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Ask HN: Share an idea?

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Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#51

Post by yitchelle »

phalgunr wrote: post #5

An Amazon for renting things. All the top Google search results looked antiquated.. edit: my search query was just "rent anything"

Rentoid [1] was one that started about 10 yeas ago in Australia. Not 100% how well it was working. At least it is still going when I checked a few minutes ago.

Although its idea is slightly different to being an Amazon. It allows your items to be rented out instead of sitting in your shed gathering dust. Kinda like p2p renting.

[1] - http://www.rentoid.com/

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#52

Post by danieltillett »

gamegoblin wrote: post #49
danieltillett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice idea. I think you will find the hardest thing will be that so many typefaces are near clones of each other. It might be easier to just match to the closest open source typeface.

Definitely true. That's why you'd have to print out the top N fonts it thinks it's similar to. Something like 1. Foo Bar Lite Italic - 99.1% 2. Foo Bar Italic - 97.2% 3. Baz Bar Lite Italic - 97.0% 4. Foo Baz Italic - 95.4% ... etc maybe give the top 10 or so ... Another problem is many logos and whatnot have been hand-tweaked from their original font.

Yes it is a hard problem. It might be worth trying on a small scale with a few close typefaces to see how hard it is to separate them and what sort of accuracy could be achieved.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#54

Post by vishalzone2002 »

dulse wrote: post #43

1) A lightweight CRM for friends. I'd love a tool that takes the teachings of someone like Keith Ferrazzi and builds a simple tool around making it much easier for me to be a better networker. Facebook doesn't quite get the use cases right, and neither does linkedin, and other CRMs are too heavy weight to be practical. Maybe with tips on managing my professional networking life in addition to my individual relationsh…

+1 for #3. I was working very actively on that problem about a year ago. The issue is to scale such thing with current way. Also typical chicken and egg problem

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#55

Post by danieltillett »

jqm wrote: post #45
danieltillett wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The areas that are suitable is a function of the price. If the Californian Almond industry runs out of water then other more marginal areas will become viable.

They require a certain climate. That's why they aren't already being commercially planted in other places which they would be at current high prices if commercial production in those places were viable. The media like to beat up on California nuts. But really, the largest and most unnecessary user of California water is Alfalfa. That is the low hanging fruit (no pun intended) in water savings.

Growing rice is also insane.

Yes the major problem with water in California is its current ownership and pricing. Almonds should be near the top of the most productive agricultural uses of water. Almonds also look rather nice - certainly much more interesting than alfalfa.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#56

Post by vishalzone2002 »

1. deliver organic and healthy food at airports and hotels. When a user checks in for boarding pass, the delivery is ready. One delivery per flight..

2. building your own store curated from your favorite brands only. Every user gets discount on their fav brand and there is a limit to number of brands

3. Hire a local "expert" to build your itinerary when you are visiting that local's town/city.

4. An new email platform built with UI in mind for non-personal emails like newsletters, marketing offers, etc.

happy to work with or share more.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#57

Post by brador »

stuntgoat wrote: post #6

Pay for full time, beat-walking emergency medical technicians in shitty neighborhoods. This would prevent a lot of unneeded hospital visits and offer basic health services. A lot cheaper than 911 calls. I imagine having people on the ground would prevent a lot of problems.

There are some European Jewish communities that do this. Example: NW London has community funded Jewish ambulances.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#58

Post by dagw »

rayalez wrote: post #42
rayalez wrote: post #29

- Startup: create a universal and convenient micropayment system that would allow content creators(writers, comics-artists, video creators) to monetize their content. The problem now is that current systems suck, and each website has it's own, so that it's not convenient for users to pay for content, they have to enter credit card, or go to paypal, etc. There should be a nice embeddable button that allows users to pa…

Other stuff: - All text editors on android suck. My god they suck so much. Create something like Editorial, and you have my money. - Not sure of it exists - betting website. Allow people to deposit money and make small bets. Make it convenient for reddit users, so when 2 people are arguing they could bet on a thing and see what will happen. Or target it to fanfiction readers, to bet on what will happen in the followi…

Use ML and CV and image recognition to do something cool with google maps. It's just an interesting idea, use CV to analyze google maps data.

As someone working with something vaguely related to this sort of thing. Let me just say, use Open Street Maps. Google mapping data and the licensing thereof is a huge pain and often straight up impossible. Don't lock yourself into developing something for a platform where you will be forbidden from selling or even distributing the fruits of your labor. Plus with OSM you get direct access to the underlying vector data, which in most cases will save you an arduous and error prone processing step

Other than that, the whole field is wide open for all kinds of awesome ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#59

Post by lewisl9029 »

Here's my pet idea for a hardware product I'd totally use:

A Google Glass like device without most of the functionality (no camera or mics) or processing hardware (doesn't have to run its own OS), except the display (this should cut down costs quite a bit and make it a bit more feasible to manufacturer and purchase than Google Glass itself).

You connect devices to it using Miracast and/or some other wireless display tech and extend/mirror your smartphone/laptop displays.

It can serve as a portable multi-monitor setup for productivity, or a simple portable heads-up display for entertainment (video playback, reading) or utility uses (navigation).

That'd be the MVP anyways. In future revisions you can maybe add things like a mic and/or camera for things like augmented reality and voice control, but figure out how to offload the processing to the master device (laptop/smartphone) rather than dedicating hardware to it on the device itself for affordability and battery life.

Re: Ask HN: Share an idea?

#60

Post by brador »

danieltillett wrote: post #52
gamegoblin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true. That's why you'd have to print out the top N fonts it thinks it's similar to. Something like 1. Foo Bar Lite Italic - 99.1% 2. Foo Bar Italic - 97.2% 3. Baz Bar Lite Italic - 97.0% 4. Foo Baz Italic - 95.4% ... etc maybe give the top 10 or so ... Another problem is many logos and whatnot have been hand-tweaked from their original font.

Yes it is a hard problem. It might be worth trying on a small scale with a few close typefaces to see how hard it is to separate them and what sort of accuracy could be achieved.

Definately not a hard problem. For logos, impossible because of customisation, but for regular text, it's simple. Capture image, make a box around text, warp to flatten, highten contrast, split characters, process characters for features, check against database of known features of fonts. It's similar to a facial recognition algorithm.

Problem is no monetization potential, so it's hobby project level.

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