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The most popular blog posts about tech industry & business on Hacker News. 705 posts.
Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban
Brazil blocked Whatsapp for 48 hours, which benefits Telegram, it has gained more than 1 million new users and it seems like it keeps incre...
Win for Fair Use in ‘Dancing Baby’ Lawsuit
San Francisco – A federal appeals court in San Francisco today affirmed that copyright holders must consider whether a use of material is fair before sending a takedown notice. The ruling came in Lenz v. Universal, often called the “dancing baby” lawsuit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)...
YC Open-Source Sales Agreement
We’ve just open-sourced a sales agreement [http://www.ycombinator.com/documents/#sales]any company can use. Though obviously you should use this at your own risk, we’ve had a lot of experience with what makes good and bad sales agreements. Special thanks to Tyler Bosmeny, James Riley, and Carolynn and Jon Levy for all…
UN Experts Say TPP and Fast Track Threaten Human Rights
Prominent experts at the United Nations have now indicated that secretive trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) undermine human rights around the world, both because of the secretive, corporate-dominated process, and due to the substantive content of the provisions that arise...
Google’s growing problem: 50% of people do zero searches per day on mobile
Amit Singhal in 2011 showing a comparison of search volumes from mobile and “early desktop years”. Photo by Niall Kennedy on Flickr. Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, let sli…
Projects and Companies
In the early days of my startup, I used to get slightly offended when people would refer to it as a “project”. “How’s your project going?” seemed like the asker didn't take us seriously, even...
You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist
It got a lot of attention this morning when I tweeted , “You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist.” It’s been quickly retweeted dozens of times, indicating that the idea is interesting to many people. So let’s discuss it in more than 140 characters.
Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge Patents
EFF recently won our challenge to invalidate claims of the “podcasting patent” using a procedure at the Patent Office called inter partes review. This procedure allowed us to challenge a patent that was being used to demand licenses from individual podcasters, even though EFF itself had never been...
Bubble talk
I’m tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there’s a bubble in tech. I understand that it’s fun to do and easy press, but it’s boring reading. I also understand that it might...
Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results
The official source for news about Apple, from Apple. Read press releases, get updates, watch video and download images.
Telegram Bot Platform
Telegram 3.0 introduces Bot Platform — free, open and super easy to use
Cortana available on iOS and Android
Cortana was created to be a truly personal digital assistant – available on the go, no matter where or when you need help, and on whatever device you carry. That’s why it’s important to us that we bring Cortana to not only the Windows 10 ecosystem, but to other platforms. Today, we’re excited to announce
Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
This website is for sale! desk.pm is your first and best source for information about desk. Here you will also find topics relating to issues of general interest. We hope you find what you are looking for!
Kickstarter is Debt
Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms are often misunderstood. It definitely isn’t investment: It’s debt. Hardware startups struggle to manage their cash. It’s common to pay for large expenses (like tooling and inventory) 9–12 months prior to selling your product. This is why pre-
Doing an HD Remake the Right Way
This is part 1 of a series. Part 2 (regarding Final Fantasy VI) is here [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/doing-an-hd-remake-the-right-way-ffvi-edition/]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Fantasy V [http://store.steampowered.com/app/382890/] just came out on Steam…
The adblocking revolution is months away
The thing about print adverts was that they stayed where they were. Photo by Bethan on Flickr. TL:DR: when Apple’s iOS 9 comes out in September, there’s going to be a dramatic uptake of…
The Apple Watch
After one week wearing an Apple Watch, my big picture thoughts and observations. It all hinges on the Taptic Engine and digital touch communication.
Inside The Fine Art Factories of China
When Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo toiled for four years on his master work. Renoir spent six months painting Luncheon of the Boating Party—the painting featured in the film Amélie. Even Guernica, which Pablo Picasso painted quickly to publicize the…
Startup Metrics
We have the privilege of meeting with thousands of entrepreneurs every year, and in the course of those discussions are presented with all kinds of numbers, measures, and metrics that illustrate the promise and health of a particular company. Sometimes, however, the metrics may not be the best gauge of what’s actually…
Ford Tries to Shut Down Independent Repair Tool with Copyright
At EFF, we think people ought to be able to understand how their devices work and repair them without asking permission of the manufacturer. We also think independent repair companies should to be able to compete with manufacturers in the aftermarket. Simply put, you should be able to fix your...
My Interviews with Airbnb, Dropbox, Posterous, Reddit, Weebly and Wufoo
Mixergy's feature today inspired me to dig up these old video interviews I did years ago with some YC founders. We talked about things like how they got started, what went wrong, and what surprised...
Negotiators Lose Last Chance to Salvage the TPP by Caving on Copyright Extension
New reports indicate that Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiators have agreed to language that would bind its 12 signatory nations to extend copyright terms to match the United States' already excessive length of copyright. This provision expands the reach of the controversial US Sonny Bono...
YC Stats
We get asked (a lot) for statistics on the YC portfolio about valuation and fundraising. Although these are very imperfect indicators of success, here they are. All of these companies actually went through a YC batch and got their start with us (e.g. we do not include Quora). Also, the YC application for the next…
Why Facebook Failed Our Censorship Test
If you click around Facebook’s “Government Request Report,” you’ll notice that, for many countries, Facebook enumerates the number of “content restrictions” the company has fulfilled. This is a sanitized term for censorship. For example, Facebook restricted access to three items of content on its...