3 ms·

Help me brainstorm here (genuinely): I'm trying to think of innovations in the last few decades, but everything I can think of is a refinement of an technology

by rrss 7y ago

Help me brainstorm here (genuinely): I'm trying to think of innovations in the last few decades, but everything I can think of is a refinement of an technology invented 50+ years ago (mostly at bell labs) made possible by the exceptional strides in semiconductor manufacturing. It's certainly nice to have technology spread more widely from research labs to the general public, but I'm wondering if there are innovations happening now that I don't know about because they aren't widespread (yet?). Anyone have any ideas of innovations since say 1980 other than in semiconductor manufacturing?

033803throwaway 7y ago
"Eventually we will run out of things to rip off from Douglas Engelbart" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  > The 90-minute presentation essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: windows, hypertext, graphics, efficient navigation and command input, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor (collaborative work). Whoa, 1968! It seems incredible that was half a century ago!
leetcrew 7y ago
> Anyone have any ideas of innovations since say 1980 other than in semiconductor manufacturing? if you take a very reductive and somewhat pessimistic view, there have been very few true "innovations" in the history of mankind. the wright brothers' plane was just a scaled up kite with a motor and no tether. the first computer was just a sophisticated abacus (or Babbage's machine if you prefer). obviously the first plane was a huge stepwise advancement in tech and likewise for the first transistor computer. if you look at something like the internet today and consider how it's changed in twenty years, it's barely recognizable in capabilities. lithium ion batteries are vastly better than what was available for consumer devices a few decades ago, and you basically couldn't have mobile computing without them. we certainly allocate a ton of capital towards technologies of dubious value (eg, social media), but we are still in an era of unprecedented technological advancement. I suspect it's just harder to find the stepwise jumps when most of the foundations for current technology are pinned down and many people are making incremental progress in parallel.
- rrss 7y ago
  > if you look at something like the internet today and consider how it's changed in twenty years, it's barely recognizable in capabilities. I'm not a internet/web person, so forgive me, but: The internet today seems an awfully lot the same as the internet in 2000. In terms of 'unrecognizable capabilities,' are you thinking of streaming video or what? Batteries is a good one, thanks.
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    Wikipedia for instance only launched in 2001. Arxiv, Amazon, Uber, etc
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I'm not just talking about the experience of browsing websites, although to compare a typical website in 1999 vs in 2019 is a bit like comparing a model T to a Tesla (for better or for worse). I'm mainly talking about all the services that are available today though, not just serving static text with pretty markup. web search, video streaming, cloud storage, etc. were barely available (to consumers) or non-existent in 1999. I'm venturing out of my area of expertise here, but I believe sharding, cdns, and load balancing were also in their infancy then. big web companies would actually have their sites go down and have meaningful downtime. web services are much more resilient today than they were.
zwieback 7y ago
Crispr and related biotech comes to mind

by rrss 7y ago

033803throwaway 7y ago

"Eventually we will run out of things to rip off from Douglas Engelbart" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

ASalazarMX 7y ago
> The 90-minute presentation essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: windows, hypertext, graphics, efficient navigation and command input, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor (collaborative work). Whoa, 1968! It seems incredible that was half a century ago!

leetcrew 7y ago

> Anyone have any ideas of innovations since say 1980 other than in semiconductor manufacturing? if you take a very reductive and somewhat pessimistic view, there have been very few true "innovations" in the history of mankind. the wright brothers' plane was just a scaled up kite with a motor and no tether. the first computer was just a sophisticated abacus (or Babbage's machine if you prefer). obviously the first plane was a huge stepwise advancement in tech and likewise for the first transistor computer. if you look at something like the internet today and consider how it's changed in twenty years, it's barely recognizable in capabilities. lithium ion batteries are vastly better than what was available for consumer devices a few decades ago, and you basically couldn't have mobile computing without them. we certainly allocate a ton of capital towards technologies of dubious value (eg, social media), but we are still in an era of unprecedented technological advancement. I suspect it's just harder to find the stepwise jumps when most of the foundations for current technology are pinned down and many people are making incremental progress in parallel.

rrss 7y ago
> if you look at something like the internet today and consider how it's changed in twenty years, it's barely recognizable in capabilities. I'm not a internet/web person, so forgive me, but: The internet today seems an awfully lot the same as the internet in 2000. In terms of 'unrecognizable capabilities,' are you thinking of streaming video or what? Batteries is a good one, thanks.
- lostmsu 7y ago
  Wikipedia for instance only launched in 2001. Arxiv, Amazon, Uber, etc
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I'm not just talking about the experience of browsing websites, although to compare a typical website in 1999 vs in 2019 is a bit like comparing a model T to a Tesla (for better or for worse). I'm mainly talking about all the services that are available today though, not just serving static text with pretty markup. web search, video streaming, cloud storage, etc. were barely available (to consumers) or non-existent in 1999. I'm venturing out of my area of expertise here, but I believe sharding, cdns, and load balancing were also in their infancy then. big web companies would actually have their sites go down and have meaningful downtime. web services are much more resilient today than they were.

zwieback 7y ago

Crispr and related biotech comes to mind