sammachin

The problem is there’s no way to truely publish OSS on the iOS App Store (or Play store) you submit a binary to Apple and you can publish a repo to GitHub but AFAIK there’s no way to correlate that those two things are the same. So unless you build the app from source yourself there could be anything in the binary.

I’m wondering where the code ‘runs’ is it in the browser or on the cloud. For example if I have an app that connects to MQTT can I connect to a private broker inside my network

Its certainly a lot harder to hire someone in a country that you don't have a presence in, usually this means setting up things like employer tax arrangements, pensions, health benifits etc. Some companies get around this by having their remote employees in countries where they don't have a legal entity become independent contractors, and there's a couple of startups looking to solve this problem as a service.

However seeing as Stripe are advertising office based Roles in 6 different countries having all the remote roles as "North America Only" just seems plain lazy. I get that timezones might be an issue for some roles, although its better to then advertise a remote role as "GMT-8 to GMT-5" or whatever rather than a geographic location

Looking at it from the original buyers perspective, When they sold/traded in their used Model S to Tesla did the price they get take into account the self drive feature, or do Tesla pay the same trade in regardless of software features? If Tesla aren't buying back the feature then it makes it even less enticing to buy it on a new car as it has 100% depreciation! If they're paying for it at trade in then removing it before they sell it on then thats kinda fair enough its a bit like a dealer taking in a car with fancy wheels and putting stock ones on before they sell it on, sucks for the used buyer if they then have to pay full new price to add that feature later but... Although in this case it seems the issue is that Tesla sold a used car with a feature and then decided to take that feature back, which is theft in my book pure and simple.

Just use payphones

Actually the kickstarter did ship hence why I had my hands on one (well two actually) to do this hack. I backed the kickstarter back in May 2015.

The June2016 date is for orders placed on their store today which I think is the earliest they currently expect to have filled all the current pre-orders and later stage kickstarter backers. IIRC they're currently producing 5000 units a month.

I totally agree, hence my comments about artistic license in the title! One of the issues right now is that people kinda assume that Echo and Alexa are the same thing hopefully as more 3rd party devices come to market using Alexa the difference will emerge. I'm thinking of doing a follow on post explaining the differences. Also there's not really a generic name for the type of appliance that the Echo is like smartphone, tablet, browser etc. I wonder if echo will become like hoover in years to come?

Yeah I just need to strip out the auth keys etc. and rebase it before i make it public. I'll try and get it posted this week sometime, check back on weds.

Can't quite remember what I paid for shipping, taxes etc but I just tried adding one to my cart and it was only $6.22 shipping to the UK now.

Thanks for all the upvotes folks,

I should clarify that there is a bit of artistic license on the title calling this a $10 Echo, there are 2 caveats;

Its only about $10 the CHIP is a "$9 Computer" plus tax & shipping etc. and this hack then requires a speaker, microphone and a button, however you may well have these lying around of have another device like an old speakerphone or something that you could gut and put the CHIP into as a new brain.

The other point is that its not really a full Echo, the Echo is a hardware appliance that implements Far Field Voice Technology, Wake Word Detection, A High Quality Bluetooth Speaker, Support for various media service (Prime Music, Audible, Pandora etc) and finally the Alexa Voice Assistant. This hack is really just access to the Alexa Voice Assistant without the wake word or far field tech.

So its about 90% of the functionality for a much lower price. Personally I have an Echo in my dining room which is great when walking around the house but I built this to use on my desk when I want to trigger home automation features without shouting downstairs.

Firstly great story and very entertaining :-) Certainly i would have used it on the application as it makes you stand out and gives the interviewers something interesting to ask about, thats what application forms are for after all.

When it comes to jumping on a plane to try and blag the domain name I think its actually a pretty smart move, on the open market that name would have gone for 6 or 7 figures certainly far more than you could have afforded on seed funding, in which case its worth dropping a grand or so as a gamble that you might get it for much less, I'm guessing you were hoping they'd say they weren't using it and just sign it over to you?

Hey you took a chance and gambled 1000 bucks in the hope of it paying off many times over, it didn't but thats life.

Best of luck man :-)