87 ms·

Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

• jey 7y ago
  You need to take a longer term view if you want to notice things before they become trends. Hopping on the bandwagon once it's a "hot" or "promising" area is too late.
• d4mi3n 7y ago
  Security and privacy. Demand for security folks is white-hot right now, and the need for better security products continues to grow. I've been seeing a lot of companies in adjacent spaces making headway into the security domain as well—ML assisted intrusion detection and cloud-centric security tooling come to mind. In a broader sense, I think more governments and regulatory bodies are starting to take cybersecurity much more seriously than they did in the past. GDPR and CCPA are likely the tip of the iceburg in coming year and—regulations aside—I think there is a real and pressing need for better privacy and protection in both consumer and enterprise contexts.
  • atlasunshrugged 7y ago
    +1 on this; I also see an upcoming trend with tech like deepfakes that make it hard for individuals to tell what is real and what isn't. This intersects with personal privacy when anyone can grab your FB profile pic and then make you do anything in a deepfaked video and destroy your life.
  • rubicon33 7y ago
    This is the most "for sure" answer in this thread. If I had to bet on any one of these answers being true, this is the answer I would bet on. Security has always been a big deal, but in light of all the attacks we're seeing lately, there's likely going to be REGULATIONS involved, that may mean demand for these jobs skyrockets.
• mortivore 7y ago
  Machine Learning is the hot thing right now. Just find an area you like, and apply it. Not sure what is after this.
  • mywittyname 7y ago
    Machine learning was up and coming in 2012 when I graduated college. Not to say it is a bad career choice, just that it's safe to say that ML's time has already come.
  • richtapestry 7y ago
    Thanks, I've had it on my list of stuff to look into for a while. Any advice on where to start?
    • RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
      A well honed skill set in 'ML' isn't even about the algorithms or data structures or any of that. If you want to be competitive in ML, study and think about experimental design, and what it takes to be able to confidently state the accuracy, precision, and reproducibility of a given analysis when you apply it to real world data. The biggest issue/ liability with most 'AI'/'ML' is unsubstantiated/ irreproducible results that come from not being rigorous with ones experimental design.
      • richtapestry 7y ago
        I'm a complete beginner in this area, this sounds like a great aspect to bear in mind when learning, thanks!
      • AlexCoventry 7y ago
        How do you go about developing skill in experimental design?
        • CrazyStat 7y ago
          Your local university stats department may have a course on it, or check out a textbook. There may well be some online courses too. Unfortunately I wasn't very fond of the textbooks I used in school and I haven't looked at any since so I can't give you any recommendations.
• fhood 7y ago
  Probably image processing.
• z3phyr 7y ago
  Real time raytracing
  • moab 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? I’m not familiar with the current state of graphics research. Can a high end GPU today do this, and if not, how far are the fastest high-quality algorithms from realtime today?
    • z3phyr 7y ago
      A high end GPU today (like GTX 10 series) can absolutely stun! Check this out, http://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracinggems/unofficial_RayTracingGems_v1.6.pdf http://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracinggems/unofficial_R... [33MB PDF] It sheds light on some ray tracing techniques with the focus on the new RTX API with DirectX12 Real time rendering portal page generally my goto for checking out new stuff in graphics and now they have a Raytracing section https://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracing.html https://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracing.html I am on phone right now, and will try to put more material as soon as I get back to my workstation! Edit: Courtesy Onion2k
      • onion2k 7y ago
        Note to users on mobile - link is a 33mb pdf.
    • lincolnq 7y ago
      Nvidia has a popular series of "RTX" gpus released in the last year, which are billed as having real-time ray-tracing capability of some sort. It is not exactly clear to me what the best ways of making use of this are yet; if you want to path trace a whole scene it's still absurdly expensive / low frame rate (check out Quake II RTX) but there are a small number of AAA games released in the past year which are making use of real-time raytracing in small amounts for more subtle graphical improvements.
  • fenwick67 7y ago
    This is up-and-coming, but so many people are working on making graphics shinier, it's a very crowded space.
• gabythenerd 7y ago
  Gaming on the cloud. VR and AR.
  • fenwick67 7y ago
    This is a great one, AAA game install sizes have been ballooning while storage space has plateaued and network speeds and connectivity are getting better. Maybe develop some split model, where assets are streamed over the network but gameplay and rendering are local? Or do most things on the server, but stream a spherical color and depth map, so the client can handle rotating the camera with zero lag, and then you can perform some compensation if the camera translates (similar to how Oculus does motion compensation)?
  • friendlybus 7y ago
    Still white elephants after decades. Every few years someone tries to stream games, it doesn't work. The closest example right this moment is Microsoft's flight sim that'll download world data from bing maps as you fly around. Simply because they are using synthesized petabytes of map data. Guildwars and other mmo's download world data as you are playing to fill out areas you will visit in the future. It still uses a traditional game client and business model. There's a slew of games that run on nearly every bit of hardware. I don't see the advantage cloud gaming brings. You could stream every mobile game that's existed as low latency is rarely a requirement for those games. Those games are still downloaded to memory and rendered on the client and use a conventional business model. Vr is getting a valve style game soon that might well be a killer app for it, but the problem of movement remains.
• jimmies 7y ago
  Make a new Podcast?
• fjp 7y ago
  Real-time communications. There's a hell of a lot more to building and scaling voice and video than you think, and tons more parts of the world are going to "come more online" with higher-bandwidth telecommunications access in the coming decades.
• ivarv 7y ago
  As to your question of promising areas, I see two major opportunities in health that are coming online in the near future: * psychedelics as medicine * gut/microbiome
  • cryoshon 7y ago
    seconding both of these. psychedelics as medicine are finally starting to gain the traction and serious research which they will need to be utilized therapeutically. while imperfect, they're potentially curative therapies which are likely a quantum leap ahead of much of what psychopharmacology has had in its roster so far. the gut/microbiome stuff is also starting to come to a head after about 9 years of intense research activity. clinical applications are right around the corner, and there's an entire universe to explore which we've only scratched the surface of so far. i'd also like to add cannabinoid (CBD) therapeutics as an addendum to psychedelic medicines. while there's a tremendous amount of hype and folk science surrounding CBD, it appears as though the chemical does in fact have a massive impact in domains ranging from immunology to psychiatry to geriatrics. we're just at the very start of the research process, and there are already a cornucopia of compelling and empirically valid leads which need to be followed.
  • uj8efdjkfdshf 7y ago
    Let's not forget: - non invasive medical imaging, particularly in terms of new approaches to generating or interpreting CT/MRI/ultrasound scans - more ergonomic surgical robots that don't hold their instruments like a 3 year old toddler - AI/expert systems for rapid triage and assessment of patients - more effective ways of drug delivery (both cell based therapy and developing better oral formulations)
  • Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
    Psychedlics will be useful but hard to monetize, but lol @ microbiome. You realize what this is, right? High throughput sequencing + multiplexing makes it cheap as chips to start doing -omics on anything you can write a grant for. So everyone and their mother starts getting funding for doing the most boring possible experiments that are total fishing expeditions. The results: we see ... stuff! Isn't that great!? We've got correlations coming out of every conceivable orifice, must be something interesting there, right!? It's great for writing shitty headlines, but piss-poor for doing any sort of science. Seriously, try talking to any 'microbiome' expert about microbiology. It's scary! Here's what will happen; we'll get some minor insights into diet wrt health, a handful of treatments for some specific niche gut issues (e.g. fecal transplant), and some handwavy BS about inflammation that will only be meaningful with more work on good old-fashioned signalling from cell/mol. biology. Of all the scam-y biotech startups (which is basically redundant), microbiome stuff is by far the worst.
• dlivingston 7y ago
  I have a hunch that the Next Big Thing (TM) will be augmented reality: though the technology is currently in its infancy, when compelling AR glasses are finally released (Apple is rumored to be released theirs in 2020) I think that it will have a massive impact. AR frameworks are a dime a dozen, but if you're an Apple person look into ARKit + Swift.
  • hwoolery 7y ago
    I agree -- on top of this, I think machine learning will play an important role. The power of machine learning + AR creates some interesting possibilities. You can check out our website for some examples https://www.2020cv.com https://www.2020cv.com
  • windsurfer 7y ago
    What value does augmented reality add to anything?
    • elcomet 7y ago
      I'm thinking of assisting drivers. Projecting stuff into the road to guide the driver, or warn him when there are dangerous objects.
      • yodon 7y ago
        I'm not sure the thing people have been doing perfectly well for 100 years without AR glasses that billions of dollars are being invested in making people not need to do at all is the place to launch your AR dream company
        • CamperBob2 7y ago
          For values of "Doing perfectly well" that encompass "Killing 30,000 people a year."
      • windsurfer 7y ago
        I like the idea of using it for safety. Is that something currently being done, or still in the experimental stages?
• erikerikson 7y ago
  Event sourcing. See dataintensive.net TL;DR - rip the writeahead log out of databases and materialize not just SQL commands but events yourself, returning control to reality rather than systems.
  • mamcx 7y ago
    I think in the same lines (I'm building a relational lang http://tablam.org http://tablam.org) and think a modern RDBMS could be made alike: command "city.define miami" |> event pre-process (ie: validations and transformations!) |> write-ahead log |> fire-observers: [post log for later OR block writes] The idea is to put some of the stored procedures in the "event pre-process" before commit to write-ahead. In the "fire-observers" steps is possible to directly commit to a table (sync) and get immediate feedback (ie: primary key duplicate) OR store the log to be processed later. The idea is that is possible to send "events" that are not necessarily "insert into table" or similar, just pure business stuff. BUT still possible to operate as always!
    • chadcmulligan 7y ago
      Not sure if this is what you mean but these exist - Oracle Queues, MQSeries, RabbitMQ (open source MQSeries copy), all part of a generic thing called Enterprise Service Bus
      • mamcx 7y ago
        If the queue is outside the RDBMS, not. What I say is that RDBMS are too much of a blackbox. I want a way to use them alike legos (but without gettin INTO their source code!). Imagine you wanna do a bloom index, but the RDBMS not have it. How you do it normally? Put a handler/listener/event etc that intercept the calls and route if need: search ... | if_bloom index_bloom OR continue
      • erikerikson 7y ago
        I would suggest thinking more along the lines of Kafka/Kinesis/et cetera. ESBs are often not persistent and as a result not available for reprocessing against new use cases or with fixed code.
• atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  Govtech and defense tech Super high barriers to entry, governments are spending more and more but people are demanding better more efficient services and won't put up with waiting in line at the DMV forever. In defense, it's hard to see the applications and what to build from an outside view, hard to get contracts and permissions, and hard to compete with established co's like Boeing that have all of the relationships already.
  • colek42 7y ago
    Check out the SBIR program. It provides an easy way to get into the system and innovate.
    • rwmurrayVT 7y ago
      Absolutely one of the best ways to get into the system.
      • TurkishPoptart 7y ago
        Can you comment more about this? Curious about how people get into it. Applying for a grant?
        • rwmurrayVT 7y ago
          https://www.sbir.gov/solicitation-listing/open https://www.sbir.gov/solicitation-listing/open This is a list of the current solicitations available. You can navigate around to the different departments. They have a calendar of announcements and due dates. If you click on the DoD SBIR[0] it brings up the available topics. Each period has different areas of interest. You create a little proposal and then they announce "Phase 1" awards. They usually have different terms, but I think it's typical to get up to 100k for 4 months. After your demo you can apply for Phase 2 which is more money over a longer term, after that you can move to Phase 3, commercialization, etc. The problem is that you have to work on it "full time" or at least the principal investigator has to work full time. The other problem is that they give you the topics of interest. There are so many over all of the departments. The biggest are definitely HHS and DoD. There are a lot of ML/AI, IT, sensors, etc. Unfortunately, the current cycle mostly ends tomorrow for DoD. [0]https://www.sbir.gov/node/1620805 https://www.sbir.gov/node/1620805
• mathewsanders 7y ago
  I think AR has potential to be the most impactful new type of technology, but I don’t have any idea if wide adoption is 1 year away, or 10 years away (or more). At the moment most of the focus is around overlaying some virtual world in the real world, but I think that technologies like U1 chip being added to new Apple devices could be really interesting to allow objects in the physical world to better mesh with digital world. Experimenting with live filters for Instagram could be an easy way to dip your toes into AR: https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/ https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/
  • windsurfer 7y ago
    It's a fun tech, but I fail to see any real world value that can be derived from it. I have worked on AR stuff before and found some niche uses, but I am having real trouble finding general commercial applications apart from fun and games.
    • paulvorobyev 7y ago
      There are tons of applications! The thesis behind AR is that your phone (or some other device) can be a passport to accessing a digital world around you. Some ideas, in no particular order: * Tourism of any kind (think AR museum or city tours) * Location and event discovery -- as of late there have been quite a few startups trying to capitalize on giving people things to do, but none successful. This is definitely on Snap's radar with their acquisition of Vurb[1] and Placed[2] * Interactive public art -- Paris has something like this[3] and I really want to see these types of ARGs spread to other cities * E-commerce -- superimposing clothing or furniture[4] onto the real world Also, why are fun and games not valid applications? Epic Games, for example, is worth 4.5bn. Interactive media is finally being recognized by the mainstream, and it's just getting started :) [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vurb https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vurb [2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/placed https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/placed [3] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashinvaders/id895180919 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashinvaders/id895180919 [4] https://www.amazon.com/adlp/arview https://www.amazon.com/adlp/arview
• marknadal 7y ago
  dWeb!
• mywittyname 7y ago
  Quantum computing is becoming more viable for amateurs to experiment with. A few years ago, Microsoft released an SDK for quantum computing and you can run your solutions on a real quantum computer using Azure. You'll learn a ton of linear algebra as a side-effect of working with quantum computing, which is the foundation of lots of other fields of computer science, like graphics and AI. I'm confident that the pool of quantum programmers is effectively zero, and I wouldn't be surprised if AI spills over into the field and causes an explosion of demand for quantum programmers. By 2024, it might be a field where you can write your own paycheck.
  • reikonomusha 7y ago
    Microsoft does not allow one to run programs on real quantum computers. Only Rigetti Computing and IBM provide that service.
• lewisjoe 7y ago
  Unpopular opinion: Domain driven stack. We have been living in the golden era of software industry, thanks to Moore's law. We were able to afford RISC (= general purpose CPU arch), general purpose operating systems, general purpose languages, general purpose databases etc all because the hardware was going to evolve and get faster anyway. Now with Moore's law showing signs of death, the future for better computing would be domain driven stack. A quick thought experiment will be that: cloud applications will be written with cloud-friendly languages, using cloud friendly databases, on cloud-ready operating systems and processors that are architected for heavy cloud workloads. Much like how gaming was relying on custom stack for performance (GPUs, play station, X-box, etc) The advent of TPUs by Google is a symptom of this pattern too. Of course, personal computers with general-purpose-everything will keep existing, but the business industry will start shifting towards domain driven stack slowly and steadily for obvious reasons.
  • bcrosby95 7y ago
    I just wanted to clarify your example. When you say cloud applications, I assume you mean applications written to run a cloud, as opposed to running IN a cloud? Because if it's the latter, that doesn't sound like a domain driven stack to me.
  • strken 7y ago
    Not sure what more recent xboxes are like, but the original xbox was a cut down windows 2000 running on Intel and Nvidia. It was really close to commodity hardware and software.
    • luch 7y ago
      the current Xbox is running a Windows 10 (one kernel design) while the PS4 run a patched up FreeBSD. Only Nintendo bothers with writing custom kernels, and historically Sony with the PS2 having exotic "Cell" processor units.
      • StreamBright 7y ago
        You mean PS3? It had the CBE.
• aey 7y ago
  Crypto! 17% of the worlds GDP is spent on financial services. Software can eat it all.
  • penagwin 7y ago
    I think you missed the train friend.
    • aey 7y ago
      Crypto is the internet in 1996, and you are telling me I missed the train because SUN Microsystems is going to be the first trillion dollar company.
      • pjc50 7y ago
        .. eventually going bust and being bought by Oracle?
        • nostrademons 7y ago
          I think that's the point. Existing cryptocurrencies are very likely to get eclipsed by new competitors that actually solve the problems people face with them. And if you want to have a big impact on humanity, solving those problems is a fruitful area. The financial system that'll pay for our retirements likely hasn't been invented yet.
      • WA 7y ago
        Crypto is not the internet in 1996. It's a scam. The internet never was. "Crypto is the early internet" is such a lame over-repeated phrase by crypto enthusiasts. Doesn't make it correct in any way.
    • nostrademons 7y ago
      That's what somebody told me about crypto in 2015, or for that matter about Google in 2009 and computer science in 2002. There's always another train, right up until the point where everybody assumes that there'll always be another train and world domination is assured. At that point, it's time to hop on another track.
• topkai22 7y ago
  To borrow a term from Microsoft, "Intelligent Edge." With the shift to the cloud, we are finding there are still many scenarios that should start local for latency, bandwidth, or legal considerations. Organizations still want those scenarios to be easy to manage though. An example might be in store retail analytics- a set up with a bunch of cameras that can detect what people are touching or otherwise interested in. It makes little sense to ship the video streams all the way back to a cloud provider, but orgs want the capability all the same.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • paulkon 7y ago
    How do you create a recurring subscription model without gating the service in the cloud as a SaaS? /s (or maybe not..)
  • antisemiotic 7y ago
    >An example might be in store retail analytics- a set up with a bunch of cameras that can detect what people are touching or otherwise interested in. Because the one thing desperately needed in this world is even more surveillance?
    • goodfight 7y ago
      This already happens with bluetooth phones in stores. They simply ping you from an array and can track your movement throughout the store.
    • topkai22 7y ago
      Most retail stores have been heavily surveilled for a long time by cctv for shoplifting purposes. One, perhaps naive, hope I have for edge based technologies is to enable scenarios that are actually more private. In my scenario, if the processing of the video stays at the edge and only anonymized or aggregated information is sent up to the cloud/ larger organization, then is much better then if the video is shipped offsite and processed. It’ll take some interesting legislative efforts to really frame this well, but the Europeans (and the state or Illinois with their facial recognition law?) at least seem to be headed that way.
• mherrmann 7y ago
  https://trennd.co https://trennd.co is a service that specialises in uncovering new trends. Maybe you'll find something there.
• codesushi42 7y ago
  ML on the edge.
  • semiotagonal 7y ago
    What's "the edge"?
    • imglorp 7y ago
      Edge might mean leaf-level IoT devices. Plenty are smart enough to do their own trending or anomaly detection (ie ML), for example, and only report to the cloud the results of that. So you have edge, cloud, and you might also ponder the "fog", where there's an intermediate aggregation layer. Think leaf devices in some building (edge) with some medium smarts done on prem (fog) before clouding it.
    • piyushpr134 7y ago
      Edge here means the client i.e. smartphones, browsers, or dedicated consumer side devices like the dashcam in the car
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • crucialfelix 7y ago
      ML training on phones, IoT devices etc. They then share their learning with centralized ML running on normal servers.
    • _Microft 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing
• folkhack 7y ago
  I work in this field so I'm incredibly biased: automated business solutions that cut entry-level data employees out of the equation. You save TONS on the bottom line, and cut out human-driven process that is error prone and difficult to manage. I'm talking about things beyond "API-driven dev", more in the realms of Puppeteer, Microsoft Office automation, screen-scraping (mouse/keyboard), etc. I make API's out of things that other devs balk at - and trust me, it has a lot of market value. This isn't as "up and coming" as all of the other items people are mentioning, but I'd put it on a "always increasing in popularity" trajectory due to an ever-increasing need. It's not really sexy or interesting, but there will always be a HUGE market for the things that I can do =) I will warn people that "up and coming" tech is often fad-based and has boom and bust cycles, and personally I'd rather be working for a paycheck then waiting to win the lottery in this regard.
  • maxhallinan 7y ago
    How do you find processes that can be automated? I've often thought that there must be a ton of this stuff in various industries where programmers aren't typically embedded.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
      You really need to find a domain expert who can at least get you started. I'm working on a problem that I would not have even known existed, if not for running across a couple of engineers who had a business in the field and saw an opening that only a small company would care about (market isn't big enough for the large players). I know similar situations have to be all around us. The problem, as you say, is finding out about them.
    • avgDev 7y ago
      Any midsize company has tremendous amount of things that could be automated. For example, I work at manufacturing company, we produce parts for bigger companies. Bigger companies already have APIs, web portal, etc. We have people who often manually enter data. Any time, a piece of paper is passed around or when people enter data manually you can either automate or improve the process. People are prone to errors. Right now, I am rewriting a mission critical application, some trivial changes will save hours a week and improve the integrity of the information. It is not as exciting as writing algorithms but it is nice to see an application written by you used by 200+ people.
• verelo 7y ago
  Quick control-f tells me no one has said "Environment" or a phrase I'm hoping catches on "Green-tech". There's just no way this doesn't blow up into something big in my mind. Earlier today i was discussing with a biologist friend how there should be a better partnership between the environmental world and the tech world, citing examples of biologists learning to code v's focusing on what they're good at. The environmental fields have not paid well historically, but i have a feeling that if the climate is changing, eventually it'll start paying very well to attract the people it needs. Stop optimizing driving routes for food delivery, selling CPG products to poor people...start worrying about humanity! It may not pay amazingly, but at least you're doing something that has the potential to be looked back at as important as fighting Nazi Germany or Polio.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    > but i have a feeling that if the climate is changing, eventually it'll start paying very well to attract the people it needs The problem is that it's a tragedy of the commons, so no matter how important it gets, unless governments really start putting money towards it there will continue to be little interest from the private sector.
    • false_alarm 7y ago
      no disrespect intended at all, but this seems to capture a very non-tech ethos. as an industry we need to have boundless optimism and practice a philosophy of idealism with a healthy sprinkle of realism. we are very well positioned to solve sustainability problems/change culture
      • _bxg1 7y ago
        I think I partly misread the original post and thought they were looking for a lucrative new field of work; if they just want something worthwhile to put effort into, then I can see how my comment might've come off as cynical. That wasn't my intent. I'm not saying nothing can be done about our environmental problems, just that it'd be tough to turn it into a career. Unfortunately.
    • 7y ago
• keoeoOeo8 7y ago
  Build the smallest OS possible that can run Kubernetes at scale in Rust You’ve just deprecated Linux & C in the data center :-D
  • kissgyorgy 7y ago
    What's the point?
  • gnode 7y ago
    Although Kubernetes is for containers, so you'd also need to re-implement Linux in Rust.
    • keoeoOeo8 7y ago
      Sorry, did the omission of a very detailed list of todos imply I don’t know what this would entail? You’d need to reimplement a variety of layers and could leave out of a lot too. Personally a rudimentary BIOS type system in hardware that can read/write to an OS layer would be the design I’d start with The OS doesn’t need userland tooling then But no one cares about the OS that powers everything being an archaic mess. Gotta fetishize where the profit is
• tito 7y ago
  Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Find everything that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find everything that requires stable land and predictable weather and put it in a shipping container. Find every infrastructure investment that requires decades to pay off and decentralize it. Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of copper and fiber optic cables on telephone poles, use solar and satellites. Instead of refrigerated transportation, grow food in your pocket or your stomach. Instead of roads, take to the air. We won't fix the climate out of kindness. Warren Buffet invested $$ Billions into wind farms because it makes his wallet feel better. Tim Cook just yesterday gave a speech that Apple said "We don't see climate change as risk, but opportunity", that's straight from the world's first trillion dollar company. [1] Elon Musk announced that SpaceX Starship will be pulling its fuel out of atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth, and on Mars [2] We'll need to completely reinvent society. Sustainable transportation, vertical agriculture, solar/wind/nuclear energy, air mining, an all-electric economy. Topics: Direct Air Capture, making products out of atmospheric carbon dioxide, carbon removal. Check out all the companies in the space here: http://airminers.org http://airminers.org [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/22/tim-cook-talks-sustainability-ceres-gala-nyc/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/22/tim-cook-talks-sustaina... [2] https://youtu.be/sOpMrVnjYeY?t=3850 https://youtu.be/sOpMrVnjYeY?t=3850
  • tabtab 7y ago
    Siberia will be the next California ;-)
    • tito 7y ago
      Wow! Here's a review of Siberia's climate by 2080: "Even under mild climate change, they estimate a five-fold increase in the potential human capacity." https://www.newsweek.com/russia-siberia-habitable-climate-change https://www.newsweek.com/russia-siberia-habitable-climate-ch...
      • tabtab 7y ago
        I remember a news crew interviewing Russian citizens on the street about climate change. One guy said, "I welcome global warming, it's f&cking cold here!"
• bovermyer 7y ago
  Figure out a way to apply modern software automation to a root problem of society. For example, hunger.
• reilly3000 7y ago
  Information quality, the nascent field of labeling content with metadata about its veracity. Its dense with hard problems, but a good solution that gains majority consensus is critical for the future of digital communication. Facebook or any private entity ought not be the canonical fact-checker of the 21st century. Ideally IMHO is it delivered as an open protocol.
• pgt 7y ago
  Differential Dataflow is going to cause a huge upset in several high value areas, including incremental compilation, database view maintenance, UI view maintenance (subsumes React), and differential database streaming: https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential-dataflow https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential-dataflow
  • simplify 7y ago
    What's the main difference between this and event sourcing?
    • atombender 7y ago
      Not the OP, but as I understand this project, the idea is that you can represent a pipeline that looks like it's operating on an entire collection of data, but in reality can operate on a delta. That means that if you have a million items in your input, and you add another million to it, your pipeline only needs to run on one million, even though the output will be two million. In this case, the input is a collection that may be modified at any point, not a linear sequence of "events". I've designed a similar system to ingest data that comes in the form of snapshots. The pipeline has many discrete steps and starts by splitting up the snapshot (e.g. a big monolithic JSON file) into smaller parts, which gets parses, transformed, split, joined etc. When a modified file comes in, the pipeline only performs actions on modified items; as data trickles through the pipeline, subsequent steps only run if a step modifies an item (relative to current state). It significantly reduces processing. Pachyderm works on a similar principle, but using files in a virtual file system.
    • pgt 7y ago
      Differential Dataflow solves the second hardest problem in computer science - caching - by calculating the optimal reactions to an event that will maintain the client's view. Of course, this requires tracking client queries and state cursors. For more background, look at Adapton and Jane Street's incremental DOM implementations: https://github.com/janestreet/incr_dom https://github.com/janestreet/incr_dom
  • repsilat 7y ago
• mikorym 7y ago
  > vlogging in 2014 Not quite sure I understand this. Is this a US thing? Is it blogging by posting videos?
  • unlinked_dll 7y ago
    Think YouTube stars
• sys_64738 7y ago
  COBOL programming?
  • tabtab 7y ago
    COBOL.js++ with qubit edge-cloud blockchain microservices
• hectorr1 7y ago
  Usable cryptography. iPhone-level UX for private key management. People care about privacy, and more are willing to pay for it. There is a massive opportunity for direct monetization through cryptocurrency users, and the things you could build when this problem is solved...
  • anon111028 7y ago
    I see a future where everything is encrypted with the best there is. Encryption could/should be built right into the backbone of everything.
  • atonse 7y ago
    I'd argue that WhatsApp and Signal have already accomplished this, for messaging, communications, and file transfers.
  • munchbunny 7y ago
    As someone who uses cryptography daily (and not for crypto currency), I would kill for that. The problem is that it's really hard to build good abstractions. You can't get the math to do things that the math doesn't do, so the complexity comes from (1) preventing people from mathematically shooting themselves in the foot, and (2) twisting the math into something that approximates real world problems. We all want to be able to say "here is cryptographic magic that tells you that this data is trustworthy", but trust is fundamentally a human problem. Cryptography ultimately allows humans to make and move around declarations of fact, but how you glue those facts together is messy because humans are kind of bad at saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
• airstrike 7y ago
  Autonomous Driving AR / VR Automation generally but particularly in manufacturing 3D printing for manufacturing
  • wenc 7y ago
    3D printing for manufacturing has now been rebranded “additive manufacturing” (kinda a less descriptive term if you ask me — sounds like making glue — but it is what it is)
• catwell 7y ago
  In software, I am hopeful for applications of homomorphic encryption. It could solve some privacy issues preventing some classes of software from moving to the Cloud. There have been huge efficiency improvements over the last 10 years, there needs to be even more, probably hardware-assisted. In general, climate change is the topic of the century, and with it energy generation and storage. I think intermittent renewables (wind and solar) are overvalued today. Nuclear fission has a large role to play (with SMRs for instance), hydrogen as well. Of course if we make fusion work all bets are off.
• tabtab 7y ago
  I'm hoping Dynamic Relational will catch on. Unlike the dynamic NoSql products, this is pro-SQL so you don't have to relearn much. You get dynamism AND familiarity (per existing RDBMS experience). I believe the industry wants it, they just don't know it yet, expecting a rigid dichotomy between either "stiff" RDBMS's -or- NoSql. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66385/dynamic-database-schema#46202802 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66385/dynamic-database-s...
• szczepano 7y ago
  Smart assistant in some narrow field of knowledge.
• diyseguy 7y ago
  podcasts, virtual reality, deep fake detection, diy internet
• blhack 7y ago
  Lonliness, particularly among the elderly.
  • tabtab 7y ago
    Dogs, man's best friend.
    • dang 7y ago
      Gets harder as you get more elderly.
  • jacbop 7y ago
    I volunteer with Little Brothers: Friend of the Elderly in Chicago, and this is a serious problem and getting worse as we see slow decline of social institutions. My grandparent's generation had the VFW, Lions Club, a bowling league, golfing league, their church, volunteering, etc. I think part of it is economic: they had a much more comfortable retirement than what is possible today, so they had time for all this leisure. And part of it is technology and media, providing a distraction from loneliness.
  • jariel 7y ago
    The broad range of issues relating to the fact there were very few retirees 50 years ago that were old ... and who will now make up the 'majority' of people ... this is a huge deal. People retire at 65 and live to 100 - that's a long time and there are a lot of them, and there are a huge range of issues there from healthcare to mobility.
• c3534l 7y ago
  It seems like there's a lot of profit in synthesizing existing technonogies, like decades old tech and new stuff (bitcoin, uber, neural nets + GPUs). And also overlooked are dying industries. They tend to consolidate on their way down, which allows a new competitor to buy them up. A lot of software is changing its business and pricing model, so it would allow a smaller firm to offer up an alternative to what established players are doing. Software used to be the big next thing where everything and anything was new and innovative. People got used to thinking of it in those terms and now fail to see it as the established industry it is, chasing high risk investments that aren't even going to be that high reward. There may not be a next Google, Facebook, or Amazon. You may have to look for another industry entirely if you want to get in early to become an industry giant.
• jl2718 7y ago
  I see a huge trend coming in “DIY Medicine”. Doctors, insurers, and the FDA are way too expensive for mere gatekeeping, and technology is developing new treatments and dropping equipment costs an order of magnitude faster than they can respond. For example, I can buy all of the equipment necessary for a PRP injection for less than the cost of a single treatment, and the doctor that does it knows no more about how to do it than any nurse that took a weekend course. There are also many simple drugs that aren’t used because they either can’t be patented or because the cost is too low. Many of these treatments obviate the need for much more expensive and dangerous treatments with questionable outcomes, like surgery and high-priced drugs. Doctors know that the price of the most effective treatments may not sustain their profession. So if we’re not there already, it’s coming to the point where the medical industry does more harm than good, and gray market treatments will give far better outcomes for an order magnitude lower cost.
  • tsmarsh 7y ago
    I work in Pharma, we're not worried yet. We've done a few trials of nano-fabs, essentially 3D printed labs where you inject the raw materials and drugs pop out the end. They kind of work, but its still a lot of work and would mean consumers getting hands on a bunch of controlled substances. Being able to produce meth in a 'lab' that fits in your hand is not crazy... except you can clearly see how crazy that is.
    • godtoldmetodoit 7y ago
      Ignore the legal aspect of this - if the technology gets good enough and cheap enough people will make their own nano-fabs and damn the laws. People would LOVE to pirate pharmaceuticals. It's an industry just begging for disruption.
      • zelly 7y ago
        A way to synthesize arbitrary chemicals in a printer is worth trillions of dollars. It goes well beyond pharmaceuticals, but for a start, it would drive healthcare costs down to basically free.
• dlojudice 7y ago
  tools for micro-entrepreneurs: with the growth of automation (e.g. RPA and AI) and the consequent decline of the world middle class, many people are being forced to work informally as a food deliverer or be an uber driver. others will become micro-entrepreneurs (solo-entrepreneurs for many). the opportunity is that these entrepreneurs will need all kinds of specialized tools during their journey (payment, marketing, finance, distribution, etc.)
  • rooundio 7y ago
    bullish on this as well
  • somatic 7y ago
    In calling these people entrepreneurs you are really contorting the language. The entrepreneurs in this system are the creators and owners of the system. The other people are something else entirely.
    • dlojudice 7y ago
      i do not disagree regarding how we will call these "entrepreneurs". but problems looking for solutions for these people will be there (is already). it might even a chance to improve their lives
• sebringj 7y ago
  possibly Behavior-driven code generation... meaning create some platform to enable watching users use an application, then it could make machine code to create a similar application. This would enable making videos for training that simulated a working application but the AI would not care if the application worked or not in reality but could make it work type thing?
  • cosmolev 7y ago
    Are you talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_by_example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_by_example ?
    • sebringj 7y ago
      Yah I think so maybe like that but more in a way that it was setup for existing workflows in that marketing people could actually create some video mockup demonstration then an AI could look at that video then produce a working product from it, similar to how a developer would. But this is shooting developers in the foot obviously as those that are not AI programmers would be screwed.
• cloudyo 7y ago
  Digital privacy / security. People and companies are becoming more and more privacy aware/conscious/concerned. All the scandals (e.g. data breaches, targeted advertising, selling of user data) and new regulations such as GDPR are only increasing the need and demand for privacy
• jnsaff2 7y ago
  The climate emergency has pushed me hard into quite a few areas that have a lot of promise for huge impact, to name a few: - electromobility: concerting bikes, kick-scooters, cars ... this all is much easier than it seems, also has a vibrant open source culture - demand response in electricity grids has quite a few startups (one of which I just joined) that help integrating a lot of renewables in a way that does not break grid stability - passivhaus buildings that can save 90% of heating/cooling for 10% extra cost in construction - storing carbon into buildings with wood/CLT - plating trees, reforesting deserts etc - if you really want to go long there are a few fields of microbiology that could reduce our pollution from agriculture a lot
  • brendanmc6 7y ago
    I studied sustainability related topics for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees, but transitioned to full-time software development. Now I've promised myself I'll try to work exclusively for companies doing something climate positive. I must admit the intersection of sustainability and TypeScript is more narrow than I'd like! Let me know which companies you find. There are some great, mission driven urban and smart-city related companies-- Swiftly, Sidewalk Labs, Remix. The whole mobility SaaS scene like Ioki (my employer), Via, door2door. Some cool unique projects like Doconomy. But unfortunately for me the most impactful companies will have a much more specific niche than just "sustainability", and often are more in science and engineering than software. Like the ones you've pointed out, or lab grown meat and meat substitutes, renewable energy, geospatial tech, manufacturing, etc. So I try take this extra motivation and energy and throw it at side projects: getting https://offsetra.com https://offsetra.com off the ground, and trying to find people to use my mapping tool for citizen science and civic engagement https://canvis.app https://canvis.app While there isn't a lot to be optimistic about in the grand sense, we can at least feel a bit optimistic in the career sense-- sustainability and climate are more hot than ever these days (no pun intended).
    • astrofinch 7y ago
      Drones which plant trees seem pretty exciting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNdrTZ7CG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNdrTZ7CG4
• thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago
  Find a popular web app. Make a privacy-centric version of it. Features publicly listed on the home page: - No 3rd party analytics - No 3rd party data sharing - GDPR for users worldwide - Logs deleted after x days - Clear data retention policies - Clear process on how to communicate change on these features Apple, Firefox, and others have started to realize that people are now taking privacy seriously and willing to pay a premium for it. And, no, security is not a acceptable form of privacy. We should not be complacent with "Trust us" platforms with out clear definitions.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• neltnerb 7y ago
  Cooperatives. The economy needs to shift away from giant companies with pay ratios of a thousand to one between CEOs and average employees and employees need control over their workplace to move to the next stage of capitalism. Make it easier for collectives to start up businesses that aren't purely focused on profit and instead focused on employees taking ownership of their work. It may not be the biggest profit possible, but I think that if you enable 22 small worker-owned cooperatives to exist more easily somehow that's a huge karmic return on investment. Maybe said cooperatives are software companies that work together to do contract work. I think that there are a number of places that try to match up contractors with clients, and places like Gusto work great for employees but I don't think they can handle member distributions (the IRS's term for payments a company makes to an owner versus an employee). I'm not sure what to do to help the most exactly, but I think this kind of company is going to be increasingly important in the future. Maybe even just like an online forum for people trying to start cooperatives to discuss their common issues.
  • tunesmith 7y ago
    I've always thought it would be interesting to figure out the smallest number of people needed to create a pop-up town or microtown. If you get a sufficient number of people together, plop them down anywhere, run water/electricity/sewer, and start a community. It might be that most of them would have to telecommute for revenue, but then you'd also have the local general store or whatever else you'd need. But the people there would be the community and social support network.
    • neltnerb 7y ago
      I think there's wide variability in the social needs of humans as a function of past experience, genetics, and age. But I think that 15-20 is about right for a sustainable group generally as long as you've got the right skills in the mix. Fewer than that and a few lazy people and things fall apart. More than that and you start forming cliques. Once you get into multi-generational it gets interesting. I know at least one place like this where a bunch of families sort of just went in on some land and then coparent as a community.
    • 7y ago
• clavalle 7y ago
  Gestalt, context-aware UI. We have a lot of different ways to interact with systems but they are all separate and relatively dumb (not context-aware). I think there is a confluence of forces that will lead to a more seamless user interaction with and between systems that will reduce the friction between app and user, app and app, and user to user. Eventually, for better or worse, a lot of the underlying differences between apps and data and modes of interactions will largely disappear to the end user. Voice commands, AR, gesture recognition, traditional mouse and keyboard, wearables, powerful phones, laptops, bluetooth, environmental devices, smart-speakers, cloud-based microservices, data transfer and description standards, ad hoc contexts, ubiquitous fast internet, etc, coming together to have user and app interaction happen in a smooth, natural , and intelligent way. Machine learning will be at the heart of it all. Imagine all of the progress made over the years in app-to-app interoperability jumping into meatspace.
• tsmarsh 7y ago
  Democratising manufacturing. CAD / CAM is still hard. CAM especially. You have to know a great deal about materials and tools, even order of operations to help the computer build efficient tool paths. There is a lot of scope for process improvement and there are commercial opportunities to sell to job shops who would like have their engineers working more on CAD and less on CAM. There is also potential here to make it so easy and affordable that having a 5 axis machine on your property is as common place as having a laser printer. 3D printing offers the ability to create more plastic crap you don't want, or prototype things you want made on a CNC in the future. 5 Axis CNC in the home means that you could download a mocha pot, wait a day (instead of shipping) then screw it together. Drones, motors (winding is still hard), car parts could either be downloaded or you take a video on your phone and let AI figure out the CAD / CAM.
  • jiveturkey 7y ago
    this will never happen. your example isn't very good. you still have to ship the raw materials and -- much worse -- deal with unit volumes of waste.
    • crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Uhh.... I've heard the "this can never happen" before. 5 and 6 DoF is tough, but there's tons of improvement everywhere in this realm. And we're talking of major improvement.
• awinder 7y ago
  I'm gonna go in a different direction: broadly, solutions that deal with the problems of an aging population: 1. Technology that helps doctors/practices service more elderly patients 2. Wellbeing technology for seniors (Headspace/Calm should totally push towards this area) 3. Personnel management for homecare nursing List could go on and on. None of this is especially "trendy" but there's clear demographic reasons to build startups in this area and there's going to be a natural onramp of capital & solutions for how to care for a radically older population are going be sorely needed.
  • TheMerovingian 7y ago
    There are a number of companies already starting on this. One in particular that comes to mind is Reliq Tech, which does remote monitoring for patients. Currently they have pilots with native reserves, where doctors are hundreds of kilometres away from their patients.
  • 8ytecoder 7y ago
    A tool for children to remotely manage parents' phones, tablets, routers and (may be) computers would be nice to have. My parents are not very tech savvy and when something goes wrong getting someone to fix it takes forever. If I had remote access I'd do it in just a few minutes.
    • omarchowdhury 7y ago
      LogMeIn, Teamviewer, VNC..?
    • lotsofpulp 7y ago
      My solution to this is loading them up with iOS and macOS devices, enabling iCloud backup, and having them live near an Apple store for hardware issues. They can click on all the shady links they want, but I haven’t had to field tech support in a long time.
      • yellowapple 7y ago
        I've had pretty good experiences with handing them Linux machines (usually openSUSE + Xfce). There's an initial adjustment period as they figure out "okay the orange fox replaces the blue e", but quite a few people I know who made that switch are now at least reasonably productive. Chromebooks are another option here that I've seen be pretty successful, and they have the advantage of being absurdly cheap. The absolute biggest bang for the buck: ad-blockers. Fewer sketchy links to click on, and absolutely nothing to relearn.
• DrNuke 7y ago
  > What's an area that people think is up and coming? I'm pretty introverted! Spend 3 to 6 months on theatre acting and you will never need asking the cold internet again for anything personal!
  • monk_e_boy 7y ago
    Bingo! Correct answer. Anyone can learn to 'act' ... I got into teaching to help myself be more confident infront of adults. It turns out that groups of strangers are perfectly normal people, and there isn't anything to worry about.
• tdevito 7y ago
  About time for a new social network.
  • salsadip 7y ago
    Whats the killer feature that's missing from social networks right now that a 15 year old would care about?
• johnmorrison 7y ago
  In the online world, it seems like there are two big things happening right now: - Neural networks / ML (eg GPT-2) Definitely nowhere near its potential for being applied to a wide variety of areas. Find a niche you like and apply there. - Security / Privacy (eg Telegram) Rapidly growing demand pretty much everywhere. Bonus points if you can make your product great for standard users and at the same time hackable/customizable for people who want to do that. Capitalize on both legs of the pareto distribution. That all being said, if you are ambitious and talented without an all-consuming passion for software, I highly recommend you find something you can work in hardware. Since the '70s or so most industries have been basically frozen, besides computer hardware/software. Yet in the meantime materials science and engineering design has advanced considerably, both of which form the basis for innovation in new technologies. This is why SpaceX was able to build components for 10-100x cheaper than the leading suppliers in the early 2000s. I work at a startup in nuclear fission, particularly because this tech is at <1% of its potential right now. The same could be said for many other areas. Here's some ideas you might find interesting, that I think could work in the next decade or so: - Supersonic air travel - Electric air travel - Nano/micro-scale metallurgy and materials for industry - Biological materials - Gut/microbiome - Genetic engineering - Nuclear fission / fusion - Carbon capture - Cross-laminated timber (CLT) for construction - Indoor farming / optimizing farming in general - Synthetic meat / meat alternatives
  • el_dev_hell 7y ago
    > That all being said, if you are ambitious and talented without an all-consuming passion for software, I highly recommend you find something you can work in hardware. Since the '70s or so most industries have been basically frozen, besides computer hardware/software. Yet in the meantime materials science and engineering design has advanced considerably, both of which form the basis for innovation in new technologies. This is why SpaceX was able to build components for 10-100x cheaper than the leading suppliers in the early 2000s. I honestly feel like reading this is a moment that I will l recall in about 8 years and think: "Damn, I wish I listend to that comment about hardware from johnmorrison".
    • GhettoMaestro 7y ago
• barce 7y ago
  Anything that goes from Zero to 1 (Peter Thiel). An example, pre-airplane civilization to a jet set civilization. I'd say that in 2016, that was the year for ML to seriously influence world events. In 2019 I'd give a serious look at this list https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs and chances are the next big thing isn't on it. Personally, I'm shorting credit card companies since 50% of millennials have maxed out credit cards.
• Balgair 7y ago
  Memristors. Thus far, they have not been used very well, mostly due to 'lock in' effects. But their power savings are fairly intense (as compared to current solutions, about a factor of ~10^3 - 10^4). With AI and ML stuff literally heating up, those power savings will become more and more attractive. Eventually, a sea change will occur and memristive based computing will become the dominant one. Personally, I think that the synapse-like characteristics of memristors aren't as fully exploited as they should be and new chip designs will greatly aide the transition to better and better AIs and ML devices on less power and smaller form factors. Think the modern image classification on a Tesla but powered by a watch battery, for months.
  • MiracleUser 7y ago
    The wikipedia page seems to imply we still dont know if any memristors physically exist. Your comment implies it's in experimentation, so I am assuming wiki is out of date I would love to learn more about this topic, do you have any additional information / sources?
    • Balgair 7y ago
      The Talk page on the wiki has some activity from this year, so it may be up to date - ish. There are a few companies that are selling memristors [1], but, as you say, they may not be fully truthful in describing their products. I'd take a look at some of the texts that are for sale [2] to dive deeper, provided you already know a fair bit of EE. If you do not, pick up this book [3] to get a good education. I may not be the best resource on this though. I'd email Dr. Chua directly and just ask him [4] for some resources, or just go through his publications list on it [5]. If you do email him, try for breaks in semesters, as Profs tend to be less busy then. Also, he has had 25 PhD students, so you can reach out to them as well. [1] https://knowm.org/product/ https://knowm.org/product/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/memristor/s?k=memristor https://www.amazon.com/memristor/s?k=memristor [3] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+art+of+electronics&crid=T6LE1KKXENK8&sprefix=the+art+of+ele%2Caps%2C177&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+art+of+electronics&crid=T6LE1... [4] chua@eecs.berkeley.edu [5] https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~chua/circuitrefs.html https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~chua/circuitrefs.html
• hugehackman 7y ago
  AI-driven drug discovery. New pharmaceuticals are immensely expensive to develop, but that's largely because pharma companies aren't using available data to its full potential. Its never been easier to start a software business, which is bad for most software companies since it means that they'll have no opportunity to create monopolies. AI-driven pharma companies are defensible since their work is much more patentable than a typical software-enabled business, and because they'll benefit from data network-effects in the long term.
• julienreszka 7y ago
  Don't ask this question here, people here who know what is promising won't tell you because that's too valuable information. Ask your children if you have any. They will be able to tell you.
  • ebj73 7y ago
    Not really, julien. If Sergey Brin had told you back in 1998 that he planned to start Google, and to start indexing the web out of his garage, it would not have meant anything. Or if the Wright Brothers had confided in you that they planned to build a workable flying machine back in 1903, they would not have been running any great risk either. What's valuable is having the vision, and the ability to connect all the little dots, and to see exactly _why_ something is a good proposition. Just hearing that something will be great usually won't help you a lot. To quote Howard H. Aiken: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
  • johnsimer 7y ago
    People usually dont steal ideas, but they will copycat you once you have a profitable business, i.e. once you've executed the risk away
• jiveturkey 7y ago
  Not tech for tech's sake, but the only thing that is going to matter soon enough is climate change mitigation. So of course there will lots of tech involved. Perhaps something that touches all of it and could be lucrative is data collection and analysis tools.
• siriniok 7y ago
  There is an organisation 80000hours.org devoted to discovering careers related to future high-impact areas, it has a list of perspective career paths and reviews on them, including the obvious ones, like Machine Learning PhD, and not so obvious, like China specialist. https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/ https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/
• tunesmith 7y ago
  One general theme I think is getting more and more apparent is the phenomenon of large systems breaking down. One of the side effects of globalization and the internet is that it becomes more and more apparent over time when there are opportunities for asymmetric impact. And there will always be bad actors that look to take advantage of that. This is partly because we as consumers get used to the abuses and start accepting them. Back in the 90s, the onset of email spam was something that caused a lot of indignance and active outrage. Banner ads were a huge deal, too. But a lot of it is just from the bad actors getting more sophisticated. Including state actors that are invested in causing the breakdown of democratic norms in other countries. So I think there will continue to be opportunity in the decentralization realm. Tools for various forms of self-governance. That could mean publishing (activitypub), hosting (ipfs), or even actual governance (decision-making and voluntary policy compliance among groups).
  • colechristensen 7y ago
    A book to greatly add to your perspectives about large complex systems failing: Inviting Disaster https://www.amazon.com/Inviting-Disaster-Lessons-Edge-Technology/dp/0066620821 https://www.amazon.com/Inviting-Disaster-Lessons-Edge-Techno...
• yodsanklai 7y ago
  Some people predict that fixing stuff will become a big business. As resource and energy get more scarce, there will be more incentive to fix existing stuff.
• auiya 7y ago
  Gene editing tech. CRISPR is only the beginning and the payoffs for getting all this right are potentially heroic.
• JamesClear99 7y ago
  * Low-code/No-Code platforms that lets rapid application development by non-tech/citizens. Gartner has a category after this field called LCAP.
• fstopmick 7y ago
  As we trend towards full automation, both manufacturing and distribution jobs are likely to be structurally disintegrated. Services will probably also be rendered obsolete, aside from highly personal / human / creative services that rest on the long-tail of AI. So a more realistic prediction might suggest that the majority of "promising areas" will lie in fields like AI, big data, statistics, decentralization, advanced mathematics, etc. The character and arrangement of these domains will depend largely on whether we continue a trajectory of capitalism focused on profits, or whether we begin a shift towards socialism and co-op models that focus on psychosocial and environmental value. Profit path = more advanced big data and exploitative mechanisms, psy-ops tooling for political power preservation, centralized power, etc (think robocop / cambridge analytica on steroids). Psychosocial path = more innovation rooted in positive psychology, complex systems, decentralization, and facilitating self-actualization (think Her / pragmatic utopia). The overlap between the two seems to be psychology and complex systems thinking, so maybe "complex systems psychology" or even "social engineering" would be solid candidates? Complex systems psychology would essentially be the next evolution of behavioral economics, where we observe and engineer the emergence of system-level phenomena by motivating individual agents to behave in ways that are psychologically positive (or aligned with a profit/power motif of someone atop a hierarchy) for the individual parts and the whole. Social engineering is just more the micro version of that - figuring out how to infiltrate / manipulate complex social systems and then equipping organizations with defense tactics and tooling. Maybe even anticipating the emergence of new attack vectors before they can be exploited. For anyone interested in complex systems, Santa Fe Institute is in the middle of Week 3 of their free online course. Highly recommended. For anyone interested in positive psychology, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are great places to start. For anyone interested in social engineering, the SECTF is a goldmine.
• kootenpv 7y ago
  Privacy & Personal Analytics I am working on an open-source implementation that is based on the fundamental idea of privacy. The consumers should have full control eventually. For now only Google etc have all the information on us, but the great thing is that because of GDPR we see a move towards us being able to download it. The system I am building allows us to combine data from across companies. This is huge. We are talking so much opportunity. The real challenge is making it easy for people to onboard while still providing security. Feel free to contact me if you're more interested.
• sjustns 7y ago
  Geriatric care and home health services.
• mattmaroon 7y ago
  Whatever area you're interested in. Whatever it is, if you love it enough, it's got promise.
• makeee 7y ago
  Tools that make development 10x easier for the next generation of programmers. There’s many different ways to approach this and there are going to be a number of very successful startups in this space IMHO. Examples: darklang.com, webflow.com, retool.com, modulz.com, divjoy.com (disclaimer: my project).
  • Geee 7y ago
    This applies to everything. The idea is that the talent pool for a given job will increase, as jobs become easier and easier. Especially AI will drive down the needed expertise for a given job. E.g. nurses will increasingly be able to do jobs that require doctors today.
  • romanixromanix 7y ago
    >> Tools that make development 10x easier for the next generation of programmers. Fully agree. >> Examples: darklang.com, webflow.com, retool.com, modulz.com, divjoy.com To me, those look still very much focused on the software engineer. My preference is rather something like Oracle APEX or Atlassian Jira. Jira already provides many generic features that are typically used in custom, corporate applications: - UI with forms, tables, sorting, filtering - queries - Workflow editor and workflow engine - notifications - csv file import / export - mobile client
• screye 7y ago
  ML for healthcare. The whole industry is so far behind everything else, it is not even funny. Problem is, Just like Airbnb or Uber, the biggest road blocks are not technological, they are organizational and political. It is entirely possible, we might need some major privacy / security related leaps in ML to convince the medical industry to adopt it fully. ML in movies and rendering. Deep Fakes is just an amateur's tech demo. In a few years, I expect to see render rights actually become a thing. Like, you don't act in the movie, but give a company rights to use a 3d render of you in it. real time and full time holograms / AR. With remote work becoming a thing, I see a huge market for full 3d renders of the person presenting or even completely virtual AR work places where people check in to work. Maybe not for a decade or two, but whoever builds the flagship product will make a ton of money.
  • hokumguru 7y ago
    This is already a thing. In the upcoming video game Death Stranding, Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn both play physical roles without having taken part in the motion-capture or voice acting. They gave the rights for their likenesses to be used without actually taking part.
    • burntoutfire 7y ago
      There's an ocean of quality difference between a video game and a (non-CGI) movie.
      • Miraste 7y ago
        There really isn't, any more. A few more polys in the models and a few more rays in the path tracing aren't a big difference. Check out what Blender can do with Eevee, which is more-or-less a realtime engine. Better physics simulations are still a big differentiator, but that doesn't matter for characters. The only reason rendered likenesses don't appear in films more (because they already do, look at Peter Cushing) is that they're still expensive and take a lot of manual work, and both of those factors are decreasing rapidly.
• qubex 7y ago
  The area of the Circle. I’m led to believe there’s pie in there somewhere.
• lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
  Crypto. And no, I don't mean applying blockchain to everything, or internet money that just goes "up and to the right". I mean the new applications of distributed systems research and cryptographic primitives that allow for highly composable, highly trustworthy, permissionless, autonomous machines. MakerDAO, Arweave, the whole field of open finance (aka "DeFi"), and so many others collectively are very likely to change the fundamental assumptions we make when using software. Here's a great talk regarding trustlessness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0rZcpfF5dU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0rZcpfF5dU
  • deadmutex 7y ago
    I think the people behind "trustlessness" should have chosen a better word. When people that are not familiar with crypto hear trustless, they can associate the solution with the common definition: "not worthy of trust; faithless; unreliable; false". I.e. the solution isn't reliable. I realize that the people behind it are trying to apply the world trustless to the problem they are solving, but that is definitely not clear from the quick soundbites people read. source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/trustless https://www.dictionary.com/browse/trustless
    • crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Yeah I was thinking more "Provable".
      • steamer25 7y ago
        Maybe 'trustification'? A novelish term for novel concepts around creating trust where it wouldn't otherwise be.
    • lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
      A very fair point.
    • latchkey 7y ago
      Some people are calling it web3. https://web3.foundation/about/ https://web3.foundation/about/
• rllyboredonline 7y ago
  Automated the shit out of a customer service process. Current doing contract work doing the same thing. It pays bills.
• yters 7y ago
  Human in the loop machine learning. All the successful big players use it, but pretend it is all ML. Merely making the human explicit and finding the best trade-off between human and algorithm can do wonders for machine learning. Plus it has better optics than "AI WILL EAT YER JORBZ". In this case human in the loop ML inherently creates jobs as an essential element.
  • NickM 7y ago
    Not a bad suggestion, but are the optics really that much better? Definitely gives me a dystopian vibe of "paying humans pennies to help AI automate away what few other jobs they have left to them".
    • yters 7y ago
      Depends where the humans live. Some areas of the world this is great work: good pay and safe work conditions. Also depends on whether there is a limit to this work. It seems there is plenty to go around given the enormous amount of training data ML needs. And as ML becomes more widespread the value of this work will increase and pay will go up. Also, the current paradigm is a simple active learning approach. There may be a large variety of ways humans can contribute at various skill and hence pay levels. E.g. compare the work of original 'computers' to today's enormously well paid software developers. As one example consider the FoldIt protein folding game, which was very successful.
• alexjray 7y ago
  Law
  • Wh1skey 7y ago
    Seconded
• crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  I'm working on starting my own business with SDRs, radio, and the final area of hacking. SigInt. How do you protect yourself and your company from the myriad of radios and devices and BYOD policies? Can you keep up with what's talking over radio? Do you know what's secure and what's not? Do you want to not only find bad devices, but locate them in your facility? Do you also want to detect radio attacks that originate in or out of your facility? Or, do drones disturb you? That's what I'm working on.
  • mtnGoat 7y ago
    sounds like some pretty interesting stuff!
• Myrmornis 7y ago
  An alternative for alcohol that is as attractive from the point of view of intoxication quality but is easily and quickly reversible and has little hangover.
  • mc3 7y ago
    A: Laughter
  • postsantum 7y ago
    legalized weed?
    • Myrmornis 7y ago
      You find that easily and quickly reversible?? :)
• faizshah 7y ago
  Graph/Network Representation Learning/Embedding: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8395024 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8395024 https://github.com/chihming/awesome-network-embedding https://github.com/chihming/awesome-network-embedding
• olah_1 7y ago
  This radar, motion-detection UX from Google https://atap.google.com/soli/ https://atap.google.com/soli/ Don't be fooled by the toyness of it now. The potential for this is amazing.
• petarvasilev 7y ago
  AI
• Zaskoda 7y ago
  Blockchain Gaming: I only saw one other crypto/blockchain comment and I suspect people are avoiding the topic because of the amount of noise from the scene compared to a lack of real world applications. It's that lack of real applications that speaks (for me) about how far out we are from feeling the real impact of any blockchain related solution. However, like so many other technologies, right now is a great time to explore, learn, and evolve the technology through gaming. My gut feeling is that blockchain gaming will do well over the next 3 to 5 years.
  • departure 7y ago
    Gambling was a big deal when currencies like ethereum came out but the inability for true randomness, without an external oracle, really killed it. IMO.
  • meheleventyone 7y ago
    I’m curious to what you think the application will be? All of those I’ve seen seen so far have been terminally hopeless.
• 1-6 7y ago
  Graphical Programming - You have an ever increasing number of people needing to perform computational tasks but lack education in coding. As WYSIWYG/GUI transformed personal computers, the GUI will eventually transform the way we program as well.
  • jhallenworld 7y ago
    This exists, it's called LabVIEW. I make a money by replacing horrible LabVIEW-based systems with nice text-based ones (Python / C / whatever- all are better than LabVIEW). LabVIEW is ok if your virtual instrument fits on one screen. Anything larger and you are better off using a conventional programming language. So here is one program with graphical programming: how do you make it compatible with GIT / source control? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am saying it's not easy. [There is a 3d CAD system called OnShape that does it].
    • Delk 7y ago
      I don't know LabVIEW, but I can see how a naive or even a somewhat informed attempt at something like that could lead to, ahem, suboptimal results. I guess you could, in principle, replace text-based code with visual diagrams, but the essential requirement for logical rigor would remain. That's just part of the essential complexity in software. Replacing code with visual diagrams might make things easier for some people since understanding strict logical rigor and the ability to write code aren't the same thing, but in the end I don't think the difficult part of programming is actually learning to write code. I'm also not sure at all that you'd get very good productivity setting all those details right in the diagram through a GUI unless the interface were really well designed, with a liberal employment of keyboard shortcuts. GUIs are faster than CLIs at many things, but I'm not sure setting programming-level details is one of those. You'd probably need to employ keyboard shortcuts or something similar quite liberally, and learning those well wouldn't be too far from learning to write the code.
• yboris 7y ago
  Most relevant: https://80000hours.org https://80000hours.org 80,000 Hours is roughly how many hours a typical person will spend working. It's an organization that answers this question: How can you best use them to help solve the world’s most pressing problems?
• kvdmolen 7y ago
  Lab-grown meat ordering page. Hyperloop ticket sales website. Daily personal diet recipe. Group consensus platform. Factual information sharing
• nyxtom 7y ago
  The next big wave (in that this is already happening) is that of mass job displacement due to automation in every industry that has routine predictable work from the fast food industry, retail, transportation, legal, administrative and clerical work, routine data entry.
• lammalamma25 7y ago
  Anything that reduces last mile shipping time. Drones route planning planning platforms, personnel allocation software, Smart fridges/locks. Big retailers are racing to <1 day shipping and buying fairly untested tools to try to get there.
  • philfrasty 7y ago
    Can you give an example of an untested tool you have in mind?
    • lammalamma25 7y ago
      I'm mostly thinking of in home delivery for e-commerce. There was a company called Latch that was acquired that was more or less a smart lock for this purpose. You can see fairly regular news stories of Walmart/Amazon attempting this sort of thing. I believe amazon has some way to put items in the trunk of your car, but I don''t have a link handy.
• diminoten 7y ago
  I'm not convinced we're done with social networks, considering how many are shutting down, how many are privacy nightmares, and how many are failing to respond to user feedback.
• gumby 7y ago
  A meta-aspect: - hot areas will attract a lot of producers, so go for the boring areas (who would have guessed analyzing logs would be such an important issue?). - Consider the essay by Chris Dixon posted here a couple of days ago that these days most big innovations start as "toys". So if you can start with something small and easy to use you may be able to get airborne.
• d--b 7y ago
  Just a quick comment here: In scale, mobile apps in 2010 and vlogging in 2014 are nothing like social media in 2004. You can compare social media in 2004 to web searching in 1998 if you know what I mean...
• snek 7y ago
  IOT blockchain AI running in the cloud with integrated cryptocurrency and ICO.
  • UncleOxidant 7y ago
    We have a buzzword BINGO!
• ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
  I've played with devices all my career. It's always had some traction, but I wouldn't call it The Big One. I tend to program for the love of the art; not to get rich, which I guess makes me a heretic, but there you are...
• carapace 7y ago
  Hypnosis for HCI. (Neuralink et. al. are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. When you want to connect a computer and a brain the most effective thing to do is program the brain.)
  • salsadip 7y ago
    Could you elaborate please?
    • carapace 7y ago
      Yes. All year. And thank you for asking. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18564989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18564989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565101
• contingencies 7y ago
  Automating manufacturing supply chains. I am sure it is possible to build a profitable business in this space extremely quickly. If I wasn't already committed, I'd do it myself.
• aj7 7y ago
  Somebody finish automating the closing papers for real estate deals. Yes, you can sign contracts on line. Yes, it’s probably a very good idea to have the final papers notarized and witnessed in-person by neutral humans. What I’m after is the $35 after-the-fact FedEx charge for overnight delivery of the NOW-VALID papers. That’s your low hanging fruit target.
• paulz_ 7y ago
  Virtual Reality. If you're reading this and you haven't tried VR yet - I can't recommend it highly enough. Particularly a higher end experience connected to a PC with tracking (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Valve Index). The lower end ones like a gear VR are fun and novel but it just isn't the same experience. I have introduced dozens of people to VR for the first and you just can't explain it to people. Videos are no help. Trying to describe is better than nothing I guess but it just doesn't get you there. If you take anything away from this comment it would be to just try to find somewhere that you can try VR yourself and you'll understand what I'm about to say better than I could ever explain it. The equipment available to consumers today is pretty low end compared to what is possible with prototypes / commercial systems when it comes to resolution, framerate, and other factors. There are also quality of life features that work but haven't been brought to market yet for consumers. Things like wireless for the headsets. But even with this early days tech - when you put the headset on you feel like you are being transported to a different place. If you've tried VR you probably know what I'm talking about. There is this distinct feeling of being present in the virtual world. Remembering places in VR feels more like remembering a physical location you've been to rather than something you saw in a computer game. And VR is going to be so much more than games. Because of this feeling of presence - going places in VR actually feels like going to a different place. Likewise, when you meet someone in VR it feels different than meeting someone in a fourm like this or even in a voice chat in a video game. It feels closer to actually being in a room with them. I think a lot of this is related to being able to see some of their body language. Everything in VR feels like a hacked together prototype and works like one too. I like to show VR to people but I can't really recommend it to most people because it just doesn't work well enough for them to be able to fix it when various things break or settings need to be changed. Some options that I offer to them are things like PSVR or I've heard the new Oculus Quest is pretty good as a casual experience but I haven't tried it yet. But both of those route you to walled gardens that are missing a lot of the really cool stuff. If you know the right nooks and crannies to look there are some amazing things to see and do. I'll list a couple of my favorites but the best ones all have something in common. They are a platform that allow people to make their own content. In some cases they are made that way on purpose, others it feels more like an accident of design. Remember when the internet was a little younger and you'd find a cool or bizarre website in an irc channel or something and think "who even made this?" Well that time is back except you can't view it through a screen anymore. You have to put on an HMD and venture directly into the internet. When you take a walk through the internet what do you find? Mostly weird stuff and brief glimpses of the future - both are worthwhile. VRChat is probably the best example of the above. Like everything in VR the interfaces are terrible and everything half works. But even through that fog you start to get an idea of how deep this rabbit hole goes. In VRChat you choose an Avatar and then go to virtual worlds and meet people other people. They have default Avatars and Worlds to choose from but the best content is what people make themselves. It's a unity game and there is a shocking degree of freedom in what people can upload (content made with apps like blender or unity itself). Copyright may as well not exist yet in VR because it's too new for anyone to know to look. So people decide to be various superheros or characters from all kinds of fiction. I once visited a world where you could choose from hundreds of Marvel and DC characters. It's not that in VRChat you can be Spiderman. It's that you can choose from dozens of spidermen from various comics and movies (the real spiderverse perhaps). As you might expect there is a lot of anime. There are also a lot of unconventional avatars. Sometimes People choose to be a car. Or a firetruck. Or a toaster. Or an ATM Machine. Sometimes people choose to be something incredibly large like a robot towering hundreds of feet in the air. Sometimes people choose to be a tiny avatar like a mouse or an RC car. The strange thing is that there is a sense of scale in VR. So if you are a giant robot, everyone looks small and you really do feel like you are that large. Likewise if you pick a tiny avatar everything in the world looks giant. This feeling of presence remains. A very present toaster. For many users of VRChat the Avatars are the most compelling parts. Don't get me wrong, they are really cool. It's amazing to see some of the things that people come up with. Especially the avatars that have some sort of animation without it being obnoxious / trolling (hey I did say we were walking into the internet here). People spend hours creating these versions of their virtual selves and build in abilities to do things in game. Most of these things just boil down to character animations or sounds. Any animation or sound you want leaves a lot of room for creativity (with few limits on size, or unfortunately volume). But to me this isn't the real draw of VRChat. The worlds are. You can look at the most popular worlds in the game in menu but I prefer the search bar (searching is one of the things that half works.) Being able to be some character from fiction or someones imagination is one thing - but being able to travel somewhere is another thing all together. So you may find yourself in a VR bar or arcade having a conversation when someone drops a portal to another world. Some of my favorites I've been to include a recreation of the secret base containing the Stargate from the show by the same name. Once you're there you can dial the gate and walk through to find yourself walking out of a pyramid on a desert planet called Abydos. Or you may find yourself climbing into a helicopter with friends in a world of abstract and surrealist art created to go along with an album somebody made. A sort of VR music video that you can fly through to a soundtrack. Or if a helicopter doesn't suit you how about another world where you can put on a jetpack and fly through what feels like various settings on an old media player visualizer (avoid this one if you get motion sickness!). Or how about one of those rides from a theme park where they put you in a hydraulic car that doesn't move and project a "ride" onto the screen in front of you? Because yes, somehow people have put a couple of these in VR too (I like the Back To The Future one). There are literally thousands of these worlds you can visit. It really reminds me of the old internet where you would find these amazing little things tucked away and hidden. The community is probably closer to today's internet as far as signal to noise ratio goes. But if you're willing to look there are definitely kind and interesting people to meet as well. VRChat is fun and interesting but it's actually not where I spend most of my time in VR. In VR there are maybe a dozen first person shooter games to choose from. In VR shooter games kind of feel like a mix between a game and paintball or something like that. My favorite is called Pavlov VR. It is a shameless knock off of counter-strike (I mean shameless. Down to the same exact same guns, mechanics, and win conditions.) But thats ok! Because it means you can play counter-strike in VR. Which is incredibly fun. There are also Call of Duty clones, Battlefield clones, and Battle Royale games. But what makes pavlov so special is that you can upload maps, similar to VRChat. Just like VRChat it's boundless creativity. So in addition to having all the same mechanics as counter-strike it also has all the same maps. I've been playing Dust II for years (not as long as some, never did play 1.6). But now I get to actually run around there. Same goes for maps from a lot of other games I used to play. In addition to people uploading maps they also turn them into these custom game modes that you can instantly play just by joining or starting a server. Because of this, Pavlov winds up feeling like lots of different games. There are the classic default modes but there are also lots of other game modes to try (zombies, duel servers, conversions for weapons). Some of the coop modes are fun because they are a more social experience like VRChat but there is more to do. VRChat can wind up a little boring just standing around sometimes.
• redmattred 7y ago
  GDPR and CCPA compliance
• redmattred 7y ago
  Making GDPR and CCPA compliance easy for developers
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I live without a car. I have for more than a decade. Trying to plan car-free travel routes in the US is a huge pain in the butt. If Google maps can't spit out a solution that gets you all the way to your destination, it won't tell you a partial answer. This means piecing together information from multiple sources. I spent a lot of time checking Amtrak routes and then looking for commuter bus routes, local shuttle services and the like to find a viable route. In the past few days, I've done some googling to try to see if there is a website that handily aggregates commuter bus route info. There doesn't seem to be such. In Southern California, you can travel from San Diego to Victorville via commuter bus, but there is no travel site that will tell you that. You have to research all the connections yourself. (Well, I had to. I posted it to my homeless site: https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2015/05/oceanside-to-victorville-for-1525-in.html https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2015/05/o...) I have to wonder how many other places in the US actually have similar situations where you can get there via bus or other transit, assuming you can dig up the information. Living without a car is an environmentally-friendly choice and it's hugely painful in the US, often very unnecessarily so. Serving this need could promote not only environmental goals but also serve social justice because car-free Americans are frequently poor. We make it so painful to live without a car in the US that most Americans who can afford a car have one, even if they don't really want one, with the exception of a few dense metro areas with good local transit (like New York).
  • nabeards 7y ago
    Definitely take a look at Rome2Rio, https://www.rome2rio.com https://www.rome2rio.com. We've been using it for years, and have been carless nearly as long.
    • DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Thanks. I'll check it out sometime.
• abetusk 7y ago
  Here are my opinions: * AI and ML. Assuming Moore's law still holds in some capacity, it will be about 10 years before we have a $1000 machine that is within shooting distance of the computational power of the human brain. * Solar. Prices are dropping exponentially which means power will become cheaper and open up whole new industries. Solar just dropped below coal and is halving about every two years. The first obvious market is solar for housing but there could be plenty of others. * Battery technology. Hand in hand with solar, battery technology is getting better and the cost of battery power is dropping exponentially. All fields adjacent to battery technology, including power management, drones, autonomous vehicles, etc. will be bolstered by having bigger, cheaper batteries. * DNA sequencing and synthesis. I don't think we've gotten past the $1000 whole genome sequencing number in the past couple of years, so we may be in a sequencing "winter" but this won't last and these prices will plummet exponentially. I don't have any big hope of private enterprises offering personalized health as incentives don't align and the barrier is high, so my opinion is that projects that do 'crowd sourcing' with a focus open data and open source have a higher chance of success (see OpenSNP, OpenHumans, Personal Genome Project (PGP)). How is health care transformed when I can ask 1000 other people who have the same liver enzymes whether the drug I'm considering taking has worked for them? How about when I correlate the relevant gene sequence and environmental exposure to get insight on my probability of getting some specific type of cancer? * Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin gets a lot of hate on this community but it's been steadily appreciating in value and is the only alternative to a centralized currency. At one point during the heydays of the 2000s when the internet was just burgeoning, 'micro payments' were floated around as a way to monetize. I don't see any other alternative than something like Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency. * Ubiquitous computing. Maybe the most nebulous on this list, but consider what things look like when we have 1GHz, 4 core, 2G RAM, 4G hard drive Linux boxes for less than $1. Smart homes? Smart cars? Smart clothing? After playing around with a Raspberry Pi Zero W that's a full GHz processor, multi gigs of RAM and hard disk space with Linux running for less than $20, it's clear to me we're starting to transition to a next phase in 'personal' computing. My own heavy bias is towards free/libre/open source and I firmly believe that "open source will eat the world", but this might be my hopefulness outweighing my perception of reality. I will say that anecdotally, projects that are FOSS may not have any greater chance of initial success but tend to have a greater success at staying relevant. Obviously what you want to focus on will depend on what resources you have access to both socially or financially. I'm also not a successful entrepreneur so all these suggestions should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. I am surely going to be surprised by what new comes in the next ten years. One final note is to keep on top of other technologies that might not look that promising but could grow into something bigger. I don't think laser cutting or 3D printing are all that promising in the short term even though I think they're cool. I also want to know more about FPGAs and VR even if their adoption might not be clear. The above list seems like it's pretty certain to be relevant in some capacity.
• Ahmedb 7y ago
  Computer Security. Lots of software and hardware is getting shipped everyday and all of it is full of vulnerabilities.
• LAMike 7y ago
  Lightning Network
• viach 7y ago
  Probably agriculture. There is an opinion that food will become much more valuable and rare than it is today.
• dilippkumar 7y ago
  I listened to Robert Green's talk at Google recently [0] He proposes the following idea: - Everybody born within 22 years of each other belong to a "generation" - Generations follow a cycle: - There is a rebellious generation - The next generation is trying to keep the ideals of the rebellious generation alive - The third generation is very conservative - The fourth generation is a "crisis" generation that will eventually lead to a rebellion in the next generation and the cycle continues. - Millennials are the crisis generation today It's a very interesting theory - and provides a new way to think about what comes next. Looking back, the last generation that appears to be a "rebellious" generation were the hippies centered around 1969. I can't think of any giants that started in that era. Instead, that era felt like it produced most of the core technologies that drove big economic changes in the next several decades. History doesn't really repeat, but it sometimes rhymes with itself. If the next generation is rebellious - and they end up being like the last rebellious generation - we are looking at 22 years of deep technological developments that will lead to the next big things in two generations from now. Honestly - this is just an interesting way to think about the world but I wouldn't act upon it. If I was forced to place a bet on who (not what) will make it big in the next 25 years, I'd put $5 (and not a cent more) on somebody who is doing a PhD today and will get to work on deep research for a few decades. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcaVhMt71qE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcaVhMt71qE
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    This looks like it could just be cherry picking. If you look hard enough, you can find someone rebellious, then 20 years later, someone trying to maintain those ideals, and so forth. There's so many people, so many stories out there, you could form any narrative you wanted about theories of generational cycles.
    • hinkley 7y ago
      I'll bet it says more about the overlap between fashion and the media than it says about people. Something comes back 'into style' at intervals and the narrative is hyped up to accentuate that fact. But it probably has more to do with burnout and collective amnesia. We've forgotten how awful "bell bottoms" can be and so here's some "bell bottoms", 20-30 years later.
• Uptrenda 7y ago
  Maybe this is not the answer you're looking for: but I think CRISPR-Cas9 seems like the most exciting technology probably in all of science. It's a system that can be used to literally change the DNA of living creatures, and on top of that it's highly accessible. Think of the hacker culture today and now imagine the same rate of change for biological engineering. We'll have massive libraries of re-usable "components" for interesting DNA-sequences. People will slowly slice together more complicated features, and freely trade organic components with each other via post. At some point in the future electronics will catch up to bioengineering, leading to better ways to make changes to DNA. We'll eventually be able to change DNA in something like a "biology IDE" and have usable components printed out the other end. After that point, our world probably won't look anything like it does today. It won't be long before someone decides to give themselves glowing skin or super strong muscles (and people have already tried the latter!) I for one welcome our super-human overlords.
  • K0SM0S 7y ago
    > I think CRISPR-Cas9 seems like the most exciting technology probably in all of science. I tend to agree. However, having spoken at length about this with a friend doing her PhD, there are a few major problems between now and then. - Scope: if you thought Big Data (relating to human behavior) was a massive endeavor (still very much not solved, not by a long shot), try genetics. We're talking orders of magnitude Bigger Data. We have the PoC but finding practical solutions remains a hard problem as we speak (needle in a haystack). - Money: Bio-sectors don't pay software engineers enough to compete with the tech sector (almost no one does), and bio-experts are generally not good enough at it. So there's a huge lack in terms of dual [SE skills + domain knowledge] experts for this category of problems. Research funding is massive in big (private) pharma and comparably non-existent in basic research — and for now, CRISPR-Cas9 is mostly the latter. The first problem (resources) will probably solve itself as time goes by (assuming some Moore's Law continuation however it's done), however the second problem (domain / education politics? Idk how to call it) could virtually be forever — academia and big pharma aren't exactly known for being fast movers or innovators, let alone disruptors. Especially when CRISPR-Cas9 is a direct threat to well-established revenues in the trillions — curing whatever is much less profitable than selling drugs to ease symptoms over a lifetime. If this sounds like somptuous irony, it's probably because it is.
• GreeniFi 7y ago
  What I’m going to say is a little different to most others on this board. I’m an environmental economist - quite a specialised field. I work with a team of software developers to embed environmental economic knowledge systems in software, which makes those knowledge systems scalable and accessible. It’s been quite an experience to lay down that knowledge - basically my life’s work -in a way which democratises its use. This experience gives me the sense that what a developer could do is look for an expert in a field in which they are interested. The more niche the better, and partner to build a system which embeds in IT a knowledge system. I might also add that many of today’s big challenges cannot be solved from within one field of expertise, but instead require multi-disciplinary toolkits, which can also be be developed within IT systems.
  • energybar 7y ago
    Are you willing to share an example of the embedded environmental economic knowledge system you mention? I'm having a hard time understanding what that means?
    • GreeniFi 7y ago
      Sure - check out ecosystemequity.com and follow links from there. Amongst other projects - a core banking system that integrates natural capital values into credit decisions. Sorry the umbrella website is a bit rough at the moment, it’s just a placeholder for a short while.
• inopinatus 7y ago
  Communications technology has moved past the ability of human brains to tolerate and mitigate the adverse effects. Every addicting dopamine surge from a Like or Retweet is the evidence; every viral pile-on, every echo-chamber lunatic fringe. Making humanity resilient to the negative externalities of our own technological advancement is essential for the survival of our species. Right now, a vast army of the smartest people are employed at the intersection of cognitive and computer sciences, but in the service of political and commercial interests. I'd like to see more of them on the other side of this arms race, working on our individual and societal defenses.
  • blazespin 7y ago
    ad blockers
    • briandear 7y ago
      Think bigger. Instead of blocking ads, create a system where ads don’t need to be blocked.
  • ashishb 7y ago
    I wrote an auto snooze that snoozes all the irrelevant emails in my inbox to a particular day & time of the week. This process ensures that my Inbox has only relevant emails and not the gazillion newsletters which enter my mailbox even before I wake up in the morning.
  • K0SM0S 7y ago
    I don't think it's the best way to make money, but this may be the most important topic for our near future as a species. Emphasis: not just civilization(s) but species as a whole, as in rewiring perception, brain functions, social life, freedom of thought. Here's my conundrum: we could design a transparent and 100% user-controlled communication network — basically some open-sourced Twitter / Facebook / Whatsapp / Instagram etc. — which would let people control their feed order of priorities, implement 'psychologically sane' features, prove that it's objectively better for mental health and a slew of other things (politics, media come to mind) through studies, even distribute resources so as to bypass a need for massive funding — just consider how much time the average consumer CPU spends idling over its lifetime, there's loads of free resources available. But ultimately we face the same issue as for-profits: friction. How do we get 2.5 billion people to move when none has moved already — chicken-and-the-egg problem of “but all my friends...” I may be low-balling humanity but I think it'll take PR momentum, textbook buzz — support by famous people, icons, thought leaders, influencers, etc at a massive scale. Ideally governments would be on board and even subsidize such a neutral network in the name of protecting citizens and their rights. Is it challenging, herculean, foolish, or simply impossible an endeavor? Wish I knew. But I'll sure die trying —hopefully of other unrelated causes, eh.
• pruthvishetty 7y ago
  Whatever is needed. At this point in time, it would be areas like clean energy for the whole planet, digitizing governance, helping people keep fit and healthy, growing nutritious food, population control, conserving forests and staying out of the way of mother nature.
• jfdi 7y ago
  If you're looking for (1) area w/lots of users (2) few producers and (3) likely involves software, I'd consider human computer interfaces w/the goal of making technology more integral and natural for more of us to leverage to more significant and healthy effect. - voice - augmented reality - abstraction atop all remote controls - something next beyond the rectangular brick mobile phone - etc $.02. Great thread to start up!
• redmattred 7y ago
  Tooling to make GDPR and CCPA compliance easier for companies
• bumby 7y ago
  Improving validation and interpretation of DL. For all the leaps forward in NN models, I have a feeling it's at risk because of a lack of trust. It's potential may be limited if the public perceives it to be too brittle or maladaptive. DARPA is currently trying to work on DL models that are truly interpretable. If that gets sufficient progress I think the public/regulators will be much more willing to let software control aspects of their lives than a black box
  • civilian 7y ago
    what does DL stand for?
    • vuknje 7y ago
      deep learning
  • goodfight 7y ago
    Explainability is key for accelerating DL research!
• anthony_doan 7y ago
  I think streaming is up and coming. The problem is I'm not sure how big the market can grow or the upper bound of it. People are making software for streamers out there but at the same time there is only so much money. All streamers are at the mercy of subscribers. The two software that stand out are statistic/dashboard and the other is bots. As for hardware the only one that stands out is irl streaming, it's a backpack with a day worth of battery and 4 mobile data plan for high quality streaming. I personally feel like it's a gold rush like the mobile app early days before it got saturated (remember flappy bird?). But I think the market is much smaller.
• mcs_ 7y ago
  Yourself. One of the most complex areas, having lots of users, that need to be fixed, is human beings. Spend all your time to know who you are, why you are like that, and change this world starting from the most promising thing it has on it: you. In the meantime, try to carry out activities that you like (ride your bike, walk alone or with real people). Do it disconnected from any device or social network. Do things that make you feel real and unique, without layout, template, guidelines, best practices. Ignore any negativism (fortunately you are introverted, it should help). Recognize in every moment that you have to learn a lot. Learn a lot and repeat.
  • JakeWilson801 7y ago
    This is some of the best advice I've ever read on HN. I started doing this about 6 months ago. I also want to warn that you can focus too much on that and it can burn you out. Moderation is key in any decision/lifestyle. Also can say self love and compassion is key as well and can take a long time to develop depending on the parenting you received.
  • momentmaker 7y ago
    Yes. Ask constantly the simple yet deep question "Who are you?" Who sees when you see? Who hears when you hear? Who feels when you touch?
  • nostrademons 7y ago
    This is good advice, but frequently one of the best ways to work on yourself is to pick a promising area and work hard on it. Your self does not exist in a vacuum, and you learn a lot about you by how you choose to navigate the world around you.
  • jchook 7y ago
    Reminds me of a quote... "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw
  • ademars94 7y ago
    How do I make money while I am doing this?
• bsaul 7y ago
  Before facebook, there was myspace, before iphone we had java phones and winphones, before twitch there was chatroulette, etc. Remember that it’s very hard to notice a « disruption » is taking place, because at the time it looks like just an evolution of something already existing.
• fumar 7y ago
  I think the transition from plastics will be vital. It will require new innovations in product manufacturing alternatives. Look around everything is made from it. It will change supply chains, goods lifecycles, costs, and consumer habits. For example, if a grocery store existed that didn't use plastics (in mass) for selling goods, what would that look like? Can it scale? Is it basically a farmers market, etc.
  • yellowapple 7y ago
    You'd probably see a lot of things packaged in paper, metal (foils, cans), and/or glass. So the follow-up question here would be "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass packaging?", its own follow-up in turn being "how do we sustainably produce paper/metal/glass anything?". Paper can be answered with some alternative pulp sources, e.g. bamboo and sugarcane. Recycling of existing paper products, as well as an emphasis on tree farms and wildfire prevention, also help here. Metal and glass can be answered with recycling. Aluminum is pretty common for consumer packaging, and both aluminum and glass are pretty favorable to recycling (at a fraction of the energy cost of mining and smelting new materials).
• PinkMilkshake 7y ago
  I suspect online learning - especially through established universities - is ready to grow in a big way.
• einpoklum 7y ago
  Personal coaching services to people looking for a different area to work in?
• mathattack 7y ago
  Computing shifting to the background. (Ubiquitous sensors plus Cloud based AI anticipating our needs)
• geonnave 7y ago
  You may find this useful: https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ > At 80,000 Hours, we do research into how people can most effectively use their careers to help solve the world’s most pressing problems. It seems their two top priority areas that attend to a "huge, neglected, and solvable" filter are: - Positively shaping the development of artificial intelligence - Biorisk reduction
• cryptozeus 7y ago
  May be this will help Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020 https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2020/ https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-st...
• daxfohl 7y ago
  Home meal prep. I think there's an opportunity for someone to nail this, just nobody has. I'd love somewhere to create a schedule, dietary preferences, family size, and have a fresh, healthy, varied meal delivered every day, without having to think about it again.
  • TallGuyShort 7y ago
    What do you think is missing from current options, because an awful lot of podcasts have ads for these right now. Freshly comes to mind as a brand I would recognize, but I've definitely heard multiple services advertizing that you can customize to your schedule, number of mouths to feed, dietary preferences (common sensitivities, kosher / halal, veg*, etc.)
    • daxfohl 7y ago
      Huh. Maybe nothing and I'm just behind the times. Will check it out.
    • Wh1skey 7y ago
      Price point
• AdrienLemaire 7y ago
  Any "problem" area is promising since you can help to find a solution to it. If you're flexible and problem-solving oriented, you'll always find yourself involved in interesting projects. One example: before we had a lack of access to information, now we have too much information to deal with and have a lack of tools to sort out unbiased objective information from the rest. Finding new tools of thought to help society raising its average IQ and EQ might be the highest-leverage activity I can think of.
• fyfy18 7y ago
  Residential PV installs are becoming more and more common so consumers are looking for smart devices to take advantage of them more efficiently. If you are grid-tied without a battery (batteries like the Powerwall take much longer than a PV install to pay back, so the payback time is often greater than the warranty period) you want to use the energy at peak generation rather than selling it to the grid (which typically pays less than you pay to buy it). There are a few devices to do this. In the UK the MyEnergi range is quite popular. They have devices to divert excess power to an electric vehicle and a electric hot water heater. However the data you can get out of them is limited - there are frequent complaints by YouTubers about this - and they require the cloud to get anything useful. Plus a full set is over £1000 - for what is effectively a CT clamp, relay and a nRF chip. On a similar note it's impossible to control appliances like washing machines and dish washers to run during peak generation (unless you solder some wires to the control board), so they have to be started manually or set on a timer. Timers worked fine to take advantage of off-peak electricity tarrifs, but for PV they don't really work (maybe there is a cloud in the middle of the day). Ideally you want the device to know how much power is needed for each stage of the program, and pause if the available power is less than that.
  • tpkj 7y ago
    SPI 2019 Day Zero Interview with Raghu Belur of Enphase Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glSXghzDZcs&feature=youtu.be&t=105 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glSXghzDZcs&feature=youtu.be...
  • arbol 7y ago
    On this note, I would say a huge opportunity here is better energy storage. Perhaps along the lines of micro hydro consumer compressed air some new type of battery (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319039) carbon nanotube springs We have lots of methods of generating electricity but storing it is an issue.
• 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  People are all talking about niches over here. Work on fundamentals. Strong fundamentals are an investment that pays dividends. If you want to learn something niche like ML, because you think it's gonna be big, then learn the math and calculus and stats that underlies the ML. Then if ML really becomes something most devs should know, you'll be able to pick it up better than the people who have to only get the surface. And if it doesn't, you'll have a strong foundation for other things, which is great because foundations are by definition broad.
  • mantap 7y ago
    Absolutely this. Linear algebra has been the gift that has kept on giving since the 1800s underpinning everything from quantum mechanics to video games. Unlike most mathematics where you quickly hit a usefulness ceiling, the more linear algebra you learn the more useful it gets - linear algebra is just such a rich subject that there's an ocean of useful things to learn and apply.
• drelihan 7y ago
  Others.
• lumera 7y ago
  How about visible light based communication systems? With all the regulations around how radiowave spectrum can be used, the much higher spectrum bandwidth offering by visible light seems more promising as 5G, IoT and autonomous driving hardware evolves? https://youtu.be/UulEFh8yhCg https://youtu.be/UulEFh8yhCg
• SkyMarshal 7y ago
  Offline First web and mobile app frameworks. Not as big as social/mobile/local, but a need. Building offlinefirst web/mobile sites/apps is still a big hack. http://offlinefirst.org/ http://offlinefirst.org/ A few years ago there was a lot of activity around creating web frameworks that made rich UI's possible, like Cappucino, Meteor.js etc. There may be a similar opportunity now to create a full-featured, polished offline-first framework, and then make an enterprise version and/or get acqui-hired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappuccino_(Application_Development_Framework) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappuccino_(Application_Develo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(web_framework) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(web_framework)
• spraak 7y ago
  Technology for post collapse
• chrischen 7y ago
  Deep learning. Unlike Crypto, actual companies are actually implementing it for real non-illegal uses cases, like camera Night Mode, translation, self-driving cars.
• spicyramen 7y ago
  I worked in Unified communications for many years and is a very well established and solid technology with protocols like SIP, RTP, sRTP and webRTC as we move to space and that area is growing, inter space communications Is an interesting are to work on. How to transmit via other media (radio, light) to be able to communicate across the solar system
• cbetti 7y ago
  Platforms that enable a diaspora of small businesses to operate as effectively as large organizations with minimal startup cost. Why build a massive services organization when you can enable and finance a takeover by a multitude of smaller players?
  • mtsr 7y ago
    This is interesting. Do you have any examples in mind that achieve this? Whether in particular niches or solving common problems throughout small business?
    • mackrevinack 7y ago
      the safe network is something that comes to mind. when / if its released the costs for setting up an online service will be peanuts compared to today. way cheaper storage, cheaper computing if your service needs it, and also less maintenance since you don't need to worry about securely storing data. it should all be handled by the network https://safenetwork.tech https://safenetwork.tech
    • cbetti 7y ago
      I believe Quicken is behind the recent resurgence of independent mortgage lenders, which was a market all but captured by traditional banks until recently. Services like Rover seem to be displacing kennels for doggy daycare. They should consider micro-loans to their highest rated dog watchers for things like fences if they have not already.
    • gnopgnip 7y ago
      Trinet SOI, wageworks
  • ananthrk 7y ago
    AWS is a good example of this
  • hinkley 7y ago
    We are on a treadmill, though. There are a set of differentiating features that larger companies can supply and any time the tools get good enough for that, the narrative shifts. Very much like fashion. For instance, everything has been Cloud Cloud Cloud for quite some time now and people are still scrambling to adapt to this forced march. 'The cloud' is building out a set of management tools that will ultimately help, I think, small companies transition to medium sized companies. But when those tools are good, people will probably also be migrating out of AWS and GCS into something else. At which point there will be some other set of tools or solutions that everyone else is copying.
• toephu2 7y ago
  Carbon capture and storage. Space mining. Biohacking.
• woranl 7y ago
  Folks have many good ideas here, but most of them require high upfront capital... Not something a regular person can afford. The good thing about software or internet in general is that the barrier of entry is lower.
• jl2718 7y ago
  While this thread is still popular, I would like to see some renewed innovation in “management science”, as in, how to set up a large modern organization for sustainable success. Like, install an app and just follow the plan. No more management shakeups and genius dear leaders.
• shermozle 7y ago
  Differential privacy. Solving some of the analytics use cases for businesses that currently involve invasive tracking that browser makers are making unviable. Continue to solve the important use cases while respecting privacy.
• known 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading is pretty cool for introverts
• jhow15 7y ago
  I had the same question recently and so built an app to surface rapidly growing google trends. It was a Show HN project not long ago and people seemed to like it: https://trennd.co https://trennd.co I've also noticed a lot of larger trends that other commenters have highlighted too: - data privacy focussed products (DuckDuckGo/SimpleAnalytics) - everything machine learning - meat substitutes - alternative forms of entertainment (axe throwing/escape rooms)
  • nikkwong 7y ago
    This is a neat project well-executed. Most of the trends I see on the list I've already heard about. Is there a way to surface up and coming trends?
    • jhow15 7y ago
      Thank you! I'd recommend filtering by 12months or less or selecting the "exponential" trends filter type to surface the hottest stuff.
  • xcubic 7y ago
    This is very nice. How kind of algorithm do you use to split the rapidly growing trends from the rest?
    • jhow15 7y ago
      Thanks!! It's based on regression analysis of the topic's data.
      • osipov 7y ago
        Thanks for building this project! I'm a big fan. With that said, I think you should add a filter for "at least X searches per month" because right now Vue.JS appears right next to Juul, and these are vastly different market sizes. Also, having a filter "Between X and Y searches/month" would be great.
  • jl2718 7y ago
• vinrob92 7y ago
  Productized services :) People want the "job done" more and more and that is going to apply to many more services, mostly enabled by tech! I am also running a pretty growing community on that on FB (Productized Startups)
• campfireveteran 7y ago
  AI/ML that involves self-programming systems. If you can crack that nut, you have the potential to be a centibillion/trillionaire.
• beardedman 7y ago
  Ironically, I think the replies in this thread show how the importance of problems can be very subjective.
• rahsut44 7y ago
  how about something around electric vehicles, especially in the developing world where it's a very hot topic. I am not saying develop an EV, but some info product or EV specific store.
• 11235813213455 7y ago
  Techs for the environment, like wireless sensor grids used to monitor and help the nature, or monitor warehouses, ports Now sensors can run nodejs or similar familiar languages, and with more capacities than a decade ago
• mister_hn 7y ago
  My two cents: - Privacy-focuses/Decentralized social networks - E-Sports - Food & Leisure - Travel - Climate-friendly services
• ziggrat 7y ago
  Real AI, i mean making machines make decisions will be interesting
• ivanjaros 7y ago
  Take when someone streams on youtube - it is exactly that. Ability to stream video live, let your viewers chat amongst eachother + being able to receive donations. With Youtube becoming more Goolag than before, and because Youtube is actively becoming platfrom just like any other where they don't share profits with creators anymore, I storngly believe this is where it's going to be "at" for startups. I already looked into it and I believe the issue with large data storage and traffic is now solved with cheap hardware AND P2P streaming like bittorent and the js client for the web browser. Then you can see that YT creators now rival TV - easily. So I believe the internet will transform in a way where an youtube channel will become something like a tv show or late night show or whatever TV equivalent from the past. People will be actively looking and subscribing to these individuals or shows on purpose and will be consuming them periodically like they did in the past with television. Hence video is the tech I'd look into and the concept of making good platform/s for creators and viewers to connect and interact(!). Blogs are dead. FB is good only for groups(many people in one place with many interests can easily connect). Twitter is pure pollitical cancer. Instagram is just for worshipping attention whores..eh "models". Any non-mainstream social network became too singular because people who were kicked out form ms sn went there. So all in all, social networks are dead. But video, video is a medium that is too deeply rooted in humans for some reason. I guess the ease of consumption? So I stirngly believe that is the way to go. I mean, you have hundreds of streaming services nowadays...no one will be buying all of them. People still want to consume good content but TV is shite and these online stremaing service will become unafordable. So there will have to be alternatives for people and as I have mentioned, YT is cutting sharing of profits with creators(not to mention censorship), so these creators will be looking for alternative means of earning and creating and sharing. (I didn't proof-read my response so sorry for typos, I type fast and don't have time for this)
• ReD_CoDE 7y ago
  I think there are a lot of areas as the most promising 1. Digital Twin(s) -- Soon all people all around the world will have two worlds, one real and one virtual The virtual world would be like the next generation of Minecraft and people all around the world will work together on open-source projects, like what people do on Github but in a virtual n-Dimensional world 2. AI and Biotech --> See Yuval Noah Harari lectures on Youtube 3. Climate Change related activities 4. Fusion which is the next generation of renewable energy
• milkers 7y ago
  online gaming / esports
• sarahcone 7y ago
  I think the alt credentialing space is extremely promising: that is, anything that solves the problem for employers "How do I know that this person is better than anyone else in the world at this problem set I need?" Without the usual leaps of faith and logic necessary to think a Harvard degree means that.
• pdm55 7y ago
  I forecast that plastics' cleanup and recycling, a hard problem, will have a lot of money thrown at it by governments. Many new petrochemical plants are being built in anticipation of increased demand for plastics from developing countries. So it seems that the already-large problem of plastics waste, including microplastics, will continue to grow to the point of being overwhelming. In particular, we are poisoning our oceans with discarded plastics, choking sea creatures such as turtles which mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish their main food. And, perhaps most insidious, we are introducing microplastics into our oceans' food chains with consequences unknown. I fear that this "waste product" will grow to be as damaging as that other industrial waste, carbon dioxide. What's the solution?
• 0x0100 7y ago
  I am a firm believer in the esports and gaming industry overall. That is why I created Mascot Logo Maker (https://mascotlogomaker.com/ https://mascotlogomaker.com/). If you like video games and do not mind putting in a little bit of work I think it can pay off big time gg.
• xk3 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies
• bawana 7y ago
  Unfortunately, this kind of question just gives very biased answers. Respondents will only state what they know will enhance their own position. In fact, the marketplace has already answered this question, we just need to collate the data. Interestingly, if you use a search engine, https://lmgtfy.com/?q=what%27s+a+promising+area+to+work+on%3F&s=g&t=w https://lmgtfy.com/?q=what%27s+a+promising+area+to+work+on%3... the top three hits are a list of people asking the same thing; not the actual answers.Perhaps if we could find out where the most money is being spent, then then 'promising' in a capitalistic sense would be answered. And unfortunately, this kind of information gradient just propagates the bad decisions we are used to making since the capitalist model neglects human value that is not fungible - like Fairness, moral behavior, and social utility - these are not well captured/rewarded in the capitalist system because there is no way to accurately model them ( and therefore value them). Currently, the only way these factors affect business judgement is to have an intelligent employee make good decisions based on common sense. But these qualities are the foundation of any civilization. I would argue that the collapse of ALL civilizations (Greek, Roman,etc) as well as governments (monarchies, dictatorships,republics,etc) is due to the neglect of these important human values. So 'my' interpretation of promising is a way to integrate these previously non-monetizable qualities into our decisions. Efforts so far have been buggy - reputation systems, karma, kudos, social influencers, etc.
• sbhn 7y ago
  A promising area to work on is being able to account which bank accounts all those trillions and trillions of tax payer dollars ends up in, when it is moved in the name of national security. Seriously, it ends up in someones account. Someone is making a real lot of money making you think you are under immediate attack all the time.
• nate 7y ago
  A lot of folks are look forward to what's coming in tech, which is fine and good and can lead to promising careers and innovation. But I'm even more impressed with folks like Nintendo who do the exact opposite. They look at all the junk we've already passed up to see what can be done with it. So many times along their path they came up with products using what the Sony's would have considered obsolete junk. This is a great book about that history: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Nintendo-Conquered-America-ebook/dp/B004IYJEWE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1571846082&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Nintendo-Conquered-Americ... I mention it because I think there's a lot of value looking at the "no longer promising" areas and see what can still be done with those tools and pieces in innovative ways. And so few are actually doing that.
  • eismcc 7y ago
    This what Roku did as well - built tech out chips nobody even wanted to sell.
    • nate 7y ago
      Oh wow, thanks for the reference. Any good histories of Roku out there you recommend?
• Pinbenterjamin 7y ago
  Process Automation / Business Rule Optimization is a nearly untouched field for large, existing software driven companies. For goal N, where N is an amalgam of small processes, what can we do to isolate, automate, and optimize the process? Everyone is hyper focused on generic ML solutions, but there's it has been a hell of a lot easier to hand-code solutions to problems in existing mid-to-large scale businesses that are looking to alleviate a process pain point. If you have the brains to determine some basic ROI ballparks, you can make back engineering hours fast if you can either increase the output of your business, or decrease the required people to accomplish that output. There's some fields that touch upon this, like Dev-Ops, but this is a more strict definition of 'operations', in that I'm referring to the non-technical people. The impact of this practice is amplified by two major factors; 1. Quantity of work 3. Difficulty of work If you have high quantity of N, small optimizations are compounded across all the work centers. If you have highly difficult work, reducing the time it takes to 'handle' or 'create' output can be reduced. This idea ties in to a fantastic book, 'The Goal' by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Being in 'hot tech' is cool, but mastering old concepts is valuable to businesses rigid to change. As the number of established companies that leverage tech for a majority of their work grows, the need for brains that are capable of process improvement with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw.
• nicelyjunaid2 7y ago
  Nice info
• acd 7y ago
  Recycling, the worlds needs to reuse materials to prevent climate change. You will make the world a better place by working in this field.