

Piper Pied Imitates HBO’s Silicon Valley and Creates Lossless Image Compression - frostmatthew
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/ppiper-pied-imitates-hbos-silicon-valley-and-creates-lossless-compression-for-online-images/

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Rangi42
"The algorithm detects the face and then from there it can compress everything
else but the face so that you keep the quality of the face while technically
lowering the quality in a way that is not noticeable to the human eye."

That's the exact opposite of lossless compression. It is a creative way to
implement lossy compression for a limited subset of images, though.

~~~
nmjohn
I was hoping it was just a bad title - but it doesn't appear to be as the
founders use the word lossless themselves.

It's concerning because it either means they don't actually know what lossless
compression is and believe they are doing it - or they are engaging in
borderline fraudulent marketing.

Given they actually built an impressive product for subset of images it works
with, I'm going to assume it isn't the former.

I can see their reasoning: "it doesn't appear to be any lower in quality
because our brain focuses on the face to determine it, so you get the same
effect as lossless compression ergo: lossless compression" \- but that still
feels rather slimy to me and is a great example of marketing trying to
repurpose actual technical terms to fit their product.

~~~
IvyMike
> the founders use the word lossless themselves.

Where? (I probably just missed it but I don't see it.)

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postila
Have you tried it? It's not lossless, it's lossy
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/5c3g220rrzzsdov/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D1%80...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5c3g220rrzzsdov/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%88%D0%BE%D1%82%202015-05-03%2020.59.53.png?dl=0).
Seems like dummy reason for a post.

~~~
frostmatthew
The post's title is taken from the article title (in keeping with HN
guidelines).

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dang
The HN guidelines ask you to use the original title _unless it is misleading
or linkbait_. For some reason people tend not to remember that latter bit, but
it's just as important.

~~~
frostmatthew
> For some reason people tend not to remember that latter bit

Indeed - but a reminder from dang should prevent that from happening again :-/

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lucasmullens
Ah yes, the TechCrunch hackathon, where they make a big deal out of ideas that
have been done at pretty much every hackathon.

For instance some variation of Split is made at every hackathon I've been to,
since Venmo or Dwolla is usually a sponsor:
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/split-lets-you-split-the-
bi...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/03/split-lets-you-split-the-bill-fairly-
not-equally/)

~~~
manigandham
but if they didnt... they wouldnt have anything left to show.

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tomtoise
[http://209.208.79.122/uploads/](http://209.208.79.122/uploads/) Full access
to everything uploaded. These guys need to secure their shit.

