
"Tap the spacebar with your phone." - Bump unveils new photo uploader - noahlt
http://photos.bu.mp
======
citricsquid
Whoever designed this page: this is a clever idea, the ideal goal (I assume)
is for it to be spread around ("hey, did you see this neat photo uploader
thing?") in which case why doesn't it link me to the app for download? I don't
have bump, I want to try this idea... so I have to work out what the site url
is and then go and find the app myself. Why not a "don't have bump? download
here!" link?

~~~
j_col
Yeah, clever viral marketing (which is clearly working as we're talking about
it here). I was a bit suspicious that they wanted to captured my geo location
on that page too.

~~~
jrockway
Bump works by correlating the time the "bump" occurs and the location of the
bumps. Of course, tracking your location is an added benefit for someone that
might care about that sort of thing.

~~~
j_col
I get that now after reading this thread. The problem is my first instinct was
"why the hell does this website want my location?" when there was nothing on
the page to explain why it was requesting this.

------
tewks
Want to build magic like this into your own iOS or Android app? Try out our
brand new, super fast APIs:

<https://github.com/bumptech/bump-api-ios>

<https://github.com/bumptech/bump-api-android>

Email me if you have any questions: tg@bu.mp

~~~
potatolicious
Some feedback: I just filled out my virtual card with my contact info, and
suddenly got an email from you guys in my inbox. I didn't sign up for an
account or anything.

IMO this is pretty shitty - I put this information into the app to send to
other people, not so Bump can email me. And now I feel iffy putting other data
into the app - Bump is not strictly the data exchange platform I thought it
was.

This is a violation of user trust - if you want to store/act on any
information users put into the app you need to let them know first.

This really, really rubbed me the wrong way - this is the first time any app
of mine has ever intercepted a form field, sent it to the mothership without
my consent, and used the data in a way that was never stated nor implied. App
deleted.

[edit] Oh hey look, the email addressed me by the name I put into the vCard. I
guess now you have my phone number too.

~~~
tewks
We are a cloud based solution that takes privacy very seriously. We do not
share your personal information with people or services you don't want. Our
privacy policy is available both in the app and online: <http://bu.mp/privacy>

~~~
officemonkey
>We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't
want.

Clearly that's incorrect, because the complainer didn't want you to have his
personal information.

Also the statement "We may use your Personal Information as we believe to be
necessary or appropriate in any manner permitted under applicable law,
including laws outside your country of residence" clearly gives you the right
to sell his personal information to anyone.

~~~
Karunamon
Isn't it kind of a given that when you give your email address to a service,
that you are allowing that service to contact you?

Otherwise what's the point of having the address?

~~~
raphman
I haven't used this app but I think the parent had expected that the data he
entered would be confined to the application, not sent to the app developer.
Simple analogy: Would you expect Microsoft to harvest every e-mail address you
enter into Outlook?

~~~
Karunamon
Outlook is an application, not a web connected service, though. If I enter my
email address when signing up for, say, Office Live, I'd expect to see a
Microsoft email in my inbox every now and then.

~~~
mcherm
Would you expect Google to send emails to people whose addresses have been
entered into Gmail?

~~~
Karunamon
No, but that's not what happened here. You filled out your personal card which
will be shared out with everyone you "bump" with. I haven't used the app, but
I'd assume this fills some kind of registration function.

------
marcusf
This just very cool in a very nerdy sort of way. I kinda wish it was less
gimmicky, on the other hand I assume bump uses the time stamps of the shake
and the key down to figure out which two devices are trying to talk. I wonder
what the threshold for collision is?

Anyway, very cool and I could actually see a use for this, sending photos of
whiteboards to colleagues that don't run Mac/have an iPhone. Would have to
compete with email/dropbox for ease of use, but it does seem very simple on
the receiving end, just surfing to a web page.

~~~
bherms
Bump is known for their ingenious methods of relating lots of data to figure
out which two phones were being bumped at the same time (there's a really cool
answer on Quora about how they do it). I would assume this is their tech team
figuring out how to apply the same techniques across two devices (browser/pc
-> phone). I bet there is some really cool stuff at play here.

~~~
davux
Is this it?

<http://www.quora.com/How-does-Bump-work>

~~~
bherms
I think that may be the one I read.

------
koeselitz
What does this do? I know because I saw the headline here on HN, but if I went
to the site without context, I'd have very little idea, and I'd have to do
some detective work or deductive reasoning to find out. It's mostly obvious,
but I think it'd really help to have a super-brief explanation of the function
- like maybe instead of "Tap the spacebar with your phone," it could say "Tap
the spacebar with your phone to upload photos."

~~~
hammock
What is the benefit of this vs just pressing "upload photos" button on the
phone itself? Why do I have to find a computer?

I get the mobile-to-mobile bump application, but can someone illuminate me on
this one.

------
dfc
From what I have read it seems you need to have geolocation turned on in your
browser and iphone.

Have I been hiding under a tinfoil hat for so long that I am completely out of
touch with the world? Do most HN readers have these on by default?

~~~
nickbarnwell
Firefox gives me a prompt like [1] on every site that uses HTML5 Geolocation
APIs. My iPhone and Windows Phone do the same.

[1] <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9061771/Screenshots/yebr_5sj_2ik.png>

~~~
riffraff
so do chrome and safari

~~~
rplnt
And Opera and probably any other browser supporting geolocation.

~~~
dfc
except for the browsers that have been instructed to never make the info
available.

------
Mystalic
A few months ago, I ran into the Bump team on Castro street in Mountain View.
They were grabbing random people walking by their table, testing the user flow
of this product with a demo.

Two lessons from that:

1) Gather user feedback all the time, at any stage. Meet customers, send out
surveys, interview users, whatever it takes to get the data.

2) Simplify! Your product needs to be as frictionless as possible (I think I
repeated this like 7 times when I tried the demo). It's two steps to use the
new Bump photo app -- that's easy for a user to understand.

------
dfc
If I have already selected the photos I want to upload on my phone why would I
want to use another device to complete the process?

NB: This is not trollfood and I am not a hater. I don't use an iphone so I may
be missing something obvious.

~~~
jaredsohn
This makes it easy to see what is on your iPhone on your computer.

It lets you authenticate without having to enter a username/password (less
typing!) or having credential information already saved on that computer
(which is a typical case if using someone else's computer.)

~~~
jrockway
Why not just show a QR code on the screen and have the phone scan that. If
it's been taking pictures, it can take one more :)

~~~
tomflack
Because almost every single use of QR codes I've seen has been a terrible UX
mistake. They're unwieldy, slow and annoying.

~~~
jonknee
And shaking your phone to whack your keyboard is great UX?

~~~
tomflack
Yeah actually, it is. It's devilishly simple and has a physical action to
represent the virtual action taking place.

------
ebbv
This isn't remotely brilliant. This seems completely unnecessary and gimmicky.

~~~
dustin
Yup

1) I don't get it, so I'm unlikely to think it's brilliant without trying. (So
now I need a laptop to upload photos from my mobile?...)

2) I wouldn't download this to try Bump without some better explanation,
especially given implicit data protection reputation of just about every big
consumer-facing company these days (especially one that trades in contact
details.)

3) The title is full of gratuitous editorialization, which is against HN
guidelines.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Gratuitous editorialization? It's a pretty simple description of the site.

------
suhastech
Whoa! Just "bumped" into somebody else while testing this out.
<http://twitpic.com/98efxf>

Gimmick?

~~~
__alexs
Slightly disturbing that you don't get any confirmation to share on the mobile
side, it just sends your data off to whoever it matched with immediately :-/

Generally very cool experience but I wonder how well the matching algorithm
will scale though. You can't be getting all that many bits of uniqueness out
of a single key press and a vague bit of browser location data right?

~~~
rplnt
I think it can scale by bumping more times (1-3 is ok for people and it will
triple your space). But even with this, the non-geo-located (or poorly
located) browser will become unusable by oh-so-many conflicts when you have
certain amount of users using it.

~~~
suhastech
If you think about it, it's a paradox. For this to be vaguely useful, lot of
people must use it. When a lot of people start using it, the system breaks.

NFC to the rescue?

------
EdisonW
This is brilliant! I guess the next step of photo sharing is to it more FUN. I
assume that when I tab on my phone, the client feels the shake and uploads the
photo to Bump, and at the same time the browser gets the space keystroke from
the keyboard so it would send the location and time to server, which would
then match the photo that was uploaded with the best location and time.
Matching/guessing the timestamp here is more important than location here I
guess.

------
petercooper
Since the topic has come up, one way to reduce collisions with all geolocation
turned _off_ would be to request the user tap a certain key (or even two keys
in succession) with the phone instead of just the space bar.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Or presumably tap the spacebar twice (or more) - giving an interval for
matching - which would avoid having to consider key positions and mishits and
alternate keyboards and such.

------
kapilkale
This is cool. Something about the UX felt like magic- maybe it was the
instantaneous response and the way my phone vibrated.

Anyway, can the devs make this more shareable? I wanted to share on Facebook
but the FB-markup link looks very nondescript (bad title, no description text,
crappy icon). So, I'm not going to share it. Some Twitter / FB links on the
webpage would be great.

------
armandososa
Wow! Are you patenting this idea? I just thought of, like, one hundred uses
for this same idea. So fast. Wow. Mind blown.

~~~
dfc
Is this a joke / commentary on patent law or are you genuinely enthused?

~~~
armandososa
It's my genuine reaction. I really thought this is super cool and innovative.

~~~
rplnt
I was about to write that there was an app for sharing between phones that
used "bumping" but when I searched for the name... it's the same app :)

~~~
raphman
While I have not previously seen an app that uses key input and accelerometer
data like this one, there have been some academic publications that discuss
pairing using similar accelerometer readings:

Hinckley, 2003:
[http://depts.washington.edu/dmgftp/publications/uist04/uist_...](http://depts.washington.edu/dmgftp/publications/uist04/uist_papers/Synchronous%20Gestures%20for%20Multiple%20Persons%20and%20Computers.pdf)

Mayrhofer, 2007:
[http://comp.eprints.lancs.ac.uk/2230/1/TMC-2008-07-0279-3.pd...](http://comp.eprints.lancs.ac.uk/2230/1/TMC-2008-07-0279-3.pdf)

------
keen
I don't get why this is a good idea (or how it works*). Anyone care to
explain?

Edit: I'm wondering how it works in a technical sense.

~~~
Groxx
Accurate-enough (sub-second in my case) timing of events + physical proximity
(both your browser and the app ask for your location) = a near guarantee that
your browser session + your phone is a unique pair. It also asks for
confirmation on both the phone and browser to pair the first time.

There's no real chance of this being man-in-the-middled since you have to
confirm on both devices. And they're being intelligent about it - I just tried
it with two laptops at once, and you get "someone's device" instead of the
name of your iThing, and your iThing says "please try again" like this:
<http://cl.ly/1O33430M0i2c0i2T0z2U>

Once you've approved, they have a browser + app pair of cookies for future
pairings (not really exploitable, as it runs over https), which strengthens
the single-pair guarantee to the point where it's about as good as it gets in
any security model.

~~~
stcredzero
_There's no real chance of this being man-in-the-middled_

I'll need more convincing.

 _Once you've approved, they have a browser + app pair of cookies_

Exactly what's keeping the cookie on the browser and the phone from being
copied?

You must be leaving out some details. This doesn't strike me as "good as it
gets."

~~~
Groxx
>* Exactly what's keeping the cookie on the browser and the phone from being
copied?*

SSL. Either you trust it or you don't. Similarly, either you trust the CAs to
work (preventing a real MITM on https traffic) or you don't. Which makes this
as secure as your banking site, except for the initial pairing, which I dare
say they do _more safely_ than any bank I've seen.

------
DanBlake
I think this could be a cool hook to expand past photo uploads and be a full
ios management tool. Give me a web interface to manage my bookmarks, sms
messages, contacts, photos, notes, app third party data, etc.. - You could
essentially create a web based ios/android manager. Something like
<http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/> but from the browser.

Keep in mind, all of the above exists already. Its just the elegant method of
not having to put a PIN on both the phone + browser doesnt. Cool logon method.

~~~
stcredzero
_Cool logon method._

An insecure login method does not a cool one make.

------
jaredsohn
Totally irrelevant, but if you click on the Bump logo, it changes the
background image.

~~~
89a
They need to fire their UI team.

Wasting time on dumb features like that when the mobile app UI and constant
nagging is like dragging your nails over sandpaper.

------
bishnu
What is Bump's business model? The app is free. These services are free.

~~~
yaix
Same as Fb or Twitter, collect user data and eventually have some great
monatization idea. If nobody has a good idea, you can always put AdMob or
something on it "this bump was sponsored by ..." something.

The idea is good, the best way so far to say "Bluetooth sucks".

~~~
bishnu
Perhaps. I considered this, but Bump data isn't exactly social.

Apparently they licensed their technology to Paypal to build their money-
exchanging app. Maybe that's the plan.

------
pazimzadeh
It just works..

It's been good to seeing Bump innovate again over the past few months.

~~~
jamwt
Heh--wait 'till you see what we've got up next. :-)

And, of course, we're hiring. Come help us do this crazy stuff. Email me at
jamie@bu.mp

~~~
rplnt
Their job openings if anyone is interested (as I was):

<http://bump.theresumator.com/apply/jobs/>

------
chetan51
Might be less than optimal compared to something like iCloud, but it's a
pretty awesome example of technology that looks like magic.

I'm thinking they're using both your phone and computer's location + timing of
accelerometer activation and spacebar hit to identify the phone and computer
being bumped together.

Very neat.

~~~
citricsquid
You're half right, it's sockets + accelerometer. If you try hitting your phone
against any hard surface and hitting the space bar at the same time it
triggers the effect too. You can find the socket js in
<https://photos.bu.mp/static/js/bump.min.js>

Space bar triggers POST
(content:{"category":"Bump","action":"NoMatch","time":1334124838.48,"client_id":"a7g47710-e991-721f-8bb6-ea4013a22fb6","session_id":"1509c654180344aea5660a0349b0caaf"}).

------
sopooneo
If I'm going to chance onto a page with a list of steps, it should be like:

(1) Do this

(2) Do that

And then this happens!

However, the ultra simple two step instruction set on this page is neither
preceded nor followed by a statement of _what outcome is meant to occur_. I
mean, I figured it out, but it should be dead clear without thinking.

------
dclowd9901
Make it a platform and instantly solve one of the biggest hurdles in user-
content sites.

------
morsch
Why is the Bump Android app 2.74 megabytes large? That seems excessive.

Huh, that doesn't seem to be a welcome comment. I'm not sure why. Bump doesn't
strike me as an app that ought to require large media files. Does it contain
any? If so, why? Is the binary itself that big? If so, why? Large
dependencies? Either way, the size stopped me from checking it out: it takes
up space on my device, it takes work to move it to the SD card and if it
updates regularly that means more relatively large downloads.

~~~
vegashacker
If you download it and get it in iTunes on your computer (either via syncing
or downloading it there in the first place), then you can inspect the package
yourself pretty easily.

But in my experience, 2.74mb is not a large iOS app.

------
zbruhnke
been using this since it hit its very early stage beta a few months ago ...
all I can say is it is awesome ... truly wonderful when I need to pull a ton
of pics off my phone

------
Posibyte
The idea seems novel, but I can't bring myself to download the thing in the
off chance I might want to upload photos but I'm nowhere near my computer, or
any computer for that matter. Besides that, the page lacks any kind of
"Download here" link. I'm sure I could find it on the app store, but I
appreciate the added convenience.

------
DiabloD3
So what stops me from feeding Bump false data and effectively hold the space
bar down to steal ALL the photos?

~~~
ceejayoz
I'd imagine they'll block your IP quickly if you're sending a spacebar event
for dozens of different location points every second.

------
tricolon
I have been waiting all this time for Bump to be useful. It is finally useful,
and I am happy.

~~~
kennywinker
Had bump on my phone for nearly three years now. Have used it exactly three
times. This time being the third one. It was impressive, and I'll likely show
someone this tomorrow.

------
CaveTech
I can see how this would work well in isolated environments (at home or maybe
work), but how would it perform if I was in a crowded area with lots of others
using bump. My guess is experience would be miserable.

------
Splines
Who needs NFC when you could do this instead? Tap your smartphone on the iPad
register, and you're done.

------
Kiro
Am I the only one who doesn't understand what this is about? The site doesn't
give me much information.

------
RyanMcGreal
I've been getting this for a while:

> Uh oh!

> Sorry, there was an error connecting to the Bump service. Please try again
> later.

~~~
glenntzke
3 hours after your attempts I got the same error. Looks like they aren't ready
for this rush.

------
tambourine_man
And yet I can't read the page on this iPhone. Probably a negative
margin/overflow hidden thing.

------
sunsu
I can do this faster with the Dropbox App by uploading to my public dropbox
folder.

------
par
And to where does it upload the photos? I have no idea what I am even looking
at.

------
Lagged2Death
Would I have to own an iPhone to understand what this is offering?

Why is there a step 2?

------
minikomi
Now, make it go the other way! Info off pc to mobile..

------
minalecs
anyone have a video of how this works ?

------
nextparadigms
Brilliant? I thought such words were not to be used on HN titles.

------
hackermom
I like the idea a lot. It's brilliant. Regarding the removal of the app- and
music sharing feature, I noticed that it was the number one complaint and
reason for a 1-star review in the app store, and then I saw this on their
website:

 _Q. What happened to the music bumping feature?

Listening to you and reviewing our usage data, it became clear that sharing
music links wasn’t a great experience for you, our users. We have removed it
for now to make the app simpler and easier to use.

Q. Why can’t I bump apps anymore?

Similar to music bumping, you made it clear that this was not a great feature
and therefore, we have removed it to make the app simpler and easier to use._

Marketing tip: don't lie to your users in order to smoothen out the folds and
creases, because that _always_ rubs people the wrong way and _always_ makes a
company and its product look suspicious. Just say it like it is, "Sorry, guys.
Copyright and anti piracy laws forced us to remove these features."

~~~
mistercow
It's more complicated than that though. A few months back when they removed
those features, they used that spin to turn it into some free publicity that
made it sound like they were unconventionally responding to their users. Now
they're stuck with that lie, which I'm sure rubs a lot of people the wrong
way, but I'll bet it was worth it just to have their name in some memorable
headlines.

~~~
stcredzero
_Now they're stuck with that lie, which I'm sure rubs a lot of people the
wrong way, but I'll bet it was worth it just to have their name in some
memorable headlines._

Not only are they playing fast and loose with insecure passing of private
data, they also tell their users lies? Maybe deleting their app was the right
choice for me.

~~~
MaxGabriel
That's not a lie. I've read through several hundred bump reviews and their app
had very poor ratings from users who expected full app/music sharing. It was
misleading in the first place to not give indications of limitations on those
features, though. Edit: I had looked after Bump 3.0 and they had tons of 1
star reviews for removing the features, but now they're up to 4.5 stars,
whereas they had ~2.5 on Bump 2.0

------
89a
Wonderful idea.

HORRIBLE APP:

Nasty and painfully slow custom UI, I sent a photo then it asked me to rate it
5 stars on the app store. Then I browsed to send another photo and it asked me
again to rate it after dismissing that it asked me a 3rd time with a fancy
graphical popup.

NO THANKS BUMP, deleted. Someone please feel free to implement this idea
succinctly.

------
wavephorm
This is a gimmick and there's no way around it. NFC, once widely supported,
will make this obsolete.

------
blub
This is a gimmick. On the other hand the whole app is a workaround for the
neutered iPhone communication stack.

Uploading something to a server just to share it with someone standing near
you is ridiculous.

~~~
softbuilder
You mean like chat or email?

~~~
dfc
You /msg or email people standing next to you?

~~~
mdonahoe
ever work in an office?

~~~
dfc
I have but I had a door so maybe that's what is different. But still I don't
know why I would stand next to someone and chat / email them...

