A tip for the Muse team: based on my experience with first-person 3D, a substantial portion of users don't understand pointerlock, and the built-in notification that browsers give usually are insufficient. It might be a good idea to put a persistent indicator that ESC can be used to get out of pointerlock.
It seems like there are some major accessibility issues that are a result of embedding text/inputs/etc. within threejs itself. Have you considered using an HTML element and dynamically positioning it with CSS transforms (i.e. update style per useFrame call)? It's a little more work, but it should solve a large class of accessibility issues, and is performant to boot.
There are a lot of virtual office tools out there (I'm not affiliated with any so I feel comfortable asking this question). What makes Spot compelling vs. the alternatives? And if the main difference is 3D, how have you leveraged that to create a differentiated experience?
1. 3D is definitely a differentiator, but we consider it more of an implementation detail. It does come with some really cool stuff like the ability to have a first-person view (really neat to be able to give a presentation in FP). A 3D interface affords a lot of really fun ways to interact with emotes and things and we have beta support for things like wearables.
2. We are investing a lot in asynchronous modes of communication. Our chat system is already pretty robust (easily drag drop files, reactions, etc.) but we also have some big plans here.
3. Customizable and programmability are first-class citizens. Everything is totally customizable in real-time within the same experience. We also envision this as a completely programmable world. Slack is really powerful because of its integrations, but we think having a spatial interface like this actually unlocks some super interesting things. (e.g. imagine updating having your CI build change the color of a light on a desk somewhere).
I'm a maker of satchel.com. This is one of the core problems we aimed to tackle. In doing so, we've actually build out _exactly_ this.
There are still some crucial obstacles to ensure robustness, but I'd love to get your feedback nonetheless. Could I ask some questions over email? I can't find yours, but I'm at andrew@satchel.com
I buy physical books like crazy. Unfortunately, I can similarly describe Amazon's book shipping practices.
Some of the things Amazon's done to the books I've ordered:
- shipped in a huge box without padding, so books bounce around inside the box, crushing their sides and corners
- shipped in mailing envelope, arriving bent
- shipped out of the warehouse with large rips in the cover and inner pages
Apparently way back when, Amazon was shipping books shrinkwrapped between two pieces of cardboard, which protects them. They certainly aren't taking that level of care now.
If there's a bookstore (marketplace) with decent inventory that actually takes care of the books they ship, I'd pay a premium.
This is one of the problems we try to solve at Satchel (https://satchel.com/). We write long-form guides to help startups figure out the best tool for them to use.
I have to agree. It feels like punching below the belt. The only reason why you know that the smaller startups have failed is because the founder has humbly written up a writeup on what went wrong and lessons learned, in the hope that it'll help others. By including them, the article is functionally punishing them for being open about their mistakes.
Maybe for larger companies this is debatably okay, because there's diffusion of responsibility. But to call out a startup with one or two founders who have been shouldering the weight of the startup? Who wrote a post because they wanted to be helpful, and now they're being publicly shamed? Come on
I keep on seeing this link pop up. Since no one is replying, I'd like to point out that I think the Wirecutter is actually in the right here. Another HN member did some investigation and found that Xdesk is stretching things: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22144078
In general, having been able to talk with some of the people there, I'm convinced that WC was focused first and foremost on truth-seeking and quality at this point in their life (pre-acquisition) — however, the consensus seems to have been that after the NYT acquired them, they started becoming more incentivized to grow revenue, and started to jump the shark.
I do not see a mention to kickbacks which is the main issue NextDesk raised with multiple emails then wire cutter responded then deleted the response.
It’s hard to find a product recommend without an affiliate link. Many recommendations have several comments about why they did not bother to review X cheaper or well known item.
There was a really interesting debate here on who should get credit for the patent (Charpentier & Doudna vs. Feng Zhang and to a lesser extent George Church, i.e. discovery + characterization vs. making things practical). I find it interesting, but not surprising, to see that only the former are getting the Nobel Prize.
It's a reasonably segmented group. Charpentier and Doudna deserve the breakthrough credit they're getting. Individually Feng Zhang did more to push CRISPR forward than anyone else has thus far. And George Church has had his hands all over the space for a very long time, while not fitting into either of the prior two groups.
It's so big it more than requires all of them, contributing in the ways they have (along with countless others, less heralded, at places like Berkeley or Broad).
George Church praised the Nobel committee’s choice and noted that there are plenty of ideas and companies to go around [1]. I wouldn’t be surprised if CRISPR in medical applications leads to future Nobel prizes, and there will be many winners on the commercial side (e.g. Editas cofounded by Church, Doudna, Zhang and others [2]).
