comstock

7 ms·

1.
by comstock 9y ago
Yes, but I would say quality is most important in almost all cases. Well, quality being defined as <1% error rate, which isn’t such a high bar. The most compelling near term applications (NITP etc) use fragmented DNA, and long reads will
2.
by comstock 9y ago
Do you have a citation for this? Because this is not my understanding.
3.
by comstock 9y ago
Most clinical applications don’t need long reads. Pathogen identification from short reads is easy. Blood tests for cancer, and NIPT (which will likely be the first big applications) both use fragmented DNA in the blood, so long reads are n
4.
by comstock 9y ago
They’re going to need more money. I think they’d need to sell >10,000 units a month. That is if they are making any kind of profit. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a market for anything like that number of flow cells.
5.
by comstock 9y ago
I think they like to say they have a patent monopoly, but I don’t believe they do. Genia (which also has issues) are developing a protein nanopore platform. Illumina (see recent IP battle with Oxford Nanopore) also have key IP in this space
6.
by comstock 9y ago
I would guess they currently make a loss on every device shipped. Most current sales are about generating press coverage/traction, not revenue.
7.
by comstock 9y ago
The accounts of all UK companies are filed publicly. They had about 1M GBP of sales in 2016 from memory. I would guess with overheads, each unit is currently sold at a loss. Illumina doesn’t beat nanopore because of the “scale” it beats it
8.
by comstock 9y ago
That might be the case if the throughput wasn’t so low and the error rate wasn’t so high.
9.
by comstock 9y ago
I’d agree with you, that long reads would be useful if the error rate wasn’t so shockingly bad. There is, likely value in long reads, but what non-niche research applications are there for highly error’d reads that justify a valuation of se
10.
by comstock 9y ago
NextSeq is expensive, but there are cheaper options (from 30k) and you can just send your samples to a sequencing service. I’ve seen costs for a whole human genome at high coverage of between 1 and 3000USD.
11.
by comstock 9y ago
That’s great, but for a company that has raised on a valuation of >2BUSD how are they going to compete with Illumina. The read lengths might be long, but the error rate is a couple of orders of magnitude higher. I can’t see a market larg
12.
by comstock 9y ago
It’s also comparatively expensive compared to other platforms (you can get a full human genome sequenced at high coverage for between 1000 and 3000 USD). The error rate is stupidly high (somewhere between 10 and 20%) compared to Illumina or
13.
by comstock 9y ago
Work for a year then take two years off? Or retire earlier? Again, I didn’t say that people wouldn’t work at all. I said that the barrier to obtaining a personal autonomy is too high in a society where providing the essentials of life has b
14.
by comstock 9y ago
Can be useful when you’re looking after kids, you’re carrying a child/stuck away from your phone. I’d guess voice assistance could be useful in other situations too. But for me the error rate still seems too high, and there are limited
15.
by comstock 9y ago
I’m not really talking about providing a basic income. What I’m saying is the barrier to having “personal autonomy” in a society where providing the essentials of life has to a high degree already been automated, is too high.
16.
by comstock 9y ago
The last sentence really stuck home to me (edited for clarity): While these Red Ocean ideas may not result in creating multibillion dollar companies they do offer opportunity that can lead to riches and personal autonomy. It’s sad that we l
17.
by comstock 9y ago
Only if you have multiple devices... it would be nice if they supported this optionally (it would be nice if they supported any kind of end-to-end backup optionally).
18.
by comstock 9y ago
It’s an AI using deep learning and therefore magic requiring no explanation.
19.
by comstock 9y ago
I think they want to support the scenario of lost device, lost password, but still allow restoring data to a new device.
20.
by comstock 9y ago
Yes, they obviously have the infrastructure to do it. However, they don’t even optionally. Part of the reason is that people sometimes forget their passwords and that would lock them out of their backups. So they want to allow email/ot
21.
by comstock 9y ago
I probably could have been more tactful. However the substance of my comment is correct, and while I believe Apple do great things in security and promoting privacy rights, they don’t provide end-to-end backups for most data via iCloud. The
22.
by comstock 9y ago
Would you care to link to the section of the security white paper that says that? There’s a small subset of data that is encrypted end-to-end. Your photos, notes, most and most other information is not include in that. It’s pretty obvious r
23.
by comstock 9y ago
If I’m going to be downvotes, could someone at least link to a document that shows how these statements are incorrect?
24.
by comstock 9y ago
The statements only refer to: “When files are created in Data Protection classes that aren’t accessible when the device is locked” So not photos, most data.
25.
by comstock 9y ago
This contradicts statements made by Apple, most information in iCloud backups is not encrypted end-to-end. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
26.
by comstock 9y ago
Apple, very clearly states that only the following data is end-to-end encrypted: iCloud Keychain Payment information Wi-Fi network information Home data Siri information So everything else, pictures, notes etc. etc. part of the iCloud backu
27.
by comstock 9y ago
You’re just wrong, and spreading misinformation, please read the statements by Apple here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 In particular a limited subset of data uses end-to-end encryption, none of which is su
28.
by comstock 9y ago
Unfortunately, we don’t understand the exact mechanism for many (most?) available medication. Correlation != causation. Which is why you need to do randomized testing and try and account for other causative factors. But if you give a bunch
29.
by comstock 9y ago
Right, but we’re talking about medical data. Which in lieu of further information I assume would be backed up in the same way as iCloud data. Unless there are statements to the contrary?
30.
by comstock 9y ago
iCloud backups can be decrypted by Apple, because they have the key the data is encrypted with serverside. Are you saying this data is different?

More ›