redbell

This was discussed a couple of weeks ago on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1jddo84/the_new...

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42293832

Also, this -somehow- related Ask HN is a true classic, at least for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32186203

> In the European Union, developers can also distribute notarized iOS and iPadOS apps from alternative app marketplaces and directly from their website.

Well, this was only possible because the EU had pushed hard toward this openness otherwise, we wouldn't expect Apple to do this.

> For everything else there is always the open Internet. If the App Store model and guidelines or alternative app marketplaces and Notarization for iOS and iPadOS apps are not best for your app or business idea that’s okay, we provide Safari for a great web experience too.

IMO, Safari on iOS do not have a great experience for web devs who are willing to distribute their apps as PWAs, especially when there is no alternative browser that provides additional capabilities, they are all skinned Safaris. Take for instance the Vibration API [1], it has been supported since a long time in Chrome mobile but not in Safari. I believe it does an excellent job in giving a PWA some native-feeling when being used. Still though, I still miss that haptic feedback is not yet supported by Chrome. Bluetooth [2] is yet another missing API in Safari.

Of course, for these (and other) web APIs to be abused by developers, I encourage browser vendors to disable them by default when requested from a website and enable them ONLY on user consent. On the other hand, when a user installs the PWA, these privileges should be granted automatically with the ability to disable them by the user.

To finalize, another excellent API that facilitate the installation of PWAs by triggering an install prompt [3] is not supported in iOS Safari, which does really makes me wonder: "How Safari provides a great web experience?"

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1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Vibration_A...

2. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetoo...

3. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

Ironically, when Redis changed their license a couple of months ago, I commented back then [1]:

But who knows what the future holds? Maybe the Redis team will change their mind and revert back the decision like Elastic Search did a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41394797

Yeah, that future had come, and Redis is free again!

Thanks antirez and to all the team behind Redis.

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1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41611636#41612750

I saw many solo devs recommend switching to an LLC company to avoid the hassle Google introduced since late 2023, but it doesn't seem to be an easy task either. I've already witnessed two experiences:

https://x.com/stacy_siz/status/1875849200291975339

https://blog.jakelee.co.uk/publishing-on-google-play-without...

For the curious, here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184291

> run Excel on Linux in Excel

This remind me of the top comment on Puter's post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838179):

"I am the author of the 'app' called Puter which loads up Puter inside Puter, which then loads up the Puter app again, which ..."

Really cool work, love it!

I first discovered this about three months ago in a reddit comment under 'r/geography', and I still, from time to time, use it and enjoy it. Back then, I posted it here in HN, but zero traction!

Anyway, for those interested in previous discussions, here we are:

(2020), 556 points, 266 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25104787

(2017), 193 points, 66 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327973

(2019), 155 points, 49 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898538

(2015), 105 points, 36 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182024

As a software developer, I’ve occasionally felt ashamed when it takes me hours—or even days—to fix a stubborn bug. But whenever I see that even big tech companies struggle with similar issues, I regain confidence in myself. After all, this is what being a software engineer often looks like: wrestling with unpredictable behavior until something finally clicks.

Just yesterday, I ran into a bizarre bug on Windows where the mouse cursor would move every time I pressed the arrow keys—almost like I was controlling the mouse with the keyboard. It drove me nuts. I checked all the usual mouse and keyboard settings, but everything looked normal. At one point, I even wondered if my machine had been infected by a virus.

Desperate, I Googled "mouse pointer moving on arrow keys". The first result had only one answer, which blamed... Microsoft Paint. I was skeptical—Paint? Really? That couldn’t possibly be it. Still, with no other leads, I gave it a shot. As it turned out, I did have Paint open in another Desktop View, where I’d been cropping a screenshot. The moment I closed it, the problem vanished. Instantly.

I still can’t believe that was the cause—and I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, even though no one was around to see it.

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1. https://superuser.com/questions/1467313/mouse-pointer-moving...

I'm not sure if it's just me hallucinating, but it seems like with every new model release, it suddenly tops all the benchmark charts—sometimes leaving the competition in the dust. Of course, only real-world testing by actual users across diverse tasks can truly reveal a model’s performance. That said, I still find a sense of excitement and hope for the future of AI every time a new open-source model is released.

The fact this event is trending in four different posts all are currently in the front page of HN says a lot! Hope moderators combines them all under one unified thread. See also:

There are reports of widespread power cuts in Spain and Portugal (bbc.co.uk): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43820163

Spain, Portugal and parts of France hit by power outage (euronews.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43820177

Nationwide Power Outages Also Disrupt Internet Traffic in Portugal and Spain (twitter.com/cloudflareradar): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43819914

Yes, the original title was something like "icôNES" and I got downvoted to death!

> Whether you love or hate Word, love or hate Microsoft itself, in the end you have Apple to thank (or curse) for this programs survival

Plot twist: A decade later, Microsoft saved Apple from bankruptcy (https://www.thebusinessanecdote.com/post/when-microsoft-save...)

Excellent work, Love it, bookmark it and considered it for future use!

The HN title is, however, a bit confusing/misleading, especially at the end with 'NES' as it has a special meaning/feeling when read in the context of HN. At first, I though this was a project showing a remake of some icons from the Nintendo Entertainment System. Also, the word Icône (with 'e' at the end and accent circonflexe on letter 'o') is the French translation of icon.

> It will use information it knows about you to arrive at the answer.. and when I asked it how, it mentioned that it knows I live nearby.

Oh! RIP privacy :(

I’ve pretty much given up on the idea that we can fully protect our privacy while still getting the most out of these services. In the end, it’s a tradeoff—and I’ve accepted that.

> But who would buy it? An OpenAI executive says his employer would be interested.

These days, OpenAI seems to be leaning more toward expending its business beyond AI. Not sure why, but they may have come across a roadblock that is holding them back from achieving AGI soon. The past few days we heard that they maybe in the process of building a social network [1] and the willingness to buy the AI IDE, Windsurf [2].

Also, from the article:

> Among the DOJ's witnesses on the second day of the trial was Nick Turley, head of product for ChatGPT at OpenAI.

Perplexity has also been asked to testify in the Google DOJ case [3] and their opinion about Chrome was:

"Google should not be broken up. Chrome should remain within and continue to be run by Google. Google deserves a lot of credit for open-sourcing Chromium, which powers Microsoft's Edge and will also power Perplexity's Comet. Chrome has become the dominant browser due to incredible execution quality at the scale of billions of users"

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1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43694877

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43716856

3. https://x.com/AravSrinivas/status/1914373458982805888

This isn’t just a dark pattern — it’s dark matter. The kind where it says 'cancel anytime,' but when you actually try, it throws up a screen like: 'Please proceed by faxing us from the moon.'

> ..and could go against what most people have become accustomed to.

I think that’s the tough reality—over time, people gradually become accustomed to consuming random content from random accounts or pages, to the point where the original idea of interacting with friends and family on social media starts to fade away. That said, messaging apps might still bridge that gap through groups.

> Not sure how people fell so hard for "Microsoft <3 Open Source" but it's never been true

I think it's important to highlight that the "Microsoft <3 Linux" narrative deserves some scrutiny too: (https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/lbp1m8/for_anyone_th...)

> but there definitively need a switch to disable that if it is your own will

Sure! Otherwise we won't be able to smoothly run our own servers on our phones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31841051

That was fun and definitely a bit challenging to figure out—I scored 3677, landing in the top 46%, with an average of 9.2 years.

As for some (hopefully constructive) feedback: I think the year selection slider could benefit from a few adjustments. If an image is from the distant past—say, pre-1950s—it might make more sense to use decade-based precision rather than individual years. For example, a black-and-white photo had me way off that caused me to lose 20 years of my life :). It would be helpful if such images were categorized more broadly, something like “191x”.

For mid-century images (roughly 1960–1990), a 5-year interval could strike a better balance. I came across one from that era and was six years off. And for more recent images, say post-2010, a one-year precision feels reasonable.

Of course, this suggestion mainly applies if we're deducing the year based on visual cues like clothing, hairstyles, and the environment. If the game is intended more as a quiz based on the text descriptions under the images, then it shifts more into trivia territory—and that’s a different type of challenge altogether.

Oh! This was already discussed five years ago with 77 pts and 40 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24304311)

Really cool project! TIL about 'data:' URLs—while I was familiar with the 'data:' URI scheme and had used it before, I didn’t realize it could be used as a full URL. Funny enough, I had been thinking about building something similar that fits entirely within a QR code, but I held off because I mistakenly thought it would require an HTTP(s) link. I was heavily inspired by this work: Can you fit a whole game into a QR code?(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExwqNreocpg)

I'm not entirely sure if this strategy will work out well for OpenAI. In my opinion, an AI company, especially in its early stages, should focus intensely on refining and expanding its core products—those they plan to monetize through APIs—rather than diverting resources toward acquiring wrapper companies. Cursor, for instance, gained traction by embedding Anthropic's Claude Sonnet model to automate programming tasks. If OpenAI were to acquire Cursor or a similar IDE, a key question arises: would they keep it open to other models, or would they restrict it to OpenAI's ecosystem?

Additionally, there’s speculation that OpenAI might be venturing into social media (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43694877). If true, this could open up numerous competitive fronts that the company may struggle to handle effectively. They’re already dealing with fierce competition in their core business, so expanding too quickly into unrelated areas could spread their focus and resources too thin, potentially weakening their competitiveness in unfamiliar markets.

> Google is silently winning the AI race

Yep, I agree! This convinced me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661235

I consider AlphaGo - The Movie [1] to be a timeless classic that will never feel outdated. In my opinion, it surpasses even Hollywood productions, despite being based on true events and filmed live with real people. I'm ranking it as #2, though, because I still believe Steve Jobs' 2007 iPhone presentation [2] is the greatest live tech event ever captured on film. Hearing the crowd screaming when seeing some tricks and techniques ( eg. slide to unlock, pinch to zoom and scrolling up) on how to use the phone does really triggers some haptic feedback in my heart because we are now so used to these tricks that were pure magic back then.

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1.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y

2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg

> The whole point of paying for MarkMonitor is that they're an expensive service for valuable domains

A while ago and, out of curiosity, I did a Whois Lookup to see what big tech companies are using as their domain registrar and found that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix and Shopify are all using MarkMonitor. On the other hand Apple uses "Nom-iq Ltd. dba COM LAUDE", Meta (and its children) uses RegistrarSafe and Nvidia uses SafeNames.

But the dot com domain is now owned by Zoom Communications or just Zoom (as we know it). If you type "zoom.us" in your browser, you will be redirected to https://www.zoom.com/

> Any AI responses used for email support are now clearly labeled as such

Also, from the first comment in the post:

> Unfortunately, this is an incorrect response from a front-line AI support bot.

Well, this actually hurts.. a lot! I believe one of the key pillars of making a great company is customer support, which represents the soul or the human part of the company.

Watched it a few days ago, and this comment kept ringing in my head for a while:

South Korean here, We are all aware of the problem, and the government is virtually doing nothing. Wish us good luck!

(Edit)

I see many people saying don't depend on government. As a father and a husband myself, of course I'm concerned for the future which my son will have to live... But those numbers are not without structural problems. People don't just give up having children, they are forced to. In this kind of situation, the government definitely has a role to play. One of the problems would be overwhelming meritocracy just as M.Sendel said, accustomed with high inequailty, politically/genderly polarized society, etc. Please do not try to judge phenomenon without knowing its causes. :)