as well.

Exactly. Which is why the only time I quote a review in a post is when it's one from Anandtech. It takes a solid hour and a little more for me to go through their reviews and it's always a pleasure because one comes out wiser at the end of it. In this review, I really enjoyed reading the A5 architecture and the optics section, it was interesting that they bothered to dig out where the optics might be sourced from (Genius Opt.).

Retro-record is a great way of putting it but I think a phone app doesn't really need retro-record even in this case. However, phone integration with lookxie (http://looxcie.com/) might be interesting.

The Nexus video is colour corrected as well.

Absolutely on the money. Roboto looks really similar to Helvetica; in fact, so similar, that it wouldn't be improper to accuse Google of ripping off something without due credit (at least the presentation had nothing to say about Helvetica). Google has the money to license a font, and with Apple moving to Helvetica Neue as the default font on iOS , Helvetica could have been a fair option.

That being said, I like Robota and am glad that Android has a nicer font now. Also, people don't care, or shouldn't have to care, if it's Helvetica or something else, as long as it is more pleasing to the eye. On that count, Google did a good thing; good but not classy.

Absolutely. Just for the curious, though off-topic, here's a link to the various things MSR is involved with: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/areas.aspx.

"If institutions offer a quality education, people will recognize that and choose that instead of online system."

Absolutely on the dot.

As an aside, there are intangibles associated with actually going to a University, e.g. interacting with people in person (serendipitous learning), that online classes cannot undermine.

I see online classes as a excellent supplement to what's being taught in class and in cases where in-class learning is not an option for an individual (monetary, time or location based constraints). It is such an exciting time to be around; we can witness exactly how social networking and online education can interplay vis-a-vis in-person, in-class learning.

Are these numbers from worldwide pre-orders? I might be wrong but I thought that this was their biggest launch (different countries same date).

Even if that's the case, the significantly higher (~66%) orders is something that people in Apple can take a bow for. Well done.

Slightly off-topic but perhaps this'll help a little bit (you may already be doing this):

a. Right-click (Secondary click) on the toolbar in Finder, click on "Customize Toolbar" b. Add the "Path" icon. c. This is really useful in that you can go through the folder hierarchy, to the target folder, within a couple of clicks.

I recommend setting up a local mail client (say Mail on the Mac, Thunderbird etc.). I just recently did this; the rationale being that I'd at least get to keep my e-mails and contacts. So even if GMail conks out or they throw me out for whatever reason, the situation won't be that bad. I think Google's a great company that provides really important services, but I'd rather hedge my bets than rely on them completely.

An aside to this thread, but Windows Phone 7 isn't as bad as you might think. I understand that you are mainly wary of the Microsoft slow moving / non-exciting culture but Windows Phone 7 is quite exciting. Microsoft Research does a lot of really fabulous HCI research and slowly but surely it is percolating through the company despite having dinosaurs like Ballmer in charge. To refer to a lame example, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that a phone UI actually used amodal completion in it's design(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amodal_perception). A mobile phone with its limited screen real estate is ideal for such a design and I believe this came out of their research lab.

Anyway, Siegler's article had the interesting reference to Amazon. If Jeff Bezos/Amazon picks up WebOS, it might just have a chance of survival.

More like, joint bidders had a greater chance of getting the bounty, Google chose to ignore Microsoft's proposal. Apple took them up on the offer. That's how childish Google has become (or rather their legal and PR teams).

"An effective duopoly of iOS and WP7 would be bad for consumers in the short term due to decreased competition, and even worse in the long term due to the effects of all mainstream mobile platforms being locked down."

I broadly agree with you on this count. However, I think that for us, the techie community, the fact that a majority of mobile platforms are locked might be an issue; for the average customer it is not.

"Not mutually exclusive." Again agreed broadly but it can be argued that at the end of the day Google is a company chasing revenues (just like every other company) and not having to get involved in patent litigation is going to save "them" money. While the patent system might be broken, but as long as it's not fixed, Google has to play along (just like MSFT and AAPL). I just do not see how they can ever take the higher ground here, other than being miffed at missing the deal.

The true price of any commodity is not static, it is always dependent on competition/availability/demand etc. The patents might be worth 1 billion, but if Google offered in excess of 3 billion, they thought that it was worth the price "in the current environment". Also Google can claim that the patents were worth 1 billion, but they have a vested interest in portraying this as being the case. I am a little cynical of such claims.

Absolutely spot on. That being said, in this rare occasion, I think John Gruber is raising points that needed to be raised. If you read Google's version of the story, it'd seem like Google is the champion of innovation and it is being targeted due to the success of Android, and crucially, it's in the customer's interest that these patents shouldn't be used against them. Well not really; it's basically in Google's interest. To say nothing about their own 3.14 billion dollar bid for Nortel's patent portfolio and then claiming that their true worth was 1 billion, being completely disingenuous.