Byteballs definitely seems to contain some of the most prominent features of the HEAT offering, such as E2EE messenger and A2A trading. They even call BB the 3rd gen crypto, which HEAT kind of coined and followers are catching up. However many features and especially the HEAT core structural mechanisms - scalability based on replicating setup, blockchain slicing and POP reward scheme are gonna remain unique for a good while even if competitors deploy the higher level features nearly at the same time as we do. It'll sure be an interesting 2017

I'm trying to get Dennis in the mood for the short xmas tech update. I know what that is but lack the vocabularity for the technical formulation. It's of not much use to tell that we've completed most core transactions and scalability testing, and are now deploying Asset exchange procedures on the testnet. Blockchain explorer draft at
https://alpha.heatledger.com/#/explorer displays some of these (only accessible after logging in) but just the headers so not much content to see there.
During ICOs (every ICO, including HEAT) devs and the whole team will be all over forums responding to all and every question within 1 nanosecond. After ICOs they ALL disappear. If you get a lacklustre response like the above within 1 gigasecond, consider yourself lucky.