4 ms·

Ask HN: What is a tech you though would take over the world but it didn't?

• perilunar 4y ago
  VR. Starting with VRML, then Second Life, Occulus Rift,... I used to think it would take over the world; now I think it won't go much beyond games and sims.
• superchroma 4y ago
  I definitely expected e-ink to be more prolific, and, when I was younger, I saw this EEG device which was initially marketed at gamers as an alternative control device for computers and for some reason was sure that this was the future, even though a little reading revealed it was pretty impractical.
• dusted 4y ago
  Desktop PCs. (Not laptops, not tablets, not phones, Desktop Personal Computers).
  • porbelm 4y ago
    They did, though, for a good while? Like the entire 1980s and 90s?
    • dusted 4y ago
      Somewhat yeah, but they never got to the point I'd have imagined, probably started going south when everything moved away from local processors and into corporate datacenters.
• jjgreen 4y ago
  Gopher :-(
• chiefalchemist 4y ago
  Google Wave. The way the conversations were threated made more sense. Instead, we eventually got Slack.
• brudgers 4y ago
  Nuclear Fusion in 1982.
• kosasbest 4y ago
  Flying cars. There's many YouTube videos of them, but they're not efficient, require designated flight paths, and they're noisy as hell.