Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool? (February 2014)

88 points by cjbarber ↗ HN
This thread was fantastic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617551

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If you're a dev, want to play with Ember, Angular or Meteor an are interested in working on a bitcoin related web project, email me: chris.barber@alumni.stanford.edu (also email me if you are already working on a bitcoin project :)

121 comments

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An iPhone app that motivates you to work harder.. Simply put you set goals and then.... I really can't give the idea away, I'm working hard day and night and it will be released in the next 8 weeks.

This app motivates you to achieve your goals. There are 3 twists on my idea however which make it different to other apps. I will definitely be using it myself so hopefully other will feel it helps them to achieve their goals also :)

Brodlist (http://brodlist.com), because the web was never meant to be a bunch of read-only text files.

Our querying ability (no joins needed) and speed doesn't just open up big data and semantic data, but possibly even allows the web to be reshaped as a collection of data rather than text.

I run http://goodereader.com basically a website devoted to digital publishing, e-reader and eBook industry news.

Also, http://apps.goodereader.com which is our android/blackberry 10 app store, over 100,000 apps so far, in terms of sheer amount of apps, we're the 6th largest in the world right now.

Helium (http://heliumhq.com) is a library for web automation. It's cool because it takes 66% less code and 75% less effort to use than the de-facto standard for web automation, Selenium.
Does it make you 28% more excited about web automation?
This is neat.

How does it handle logins that popup, eg, Login with Twitter?

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We are working to make team management effortless and fun. Some of the features that make it possible: achievements, kanban board, online time counter, simple activity feed and dropbox integration. The result of this is called Hiburo [0].

[0] - https://hiburo.com/

We run Versus and are just working on automated comparisons of JS MV* frameworks—check some examples:

Angular vs Backbone http://versus.com/en/angularjs-vs-backbone-js

Angular vs Ember http://versus.com/en/angularjs-vs-ember-js

React vs Backbone http://versus.com/en/react-vs-backbone-js

React vs Angular http://versus.com/en/react-vs-angularjs

Knockout vs Angular http://versus.com/en/knockout-js-vs-angularjs

Or compare any two frameworks by using the search on Versus.

How'd you get that domain name?
This is a good idea, and hopefully will become an alternative to Stack Overflows "closed as not constructive" questions.
http://spout.co -- We're trying to make building finance apps alot less scary for the average developer.

To be honest I see no reason why the average person can't add p2p payments into their app or why an accounting software should have to wait years before adding bank syncing.

We're making all of this do-able in a weekend or even at a hackathon.

We just launched to a few live customers last week and already we have a backlog that we can't keep up with, but we're hiring to keep up with demand and we're excited about where it can go.

We'd love thoughts and/or feedback if anyone is interested!

I am interested. Do you guys cover european banks?

FYI, your signup for a private beta makes it very hard to click send. there is like 1 pixel on the send-button that actually triggers the action.

Thanks for the feedback, you can also hit enter, but I'll push a fix to change that too! :)

Oh, and yes! we're starting to cover some European banks and have plans for further European and asian expansion soon too.

A media player in the browser, along with JARVIS like dashboard features like tracking space station flyover, keeping check on reddit, gmail, facebook etc notifications, moon phases, sun cycles, weather, sunrise sunset moon rise moon set notifications, torrent control and status notifications. All in one consolidated UI that is os and platform independent, runs in any standards compliant browser on any device/browser configurationon any device pc, hybrid touch phone tablet etc.

It runs offline, infact it keeps track of network connection changes and informs user if system goes online/offline. In chrome it also runs in background. I have implemented most of the above stuff other than facebook and remote control stuff. I plan to add bunch of other stuff, all I need is more time thanks to college. Anyone willing to invest? Lol.

http://gitsense.com

It's re-imagining how you can interact with your codes history and GitHub pull requests. I'm desperately trying to get the installer and docs ready. The installer for Linux should be available this week and the installer for Mac OS X should be available next week.

ZikMe (http://www.ZikMe.org) a universal music database, it will provide open and editable information under Creative Commons license.

As we think information is the most powerful tool ever, we plan on radically change how we learn and discover music, and that is cool !!

http://tech.eu because where else would people go to find out about cool tech and startups coming out of Europe without having to weed through too much crap?
$100 Ghetto FPV Quadcopter (http://seedmediacreative.wix.com/teamghettosheep - It's a cheap DIY tutorial how to build your own FPV (first person view)micro quadcopter which weighs under 100grams.

The tutorial includes: -Video Transmitter build -Video Receiver build -Controller tray/holder build

I'm hoping to build a tiny 2gram on-screen-display (OSD) module that displays altitude & flight time. Also hoping to try Flir Lepton thermal camera too, but Flir are probably waterlogged with emails.

I am working on a site for adding local adverts: http://oglos.info/

I am trying to create unique, simple and compact navigation. It's an early version of my page but I'd appreciate all hints, suggestions, directions etc.

https://retred.org is a repository of (right now historical) events. There wasn't a good place where you can view and (soon will be able to add/edit) historical facts, not to mention cutting it up in various ways to see how things relate.
this is such a great idea!

it would be great to be able to choose a series of events (e.g. d-day or the Beatles tour in 1967) and see the progression of events across a map in the order they happened.

or to get a cross section of all the events that happened on a given date around the world or in a chosen area.

edit: after exploring further I realise some of this is already possible. again, a great idea!

Thanks - as you say, if you search for a thing you will see the events with lines between them showing the progression of events in chronological order.

You can use the time bar on the top to alter the date range, and there are "favourite" era's selectable at the drop down down the bottom.

http://notegraphy.com

Because a simple tool to write & share beautifully is attracting a lot of people (+250k iOS users) and generating a different way of sharing text (+600k notes, now 12k daily). Also, technically speaking it's a nice example of technology marriage: the web and the native app enviroments. Android version soon, if you want to test drive, /android and suscribe.

I never got bored in the project. I've designed both iOS and the web applications and also helped to code LESS/HTML and SVG to create the base product and automated many things. It's fun as hell.

Heard of the video game Starbound? http://playstarbound.com

I'm pretty heavily involved in Minecraft reverse engineering, and I've started a new website for reverse engineering Starbound. Dissecting the networking protocol, file formats, or whatever else fits in, it's fair game for the site. Come help out? http://starbound-dev.org

http://www.linkafy.com Control your home from a tablet. One app, multiple mobile platforms. An Internet of Things mobile application and Platform as a Service for appliance manufacturers.
Very cool! I'm a bit perplexed about the "sharing control" feature. I'm assuming you're going to be deploying some serious security into the app.

Anyway, going to keep an eye out for your progress!

http://www.quantumbiosystems.com an IC that can read DNA without any complicated chemistry and on a device that costs dollars.

It's cool not only because it could revolutionize medical research and diagnostics. But also because it gives the world a fundamental new class of sensor on which new applications will be developed for years to come.

uhh... how is this different from 23andMe and all that stuff? (not skeptical, just curious)
I assume that it does not analyze your genome for risk to cancer etc.
So you get your test-kit from 23andMe, you spit into the tube and you send it to... a 3rd party lab that processes your DNA and ships the digital data to 23andMe.

That 3rd party lab has an IC that, using complicated, expensive chemistry, will digitize your DNA. Except technically not. There are some 'hot' locations that have been pre-categorized as 'interesting' on human DNA, that their chip will investigate and report back, and isn't a full sequencing of the genome.

Two areas for to compete on are the complicated chemistry, and doing a more complete genome sequence.

What are the error rates like on this tech at present?
Early days, <1% substitution but homopolyer issues (~10%)
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