Thanks, I've been wasting their time by keeping them on the line (at no cost to me other than the time I used to amuse myself with annoying them) but I didn't know about the credit card generator, weill definitely use that!
It looks like Opus (the project linked to) goes back to at least 2003, while the coalition behind the Opus Codec chose to create a name collision around 2012.
It seems they succeeded, besides Wikipedia the first result my Google view has is the codec.
If we have a scarce namespace, first come first served is not a much better way to allocate names than by popularity.
People have yet to successfully stamp a trade mark on words like Opus, and that is perfectly fine by me. Codecs and NLP datasets are distinct enough domains that any confusion will resolve itself quickly.
It would be pretty hard to choose that name without becoming aware of at least one of these. The creators most likely just deemed these other uses too obscure and unrelated to matter, which is fair because it's pretty hard to pick a good name that hasn't already been used somewhere.
TheVerge purposefully left that out of the headline for clickbait. It's really not hard to write "Amazon's Older 2G/3G Kindles" or "Lose Their Cellular Connections"
I know that with many publications, the journalists don't get to pick their own headlines. There has been a lot of talk about how journalism is dead, but I have found that often, the article is well done, but the headline paints an inaccurate or divisive picture. I think the editors and maybe the MBAs are more of a problem than the journalists.
For customers with Kindle (1st Generation), Amazon is offering a free Kindle Oasis (10th Generation) device and cover.
Customers with Kindle (1st and 2nd Generation), Kindle DX (2nd Generation), and Kindle Keyboard (3rd Generation) can receive $70 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $25 in ebook credits.
Customers with Kindle Touch (4th Generation), Kindle Paperwhite (5th Generation, 6th Generation, and 7th Generation), Kindle Voyage (7th Generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th Generation) can receive $50 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $15 in ebook credits.
I’m not familiar with their product line but from reading just this comment I would guess that old devices that lose connectivity get a full new device and devices with WiFi losing partial connectivity get coupons and credit for their inconvenience (caused out of Amazons hands through the carriers)
That sounds like a fair deal to me. Although it’s pure speculation. I haven’t checked if that is actually the case.
That would make sense, but it's not in fact the case, many second-gen Kindles don't have wifi.
...I'm actually quite confused as to why the people with the oldest devices—whose Kindles presumably had the longest usable life—are the only ones getting free replacements.
> I'm actually quite confused as to why the people with the oldest devices—whose Kindles presumably had the longest usable life—are the only ones getting free replacements.
Maybe there is a lifetime clause in the AGBs? If they promised 15 years of usable time (for example), this might be their way to get out.
Also, the longest customers are probably the most loyal and bought a lot of books over the years, while also being the smallest subgroup.
Getting a $250 device and cover for a device first sold in 2007 is pretty great, honestly. Even getting $50 off a Kindle and $15 credit is a pretty good option, all things considered.
This is a tremendous deal. Makes me so confident in buying first gen Amazon products. The Oasis is their high end reader. I have one and it’s better than the normal kindles by far.
Doesn't "Kindle (1st and 2nd Generation)" include "Kindle (1st Generation)"? Getting a new device is a pretty nice gesture though I guess very few still have a working 1st generation Kindle.
Rarely have I ever seen a serious tutorial or guide be so wrong on so many levels. I was flabbergasted, entertained and felt pity at the same time. Truly a train wreck of a video, would strongly recommend watching.
No, just one of their people making a video showing "how to build a custom gaming PC" and ... not doing a particularly good job of it. After a few days of mocking they took the video down, and then a while later made sure everyone remembered again by copyright-striking some Youtubers that had made reaction videos using material from the original video. "the verge PC build" on youtube should find stuff.
I think a lot depends on whether you actually had one of those early generation kindles or not. I saw the headline and figured it was about WhisperSync and guessed it was probably due to sunsetting of the cellular networks and not Amazon turning off a feature to get people to upgrade.
Seems like a good opportunity to ask: what are some news agencies that do not use deliberately misleading headlines? For the blizzard thread, Bloomberg was the only article I saw linked with an accurate title
The default Kindle models did not have WiFi for several years. That cost an extra $30-50 or so.
I remember thinking at the time that hacking these would make nice sensors to deploy in the field and that they could stay online for free, essentially. Kindle had a built-in web browser, so HTTP calls wouldn't be too hard to make.
Controversial HN opinion: ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
You stream music instead of owning it, you download games instead of owning physical copies, devices are locked down, you can't run software you want, and we tolerate devices no longer working after a certain date.
It's okay if things stop working, because they weren't meant to work forever. It's sad.
> Ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
Broadly speaking, I absolutely agree. People are impressed that Apple supports 6-year-old iPhones, whereas I think that's an unconscionably short length of time. (Particularly given how Apple makes customers reliant on them for everything.)
However, in the case of these Kindles, I'm a bit more sympathetic to Amazon here. They're not the ones who are turning off 3G networks, so I'm not really sure what they could do.
And they're actually giving pretty reasonable promo codes.
For some reason, I didn't get one--probably because my device is no longer registered on Amazon.com. Not that I have any real reason to run out and buy a new Kindle anyway.
Well, that's not exactly what is happening here. Devices will still work after the internet connection stops, books will still be readable, and it will still be possible to load books through USB (or in some cases WiFi). The free cellular connection was an extra service that was clearly part of the sale pitch but I doubt most people who bought these expected that component to last forever.
Also, there is a clear reason they are turning these off (dropping on 2G and 3G coverage) as opposed to companies that needlessly brick devices just because they turned off a easy-to-maintain DRM server somewhere without an alternative recourse.
> Controversial HN opinion: ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
I don’t think this is true at all. Ten years ago, we had already gone through the analog to digital transition in a number of countries [1], obsoleting a lot of older television sets without the aid of a converter box.
In the US, TDMA and AMPS cellular networks were shut down by 2008 (TDMA shutdown started even earlier), obsoleting tons of early cellular phones, but also many phones from the early 2000s (again, TDMA). People were often given vouchers by carriers IIRC, since phones were largely subsidized by rate plans.
DIVX, a terrible DVD rental scheme that helped put Circuit City out of business, went under by 1999, leaving the devices essentially worthless (fortunately, most did receive a firmware update allowing them to be used as regular DVD players).
I’m sure there were some grumbles about some of this stuff (people were very mad about TV, even though converters were given away for free), but it is largely accepted that progress obsoletes certain technologies. This isn’t new.
TV updates coincided with the changeover to HD tv so I don't think people really cared - it ruined my portable since it had a builtin antenna, but that was that.
However there has been many more fights about turning of the FM signals, at least here in Denmark, mostly because people can't upgrade the radio in their cars easily but probably also because the new type of radio is a lot worse than FM. So now we have both.
I suspect that when/if they turn it of people won't get a new radio and will just play music from their phones.
Thank you for the comment. As a ham radio operator and radio junky in general I was wondering how the transition to all dab+ went for Denmark. Here in Austria we have both (more important and larger stations not receivable via dab though) and my car head unit has both. I find the sound of dab awful (to much compression and artefacts) and on fringe areas it pales compared to FM which will deteriorate in quality but still be continuously receivable. DAB just stutters. A real set back at least when used mobile.
They had planned to shut it down in 2019, but it has been postponed until 50% of listening was done digitally.
I still think the major issue is our cars, the fleet is old because there is an extremely high tax on cars, and it isn't as easy to just upgrade the radios as it used to be - and of course with FM available (and as you said, better in many cases) there is no big incentive to update, although we have more channels available on DAB.
Yeah, the timing of HD Radio coincided with the rise of smartphones/iPods/nascent streaming, so it didn’t really take off in the US (and there was never a huge reason to b/c the FCC didn’t shut off analog radio waves), but I do agree that if they cut off analog radio signal (or more accurately, if more stations moved to a pure digital format), some subset of users would complain (tho less as you said, thanks to phones), but that’s sort of my point: this obsolescence acceptance thing isn’t new, it’s how we’ve treated the changing nature of tech for decades. Yes, there might be fewer loud neckbeards who are irate online about it, but the fantasy that we used to all care a lot more about the longevity of devices and tech just isn’t true.
I'm pretty sure my first cell phones from the 90s and 00s won't work anymore because the networks no longer exist. I should get out the pitchforks and torches. I think there might not even be cellular network access for my first iPhone anymore.
Yes, but the author is most likely using a Win API that is known to exist since that operating system & service pack. I doubt they tested every version, unless they are the curious type :)
In 2017 Germany I made net ~570€/month (~1€ more than minimum wage) working 15h weeks in a supermarket for around 3-4 months while studying. It was pretty mindless work (apart from always looking out for the use-/sell-by dates) and also nice working in a colder part (dairy and frozen products) of the supermarket during the hotter months.
I'd like to know this too. I can tell you anecdotally that 4G (LTE at least) is a major battery drain if you have very weak 1-bar signal. I work in a basement and my phone is dead by 5pm unless I remember to turn on airplane mode.
You would do well to enable Wi-Fi calling in that circumstance if your provider offers the service. I had a misconception that that service was somehow inferior to getting a “real” connection to the cell network—not so. The cell network does not care how you access it, and more-or-less treats RATs (Radio Access Technolgies) as interchangeable.
