I didn't see a published date, but taking another look, I suppose that "Copyright © 1995-2012 nycsubway.org." is a giveaway that some of this information might be stale.

Doesn't feel much like it day-to-day in the NYC subway, but glad things are indeed continuing to change

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979823

Points: 52

# Comments: 8

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M...

At which point, the continued march towards higher resolution and bandwidth video will probably limit their utility

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263049

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

In the last few years, we had Google scanning books, Google threatening to shut down News in Canada rather than pay publishers, LLMs summarizing articles on social platforms, crawlers bypassing paywalls, and so on.

Each time, the industry frames it as their interpretation of the current law, which were usually not written with these specific future use cases in mind.

In my view the current discussion regarding Gen AI is similar.

At a human scale, those boundaries get clarified through litigation on a case by case basis once an infringement becomes large or obvious enough. But there has always been a gray area around when a derivative work crosses the line into infringement.

And AI didn’t create that ambiguity, it just pushed it to a more extreme scale

That excess exists precisely because of the industry’s clout. For decades, rightsholders successfully lobbied Congress to extend copyright term again and again. That process appears to have finally plateaued, which is why early Mickey Mouse has now entered the public domain.

And notably, since the rise of AI, the government has not been especially quick or eager to step in and defend rightsholders.

Yes, but they were found not liable for copying the books they purchased. They were found liable for the books they torrented.

The former is something publishers still want to address

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46872562

Points: 116

# Comments: 136

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46781390

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Platform exclusives seem to be rare (outside of Nintendo). I have an xbox (which I'm told is the wrong console), but I can play nearly everything a PS5 can. Most major titles seem to be very cross platform (PC, Xbox, PS5, and sometimes Nintendo). If anything, they stagger release dates, not access.

Steam's market share has held relatively steady at 75%. And in fairness, it does not seem like Epic is trying at all to improve their product, so I'm not sure they're deserving of more right now. GoG continues to have ts cult following (I had never heard of it until recently, but now see references to it frequently).

And it seems to be easier to game on Linux (and even Mac) than in the past few years.

I have no way of verifying this, but Perplexity states that ~5% of Steam games are exclusives. Have they exerted monopolistic pressure on the market in other ways?

Engage with or amplify content you agree with. Create content of your own that represents your values or ideas. If you want, try to persuade others where you think they're wrong.

Overall, if you can feel good about what you've put out there, that's enough. You'll field comments like this no matter what it is.

Tech nostalgia is driven, in part, by a lack of excitement about what current companies are offering. It wasn't really present when we were all excited about Apple, etc.

That nostalgia signals there's a market for alternatives, which we've seen some companies serve, and expect others to enter. This will provide us with more choices apart from "Apple" vs. "Google" end-to-end ecosystems.

Tech is also fun because we have some new categories for the first time, perhaps since mobile. VR isn't popular per se, but I consider it mature. Ray Ban Metas are also a new category (consider an emerging AR application — or more of a glorified camera device, for now). A first person point of view for videos is very different than what's captured by a smartphone; I feel like I'm "there" when I watch travel videos I've taken with them, much more than when I watch what's taken with my phone.

The only personal statement I'm making is that tech seems primed to be fun again (though we probably have to anchor our expectations around a local maxima)

I'm replacing a 12 year old canon 6D with 4 lenses accumulated over that time period with one-and-done camera. It's precisely the cost of upgrading all of that to the new mirrorless system that pushed me in this direction.

An entry level Canon Rebel is like $600, with an extremely constrained focal range. Essentially any non-prime lens will double that cost.

It's hard to understand how $1200 is considered outrageous for a camera (though for the record, these cost more like $2K, but mine is a used Typ-109 which was $800)?

What are you considering buying?

I also wouldn't be surprised if that was a common pattern.

I think this is pretty much a claim. But in any case, it's not unique to smart glasses. Smartphones also have this problem, which is why they're legally required to make an audible shutter noise in many jurisdictions. And unlike glasses that power on when unfolded and worn on the face, phones and other types of devices can be much more discreet.

You can address AR glasses by changing the laws - Québec has uniquely strong privacy laws against photographing people, even in public places. The rest of Canada and the US have much weaker protections in this area.

You can also change the regulations for the companies that produce the devices. The Ray Ban Metas will not function if the light is tampered with, but clearly there is a cat and mouse game where people temporarily evade those restrictions until they're tightened again. It's obviously not in Meta's interest to allow people do this. But a comparison will inevitably play out as the tech is commoditized and people find off-brand alternates in the back of Shenzen markets.

New technology will bring much bigger challenges than smart glasses. A few I worry about are every conversation being recorded and transcribed by personal AIs (with ultra discreet devices), and the authenticity of audio, video, or image content may one day be unproveable (in which case every recorded corruption scandal becomes a plausible denial).

The article's claim, however, is that we're starting to find off-ramps to many one or two-player marketplaces, and the domain that the meta Ray bans operate within will be one of those (in the interim we should probably be thankful it's not just another Apple product, and that they actually have to play catch up. A weaker Apple will have to treat consumers and partners better). The article's point is that the future of tech looks fun, and should provide consumers with more choices.

Sure, the side effects of future tech could be very bad, but that'd be the case whether or not the points in the article are true.