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Clostra | applied machine learning & censorship-resistance mesh networking | full-time | REMOTE | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are looking for a Unity development lead for an augmented reality (AR) / virtual reality (VR) product that is backed by advanced computer vision models.

Also, always interested in talking with strong C developers & peer-to-peer protocol engineers.

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like what we are doing, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

A curious footnote: Sam Quinones argues that P2P meth is part of the explanation for the proliferation of tents in homeless encampments, because it causes users withdraw socially in ways that earlier meth didn't. This is what he means by it "brought you inside". Users want to be alone (i.e. in a tent) with their paranoid schizophrenic hallucinations.

Clostra | censorship-resistance mesh networking & applied machine learning | full-time | ALL REMOTE ALWAYS | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are ex-BitTorrent engineers who also created the off-the-grid messaging app FireChat. At Clostra, we work on censorship-resistant mobile mesh networking (NewNode) and on applied machine learning. Clostra is profitable and growing (currently 18 engineers) and has been fully-remote / work-from-home since 2013.

We are always looking for great people. In particular we are currently looking for:

* Unity Game Developer—develop Unity-based multiplayer real-time strategy game, backed by advanced machine learning models; ideally looking for someone who can hit the ground running with Unity development, but in the long run contribute to full-stack development efforts. (https://www.clostra.com/gamedev)

* Senior Software/Protocol Engineer — join our core peer-to-peer protocol team designing and developing a highly-portable SDK in C to provide robust mobile connectivity, even in the presence of firewalls and network attacks designed to disrupt, deny, or censor communication (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-protocol-engineer)

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like our culture and what we are doing, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

Clostra | censorship-resistance mesh networking & applied machine learning | full-time | ALL REMOTE ALWAYS | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are ex-BitTorrent engineers who also created the off-the-grid messaging app FireChat. At Clostra, we work on censorship-resistant mobile mesh networking (NewNode) and on applied machine learning. Clostra is profitable and growing (currently 18 engineers) and has been fully-remote / work-from-home since 2013.

We are always looking for great people. In particular we are currently looking for:

Senior Software/Protocol Engineer — join our core P2P protocol team designing and developing a highly-portable SDK in C to provide robust mobile connectivity, even in the presence of firewalls and network attacks designed to disrupt, deny, or censor communication (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-protocol-engineer) Senior Software Engineer— build data and MLOps pipelines for several emerging products (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-engineer-backend)

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like what we are building at Clostra, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

Clostra | censorship-resistance mesh networking & applied machine learning | hiring experienced software engineers and systems builders | full-time | ALL REMOTE ALWAYS | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are ex-BitTorrent engineers who also created the off-the-grid messaging app FireChat. At Clostra, we work on censorship-resistant mobile mesh networking (NewNode) and on applied machine learning. Clostra is profitable and growing (currently 18 engineers) and has been fully-remote / work-from-home since 2013.

We are always looking for great engineers, but in particular we are currently looking for:

Senior Software/Protocol Engineer — design and develop a highly-portable SDK in C to support consumer apps that provide robust connectivity, even in the presence of firewalls, network attacks, and other censorship attempts (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-protocol-engineer) Senior Software Engineer— build data and MLOps pipelines for several emerging products (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-engineer-backend)

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like what we are building at Clostra, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

Clostra | censorship-resistance networking & machine learning | full-time | all REMOTE team indefinitely | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are ex-BitTorrent engineers who also created the off-the-grid messaging app FireChat. At Clostra, we work on censorship-resistant mobile mesh networking (NewNode) and on applied machine learning. Clostra is profitable and growing (currently 18 engineers) and has been fully-remote / work-from-home since 2013.

Always looking for great engineers, but in particular we are currently looking for:

Senior Software/Protocol Engineer — design and develop a highly-portable SDK in C to support consumer apps that provide robust connectivity, even in the presence of firewalls, network attacks, and other censorship attempts (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-protocol-engineer) Senior Software Engineer— build data and MLOps pipelines for several emerging products (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-engineer-backend) Machine Learning Engineer — research, develop, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning models (https://www.clostra.com/machine-learning-engineer)

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like what we are building at Clostra, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

Clostra | machine-learning / mobile-mesh networking | full-time | all REMOTE team indefinitely | https://clostra.com/careers-home

We are ex-BitTorrent engineers who also created the off-the-grid messaging app FireChat. At Clostra, we work on censorship-resistant mobile mesh networking (NewNode) and on applied machine learning solutions for defense, medicine, and business. Clostra is profitable and growing (currently 15-20 engineers) and has been fully-remote / work-from-home since 2013.

Always looking for great engineers, but in particular we are currently looking for:

* Senior Software Engineer, Backend — focus on building out data and MLOps pipelines for several products (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-engineer-backend)

* Machine Learning Engineer — research, develop, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning models (https://www.clostra.com/machine-learning-engineer)

* Senior Software/Protocol Engineer — design and develop highly-portable network protocols in C that are can circumvent firewalls and other censorship attempts (https://www.clostra.com/senior-software-protocol-engineer)

* Unity / game-developer interested in building ML-adjacent frontends

Please read https://www.clostra.com/the-clostra-way and, if you like what we are building at Clostra, apply online or reach out to me directly (ben [at] clostra [dot] com).

Amazon Fire Phone 12 years ago

A tilt UI is ridiculous. In many environments, there will be horrible glare at many angles due to overhead light sources. If you want to solve the finger-in-front-of-the-screen problem, put a capacitive touchpad on the back.

Amazon Prime Air 13 years ago

To minimize noise and visual pollution, it would be better for these drones to fly low, along existing roads to take advantage of existing noise abatement measures (e.g. noise barriers walls, berms, roadside vegetation, etc.)

If only there were a series of mirrors, each N light-years away, you could blast a one-time pad out to the mirror of your choice and then announce the date the reflection is expected to arrive.

Pure genius! Just one thing, anyone upgrading from an old mercury switch thermostat will be left with a mercury waste disposal problem. Properly disposing of these can be a real hassle and some not-so-environmentally responsible customers are likely to just chuck them in the trash. Nest could raise the bar of their environmental responsibility another notch by including a postage-paid mailer and some bubble wrap to return your old thermostat to them for proper disposal.

Your reply illustrates exactly how it has failed. You use it only to catch up with family...every weekend. These are the people for whom we do not bother putting on makeup or even our clothes sometimes.

Depending on demographics, per capita voice minutes (though falling) are still 500-1000 per month; and you are spending maybe a 10th of that on video calls with family. Judged against 50+ years of heavy R&D and promotion of this communications medium, I'd have to call that failure.

Another corollary is that we need better tools for lying. Prismatic identity management require that you can manage the persona on each facet and lie about the occluded personas. One of the killer features of the telephone that is often overlooked is how well it has supported lying.

Poole is spot on. I'll add as a corollary, that users also don't want real-time communication that is a mirror. This is one of the reasons that videoconferencing has failed repeatedly since 1964. The entire cosmetics and fashion industries exist to provide avatars for when we must endure the gaze. And yet, we continue to work on videoconferencing and tele-immersion. Sigh.

Having received some stiff but fair criticism here for this post, I’ve updated it to clarify and summarize a few points:

1. Apple is not a fashion company. Yet the value of their brand is clearly not just about utility. Apple’s products have been so good, so sexy, so “magical” (thank you Apple marketing), that they inspire feelings of religious ecstasy and fetishistic adoration in their users. This has real value for Apple and they should be highly protective of this phenomenal good will. But, now we are supposed to believe that the tactile titillation we get from fondling EVE in our palms, is to be replaced by the experience of shouting at an IVR? Forgive my skepticism.

2. By “Siri is awesome”, I meant that what we saw yesterday from Apple was awesome. But, it feels like Apple is over-promising. I have used the old Siri off and on for the last year on my iPhone. It’s cute, but is far from “magical”. To match the speed, reliability, and ease-of-use of the other features on the iPhone (and to avoid tarnishing the brand), Apple would have had to improve dramatically upon the previous Siri.

3. There are certain visionary product ideas that have been around for decades and have been repeatedly tried, and yet somehow are never quite good enough for mass adoption. Videoconferencing is one (despite several attempts by Apple). A voice-controlled AI-backed personal assistant is another.

4. If Siri fails (which I think is likely), Apple retreats and moves on. If it is wildly successful, it is disruptive. Mobile devices start to disappear and fade into an invisible ubiquitous computing environment that we talk to. Very cool. But can Apple sustain an advantage in this world? AI, IVRs, natural language processing, search--these are not areas where Apple has a lot of experience, talent, or any kind of lead.

Apple is certainly not a jewelry company. I am a huge fan of Apple's design chops and their ability to make the "world's most intuitive technology".

And yet, their products have been so good lately, so sexy, so "magical", that they inspire feelings of religious ecstasy in their users and fans. I don't see how this can be immaterial--it's a huge part of the brand value.

Now I can understand how people might feel this kind of fetishistic ecstasy for something they can fondle in their palms, but I cannot believe people will ever feel this way about an IVR--no matter how smart it is.

The interesting thing here is that one of Skype's most noted weaknesses is actually its core strength: calls tend to be scheduled (or at least negotiated first via IM).