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Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

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51–60 of 109 posts

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#51
post #8

Cute and clever. Browsing the web at 140 characters at a time.

Do you not fucking understand the concept of this technology? He's SMS'ing a png that is actually a a zip of the HTML + images/js/etc; and then "inflating" this on the client phone.

He's not doing this at "140 characters at a time"

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#52
post #8

Cute and clever. Browsing the web at 140 characters at a time.

Wrong on two counts, the first being that SMS messages are 160 characters, Twitter is 140, the second being that SMS is only used for sending requests, the real data arrives via MMS.

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#53
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who pays for the MMS you send back? You or the recipient? (Or is it free?)

The recipient pays if they don't have a messaging plan. You can send an MMS to a US T-Mobile customer by emailing 1115557777@tmomail.net (if their phone number were (111) 555-7777), so that's how I do that.

> so that's how I do that.

Probably not for long!

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#54
post #5

One of these days, the network providers are going to stop putting arbitrary labels on their data, as though "voice", "text" and "data" are not all travelling through the same towers and pipes.

The labour theory of value is not correct. People view talking, texting and internet as different, and hence businesses will charge different for them.

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#55
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A PNG is pretty much a zlib compressed bitmap.

That's not true. PNG has some filters that pre-compress the image before sending it to zlib.

I'd say that still falls under the realm of being "pretty much a zlib compressed bitmap", no?

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#56
post #55
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. PNG has some filters that pre-compress the image before sending it to zlib.

I'd say that still falls under the realm of being " pretty much a zlib compressed bitmap", no?

No, I wouldn't say that. Those filters make a huge difference to the compression ratio!

The png optimizers you see (optipng, pngcrush, etc)? What they do is carefully pick the optimum filters to get the best file size. So I'd say those filters were the most important part of the compression.

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While I was testing it, the whole pipeline, from pressing the "go" button to the page being fully rendered could take as little as 15 seconds. How is that possible? I thought the whole point of SMS was that it resided in the wasted bytes towers use when they "ping" phones. The reason text messages aren't instant is that these pings aren't sent frequently. I could be way out to lunch on my understanding, but this see…

The responses aren't sent by SMS, but MMS. My understanding is that to download an MMS you essentially get a data connection with your provider that only lets you download MMSes.

This is exactly why you are gonna get shut down.

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. I hope the app has a "don't send passwords" warning in there ;) Also, how do you (do you?) handle SSL operations, specially POSTs?

It doesn't have a "don't send passwords" warning. I should definitely add some kind of warning/disclaimer page that pops up when you boot the app. I display a warning when the user tries to navigate to an HTTPS URL that messages sent to/from Smozzy aren't encrypted and it's not recommended that you proceed. I had a general idea for an encryption scheme (hardcode Smozzy's certificate's public key into the application…

You could try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exch... Although, it would depend on finding a pre-existing implementation (remember it is a bad idea to implement your own crypto). Is there are trust-worthy source of random characters available?

Re: Show HN: Smozzy (for Android/T-Mobile) - browse the web without a data plan

#60
post #52
post #8

Cute and clever. Browsing the web at 140 characters at a time.

Wrong on two counts, the first being that SMS messages are 160 characters, Twitter is 140, the second being that SMS is only used for sending requests, the real data arrives via MMS.

By default SMS is 160 characters, but only in the default 7 bit encoding. It's 160*7 bits (of content), which is actually 140 chars in 8 bits. I guess it depends on your type of characters :)
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