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Ask HN: What up and coming technology has you most excited?
- jacknews 9y agoOK, just an incremental improvement over lcd, oled, e-paper etc, but the characteristics enable deployment in many new situations. Plus it's a "why didn't I think of that?" technology. https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/technology https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/technology
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- justinclift 9y agoSeems offline atm. The archive.org version renders ok though: https://web.archive.org/web/20171029180947/http://www.clearinkdisplays.com/technology https://web.archive.org/web/20171029180947/http://www.cleari...
- adamnemecek 9y agoIpfs, photonic computing and photonic everything (like displays). It might be still kinda far out but it’s a lot closer than people think. Also most languages built on top of llvm.
- icebraining 9y agoPhotonic computing is interesting; last year I attended a python meetup, and two of the presenters were writing Python tooling for designing photonic chips (called IPKISS). Seemed well suited for sensor data processing.
- adamnemecek 9y agoWow IPKISS looks like something I would want to use. Ive been trying to write some of this myself and it's annoying. Thanks a bunch! I'm working (like, on the side) on building a fully photonic computer. The progress is very slow, however some things fall into place quite a bit. Most photonic computing designs still use bits, mine would use signals which makes the computer much more powerful.
- abhinavkulkarni 9y agoRobotics. Not humanoids necessarily (I find them creepy to tell you the truth), but the ones that will act in the background making mundane and repetitive tasks easier - garbage collection, cleaning, watering plants, restocking grocery store aisles, further automating industrial tasks, etc.
- wwkeyboard 9y agoAnyone interested in the psychology of why nearly-but-not-quite humanoid machines are creepy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley is a good place to start reading.
- pilom 9y agoCRISPR. The ability to edit DNA in living animals (especially in the germ line) will cure genetic diseases, make us live longer, and increase our ability to feed the third world.
- bpicolo 9y agoAs someone not in biotech at all, biotech is so cool to me in general. Definitely a the sexiest field as an outsider for me.
- GW150914 9y agoElectric vehicles, especially as the range increases and price and charging times drop. I hope that an ancillary benefit will be reexamination of how we generate grid power with a focus on renewables and nuclear.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoCRISPR-CAS9 for genome editing. Briefly, it allows us to identify particular bits of DNA and modify one or more bases. It's a very new biotechnology (research essentially began within the last 10 years) which applies to essentially all species we've tested it on. It is cheap and so easy to perform that I could probably teach 99% of HN to do it in a week's training or less. It's still not as accurate as we need it to be, but that won't stop biologists from modifying plants for improved performance as crops, bugs for less disease spreading, or other mammals to increase the pace of biological discovery. In time (and in China first, most likely), we will see the use of this genome-editing technology on humans flourish. Thinking specifically of humans, it will allow us to eradicate inherited genetic diseases like sickle-cell anemia, to target cancer cells very specifically, and will hopefully revolutionize treatment in many sorts of diseases. Now, when it comes to enhancing humans and their germ-line (eggs/sperm), which allows enhancement on down the generations. this is the most controversial point. It will probably be done on the black market if we try to regulate it, and it would probably be immoral to disallow people from giving their children all the advantages possible. But where does that stop? Do we allow a bunch of 6'5" mega-geniuses with blonde hair, blue eyes, and all the right genotypes to take over society? Will that occur? Who's to say. Either way, utopian or dystopian or somewhere in between, I think genome editing is the most influential class of technologies on the horizon.
- JBReefer 9y agoAgree. I think the hunt for ever-newer computing tech is misplaced (blockchain lol) but CRISPR might actually cure cancer. That's way more important than Yet Another Logistics Company at this point.
- KeitIG 9y agoI am not sure that human genome edition is something I would consider "exciting". It adds a lot of ethical questions, I am thinking about the kind of uses "I want my child to have blue eyes" in particular.
- mabbo 9y agoRoller coasters and skydiving are exciting in a similar way.
- JBReefer 9y agoI think we're at a standstill for most PC/mobile/the sort of tech most of us work with. Electric cars and the explosion of renewables are going to change _everything_, faster than people think. Doing a quarter mile in a Model S is fucking AWESOME.
- k__ 9y agoI think they will continue to pump PC tech into mobile devices until both converge, still a few years to go for this.
- ropeadopepope 9y agoThe reason PC and Mobile hasn't converged is because of the lack of good inputs that aren't mouse and keyboard. As long as there's no good way to input text on mobile, there will never be a convergence of those two verticals.
- k__ 9y agoI already know many people who simply plug a mouse/keyboard combo on their mobile device via USB/BT and it works like a charm.
- rapnie 9y agoThe Librem 5 from puri.sm is nice in that respect. The phone runs Linux and will have a docking station to attach monitor, keyboard, mouse, then use as laptop.
- JonnyNova 9y agoSelf driving cars. The amount of time saved for humanity will be absolutely staggering and free up people to spend more time accomplishing more things.
- mtmail 9y agoCombined with cars that reside in remote places to pick you up on demand. Then our cities will have more spaces that is currently occupied by parking.
- JBReefer 9y agoI think this is the biggest part, and less the "sleep in your car while you commute for 5 hours each way!" which sounds fucking terrible. Imagine the amount of space and time saved by having 1 enormous lot on the outskirt of town, like an airport. You walk around your dense urban area, call your car, 10 minutes it's there, it drops you off, and parks itself. No circling the block, no terrible big box concrete hellscapes, just Park Slope without the frustration. Cheap, too. Building parking in NYC costs ~$100k a spot https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html
- ropeadopepope 9y ago> I think this is the biggest part, and less the "sleep in your car while you commute for 5 hours each way!" which sounds fucking terrible. I'm actually looking forward to that. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "dying in your sleep."
- fjeuplos 9y agoMore like all those out of work truckers will just be sitting at home watching TV ;)
- gringoDan 9y agoAgreed that a lot of time will be freed up, but I don't think the majority of people will use this time productively. Most people will just end up watching Netflix in their cars instead of focusing on the road. I highly recommend this Benedict Evans post on the second-order consequences of electric & autonomous vehicles: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second-order-consequences https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-s...
- arkad 9y agoHydrogen cars. A long way to go yet.
- sanxiyn 9y agoVarious AI accelerator hardwares. It seems to me deep learning advance is currently limited by computing hardware resources.
- mindcrime 9y agoBrain-computer-interface, semantic web, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology
- Mrtierne 9y agoQuantum computing as it relates to chemistry and materials development.
- lifeisstillgood 9y agoCan we remember to run this question every 6-12 months aka whoishiring?
- logicallee 9y agoNote: Below are just my opinions. I don't think downvoting is justified. I'm completely right and downvoters are wrong, but anyway this thread asks for what we think. ---------- My opinion: (100.000000% guaranteed to be right in this case.) It's obvious that general artificial intelligence will be a reality and surpass human cognition in every way, because our brains are a couple of pounds of meat running on less than a hundred watts, using biochemical pathways: no light-speed switching, about a six orders of magnitude slower. Meanwhile, our datacenters run in the gigahertz domain. (There are, however, about a hundred billion neurons in the human brain.) Some people think a computer will never be able to do general cognition. They're idiots. It is like saying that nothing but a sack of meat will ever fly (i.e. that only a bird can, no human-made engine can) -- at a time when we have engines that are 1,000,000 times more powerful than birds' muscles. (I mean at the time that Lord Kelvin famously stated that heavier-than-air flight is impossible.) Any task of human cognition that the sack of meat in a skull can do, a digital algorithm will be able to do, because the former is just slow, slow analog meat. Granted the emotional part is a point of difficulty but higher mental functions seem pretty unrelated to emotions. AI is like when people were saying heavier than air flight is impossible. Obviously it's possible. And it will rock and change the world. (Anyone who doesn't see it this way is stupid and wrong. They're just on the wrong side of history. They have zero vision for things that are completely obvious. It's not even debatable. It's a sack of meat in a skull doing slow analog operations 24/7 for 3 years before it can even read. The bar is not as high as people think.)
- mtmail 9y agoYou're describing a long term view (singularity?) rather than the up-and-coming technology in the question. Claiming to be 100% right and calling people with different opinion idiots might have added a downvote or two (Personally I upvoted).
- logicallee 9y agoI don't think it's a long-term view due to the numbers involved. For example, everyday developers might have access to 64-bit laptop computer with 4 cores @ 4 ghz and 16 GB of RAM (literally millions of people use such a machine, zero exaggeration). When working on their own desktops, AI researches might use an 6-core or 8-core desktop with 64 GB of RAM or, rarely, 128 GB of RAM. Access to 2-32 terabytes of RAM are not in the realm of what most AI researchers get to run their algorithms on on a daily basis. Google's AlphaGo ran on[1] 1202 CPU's, 176 GPU's, and I didn't immediately find the amount of memory but on the order of magnitude you would think it is from 1 terabyte (if it's 1 GB of RAM per CPU) up to (reasonably) about 128 terabytes, with my guess being 4 TB-16 TB. However I didn't find this figure. This is hardware that exists today, but AI researchers would have to wait a few years to have normal everyday access to this kind of thing in their normal everyday devices. Right now only datacenters match the processing ability of the human mind. Although they certainly exist in one cluster, they're far from the type of thing that is in everyone's hands yet. On the other hand, once it is set up these clusters can be far faster than the human brain, which runs at really slow analog speeds. (Look up the propagation speed of neural signals.) The human brain is just slightly ahead of the curve right now without any specialized hardware. There are 7 billion extant examples of intelligent human brains. There are probably less than 10,000 clusters AI researchers can play around with for months, which have 16-128 TB of RAM and aren't used for anything more important, just whatever they feel like running on it. (Versus easily more than 15 million computers with just 16 GB of RAM, though that may not be enough.) I don't think this is very far-off. [1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-computing-power-google-deepmind-needed-to-beat-lee-sedol-2016-3 http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-computing-power...
- Razengan 9y agoI'm at a point in life where technology doesn't concern me so much as human behavior and where we're collectively headed as a unique species in the cosmos. Regarding convenience, comfort and entertainment, we are good enough — A person can get all sorts of luxury and services without ever leaving one's home — but technology that encourages us to treat each other better, feel better about ourselves, and removes barriers to physical and social mobility, is what really excites me anymore.
- himom 9y agoTech is a lifestyle decoration. We have political and environmental existential threats where we might obliterate ourselves.
- abledon 9y agoEarthing Mats & the research into our bioelectric chemistry. Where you work at a standup desk but stand on a mat that is grounded to the earth. Also E-ink HDMI screens with fast refresh rate. Edit: These downvotes remind me of how the greeks drowned Hipassus for talking about the existence of irrational numbers lol.
- lallysingh 9y agoSmarter conversational AI. More applications just being plugins connected to your cloud AI instance. It's a revolution on user interfaces whose scope we're not even close to understanding. The biggest part: it'll make people better at asking sophisticated questions and understanding how important that is. I think it'll be as big a shift change as the Internet was.
- sanxiyn 9y agoI doubt this. People don't even bother asking sophisticated query to search engines.
- croon 9y agoOnly because no search engines understand them. I would love to ask specific questions instead of translating everything into multiple queries of "search engine speak". Every time we find an edge case (or a noob question) that lands us on stack exchange, we could just ask an AI directly to look up the relevant documentation or scour through thousands of bug reports and workarounds. Stage two describing the solution you want generated code for, or stage three stating the problem, or stage 4 finding problems and solving them.
- candiodari 9y agoI think wolframalpha is already pretty close to that. And, I must say, a lot more trustworthy than even stackexchange. I mean, if it gives an answer, you can generally trust it to simply be true. And it never shows ads.
- croon 9y agowolframalpha is really great for a good set of questions, but it's not the AI being envisioned.
- candiodari 9y ago
- eddieschod 9y agohttps://dynamicland.org/ https://dynamicland.org/
- Yoric 9y agoThat looks pretty cool!
- murukesh_s 9y agoProgramming without programming. Seriously we are doing too much now to just perform glorified data entry.
- TACIXAT 9y ago3d printed houses and vertical farms. If these technologies get cheap enough, they will cover two of people's basic needs.
- icebraining 9y agoI'm not sure 3D-printing houses will do much for their final prices. Actually putting materials on top of each other is not an overwhelming fraction of the total cost.
- JackFr 9y agoWhy would a 3d printed house be superior to factory constructed modular housing?
- TACIXAT 9y agoI would prefer a beautiful robot built brick house over modular housing, but I do not know a ton about pre-built houses.
- JBReefer 9y agoAccording to State Farm, completely rebuilding my apartment is would be 1/7th of what I paid for it, and that's with NYC union labor. There's a reason that crackhouses in Vancouver cost $1 million, and it's not because they're made of gold. You need to build density to reduce the share of land cost per dwelling, anything else is a gimmick.
- dllthomas 9y ago> You need to build density to reduce the share of land cost per dwelling Or (meaningfully) make proximity less important.
- ASipos 9y agoVR/AR, 3D printers, self-driving cars, the DragonBox Pyra.
- orliesaurus 9y agoSmaller, more efficient, long lasting batteries
- greatestdana 9y agoAugmented reality. I really think it'll change how we spend our time throughout the day (perhaps for the worse). I think the change will be similar in magnitude to the invention of the internet.
- fnord123 9y agoIt sounds cool... but I can't help but assume it will turn into a shit show like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
- AquiGorka 9y agoIt does look like a "shit show" but with the proper (a lot) adjustments it can have its upsides
- Dowwie 9y agoAn HIV vaccine seems to be on the horizon. That will be a great achievement.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- admyral 9y agoUnpopular opinion around here, but Bitcoin. The idea that we have technology now which can help address global wealth inequality just makes me happy.
- grivescorbett 9y agoGenuinely curious... how can Bitcoin help address global wealth inequality?
- admyral 9y agoInitially I think due to disruption to banking and government monopolies. Outrageous fees, pitiful interest rates, and financial services only accessible Monday through Friday 9-5 and sometimes on Saturday seem pretty archaic today. People who never had access to a bank can send money to anyone peer-to-peer like cash. Millenials largely prefer to invest their money into cryptocurrencies over traditional assets, which I believe has largely been monopolized by a firmly established few.
- dsr_ 9y agoOutrageous fees: are you sure we're talking about BitCoin, here? Financial services M-F 9-5: while you generally need to go into a bank to set up an account, that's not always the case. Afterwards, most banking can be via direct deposit, mobile cameras for check deposits, ATMs, and web services. People who don't have access to banks -- Kenya appears to have solved this without blockchains. "Millenials largely prefer to invest their money into cryptocurrencies over traditional assets" -- do you have statistics on this?
- admyral 9y agoI'd personally much rather pay higher fees when there is a high network volume than constantly paying fees for the privilege of using an ATM, or servicing my online account, or processing a wire transfer, or reissuing me a debit card or checkbook, etc. For merchants, fees are outrageous indefinitely. Here are a few recent articles on millenial interest in crypto [1] [2]. [1] https://www.finder.com/why-people-arent-buying-cryptocurrency https://www.finder.com/why-people-arent-buying-cryptocurrenc... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millennials-are-afraid-stocks-are-too-risky-so-theyre-investing-in-bitcoin-2018-02-06 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millennials-are-afraid-sto...
- Jagat 9y agoSelf-driving RVs. Imagine traveling throughout the country, sleeping in one national park campsite and waking up in another.
- stillsut 9y agoLove this idea. On the subject, does anyone know the potential fuel (delta % mpg's) savings of an optimally coordinated self-driving fleet that utilizes drafting?
- hguhghuff 9y agoEsp32 cpu
- purplezooey 9y agoEsp32 already out, right?
- Dangeranger 9y ago1. Secure Scuttlebutt and the future of online social interaction. [0] 2. IPFS and the distributed offline web [1] 3. WebAssembly and the coming revolution of web applications. [2] [0] https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork [1] https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmNhFJjGcMPqpuYfxL62VVB9528NXqDNMFXiqN5bgFYiZ1/its-time-for-the-permanent-web.html https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmNhFJjGcMPqpuYfxL62VVB9528NXqDNMFXiqN5... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Concepts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Concept...
- zwieback 9y agoSame thing as when I was a teenager in the 80's: clean energy. Solar cells are now mainstream and maybe I'll live to see some advance with fusion reactors.
- eddieschod 9y agoNet-positive fusion reactors still don't solve everything sadly; they're likely to be really costly and because of those economics will only serve really populous energy grids. One thing I learned from someone wise is to not down-select technologies for a solution (i.e., this is most dangerous when the government down-selects technologies). Something might arise other than solar cells specifically that accomplishes their goal.
- rapnie 9y agoI saw a documentary on thorium reactors the other day.. largely forgotten since the start of the Nuclear Age (can't make bombs from it) Now a bit on the uptake by (still few) scientists. Its a no-no subject because of the vested interests in uranium/plutonium fission and (overly) prestigious fusion projects. Was not a fan of fission, but this is much safer, more maintainable (liquid salt/thorium mix, runs through pipes), and much less waste ('only' 500yr radioactively dangerous). And the best thing: Thorium is everywhere. All countries have it, so it would democratize nuclear technologies, be a big help in solving the energy crisis!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Numberwang 9y agoThat future tech that everyone knows is coming, that other future tech that everyone knows is coming, that obscure tech that I have a vested interest in that no one has heard of.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ropeadopepope 9y agoBetter energy storage will revolutionize everything from phones to electric cars. I can't wait for the e-ink patent to expire. We'll see an explosion of research on color screens that don't need a backlight. There's a lot of exciting things going on in DSP, OCR and automated transcription these days. Being able to convert various sources of information to text without having to do it manually is exciting.
- yyt_x 9y agoNext-Generation variable-buoyancy airships, without a doubt. Primarily because of the ways it will impact construction. Once we 'build the machine that builds the buildings' we can then simply lift them into place. Cities could become vastly more flexible (modular) and livable as a result. But even agriculture and logging could become vastly less environmentally destructive.
- purplezooey 9y agoSelf driving cars. Would love to just take a nap in the back, that's all.
- sunstone 9y agoElon Musk's space based Internet service is near the top of my list. 1gps from my sailboat in the middle of the Pacific while we collectively thumb our nose at the crappy ISP's we have now.
- gremlinsinc 9y agoWill that be bi-directional? I always thought satellite internet was only one way, then you had to use a phone or dsl for the uplink.. Does musk's system change that?
- sunstone 9y agoYes it does. Here's a pretty in depth analysis of it. (Take the hyperbole with a pinch of salt but the tech is correct.) https://www.cringely.com/2018/04/06/the-space-race-is-over-and-spacex-won/ https://www.cringely.com/2018/04/06/the-space-race-is-over-a...