Swift support on android [I'm aware of kotlin et al, I'm the kind of guy who never got well with Java]
Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
61–70 of 219 posts
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#62I want a backend service I can call from my statically generated (i.e. jekyll) websites, to implement things like blog comments, analytics, etc. A true cloud platform where I don't have to mess with admining and provisioning servers and containers. I want to just upload my code and pay for the cycles and bandwidth I use. Aws lambda for http basically.
I started to take a swing at the comments part a couple years ago with firebase: https://github.com/mimming/firebase-jekyll-comments
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#63Source-specific IP Multicast support on the open internet, which probably needs some serious magic to make it feasible on core routers, if it is solvable at all. Some shabby server in someone's basement could stream data to millions. CDNs would no longer be needed.
There is a great fear of Multicast from many network engineers I talk to. This comes from at its core, it being too easy to create cycles. At the internet scale the potential for cycles would be even higher, b/c the TTL needed would have to be on the order of ~20-30 hops, and many engineers will just set this number too high. Now I don't have experience with Source-specific Multicast, which is supposed to resolve the…
About scalability, a possible compromise might be making some distance-based limitations. I.e. limit subscriptions per prefix or adjust packet drop rates.
That way regional SSM can still be useful and local islands (which whould hopefully grow over time) could be bridged by unicast links or - if they have overlap - by leapfrogging.
Even at the ISP level there would be still be use-cases for SSM.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#64A solution for game assets building. Ideally it would be possible to build all assets (maps, models, textures, binaries) in a game from source files to the format that's distributed to people. Unfortunately due to the build times for certain things like maps it's not feasible to rebuild everything before every release. Combined with the fact that the files are relatively large means that we can't store everything in…
I assume you're talking about a large 3d game? Are you using Unity3D? Because if you are, then building game assets involves scripting the Unity3D client itself, which is a huge pain in the ass. As for the git problem, why not use svn or perforce for the game assets? They handle binaries much better than git does.
Yes, it's a large 3d game made in the Source Engine. Luckily all tools are scriptable using bash.
Using svn for the game assets would work but to build them we would still need the shaders for example, which would live in the git repository alongside the rest of the code of the game. The resulting problem is that the asset git/svn should be triggered to rebuild when the code git changes. I'm looking for a tool that could help with that.
Thanks for the suggestion of perforce, I'll look at that.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cloud is problematic because of cost of bandwidth and storage compared to local solutions. Until bandwidth is actually plentiful, uncapped, and cheap, I would rather have a local solution.
We're talking about a setup that's already plugged into the wall (triple monitors, keyboard, mouse). Just have the phone use Wifi. I'll admit, having a self contained setup would be nicer, but that's not going to happen until batteries get much denser or phones get a lot more efficient.
I'm not sure why what I plug it into cannot have its own computing and storage power. There are wired caps on data too.
In fact, why the heck did Apple sell a display and an iMac? Why not insert a processor board (a blade) into the display to turn it into an iMac? Why was the Mac Pro anything more than a bunch of slots for blades?
I want to carry a small display, some storage, and computing power and be able to dock it with more storage, display, and computing power. I really think we need to examine the PC in the post-PC world. Given the prices, I'm fine with the cloud being my backup, not work environment.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#66I have a really bad memory, but the part that affects me most is inability to remember conversations, even fairly recent ones (like the day before). Just zero recall of it ever happening. I'd love a way to quickly and unobtrusively log 'talked with Able and Baker about X Y and Z at such and such time and place'. Right now all I can think of is typing it into my phone or writing in a notepad. But having such a solutio…
Kind of like the rememberance agents the early wearable computing people used? http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/Papers/wear-ra.html
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really miss the laptops that had physical switches and the little sliding camera covers. I'd even settle for a good case that just covers/muffles all of that.
especially microphones are a problem - you can always sticky tape the camera but you can not easily reversibly incapacitate the microphone
Especially since they don't even have to be surface mounted. It'd really be nice to be able to trust devices.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#68In the age of Single Page Applications that work almost without any backend I am missing a BaaS - Backend as a Service, that would handle users (sign up, sign in, forgot password), their data (save some user generated data, load user generated data) and payment processing at the same time. Right now you could try to combine Kinvey with Stripe or Cognito with PayPal but it is not easy at all.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#69I want to slot my phone into a dock connected to three high resolution monitors and a keyboard/mouse and be able to do development work. Essentially, when it's in my hand it's in Phone Mode, when it's in the dock it's in Desktop PC mode. We are getting there with tablets. You can do this with the Surface for example thanks to Display Link technology. I just want the device to be phone sized , around 5.5" or so with a…
Motorolla had this thing about 5 years ago: http://allthingsd.com/20110216/motorola-atrix-android-phone-...
It sounds like it didn't perform that great but with the more modern phone hardware and possibly some hardware in the dock to help with coprocessing (graphics card, more RAM, etc), you could build something quite useful. With the advent of USB Type C, docking stations for phones could definitely work. Gigabyte has even showed off a Thunderbolt/Type C external graphics card. I can definitely see souped up docking stations coming out within the next year or so. I could also see laptop versions of this coming out soon too for users that want a more portable version.
Re: Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about a setup that's already plugged into the wall (triple monitors, keyboard, mouse). Just have the phone use Wifi. I'll admit, having a self contained setup would be nicer, but that's not going to happen until batteries get much denser or phones get a lot more efficient.
I'm not sure why what I plug it into cannot have its own computing and storage power. There are wired caps on data too. In fact, why the heck did Apple sell a display and an iMac? Why not insert a processor board (a blade) into the display to turn it into an iMac? Why was the Mac Pro anything more than a bunch of slots for blades? I want to carry a small display, some storage, and computing power and be able to dock…
Hmm. That's an interesting idea. How would the phone and the PC work together, though? I could see it work if they were all the same architecture. Then you're just adding more ram and cores.
Actually, the ram could be an issue. For example, say you're running a video editing program that's using 15gb of ram and you want to undock. You'd need some way of storing the state of the program and the ram its using when it's not docked. Either that or you'd be forced to shut it down completely.