61–70 of 81 posts
I've exited the Fitbit ecosystem since they started to charge to charge for the data service and I've been happy with Withings => Nokia => Withings.
Investing any time in a Google project is a risk, given their track record. I think I'm most sad about Project Ara. That seemed genuinely innovative and environmentally responsible. Axing Hangouts means I'll probably have to use Skype/Zoom/ . Working with Google on an academic project was terrible. They failed to deliver promised features in Google Earth Engine (i.e. the developers personally promised us). Result: I'…
Hangouts is the one I'm most personally frustrated by, too, but what I'd really love to see rise up to replace it is an open protocol with a reference implementation client that's similar to Discord (broadly, anyone can create a "server" that's independent of actual physical servers, each server can have more-or-less arbitrary channels, most importantly both text and voice/video , supporting inlining of images and so…
Unfortunately the killer P2P protocol, BitTorrent, has been a victim of its own success, I imagine it'd ge tricky to get a BitTorrent protocol based video app into the Apple App Store, for instance.
I suppose it's the App Store in question that defines the limitations of a P2P video/chat app, I realise I don't have enough knowledge of those limitations to comment further.
(2019) Go buy a Fitbit today. Incredibly, against all odds according to this article, you still can. They make new ones every 6 months. They may not have the high-performance 60hz display tech of the AW, but look past that and its a better experience than AW (and I use an iPhone; I still prefer Fitbit). Week long battery life on all models. Truly continuous heart rate monitoring (versus AW's "I'll take a reading mayb…
Why do people give their health data to Silicon Valley corporations? I just don't get it. Didn't people train before the advent of "smart" watches?
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Hangouts is the one I'm most personally frustrated by, too, but what I'd really love to see rise up to replace it is an open protocol with a reference implementation client that's similar to Discord (broadly, anyone can create a "server" that's independent of actual physical servers, each server can have more-or-less arbitrary channels, most importantly both text and voice/video , supporting inlining of images and so…
Matrix is interesting, I'll have a look, thanks. Signal is the only video call capable chat app I know of I would genuinely trust. Unfortunately the killer P2P protocol, BitTorrent, has been a victim of its own success, I imagine it'd ge tricky to get a BitTorrent protocol based video app into the Apple App Store, for instance. I suppose it's the App Store in question that defines the limitations of a P2P video/chat…
Realtime chat doesn't seem amenable to that type of optimization.
In any case, I don't think the problem here is primarily in the technologies being used; I wouldn't exactly call real-time video chat a solved problem (I'm sure there's room for plenty more optimizations in it over the next few decades), but at least as I understand it, it's definitely one for which there are plenty of available open-source stacks available.
The problem is in a) designing a robust protocol/API that can be implemented by many clients and servers (that fulfills my basic requirements above of "basically Discord, but not controlled by one company"), b) writing a solid reference implementation of both the client and the server, and c) (perhaps most importantly) getting other people to adopt it so it's more than just Failed Competing Standard #27.
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Google is very much a company run by PMs. It's just the PMs are rewarded for launching products, and not maintaining them. In other words, the larger the Google graveyard, the more bonuses are being handed out. People are doing what they're being incentivized to do. Google's culture is fundamentally broken. I don't think it's possible for them to fix this. I'll probably take a short position on Google in the medium f…
Eh, I'd hold on that short position for now. To me the real question is: what will come of these antitrust investigations into their targeted ad business? That's the cash cow upon which their stock price is ultimately based. They've been able to get away with a lot of failures because ultimately advertising is such a huge business for them. But if there's any move to break apart that business or regulate it in a way…
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Why wouldn't people use Expedia? Honest question. I don't use it a lot; I usually book air and hotel direct. I do use other services as well on occasion but Expedia can be useful for discovery if nothing else.
All personal anecdotes but: Flights - wierd fare classes that dont have the normal options re changes and cancellation, no recourse through the airline if there are any issues Customer service - hours on hold, and you have to call them to change anything, the hotel/ airline wants nothing to do with you Hotels- treated like a 3rd class citizen, no points, cant use your status if you have it, worst room, I have been ch…
We travel from where we are in China to Beijing, show up to the hotel, and they have no idea who we are. They're really apologetic but they show us the Expedia interface they have that definitely doesn't have us on it, we double-check our booking and make sure we're at the right place, etc.
So we call Expedia. They're like "Oh so sorry, we'll have to call the hotel. Please hold." They come back and say no one answered. We're standing there with the front desk staff in front of the phone and we all saw it very obviously not ring. We confirm the number with the staff, they say they'll try again. Still nothing. They hang up on us.
We call the hotel's number from our own phone, it rings.
We call Expedia back and try again. They try calling the hotel a few more times and finally tell us there's nothing they can do. So I tell them to just cancel the reservation then since it's obviously useless.
They tell us they'll have to escalate it to some other department who will contact the hotel and determine whether we're eligible to cancel without penalty due to the short timeframe for the cancellation. I told them if the charge hit my credit card I'd dispute it, but they're welcome to do whatever they feel is necessary.
So in summary: Booked hotel. They did not put booking through. They were unable to rectify the situation. They told us they may choose to charge us anyway. It cost me like $15 in international roaming charges.
What a weird hit piece. The counterpoints are... legion. Youtube? Doubleclick? Android?
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Why wouldn't people use Expedia? Honest question. I don't use it a lot; I usually book air and hotel direct. I do use other services as well on occasion but Expedia can be useful for discovery if nothing else.
All personal anecdotes but: Flights - wierd fare classes that dont have the normal options re changes and cancellation, no recourse through the airline if there are any issues Customer service - hours on hold, and you have to call them to change anything, the hotel/ airline wants nothing to do with you Hotels- treated like a 3rd class citizen, no points, cant use your status if you have it, worst room, I have been ch…
Exactly! I use it because it is the craigslist of flights. I don't want to be sold a zillion things, I want to simply plug in the trips I'm considering and view the best available options. Flights is great for that!
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Matrix is interesting, I'll have a look, thanks. Signal is the only video call capable chat app I know of I would genuinely trust. Unfortunately the killer P2P protocol, BitTorrent, has been a victim of its own success, I imagine it'd ge tricky to get a BitTorrent protocol based video app into the Apple App Store, for instance. I suppose it's the App Store in question that defines the limitations of a P2P video/chat…
I'm not sure if BitTorrent is a reasonable solution to the problem of P2P video chatting , since the power of BitTorrent is in having many nodes all sharing the same content and able to send parts of it to a new node seeking that content. Realtime chat doesn't seem amenable to that type of optimization. In any case, I don't think the problem here is primarily in the technologies being used; I wouldn't exactly call re…
[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-bittorr...
I opened the article expecting to agree with it, then I got to the part about "does anyone use google flights instead of travelocity " and started to wonder if it was satire.
> does anyone use google flights instead of travelocity Yes, absolutely. I don't even know what Travelocity is :) What surprises me is that people still use Expedia. Agreed, this is probably satire.