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rlalwani

217 karma · joined August 12, 2011

I am an entrepreneur at heart. My areas of interest include B2C, creator economy, and crypto.
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rlalwani··on [dead]
I am the creator behind this beautifully illustrated comic book series—starting with Volume 1, featuring Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and Hawking. If you’re a parent, a science teacher, or just a curious mind who loves science, we’d love your support on Kickstarter! Any feedback is also much appreciated.
rlalwani··on US Supreme Court Snubs Epic Games Legal Battle with Apple
The high court’s decision will allow an appeals court ruling go into effect that lets developers direct iPhone users to cheaper purchasing options outside of Apple’s system.
rlalwani··on US Supreme Court Snubs Epic Games Legal Battle with Apple
The justices turned away Epic's appeal of a lower court's decision that Apple's App Store policies limiting how software is distributed and paid for do not violate federal antitrust laws. The justices also decided not to hear Apple's appeal of the same decision, which barred certain App Store rules.
rlalwani··on Amazon and Anthropic Announce Strategic Collaboration to Advance Generative AI
Amazon will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic and have a minority ownership position in the company.
rlalwani··on Amazon to Invest as Much as $4B in AI Startup Anthropic
"Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) will invest as much as $4 billion in Anthropic, bagging a crucial partner in its effort to become a major player in generative artificial intelligence and offering a vote of confidence in the hot startup."
rlalwani··on Ripple token is a not security when sold to the general public
XRP is up. $0.60158 at the moment.
rlalwani··on Ripple token is a not security when sold to the general public
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-13/ripple-to...
rlalwani··on The Christmas Movie That Became a Classic Because of a Mistake
The role of accidents, chance and serendipity can be crucial to success. It’s the reason people still watch a black-and-white film every year.
rlalwani··on Why are we conscious? – BBC
New research is changing our understanding of the origins of consciousness.
rlalwani··on Chicago scientists are testing an unhackable quantum internet in their basement
Quantum research at a University of Chicago lab could help prevent hacking and connect a future web of supercomputers
rlalwani··on A Corporate Law Firm Led a Political Revolution
If you have recently felt that the Supreme Court seems beholden to someone, you are not wrong. Don McGahn and the law firm Jones Day are the key figures.
rlalwani··on Can computer simulations help fix democracy?
Gerrymandering is a big problem and this tool helps convince judges that the map drawn is a biased one. Read the article to see how it works.
rlalwani··on Can computer simulations help fix democracy?
A technological revolution has made it harder for politicians to get away with gerrymandering.
rlalwani··on Apple will let developers accept payment outside App Store
This is really big news. Waiting to see some more details. Apparently nothing changes if you decide to take in-app payments but you will be able to take payments outside App Store and avoid the 30% cut Apple takes.
rlalwani··on It Will Take Years for Smart People to Understand Cryptocurrencies
Is it like the Internet in 1995? Time will tell but it has the same potential to change our lives forever; and break government's monopoly on the (fake) money.
rlalwani··on Show HN: App and Comics on Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace, Mary Anning
Thank you. We got some feedback from readers (make them funny) which we are incorporating. We are working on 6 new titles starting with Archimedes.
rlalwani··on Show HN: App and Comics on Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace, Mary Anning
I hear you. I am not a big fan of apps either - web is based on open standards and decentralized. But micropayments are a problem on the web. In-app purchases do work. Push notifications do matter. If you are right about the web, how do you explain the rise of apps? Gmail, Facebook, Instagram could easily be web-based but their app versions are far more popular. I think you raise a good point though. I am afraid I don't have all the answers but I do see some reasons as I mentioned earlier.
rlalwani··on Show HN: App and Comics on Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace, Mary Anning
Being able to monetize for quality content is one of the main purposes of this experiment. For our content as well as other people's content in future. I don't understand why content creators have to give away the content for free and "beg" for donations on Patreon. We will allow them to combine the two. There in-app purchases help quite a bit even though we end up losing 10-25% to the app stores.

There are some other reasons related to user experience. We can do a bit more in an app than what we can do in a browser e.g. push notifications for new titles and more control over UI. Also, I feel people like apps because people like to put things in "buckets" mentally.

But you are right - if/when we get some traction, we will provide a full-fledged platform on the Web also. People can choose where they want to read. Thanks for your thoughts.

rlalwani··on Show HN: App and Comics on Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace, Mary Anning
Hi all,

We spent last one year to create an app, Tinyview Comics Reader, and a comic series, IN SCIENCE WE TRUST, to tell stories of scientists like Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace and Mary Anning. Working with artists like Jack Richardson whose illustrations have appeared in publications like the Economist, and Andy Warner, the NY Times Best Selling author of Brief Histories of Everyday Objects and This Land is My Land. He is a contributing editor at The Nib and teaches cartooning at Stanford University.

These are our initial titles and we are learning a lot for future titles (adding a healthy dose of humor). I hope you enjoy them. Alan Turing and Mary Anning are FREE and first two chapters of Nikola Tesla are also FREE.

The app is easy to use and lets you read comics in vertically scrollable manner. We want it to be a platform for other comics too - so there is more content for users and more users and in-app purchase/subscription for content creators.

Please share any feedback. Thank you!

rlalwani··on Startup Quote
Love the site. Love the quotes.
rlalwani··on What Sank Yahoo? Blame Its Nice Guy Founders
Brief history of Yahoo! and mistakes it made.
rlalwani··on Pokémon Go will soon get ads in the form of sponsored locations
Very natural monetization idea. There are already some businesses who are promoting presence of pokestops or gyms nearby. Imagine what will happen if a cafe or a bar was a gym! People will just sit there and train their pokemons and compete with each other. Brilliant!
rlalwani··on [dead]
Wow. This is big. SolarCity shares surged 24% in after-hours trading, while Tesla shares fell 6.7%.
rlalwani··on Bitcoin: Ringing the Bell for a New Asset Class
From Barrons - ARK Invest published a research report earlier this month, in conjunction with Coinbase, calling bitcoin an “new asset class” altogether.
rlalwani··on Customizable IoT button can be programmed to do anything
Amazon Web Services IoT Button is a physical button for software developers, that can be programmed to control Internet of Things devices.

The button is aimed at software developers who want to utilize AWS IoT services without having to write device-specific code. Instead they can simply connect the button to wifi and create an Amazon Web Services account. Then, they can program the button to perform different functions in response to different commands. For example, a single click for on and a double click for off. The device, which can be integrated with third party APIs like Twitter, Facebook and Slack, has seemingly endless possible uses. It can be used to open a garage door, order an Uber, call a designated person, turn on the coffee machine in the morning, or work as a check-in device for Airbnb guests.

rlalwani··on comiXology Unlimited
This is big news. ComiXology, which is now owned by Amazon, was pay per view until now. Now it's also offering subscription plan for $5.99 per month. Netflix for comics?
rlalwani··on [dead]
In a filing with the U.S. District Court in Riverside, Calif., the government said an "outside party" on Sunday demonstrated to the Federal Bureau of Investigation a possible method for unlocking the phone of Syed Rizwan Farook.

If true, that would be embarassing for Apple. I think there are some security holes in current iOS which Apple is trying to close in future.

rlalwani··on Spark or Hadoop – Which Is the Best Big Data Framework?
Good article on those wondering about Spark vs. Hadoop. Bottom line: Spark may not be as mature as Hadoop yet, it is probably the way to go. One big advantage is that Spark runs in-memory and the performance can be up to 100x of Hadoop.
rlalwani··on 3 Prototyping Tools Compared: Invision, Marvel and Justinmind
I knew about Invision but I recently discovered Justinmind. I feel this is a good article comparing these three tools for prototyping.
rlalwani··on Mossberg: Apple’s Own Apps Need Work
I completely agree. Walt Mossberg is being polite. The situation is much worse.
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