21 ms·

Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• amirouche 9y ago
  Without doubt, GraphQL is the next technologo I will learn. The idea is so brillant compared to REST. If you are convinced by SQL and in general by Domain Specific Languages, I think you should give GraphQL a try.
  • tostitos1979 9y ago
    I'm intrigued ... can you elaborate on the wow factor beyond REST that you see in GraphQL? When I looked at it in the past, it seems to make sense for things that could be represented by graph (e.g. FB's social graph), and graphql allowed you to run complex operations in the backend without fetching each individual node on the client. I clearly missed something?
    • lolive 9y ago
      And if you can also elaborate on why SPARQL and RDF were a major failure, and how GraphQL is different/better?
      • amirouche 9y ago
        > it seems to make sense for things that could be represented by graph False, even if there is graph in its name it's not restricted to graph, and that what is great about it compared to things like RDF and SPARQL. Backend data can be stored in key/value store, document, files, RDBMS or whatever. And you will still be able to make it work. AFAIK you write a "translation" layer that interprets a pseudo-JSON file into your data. AFAIK GraphQL is not good at querying recursive datastructure, it's better at "neighborhood" kind of query, so you can traverse Foreign Keys, but not "indefinitely". > graphql allowed you to run complex operations in the backend without fetching each individual node on the client. Yes. > I clearly missed something? IDK. For me, GraphQL basically it's an RPC interface particularly suited at "reading" data. > And if you can also elaborate on why SPARQL and RDF were a major failure, and how GraphQL is different/better? GraphQL is not tied to particular data layout. I don't know much of SPARQL and RDF actually and don't know why they failed. I am just guessing. That said, GraphQL it "just" another query language, it's "just" another DSL targeted at querying datastructures. As something that was thought a long time, focused to solve a particular issue.
        • scottmf 9y ago
          > AFAIK GraphQL is not good at querying recursive datastructure, it's better at "neighborhood" kind of query, so you can traverse Foreign Keys, but not "indefinitely". That isn't true. You can request data in any shape you want and could theoretically traverse through child nodes indefinitely. We have many queries which go 5-6 levels deep.
          • lolive 9y ago
            How do you deal with IDs misalignment between data sources?
            • scottmf 9y ago
              Could you clarify what you mean? Got an example?
              • lolive 9y ago
                Let's say you want to query Wikipedia for village descriptions, and get a map of matched villages from openstreetmap. Would it be a use case where GraphQL could help? Then it would need a "translation" layer for both systems. And joins between datasets would be based (for example) on the couple "country+postalCode". Is it a possible use case of GraphQL?
                • scottmf 9y ago
                  Could you show me a quick example of what a request and response would look like with REST? I'm still not quite sure what you mean.
        • lolive 9y ago
          Ok. And the join strategy (i.e IDs alignment) between data sources is defined (declaratively? Programmatically?) in the "translation" layer. Sounds very interesting. I still think the URIs of the semantic web are a better idea, but given the fact that nobody (re)uses them, then why not a "translation" layer.
    • arstin 9y ago
      This frontend code. const ProfileImage = ({ user }) => <img src={user.avatarUrl} alt={user.name} />; const query = gql`{ user(id: 3) { name avatarUrl } }` export const ProfileImageWithData = graphql(query)(ProfileImage); You can ask for data in the structure the UI expects and only get exactly that data, letting the GQL client handle batching network requests for needs distributed across the whole app, caching, UI updating, etc under the hood. Also does a great job of decoupling product and data management code.
  • X86BSD 9y ago
    I'm encouraged to hear your opinion on it. A friend of mine who turned me on to elixir is a fan of GraphQL as well. So you have pushed me to spend the day reading up on it and experimenting with it. Thank you.
  • transcranial 9y ago
    GraphQL has been a breath of fresh air -- you can tell a lot of thought went into its design and implementation.
  • krono 9y ago
    Great resource for anyone wanting to learn more: https://www.howtographql.com/ https://www.howtographql.com/
  • thisisforyou 9y ago
    I built a GraphQL API earlier this year. The learning curve can be a little awkward coming from REST, but once you get the hang of it GraphQL is super fun. Can't recommend it enough. Enjoy!
  • sp527 9y ago
    By what factor does using GraphQL accelerate development time?
    • FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
      I couldn't put a number on it, but it greatly accelerates development on the front-end. The API call gets you back all the data you need, only the data you need, in the format or structure that you need. If there were GraphQL for Spotify's API and you wanted an artist's discography, you don't have to make multiple calls to endpoints and work through huge objects where 90-95% of the data is not needed. For the front-end, it's a no-brainer. I've read that it is a bit more involved on the server-side but Apollo seems to be making great tooling for it.
    • BatFastard 9y ago
      4.3875321
  • zimablue 9y ago
    I was really not sold by GraphQL, I'm totally down to not use REST as I think that's daft but GraphQL seems to be less powerful than SQL and only really useful if the thing you're querying really is a graph, and not lots of rows of relational data. I do work with data all the time so it's not actually that useful, I wish someone would invent something similar but with a more logical foundation (joins and aggregations and stuff, not only through ugly plugins). Maybe like datalog although I never learned that enough to find the payoffs.
    • sixdimensional 9y ago
      Personally, I believe that someone needs to build some kind of a scalable, security-hardened SQL interface that can be queried directly from the browser using actual SQL. Part of that need involves federated data from multiple services/data sources. We already have a query language that can even handle nested values (see ISO SQL:2016 standard), why not just adapt it for use in the browser?
      • zimablue 9y ago
        I don't really like SQL either, it's hard to generate and doesn't support any abstractions, it might be an OK target format for some amazing query generator.
  • scottmf 9y ago
    I'm genuinely surprised by the number of people on HN who seem to know very little about what has been safe to call the successor to REST for quite some time. Forgive me if this sounds hyperbolic, but unless you have unusual or strict requirements, building a new app in 2017 REST-first is most likely a terrible mistake. Let me clear up some misconceptions I see in almost every HN comment thread on GraphQL: 1. GraphQL isn't more suited to Graph databases. Your data sources can be a mix of relational DB, NoSQL, key value, a REST API, or anything else. 2. n+1 has always been a solved problem in GraphQL thanks to DataLoader[1], a query batching utility which coalesces calls to your data sources from different parts of your app, specifically to avoid n+1. 3. It's unquestionably production-ready, battle-tested, has a real spec and official reference implementation, and it's probably the safest bet you can make at this moment in an industry as fickle as this. With GraphQL you simply write your schema, define types and relationships, and you’re then able to request data in almost any shape you wish, with very little extra work. This is invaluable during development. If you have a list of recent comments with author names, and later decide to show an avatar alongside the name, you don’t need to write any extra code on the server. You add an extra line to your query (or component’s fragment) on the client. The same goes for any field, any relationship, no matter how complex the resulting shape. If you wanted a comment author’s follower’s comments’ likeCounts, you still don’t need to write another line of server code. This makes it stupidly simple to rapidly prototype new features, try out new layouts, and means you can share a single API endpoint between mobile apps and desktop site without sending useless data to one or both. There have been many occasions when we simply wouldn't have had the time to implement a feature correctly with REST, particularly when we might not even know what data we'll want until we begin developing the feature and get a feel for how it works. It doesn't just save server dev time either. On the client side there are libraries like Apollo[2] and Relay which take care of fetching data, caching, normalization, and you should almost certainly use one (I recommend Apollo) unless you have a good reason not to. Writing fetch calls and managing your store manually is just going to be a huge waste of time. And the spec is more than queries and mutations. It's subscriptions, live queries, and more [3]. Real-time data is a first-class citizen of GraphQL, and the two most popular front-end libraries have official implementations of subscriptions (with live queries in progress). GraphQL is elegant, has a well-designed official spec, great DX and just plain makes sense. But it's really something you need to try out for yourself (preferably on a real project) to see just how great it is. If you’re planning to build something new with REST, seriously, reconsider. There's a slightly higher upfront cost to using GraphQL (particularly if you're new to it), but once you settle into it you'll be glad you did. Useful tools and resources: - GraphiQL[4] - an incredibly useful tool for running queries on your GraphQL API - Graph.cool[5] - BaaS for quickly prototyping a GraphQL API - Apollo Launchpad[6] - Try out GraphQL server code in your browser [1] https://github.com/facebook/dataloader https://github.com/facebook/dataloader [2] https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-client https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-client [3] https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/new-features-in-graphql-batch-defer-stream-live-and-subscribe-7585d0c28b07 https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/new-features-in-graphql-batc... [4] https://github.com/graphql/graphiql https://github.com/graphql/graphiql [5] https://www.graph.cool https://www.graph.cool [6] http://launchpad.graphql.com http://launchpad.graphql.com
• pryelluw 9y ago
  AR. Being able to superimpose software on top of real objects is amazing. It has so much economic potential that it hurts not being in the space already (working on that though). I feel AR will be the app craze 2.0.
  • spyspy 9y ago
    Iron Man style AR has so much more consumer potential than VR imo. Being able to get real-time info about the world around me without having to wave my phone around would be killer.
    • k__ 9y ago
      Isn't the big problem there holograms and not AR?
      • robotresearcher 9y ago
        If you are looking through glasses, holograms become relatively easy.
  • saosebastiao 9y ago
    Beat me to it. Industrial AR is going to be a multi billion dollar industry very soon, and for a very good reason.
  • mayank 9y ago
    > It has so much economic potential that it hurts not being in the space already (working on that though) As someone not familiar with the area, could you elaborate on some examples of what you think the economic potential is? To an outsider like me, being able to overlay virtual objects on a scene seems like a nice curiosity, not particularly an engine for commerce. Edit: specifically, I was curious about areas where AR offers a (financially) meaningful advantage over traditional HUDs (for example).
    • gpsx 9y ago
• lkrubner 9y ago
  If by "tech" you mean mostly computers and software, then WebAssembly is exciting. We've had 5 or more years now of companies inventing languages that compile back to Javascript, even though Javascript is a terrible target for compilation. WebAssembly was designed to be a true compilation target, and will allow an endless number of languages to be used on the browser. WebAssembly helps create more space between the kind of languages that developers want to use, and any particular GUI output, such as HTML. In a different thread, I just wrote about what is wrong with HTML: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14926845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14926845 If by "tech" you don't mean computers/software, then CRSPR is clearly going to be a huge thing going forward.
• mjevans 9y ago
  USB-C being so common that it's cheep.
• neilwilson 9y ago
  Allam cycle power plants. I love the idea of turbines that continue to burn in the middle of a giant fire extinguisher.
• goatlover 9y ago
  Crystal & Julia 1.0. Crystal because it's a blazing fast, compiled and statically typed version of Ruby (or 80% anyway), and it's web server is awesome. Now it just needs full concurrency. Julia because it offers a nice, performant alternative to Python & R in data science, while avoiding Java & C++. It has some really nice features like multiple dispatch and the ability to run R, Python, Fortran and C code inside of it, so you can use libraries like Numpy in Julia.
  • mirekrusin 9y ago
    Yes, can't wait for Crystal 1.0 release, awesome language.
    • sigjuice 9y ago
      From crystal-lang.org, Crystal is a compiled language I never understood the phrase compiled language.
      • goatlover 9y ago
        A compiled language uses a compiler to create a executable binary as opposed to a runtime that interprets or just-in-time compiles the language as it runs. Ruby is interpreted, C is compiled. Generally speaking, compiled languages are more performant but lack some of the flexibility of having a runtime available. Crystal sacrifices some of Ruby's metaprogramming capabilities for performance and static type assurances.
        • sigjuice 9y ago
          There are many C interpreters.
          • exikyut 9y ago
            I'm aware of PicoC, Cling (nee CINT), and Ch (commercial), but that's only three. What others are there? I'm curious about canonical C interpreters as well as things that aren't quite interpreting C but are somehow related.
• rl3 9y ago
  WebGPU. Granted, "right around the corner" is a bit of a stretch. https://webkit.org/blog/7380/next-generation-3d-graphics-on-the-web/ https://webkit.org/blog/7380/next-generation-3d-graphics-on-...
  • Yoric 9y ago
    Do you have a 15 seconds explanation on how that's going to be much better than WebGL?
    • noiv 9y ago
      ELI7: WebGL crunches numbers fast to end up as pixels, WebGPU crunches numbers fast to end up as numbers again.
      • Yoric 9y ago
        Got it, thanks for the clear explanation. So this means that we'll soon have web ads mining bitcoins using our GPUs, right? :)
        • noiv 9y ago
          Well, that's one thing. Google "Large Scale Distributed Deep Networks" for another.
          • arnioxux 9y ago
            Already happening! This came up a few days ago: Tensorflow implemented with webgl: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14894653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14894653
        • devrandomguy 9y ago
          That was already a thing, for a while. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9042.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9042.0 Can't tell if they are "honest" people who closed shop when they realized how bad their idea was, or if they just threw smoke and went dark.
• aakilfernandes 9y ago
  Ethereum's Casper https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/papers/casper_economics_basic.pdf https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/pap... It aims for more economically secure public blockchains with shorter confirmation times and less cost (electricity/hardware/inflation). I haven't delved deep enough into it to be fully convinced, but what I've gotten through so far is promising. AFAIK its the only proof of stake algorithm thats been formally documented.
  • splintercell 9y ago
    For me it is Raiden, I believe Ethereum should be able to beat Bitcoin in their lightening network implementation, and for the cryptocurrency of future, Raiden is very important for Ethereum. PS: So you don't support Ethereum Classic anymore?
    • aakilfernandes 9y ago
      I prefer the laissez-faire philosophy of classic, but the innovation is happening on the main chain.
    • Rmilb 9y ago
      I don't know much about Raiden, is there anything preventing a side chain of bitcoin from implementing it?
      • ringaroundthetx 9y ago
        Bitcoin-style blockchains have Lightning, same thing
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
    • ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      Also more excited about Raiden. Sad there isn't much more information about it. From my understanding, the thing I like about payment channels is that the capacity of the payment channel depends on how much of the cryptocurrency is deposited/locked away under it. So with everyone competing for a payment channel toll, they have taken large amounts of crypto off the market, constricting the supply, while distributing the marketing out for their own use case, some of which will be successful at increasing the demand. Any limited supply commodity performs the same under these circumstances, up, and that is exciting because the capacity can also scale for the new attention, while the "centralized" payment channels stay optional ways to transact on the network at all.
• graycat 9y ago
  My own! Should I ask HN to help with the beta test?
  • sjilo 9y ago
    Probably!
• Numberwang 9y ago
  There are rumors of phones with batteries lasting longer than 5hrs. I'm still not sure if true or not but when it happens it will revolutionize what you use your phone for. It may even replace the watch completely some day. Obviously I insist they still need to be as thin as they are now. That is much much more important than batteries.
  • Jackalopiate 9y ago
    ? I get at least 10 hours out of my Pixel on a daily basis, what rumor are you talking about?
    • whiskeySix 9y ago
      can't tell if you're being serious or not...
      • devrandomguy 9y ago
        Are you guys for real? This is ridiculous! I've been on the old Nexus 5 for ages. I think, if we aren't going to get Android 7, then maybe it will be time for me to switch to one of the fringe mobile operating systems. I get about 20 - 40 hours between charges, depending on whether or not I need to use Google Maps that day, and I often stay in airplane mode when I am working.
        • jdmichal 9y ago
          Airplane mode is cheating. My Nokia 920 lasted for a literal week during my honeymoon. It sat in the room in airplane mode and zero usage other than an alarm clock and a few dozen pictures. No one cares how long a smartphone lasts when you're not doing smartphone things with it.
    • cosinetau 9y ago
      It might be a lark, or a very high performance phone. :'))
    • 9y ago
• miheermunjal 9y ago
  ARkit finally pushing AR to the masses. From a developer perspective, having an SDK that simplifies "environment detection/reasoning" is huge. Previously required pretty deep hardware requirements and now is turning into an AI/ML/software problem. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/building_a_basic_ar_experience https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/building_a_b...
  • mrfusion 9y ago
    Does it have Ocr built in?
    • Yoric 9y ago
      I wouldn't hold my breath on it. Real-world OCR is hard. According to my tests, even Microsoft, Google or IBM's APIs get it wrong very, very often.
    • miheermunjal 9y ago
      not that I've seen, though with some logical combination of object dimensions, env variables (depth of field, etc), and a decent image recognition/ML then you could probably get decent OCR. Note that this is for visual recognition, feel text is decently solved (exhibitA, Google Translate).
  • lern_too_spel 9y ago
    A usable AR SDK has been available from Qualcomm/Vuforia for years on more devices than ARKit supports. The only thing that came out of it was marketing gimmicks.
    • Stanleyc23 9y ago
      I thought vuforia was mostly just a marker based AR, which never really took off in the US market. ARKit is markerless and their VIO system is actually pretty good.
    • m3kw9 9y ago
      ARKits ease of use and is way ahead of vuforia. The advantage of ARKit is also OS integrated.
• ZenoArrow 9y ago
  Excited may be too strong a word, but I'm interested in seeing how the world of decentralised apps evolve. I like the idea of decentralising the web using plug and play home servers. There are a few projects in this space already (such as Sandstorm) and there are some existing projects that aren't strictly limited to dapps but could play a key role in the future (a few unikernel and meshnet projects spring to mind).
  • aakilfernandes 9y ago
    IMHO the real bottle neck here is NAT, so I'd throw universal static ipv6 consumer adoption in with this.
    • ZenoArrow 9y ago
      Yeah, greater IPv6 rollout would be very useful.
    • amelius 9y ago
      Another bottleneck is the asymmetric up/download speed of most ISPs. Often upload is more than 10x slower than download.
• ProfessorLayton 9y ago
  Gene editing, particularly on living people. I'm looking forward to cancer treatments being no more involved than an antibiotics regimen. I don't know if its around the corner, but considering the human genome was completed circa 2003, I'm pretty enthusiastic that it isn't too far away.
  • adventured 9y ago
    I'm looking for a CRISPR (or equivalent gene tech) loading system to be implanted, so we can easily install upgrades to our genome as a species. Patches that fix common flaws that dramatically increase disease / shorten life expectancy, along with improvement patches that make us better in various ways. It's not coming anytime soon, but it's inevitable and will be more beneficial than the vaccination programs we've spread globally that work similarly in how they benefit the species as a whole as a sort of upgrade. I don't know whether it'll be more efficient/ideal to have it function as an implanted system that check & regulates constantly, or as something that is performed every so many years (you'd get your first patch in the womb). It probably seems like sci-fi now, some early concepts in this space will be possible within 30 years.
    • goatlover 9y ago
      I'm a little bit concerned about the improvement patches. We should get rid of devastating diseases, but we should also be really careful about how we decide to change the species. We'll be deciding that for future generations.
      • lordnacho 9y ago
        > We'll be deciding that for future generations. Isn't the premise that they can decide for themselves?
        • goatlover 9y ago
          There is the possibility of editing the germline so that all future generations will have the improvement. Now imagine parents deciding this for their future kids, grandkids, etc.
• subhrm 9y ago
  I am excited about both WebGL & Web assembly. Although both of these have been around for a few years, we are yet to see a general adaptation of these. (might be due to inconsistent browser support). Now with the rise of VR, 3d Printing, powerful GPUs these two technologies are bound to open new avenues of an immersive browsing experience. I imagine that in next few years we would have 1- Webs stores, that show a virtual 3d shopping mall, 2- 3-d virtual try out of garments, 3- VR coaching of physical activities like a- Playing Tennis, b- Judo, c-Taecondo, d- Dance
  • nprz 9y ago
    I've been interested in learning WebGL but have been hesitant to take the time to learn it because it didn't seem like a skill companies would hire for. Do you think it will become a marketable skill in the future?
    • zubspace 9y ago
      WebGL is very similar to OpenGL ES. In general, having basic knowledge of OpenGL and the rendering pipeline is always a good thing. But that alone won't provide a lot of value to a company. Start out with some tutorials and learn the basics, but keep in mind, that there are frameworks like three.js [1], which abstract away all the nitty-gritty details, like setting up a render context, initialize texture buffers or load 3d models from known formats. By using a framework you will save a lot of time and you can concentrate on the fun stuff. But even three.js can be kind of low-level, because depending on what you want to achieve, you still need more 'boilerplate'. If you want to write a game, you need stuff like a ui framework within the render context, a physics engine, particle generators, pathfinding etc etc. If you need this, maybe take a look at Unity [2] or Unreal Engine [3], which provide said extensions and alot more. Those engines provide ways to build applications for different targets like direct3d, opengl or webgl, so you basically can cover browsers, pc's and mobile platforms with the same codebase which is truly awesome. But be prepared for a step learning curve (but it's fun!). When you start working on stuff like this, you realize, that those frameworks and game engines are just tools. In the end, you need to combine those tools with some kind of domain knowledge, like art, game design, architecture, interface design or something similar to increase chances finding a job in such a sector. It's alot to ask for, but you need to start somewhere. And if it doesn't work out, you maybe find a new cool hobby and gain programming and design experience on the way. [1] https://threejs.org/ https://threejs.org/ [2] https://unity3d.com https://unity3d.com [3] https://www.unrealengine.com https://www.unrealengine.com
• adventured 9y ago
  I'm looking for a company to successfully implement what I call on-behalf AI. AI legally allowed to take actions on behalf of someone, in a large number of ways in relation to daily life. This may be 5, 10, or 20 years out yet, hard to say. It'll be very hard to pull off, and whichever company does it first at a high function + comprehensive level will be another Airbnb or Uber, as the legal/regulatory hurdles will be similarly challenging, and exactly as with those cases it'll be ideal to move first and apologize later (which will cause the typical uproar among people that find that approach appalling). This type of AI is where you get deep into real time savings for consumers, by significantly reducing dozens of mundane & routine tasks (most of which repeat from person to person and can be modeled very accurately accordingly).
  • idlewords 9y ago
    Why do you think it's "ideal to move first and apologize later" when rolling out a socially transformative technology in a democratic society?
    • adventured 9y ago
      Because I occasionally don't respect the restraints that tend to exist in democratic societies when it comes to entrenched regulation & interests vs innovation (or really anything new or different), which frequently dramatically slow down progress (see: zoning law abuse, or the FDA's countless abuses or otherwise slow & meandering approach (what I call backwards), or the present US healthcare system (vast entrenched interests, fear of change, etc)). That is, it's my opinion that that restraint is what always must be pushed back against to generate any positive change in any culture or society at any point in history. Failure to push in this regard, guarantees stagnation. The vast majority - in my opinion - overwhelmingly tend toward being either aggressively anti-change, or they're at best very cautious about it. That has been demonstrated non-stop throughout history with practically every step forward in technology for example. It may even be a beneficial evolutionary attribute for the survival of humanity. I don't belong to the dislikes change group, my personality type is to push. That's the honest answer. Am I biased because of my own world-view or personality type? No doubt to one extent or another. I'm not advocating for chaos or anarchy though; rather, I'm advocating for constantly testing assumed or entrenched notions/boundaries, as a means to find out if there is new progress to be found there. My opinion is that there's almost always progress to be found in challenging such, with some areas blatantly worth focusing on more than others (due to favorable upside vs downside risk ratio). If you ask permission first every time you attempt to find progress at the edge of what a society presently finds comfortable, you're not likely to get very far.
• oconnore 9y ago
  IRV voting in Maine, automatic districting to prevent gerrymandering, and reliable voting schemes like Scratch and Vote.
  • tgb 9y ago
    Last I heard, ranked choice voting had been ruled unconstitutional in Maine: http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/23/maine-high-court-says-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/ http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/23/maine-high-court-says-...
• econnors 9y ago
  VR Gaming. We're a few years away from some incredible experiences in the space.
  • pyroinferno 9y ago
    Elite Dangerous already exists.
  • bradneuberg 9y ago
    Amazing VR gaming experiences have already arrived. The last two months have seen a flood of incredible VR gaming experiences for the Oculus Rift. I highly suggest you give the current generation of consumer VR another try: * Lone Echo - Amazing space story line, one of the highest ranked PC games on Metacritic right now: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/lone-echo http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/lone-echo * Echo Arena - Basically the Enders Game zero-g arena in space, multiplayer. Really addictive: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/echo-arena http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/echo-arena * The Unspoken - You're a wizard, with magic, and you use your hands in different combinations with the Oculus Touch controllers to battle other mages, including real people via multiplayer gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVD1O853aSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVD1O853aSw * Robo Recall - Battle robots, grab them with your hands, tear them apart, grab bullets from the air. Epic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIK4D0kVlIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIK4D0kVlIs * Star Trek Bridge Command - You are literally on the bridge of a Star Trek spaceship. * Mages Tale - VR RPG from the creator of the classic Bards Tale, makes me feel like I'm embedded into a classic AD&D dungeon crawl. Anyway, that's just a small selection! I picked up an Oculus Rift + Touch Controllers the last two months and have been blown away at the developments lately.
    • andybak 9y ago
      Agreed. Owned a Vive since last October and still have a "wow!" moment at least once a week. And that's even without the continual joy of demoing to people who've never tried proper VR. It's genuinely rewarding every time you pop a headset on someone new.
• sauronlord 9y ago
  Mainstream adoption of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins
• teilo 9y ago
  Racetrack Memory.
• Entangled 9y ago
  The second coming of WebTV. I am sick of small devices, I want a huge 100" display managed by a touch remote where I can play and work, watch videos, movies, track my cryptos, even code my own apps from it, all from the comfort of a fat-ass recliner.
• chx 9y ago
  Lenovo ThinkPad Retro! That's certainly right around the corner: two months and one day until pre-order opens.
  • soperj 9y ago
    Hadn't heard of this until now! Thanks!
    • chx 9y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ I am glad you have heard it now! I am typing this on a T420s because I refuse to use anything but the old seven row keyboard and hope I can move to the Retro in October :)
      • soperj 9y ago
        I'm on an x220. Didn't really know what I was going to do for my next computer, but there might be hope yet...
• phkahler 9y ago
  RISC-V We should see the first hardware running a real Linux distro in 2018 and it should proliferate from there. RV32 should also start showing up in micro controllers as well. Still need an open GPU, but I think a bunch of risc-v cores with vector extensions running LLVMpipe would be reasonable for running a Wayland desktop.
• jostylr 9y ago
  Textblade: https://waytools.com/ https://waytools.com/ Single row keyboard that has minimal finger movement. It was to be delivered March 2015 or so, but it has yet to be released. They have testers who rave about it and it looks incredible, but it is perpetually around the corner. Originally designed as an ultra-portable phone keyboard, those who have used it tend to use it for all their machines. It has jump slots to quickly switch from device to device.
  • devrandomguy 9y ago
    Wow, that is brilliant! But it's not on the market, you say? Well, it looks like something I can draft and print. I won't be competing with them, that would be rude, but I must have this for myself. They should remove the unresponsive Buy button, that just looks bad.
    • jostylr 9y ago
      You can take a look at some forum posts to get a sense of where they are at: https://forum.waytools.com/t/tech-update-la-la-state-drill-down-july-4/5074/60 https://forum.waytools.com/t/tech-update-la-la-state-drill-d... They keep tweaking and iterating and keep saying another couple of months.
  • kmicklas 9y ago
    I don't know if this is the solution, but I agree improvements in human-computer-interaction is one of the big things holding back tech for a lot of problems. Obviously a non-invasive brain interface would be the holy grail.
    • goatlover 9y ago
      Do you really want to hook your brain directly up to the internet? I'd have serious reservations about that.
      • elliotec 9y ago
        Some people would do it in a heartbeat.
• anotheryou 9y ago
  better search, always Find me: - an aggregation of everything I have to know to run a porcelain store in my country (taxes, suppliers, how to find staff or better yet: showing candidates directly, best location in my town, etc.) - Fuzzy stuff like: the pic of that tree I took when I was on hollidays in XY a few years ago; or the note I took a few days ago about that band with some greek name - a ready to paste, non-ancient js-script for XY - a cafe where nobody cares about how long I sit with my laptop with a not too modern ambiente - the lesser known types optical illusions
  • DarkTree 9y ago
    Honestly, it may not be at the level you are describing here now, but I have been overwhelmed by the ability I've had to find small figments of memories with Google search. For example, I had a faint memory of a movie I watched as 4 year old, and could only remember a few generic nouns describing it, and after a few minutes of searching I was able to pinpoint. This wasn't possible years ago, either because the search engine itself wasn't ready, or that the information simply wasn't on the web. Now both of those are true, and only becoming more so, so they are improving in tandem. I'm pretty confident I can find something on the web by only knowing a few keys words.
    • anotheryou 9y ago
      Indeed already amazing. "Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. […] I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them" from 1995 http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirva... today google shows it right away: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=date%20of%20the%20Battle%20of%20Trafalgar https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=date%20of%20the%... (powered by the now slightly more semantic wikipedia I think)
  • assafmo 9y ago
    I think you can already find that tree of yours today with Google Photos
  • 9y ago
• thisisit 9y ago
  So I guess the responses on this thread begs another question - VR or AR? Which is going to take off much better?
  • devrandomguy 9y ago
    AR, but with high enough quality to offer a superset of VR's features.
    • k__ 9y ago
      I think AR will get usable and mainstream much sooner, because it can work good on current smartphones. VR will be cool later, when Oculus and others get more perf and fix more current problems.
  • gramstrong 9y ago
    VR will dominate entertainment, AR will dominate industry. Although I can see AR taking up some of the entertainment space as well (Pokemon Go for example). I really want a VR Hollywood film experience. One I can watch over and over and notice different details each time.
• taco_emoji 9y ago
  WebAssembly.
• devrandomguy 9y ago
  Fusion, of course. It actually is right around the corner now, this time.
  • zimablue 9y ago
    If you mean using tokamaks, their own estimates put like a single positive energy reactor decades away
  • davemp 9y ago
    Yeah. Fusion will happen in the year of the linux desktop.
    • zachrose 9y ago
      I wish I had a fusion reactor that worked as well as my desktop Linux computer. Far from perfect, but it's still a net positive.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
• bmcusick 9y ago
  Fully & Quickly Reusable Rockets (refuel & refly, like jets) Obviously both SpaceX and Blue Origin are the leaders here, but once they do it the other majors will either have to build the same thing or drop out of the industry. There are so many things about space that we just assume are true, but are actually only true because access to orbit has always been so expensive. If we can get the cost to reach orbit down to a multiple of the fuel cost, then so many more things are possible. We finally get large satellite constellations for low-latency Internet all over Earth. We get space stations and O'Neil cylinders. Moon bases and fuel depots on Titan. At the same time, firms like Made In Space are working on in-space construction so you can build radio telescopes in space with arbitrarily large dishes (10 km, maybe?). Eventually we build mirrors that size too. Basically just those two things are the only barriers between us and a solar-system-wide civilization like in The Expanse.
  • bmcusick 9y ago
    Arguably the third thing is ISRU (In-Space Resource Utilization), aka, mining asteroids for fuel and materials. But that's not immediately necessary and doesn't count as "around the corner".
    • jholman 9y ago
      My understanding is that "ISRU" normally stands for "In Situ Resource Utilization", which can include mining asteroids (if your locale is 'asteroid belt'), but also includes using fuel that can be generated from resources found on a planet or moon.
• allpratik 9y ago
  ARKit. Apple has solved few real world AR problems, which were usually hard for an average app developer to get started with. But with ARKit, apple, is "trying" to do the heavy lifting in terms of plane and object recognition etc. Another thing is the platform of distribution. People will use AR apps, which will hit the app store after September like crazy. And these same people, will be primary audience for Apple headset. It's like, before releasing headset, Apple is proving people that you really need a headset to overcome the pain of "continuously" moving your phone in the space. Also, other OS and vendors will follow the trend and release AR compatible phones/hardware early. The only potential pitfall, I see is, battery usage. If it's properly optimised, I think a large AR wave on smartphones is about to hit. Just my 2 cents!
  • hacker_9 9y ago
    I knew nothing of ARKit until a few days ago when it started popping up on my twitter feed like mad. I have to say the tech literally sells itself because of the eye candy [1]. It finally feels like we are living in the future. [1] https://twitter.com/madewithARKit https://twitter.com/madewithARKit
    • sah2ed 9y ago
      Really cool demos of ARKit there! Makes me pumped for the kind of clever apps that will be built for iOS and optimized for the upcoming iPhone. I especially liked the kitchen measurement demo.
  • gordon_freeman 9y ago
    Does anyone know is there something similar to this in Android OS? How Google's plans are to explore the AR space?
    • arnioxux 9y ago
      Wasn't google tango their solution? (but requires custom android hardware for depth sensor) https://get.google.com/tango/ https://get.google.com/tango/ I haven't heard anything about them for a few years now. Visual-inertial SLAM has been working for a few years on mobile phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bjsIqlbS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bjsIqlbS0 So there should be plenty of third-party libraries you can use.
• na85 9y ago
  Well I'd sure love to read about it, but some stupid fucking javascript "engineer" decided to write a script that only allows whitelisted browsers to visit. I put "engineer" in quotes because I browsed there with Firefox and was promptly rejected with a message saying "Please use Chrome, Firefox, or Safari". This site is full of JavaScript apologists: who wants to try to tell me that this site's JavaScript is enhancing my experience? The web has become shit, and it's thanks to JavaScript and the people who write it. Edit: HN guidelines be damned. Down vote away, JavaScript "engineers"! I must have hit close to the mark! Keep ruining the web for the rest of us!
  • scottmf 9y ago
    I agree it seems like a silly thing to do (block browsers without a valid reason, of which there are very few), but to blame JavaScript or modern web development in general is ridiculous. The user agent string is not a JavaScript concept. There may be some legitimate concerns about the modern state of web development (though I'd argue it's a positive thing on balance) but you've certainly added nothing new or worthwhile to that discussion. Your attitude is incredibly counterproductive, toxic even. And you're not doing yourself nor anyone else any favors. Put simply you need to get over yourself.
    • wott 9y ago
      > but to blame JavaScript or modern web development in general is ridiculous. This is what I call toxicity: 6000 lines (up to 1.3 million characters long) 170,000 words 2.4 MB
      • scottmf 9y ago
        Great, some meaningless numbers without context.
  • sctb 9y ago
    Violating the guidelines like this will get your account banned. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14930928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14930928 and marked it off-topic.
• Havoc 9y ago
  Renewables in general. Many problems can be solved if you throw enough juice at it. e.g. Desal plants.
• egypturnash 9y ago
  Still waiting for the day when I can buy a computer wth a full color e-paper display and sit out in the sunlight to work.
  • marcosdumay 9y ago
    So, fast refresh e-paper displays?
    • bch 9y ago
      I'd like a very large, performant-enough display for solely for editing in vi. Even that is still just a dream, as far as I can tell.
      • lj3 9y ago
        Have you taken a look at the Dasung Paperlike yet? http://www.dasung.com/english/ http://www.dasung.com/english/
        • gcb0 9y ago
          have you? how's real world usage? is ghosting as bad as every other eink?
        • bch 9y ago
          Is this more advanced than just an Indiegogo pre-order?
        • Down_n_Out 9y ago
          This reminds me of reMarkable (https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/).
    • egypturnash 9y ago
      Honestly I'd be fine with a slowish refresh, I'm not gonna be playing games, I'd be running Illustrator.
  • 9y ago
• Animats 9y ago
  Self-driving cars that really work and are safe. Google/Waymo is just about there. Automatic language translation everywhere. Big Brother everywhere. (Excited about, yes; happy about, no.) Batteries + solar as the predominant energy source. Electric cars getting some real market share.
  • mabbo 9y ago
    > Google/Waymo is just about there Those video by Cruise (GM owned) make me think they are here now. We're just waiting on laws to catch up.
  • GigabyteCoin 9y ago
    I'm curious as to what exactly excites you about Big Brother being everywhere?
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
• dtech 9y ago
  Self-driving cars, it will majorly change how we transport. People in 100 years will look back to manually driven cars as we look back to horse-drawn carriages
  • zpatel 9y ago
    And after say 200 yrs, what's your prediction?
    • sjg007 9y ago
      Teleporters
• bhouser 9y ago
  Writing React apps in OCaml using Reason: https://reasonml.github.io/ https://reasonml.github.io/
• aphextron 9y ago
  Mass adoption of electric vehicles. Battery prices are plummeting and the advantages of EV are so great that the moment they break that $20k barrier with zero subsidies (which should be within the next five years) the switch will be rapid. I suspect at least 1 in 3 personal vehicles in use in major metro areas will be an EV by 2025.
  • elihu 9y ago
    I think battery price and availability are the main bottlenecks right now, so improvements on that front are what's got me excited.
  • mcgrath_sh 9y ago
    I would absolutely own an electric vehicle if I was part of a muti-car family. But, until electric is as easily and quick to refill on as gas (long road trips, etc) I would not own it as my only vehicle.
  • auxym 9y ago
    I'd rather have adoption of high density urban areas, public transit and walkable/cycle-able neighborhoods. Traffic jammed highways will still be traffic jammed highways with EVs.
• midhunsezhi 9y ago
  WebRTC for all real time communications/broadcast.
• dabockster 9y ago
  Edge computing. Basically shifting off of cloud onto separate peer-to-peer connections. Faster, more secure, more distributed, and no middleman. Think 1990s/mid 2000s but no servers, just client to client. Soon everyone will want a home server.
  • amelius 9y ago
    How would we implement a search-engine using P2P?
    • zeeveener 9y ago
      MY_PC: "Who is hosting a webpage with the following information?" My 1000 connected peers: "Here are 500 more peers who say they do" Proceed to witness extreme bandwidth usage every query.
      • amelius 9y ago
        That only works if the computer you're connecting to has an index of the entire web. It will probably be more like this: - So you're looking for "kitten videos"? Well, you can ask computer X for words starting with "k", then ask computer Y for words starting with "v", and then I'll perform a logical AND operation to get your final results. But how we make this as fast as Google is beyond me. And also don't forget that we have to factor in the problem of security (some nodes may be sending in wrong results, e.g. spam).
    • dabockster 9y ago
      Obviously, edge computing won't work for every use case. But it could get us off this obsession with tying everything into a centralized server that you have no control over. /rant
    • Toboe 9y ago
      For example there is the YaCy project http://www.yacy.net/en/ http://www.yacy.net/en/
• baron816 9y ago
  Much of what people have mentioned here will be really great. I think self-driving cars have the most potential to impact people lives day to day, followed by AR. I guess infinite, cheap, clean energy could also spark another industrial revolution. But all these things aren't likely to impact the happiness and life satisfaction of those living in the developed world. The internet has been huge, but it really hasn't made us happier as a whole. I would like to see someone create something that will make people's lives happier. That probably means doing something that will foster good human relationships and real world experiences. I guess there's a lot of potential for driverless cars to help with that, but they could do the opposite as well. I think we need better tools for connecting with each other, understanding each other, forming social organizations and communities, and maybe changing the geography of cities to bring us closer together, rather than making it possible for us to be further apart. It's likely that new technology isn't needed, we just need to use what we already have in a new way.
  • closeparen 9y ago
    If you want to bring people physically closer together, just lean into NIMBYism and keep housing supply small. As current trends continue and require more people to live in city centers, we'll see more and more instances of people forced to have roommates when they'd rather not, multiple families forced to share a single apartment when they'd rather have their own, etc. But somehow I think you will actually create conflict, tension, and claustrophobia, not happiness.
    • baron816 9y ago
      I disagree. Living in a dense city does not necessitate living in some sort of tenement and being at each other's throats. Living costs are high in cities because people who bought property early like it that way. They want their properties to appreciate, so they prevent others from increasing supply. Governments seem happy to object out of some mistaken sense of social justice or historical preservation. Still, people in dense cities who endure higher living costs tend to be happier and healthier than those outside of them (even when controlling for income). People are willing to pay crazy amounts of money to live there for a reason, after all. I wish we could build new cities. That would provide an opportunity to do it right, and with a design that is appropriate for the 21st century.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• m3kw9 9y ago
  Teslas travel network involving Autonomous driving, Boring and hyperloop network.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• evanvanness 9y ago
  The decentralized web built on top of Ethereum/Swarm/Whisper
• andrewstuart 9y ago
  Millisecond instance boot and teardown times on the major clouds - AWS, Google, Microsoft and Digital Ocean. Along with suitable pricing.
• zemo 9y ago
  volumetric displays are pretty fun. e.g.: https://voxon.co/ https://voxon.co/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKTfP56rpDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKTfP56rpDA
• andrewstuart 9y ago
  Entangled pair quantum routers. Oh wait, that's 50 years away.
  • arca_vorago 9y ago
    Its how we break the increasingly centralized nature of the internet given almost all countries are BBB becoming more authoritarian.
• nether 9y ago
  Another javascript framework, of course.
  • andrewstuart 9y ago
    This may be facetious but in fact it's true. JavaScript needs a fresh wave of tools and improvements in the JavaScript language. This time the priority has to be zero configuration and simplicity.
• timfrietas 9y ago
  I am suprised applications of blockchain outside cryptocurrency is not higher on this list. For example: * Election fraud and recounts can become a thing of the past * Everything that requires a contract could become completely electronic (the mortgage industry alone is probably a multi-billion dollar opportunity)
  • gdudeman 9y ago
    I think it's a crypto-utopian view that election fraud can be fixed with a better record. Election fraud is a fairly small problem in countries like the US and the problems are around voters not voting in the right place, having a new address, losing their proof of identity, etc. The security community thinks a paper trail is essential - less computers, not more - not a public database. I'm not an expert, but I tend to trust them.
    • ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      > I'm not an expert, but I tend to trust them. and blockchain proponents want an infallible system audit-able by the public, instead of having to trust anyone. they haven't figured it out completely, they push towards it. in any case blockchain networks can function without computers. very cumbersome though.
      • elihu 9y ago
        Voting systems are hard because most democracies expect ballots to be confidential. Is there a blockchain-based voting system that allows a voter to have high confidence that their vote was counted, but doesn't allow someone else to be able to know how that voter voted?
        • kristjansson 9y ago
          Not only that; to insure that all of the other anonymous votes correspond to other real, eligible voters!
        • 9y ago
• mlboss 9y ago
  Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) GAN is a type of Deep Learning Network which can generate data after training. Applications - Text to image synthesis (Scripts to Movie ?) (https://github.com/reedscot/icml2016 https://github.com/reedscot/icml2016) - Generation of Game Environments - Image to Image conversion (https://github.com/junyanz/CycleGAN https://github.com/junyanz/CycleGAN) - 2d to 3d conversion I think in future we will have highly creative deep learning systems, which will make ar/vr/movie/game creation faster and cheaper.
• chaosbutters314 9y ago
  Affordable triple digit core desktop computers. The cloud is fine but until I'm getting Google fiber in every city, this'll need to suffice. The application is HTC applications in industry design
  • daxfohl 9y ago
    A core for every browser tab!
    • arca_vorago 9y ago
      With how bad most webpages are these days its almost not even hyperbolic. No script really woke me up to how much bullshit most pages try to load.
• zimablue 9y ago
  For me, I'd like online IDEs to be standard (and therefore equally good) and graph wikipedias for arguments (like Argumans but mainstream). I can see the advantages of both of these and imagine (and have seen people) build them so I assume someone will fully crack this in the next few years and we'll all be using this. What might be around the corner that I'd love: someone makes a mainstream general purpose visual programming language (or tools in IDEs using languages that are indistinguishable - revenge of smalltalk)
  • linuxlizard 9y ago
    I wonder if Apple will go to online iPhone development sometime soon. Write code, test in emulators, push to Apple App Store, all through web browser. No XCode, no Macbook required. Would open up iPhone dev to a whole new class of people who can't afford the pricey Apple desktop/laptop.
  • akavel 9y ago
    As to the language, that's my hope too, specifically I'm crossing fingers super hard for http://luna-lang.org http://luna-lang.org
• Jach 9y ago
  Smartdust. (And the opening of geospatial database tech that can support all the data...)
  • egfx 9y ago
    What is smartdust?
• elihu 9y ago
  Major applications and/or operating systems written in Rust, or languages that offer a similar degree of type safety. We need to be ruthlessly eliminating undefined behavior from our software stacks, especially the lower layers, so that there are fewer places for security bugs to hide. Electric car adoption. Solar isn't new or particularly exciting, but it's become a good alternative to burning fossil fuels and it isn't used widely yet. I've been looking forward to real-time global illumination via ray tracing with photon mapping or path tracing or some other good algorithm to become mainstream. It doesn't seem like there's much enthusiasm for the idea from the game industry, though. Genome editing has already been mentioned, along with reusable rockets.
• Ken_Adler 9y ago
  Secure Production Identity Framework For Everyone https://spiffe.io/ https://spiffe.io/
• BlakePetersen 9y ago
  FDA-approved closed loop artificial pancreas.
• loeg 9y ago
  That inflection point in a couple years where SSD is just cheaper than spinning HDDs. A whole class of problems kind of goes away, low end consumer performance goes way up, and archival platforms get faster "for free." I'm also excited about NVMe and on-the-horizon, faster-than-flash solid state technologies like 3d xpoint, etc.
• nulagrithom 9y ago
  New, exciting tech making its way in to boring, old industries. And I mean boring, old industries. There's an unbelievable amount of backwards business process that's still out there. Unless you've experienced it first hand, I really don't think you can fully appreciate how manual the "business world" still is. For the past year I've been working with an intermodal trucking company building an app for owner-operator truck drivers so they can accept/reject deliveries, turn in paperwork, and update delivery statuses via a mobile app. If that sounds dead simple, it's because it is. But the change it brings is amazing. While deploying the app I'd often ask when so-and-so truck driver came in to the office. The answer was usually something like "every day at 5:00pm to drop off his paperwork". A week after they start using the app, the answer suddenly turns in to "Oh, he never comes in to the office. You'll have to call his cell." Dispatchers that were tearing their hair out trying to get updates from their drivers so they can in turn update their customers now feel like they can manage double the trucks. They're asking if they can get a similar app on their phone so they can manage their drivers on the go. Managers are asking when they'll be able to ditch the office space they're renting and let everyone work from home. When I tell people "It's like Uber for intermodal trucking", nobody cares. If they pretend to care, I have to explain what intermodal trucking is in the first place -- then they stop pretending. It doesn't sound "sexy". It's a boring industry. I think there's a lot of boring industry out there that hasn't fully embraced technology, and I think when it finally does we'll see a cultural change in the way we view work.
  • NovaX 9y ago
    What's the app?
  • Cerium 9y ago
    Construction management is another similar field. People routinely have secretaries who print people's emails so they can write responses, or print drawings, Mark them up, then scan them back in. A YC startup net30.io is working on construction payment tracking.
  • solatic 9y ago
    This. There are so many "boring" companies out there that could become so much more competitive if they brought in a couple of full-stack devs to write a basic domain-specific CRUD monolith running on AWS hooked up to a basic mobile app.
• rajangdavis 9y ago
  GraalVM.
• dannygarcia 9y ago
  GPGPU in the browser. Some would say it's already here but not all browsers have a standardized API that facilitates it.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• rhinoceraptor 9y ago
  Hopefully WebUSB will arrive sometime and be useful. I thought it would be really cool to write a basic SDR web app/browser extension, but unfortunately it's not really possible right now. There was a project called Radio Receiver which used an RTL SDR, but it is a chrome app and chrome apps are pretty much dead.
• goldensnit 9y ago
  I think voice controlled apps (on Alexa, Cortana, Siri, google home) will be pretty big.
  • icc97 9y ago
    Certainly the voice recognition is impressive. All the regular things I asked Google Assistant were recognised almost perfectly. Andrew Ng talked about the difference between 95% accuracy and 97% accuracy being the massive difference. Google Assistant is at 95% [2], but feels very impressive already. It felt like going back a decade when trying out the Firefox Voice Fill [0], where trying repeatedly to say the word you want doesn't work (I was trying to search for 'React Router Redirect', which it kept interpreting 'React' as 'Really'). However I think the personality of the assistants are lacking. It doesn't feel like there is any real interaction. Google assistant feels like little more than a better version of Voice Fill. I'm waiting for things much along the lines of Ironman's JARVIS (or KITT). But what I really really want is a full blown version of Jeeves voiced by Stephen Fry. I'll have to settle for the TomTom Stephen Fry voice for now [1]. Is there a turing test for Butlers? [0]: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/voice-fill https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/voice-fill [1]: https://www.tomtom.com/en_us/drive/maps-services/shop/navigation-voices/stephen-fry/ https://www.tomtom.com/en_us/drive/maps-services/shop/naviga... [2]: https://www.recode.net/2017/5/31/15720118/google-understand-language-speech-equivalent-humans-code-conference-mary-meeker https://www.recode.net/2017/5/31/15720118/google-understand-...
• goldensnit 9y ago
  I think voice controlled apps (google home, Siri, Alexa, etc will be the next big thing)
  • continuational 9y ago
    Why? I can imagine using voice when driving perhaps; but it's not really usable when other people are around, since voice commands would disturb them.
• daxfohl 9y ago
  Global warming and this coming mass extinction thing are gonna be awesome. And IPv6.
• mgarfias 9y ago
  Hydrogen fusion power.
• ntobto 9y ago
  Eye tracking - mouse and keyboard control using eyes. Microsoft has already started working on this. I read a novel published in 1999 which predicted how VR headsets would be followed by eye tracking eye boards,etc. which would then be followed by control directly via the brain using electrodes,etc.
• contingencies 9y ago
  Truly and honestly, the automated food preparation and retail systems we're building at http://infinite-food.com/ http://infinite-food.com/ ... constantly available, broader choice of higher quality food for more people with less supply chain waste and at a lower cost in time and money.
  • akaralar 9y ago
    this looks amazing, how many different meals can it provide? how many different ingredients can it process and cook? will the ingredients need to be bought from you or can we supply anything we have? thanks for working on this, i have been dreaming this for a long while.
    • contingencies 9y ago
      Initially we are focused on a broad subset of popular foods in Asia. The intended model is a wholly owned and operated network including the logistics system for restock and servicing, in order to keep costs down. Ingredients will be relatively numerous, with variety significantly upwards of the average restaurant kitchen.
• bobosha 9y ago
  The advent of AI-based search. I'm not sold on the siri/cortana et al conversational agent approach. AFAIK it's mostly UI/UX layered atop the "keyword->10 links" paradigm. Search is missing the key concept of iteration and exploration and (hopefully) someone somewhere is working on it.
  • miguelrochefort 9y ago
    I'm working on it. I believe the future of UI will be like Tinder or Akinator, where your browse through results and apply constraints to the search space by answering simple yes/no questions.
    • bobosha 9y ago
      Nice! can you share some details on your work? do you have a write up somewhere? also is this academic research? or a commercial enterprise?
      • miguelrochefort 9y ago
        I'm trying to reduce suffering (the delta between the real and the ideal). For that, we need to communicate better. Today, we generally communicate through natural language ("Hi, can I get a taxi at XYZ?") or software (Uber's "REQUEST UBERX" button). I'm taking the best of natural language (ubiquity, flexibility, generality) and software (unambiguity, conciseness, guidance, automation) to create a better communication paradigm. First, I'm getting rid of action verbs. Everything is the description of a state. Instead of "I want to go to the park", think "I am at the park" or better "me.location = park". Second, I'm reversing the flow. Instead of manually requesting things, you get things suggested to you. Most of communication is done by accepting or rejecting suggestions, like with Akinator or Tinder. Third, I'm making the real world interactive by allowing physical things to act triggers for suggestions. With the press of a button, you can capture you current location, a QR code, an RFID tag, a picture of a book, some Chinese text, the song currently playing, etc. The captured entity will be processed, meaning will be extracted, yes/no questions will be asked, and you'll be offered ways to interact with it. Basically, I want to be able to point at something, get information about it, and act upon it. This is neither academic research or commercial enterprise. I'm currently doing this on my own, but anyone is free to join. Next week, I will publish a blog post explaining the relationship between GTD (Getting Things Done methodology) and the future of UI. This should cover some of the ideas I have mentioned here.
• tech2 9y ago
  Large-scale low-cost metal 3D printing. We're _very_ close and it could be a game changer for a number of industries since the price for one unit is very close to the mass-production per-unit cost. It could allow custom-fit application or modification of a design on a per-customer level for things that would in the past require significant outlay. If I need a new part for something that's no longer supported, no problem. If I want to test an idea, fine. etc.
  • gvoncheap 9y ago
    Look at desktop metal, they're killing it.
  • l33tbro 9y ago
    Will be interesting for the manufacturing space when multiplied by torrents.
• akavel 9y ago
  For me personally, currently my absolute top reason I'm dying of excitement is http://www.luna-lang.org/ http://www.luna-lang.org/ Only I'm not sure if they're gonna manage to get a release out of the door; I have an impression that they understand that it's their top priority and main focus now, but I'm not sure if they really realize how far they they need to go with sacrificing features and cutting it down to absolute bare essentials, to avoid faltering into endless development hell. That said, I have some tiny glimmer of hope that even if they go vaporware, maybe someone e.g. from around the Lambda the Ultimate community might possibly try to revive their ideas and ignite some F/OSS clone.
• tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  A replacement for Javascript in the browser, I'm sure it can't be far off.
• nunez 9y ago
  unikernels; single purpose operating systems for anything you want.