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Microsoft Band

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Re: Microsoft Band

#311

Post by saralily »

piotrkaminski wrote: post #123
sytelus wrote: post #117

While everyone is trying to make a watch that looks as traditional as possible, Microsoft is thinking radically different for how the future watch should look likes. That's some guts. At $200 this looks like great device with built-in sensors including GPS and UV that also talks to whatever phone you own. I also like the fact that heart rate monitor is always on. Addition of barometer could have been nicer, however.…

They claim a battery life of 48 hours under "normal usage" (read: no GPS), with a charging time of 1.5 hours. Though if it's supposed to be used as a sleep tracker, I kinda wonder when we're supposed to charge it.

Much like a fitbit or UP, you charge it when you're doing nothing (physically) in front of your computer.

Re: Microsoft Band

#312

Post by acd »

The funny thing is that Microsoft has always been good at creating good hardware but never at masking great software except Office.

Re: Microsoft Band

#313

Post by ntakasaki »

jacquesm wrote: post #218
jmsdnns wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "the msft dude for YC" mean?

It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft. I really wished that companies like Microsoft, Google and so on would not have a 'HN guy' (and would not have non-disclosed HN guys either, Felix is at least above board on that), it can make it a lot harder to figure out what is a genuine user expe…

Great job on completely derailing the topic here with unrelated flamebait by confusing HN with YC.

Hint: HN is a message board, YC is a startup accelerator. They are NOT the same. And yes, there are plenty of startups that do quite okay on the MS stack and for many it may not be a good fit. Your post adds nothing new to the discussion.

>It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft.

But luckily we have you to talk down Microsoft.

>$50K in freebies will have to translate into $50K more profit somewhere along the line.

And paying $50K for hosting when you have no money can just shutdown a startup instead of increasing its costs by 1% down the line. Hosting is the biggest cost for a startup most of the time, it can't be "free" like founders time.

Anyway, got any thoughts on the Microsoft Band?

Re: Microsoft Band

#314

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

crocowhile wrote: post #258
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just health - also location, activity levels (meaning a reasonable guess at to if you're awake) etc. This is basically a tracking bracelet. Also "can be mined" is putting it mildly. Apple, Microsoft and google are all NSA partners. If the data's there, the incentive is to utilise it....

Those are all pretty much data that are available already to whoever is accessing your smartphone. Google has been tracking activity and location for years now https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

I'm not disagreeing with you; but this is not an argument in favour of going further down this road by using a bracelet instead.

Re: Microsoft Band

#315

Post by jacquesm »

ntakasaki wrote: post #313
jacquesm wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products to give it a try through free product samples, and talking down companies not microsoft. I really wished that companies like Microsoft, Google and so on would not have a 'HN guy' (and would not have non-disclosed HN guys either, Felix is at least above board on that), it can make it a lot harder to figure out what is a genuine user expe…

Great job on completely derailing the topic here with unrelated flamebait by confusing HN with YC. Hint: HN is a message board, YC is a startup accelerator. They are NOT the same. And yes, there are plenty of startups that do quite okay on the MS stack and for many it may not be a good fit. Your post adds nothing new to the discussion. >It means: try to get companies that otherwise would not go for Microsoft products…

Right...

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ntakasaki

Every third or so link you posted has 'microsoft' in it.

As for me confusing HN and YC, I'm quite aware of the difference between the two and as far as I know I didn't confuse them in the least. Lots of start-up people frequent HN, YC related founder or not they are better off using what is most cost effective for them. This will rarely translate to 'microsoft'.

Hosting is almost never the biggest cost for a start-up, but it can be the biggest cost for a larger company, which is what most start-up aim to become.

$50K for hosting through 'Azure' or some other cloud company typically translates into a few grand from a dedicated hosting provider, by far the most cost effective hosting solution available to start-ups and successful companies alike.

Thanks for not making this personal.

Re: Microsoft Band

#316

Post by foobarian »

lotharbot wrote: post #155
curiousDog wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware-wise, I'd say yes. I haven't used a Lumia but the Zune-HD and Surface were actually well made.

There's an old Microsoft joystick (the Sidewinder 3D Pro) that hasn't been made in at least a decade, but several friends of mine still use them (with custom gameport-to-USB converters specifically designed for that stick.) Yet another quality piece of Microsoft hardware.

I still have my Sidewinder joystick :) It survived several moves over the years, and still works perfectly. Really solid piece of hardware.

Re: Microsoft Band

#317

Post by zamalek »

72deluxe wrote: post #249
zamalek wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual Studio has been using COM since COM was new. That 21 years of code that's been written against an API that Linux doesn't provide. COM is not only proprietary but also a horrible thing. I don't see it ever being on any Linux list of things to do. It will never install on Linux. If you want something as good as Visual Studio on Linux, write it.

COM is horrible to write code for (although not THAT bad), and is tricky to troubleshoot (hurray for TLBs and massive hex registry strings) but it is a very handy feature of the system! Does anything exist on other platforms like Mac OSX and Linux? CORBA was written all over the place GNOME1 / 2 time as I recall but I don't actually know if anything like COM exists anywhere?

If I'm not mistaken dbus is a spiritual sibling of DCOM.

Re: Microsoft Band

#318

Post by Dirlewanger »

somberi wrote: post #243

Quoting an article from The Economist.com: "... Strikingly, one-third of users discard their devices after six months, according to research by Endeavour Partners, a consultancy. Some industry insiders speculate that the true number may be much higher than that. ...The novelty of being able to track your steps, calories or other metrics is appealing at first, but swiftly wears off. ..." Full article - http://goo.gl/h…

Really no different than any other form of fitness tracking (i.e. the ol' pen-and-paper). I don't think this is a device problem, this is a people-being-lazy-unmotivated-sacks-of-crap problem.

Re: Microsoft Band

#319

Post by darklajid »

phreeza wrote: post #296
darklajid wrote: post #215

- Click on 'Buy' - See 'you need a store to find out the right size' (reasonable) - Click on 'Find store' - Notice 'Only available in the US' - Close tab. Fail.

There are many services that offer forwarding of such orders. They charge a fee of course.

I know. So I pay for

- the product

- the 'forwarding' service (that I need to trust first..)

- the shipping to my actual location

- import taxes, VAT etc.

and smile? This product is intentionally not available to most of the world, jumping through hoops on my side seems weird. Like camping in front of random stores, waiting for some device coming out in 3 days from now or other similar random acts of insanity.

I'd have bought it (and sure, payed more than $200 for it due to taxes etc), but I'm not prepared to circumvent arbitrary regional limitations by throwing my time and money around.

Re: Microsoft Band

#320

Post by pdpi »

jacquesm wrote: post #305
CHY872 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big names mean nothing. You are not Google, they have very different requirements to you and their scale is much larger than your startup will ever be. Microsoft aren't stupid - the costs they charge for Azure are largely competitive, and the benefits it provides are tangible. Picking what technology will run your business is something that really needs to be done on a case by case basis, based on your knowledge and…

> Picking what technology will run your business is something that really needs to be done on a case by case basis, based on your knowledge and your business. We're definitely in agreement there. The main criterium is: use what you know how to use. So if you're comfortable using the MS stack then go for it, otherwise, probably better to avoid it.

> The main criterium is: use what you know how to use. So if you're comfortable using the MS stack then go for it, otherwise, probably better to avoid it.

So, would it be fair to say "So if you're comfortable using the Linux stack then go for it, otherwise, probably better to avoid it", or was that your parting jab against MS?

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