10 ms·

Ideas that could change the world

63 points by kevbam 14y ago

twiceaday 14y ago
On five massive pages.
- 3rd3 14y ago
  It’s ridiculous. 10 seconds loading, as if they don’t care at all about performance. Ghostery goes nuts too: Brighteeve, ChartBeat, Disqus, DoubleClick, Facebook Connect, Google +1, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Widgets, Lotame, Mobify, Omniture, SooreCard Research Beacon, Twitter Badge, Twitter Button…
ColinWright 14y ago
Unpaginated: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-seven-big-ideas/all/ http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-seven-big-ideas/all...
kijin 14y ago
Diamond buildings, bones, and mechanical parts don't sound like a particularly good idea. Just because diamond is hard doesn't mean that it will be better than steel or titanium as a structural material. Diamond is very brittle. It doesn't bend well. If the Twin Towers were made of diamond, they probably would have shattered into a billion pieces the moment the planes flew into them. No time to evacuate.
- delinka 14y ago
  Indeed, hardness does not equal strength. "Strong enough to bend" is a phrase that comes to mind.
- gambiting 14y ago
  Not to mention the fact that diamond is very flammable, being 100% pure coal. Any fire in such a building would devour it within minutes.
  - c1u 14y ago
    Coal is made of carbon. Diamonds are made of carbon. But diamonds are NOT made of coal.
    - networkjester 14y ago
      Huh, learned some new things: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_diamonds_flammable http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_diamonds_flammable Says diamonds are combustible around 1520 degrees. But temperatures were 1000 degrees at the high-point in the 9/11 events (page 10 end of first paragrah): http://eagar.mit.edu/EagarPapers/Eagar185.pdf http://eagar.mit.edu/EagarPapers/Eagar185.pdf Interesting enough. The bigger issue would have certainly been the buildings crumbling before they ever burst into flames/disintegrated.
eksith 14y ago
Idea #8: No matter what your browser's or your ability, you're still be able to reach and consume the content of the web. Make the web accessible (not in an empty gesture of what some people think that means). Make someone who is actually differently abled sit in front of their computer and see if they can use your website, read and enjoy its content. Read: Make layouts that don't suck :/ Once upon a time, there was a movement called "Any Browser". Oh sure, it's still around, but no where near the adoption it once had. In this movement, people of all capacities, browsers and disabilities were unaffected by the layout of a webpage, because all of it can gracefully degrade to its most basic elements. Content was king. The layout was subservient to it and, if necessary, the king may cut off its head and still be king. Isn't it sad that in our rush to make multi-page content, and other glitter that's 50% advertizing, 30% style and just 20% content, my neighbor still can't read sites like Wired properly? Here's a handy rule of thumb: If I can't get to your content in Lynx, you've failed.
- mikecane 14y ago
  I submit that should have been Big Idea #1. It's better than the other 7.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- nvr219 14y ago
  Not only is it better it's also easiest to implement.
  - zanny 14y ago
    The implementation requires you to shift a snails pace internet advertising industry away from total page hits counting so much when planning an add supported website. I'd argue moving an inertial beast like that in any industry is almost certainly harder than building a custom solar panel with synthetic molecules or building a diamond skyscraper, because the latter two don't require the cooperation and manipulation of an entire market.
- javajosh 14y ago
Luff 14y ago
I'd bet that the next big technological revolution will occur when the next generation of batteries hit the market: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/129299-silicon-nanotube-lithium-ion-battery-stores-10-times-more-power-lasts-6000-charges http://www.extremetech.com/computing/129299-silicon-nanotube... Electric quadrocopters today have pretty limited range, with a flight time of about 30 minutes. You could do some pretty neat stuff if they lasted 5 hours. Not to mention what it will mean to regular airplanes, cars and mobile technology. We'd might even start to see some futuristic weaponry, not that it would be particularly positive.
Ingon 14y ago
Random thoughts: - One of the biggest problems we have is how to produce and preserve energy in large quantities in environmentally efficient way. If we are able to do that then 1, 2 and 4 are just nothing special. We will be able to tackle on the space! - Wi-fi spots on everything? That is missing the point - I would argue that not the one-time cost is the problem but rather the cost of service associated with it. - Idea 5 is so wrong that we must try in every way to protect from it. I can see the benefit of having the weather always in your sight, but I'm afraid that we as society will deep dive into it and never come out. - War on asteroids? Better war on cockroaches. That is just wasting money on nothing. Now if we are endangered by some concrete asteroid, then we have to shoot it down of course. - And building skyscrapers for me is missing the point. We have enough of these. Better spend money on preserving the environment and species on our planet then trying to squeeze more people on a square meter. Or just build the damn space elevator. I have a dream - my son to take me on a space trip :)
- rohamg 14y ago
  spot on. especially with your first point about energy.
- Retric 14y ago
  Skyscrapers are by far the most ecologically sound way to store people. Finding ways to build them larger and more cheaply is Great for the enviorment.
  - droidist2 14y ago
    Very true. http://freakonomics.com/freakonomics-radio-why-cities-rock/ http://freakonomics.com/freakonomics-radio-why-cities-rock/
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Sorta interesting, better than average for these lists, but not Earth shattering. The more substantially disruptive technologies are going to be things like memristors, cheap e-ink displays, or configurable manufacturing. In the next few decades the developing world is going to get online and get rich, probably in that order. Also, honest to goodness sentient machines are likely in this century due merely to the increases in brute force computing power available. Meanwhile, thousands and perhaps even millions of humans are going to end up living off Earth and manufacturing is going to change so dramatically it'll transform our concepts of wealth. 2100 is going to look as alien from our perspective of 2013 as 2000 did from 1913.
mctx 14y ago
The solar panel idea is interesting, but the problem of storage still remains. What about a global grid that spans the globe, with large solar arrays in the deserts of Australia, North America and South Africa? This way there's always an array producing power at any time during the day, although each array has to be large enough to sustain the world's power needs. Transmission would be interesting as well - anyone know how to build a TW transmission line? Global insolation map: http://imgur.com/1p4KIMb http://imgur.com/1p4KIMb
- huherto 14y ago
  As someone who lived in one of the dark orange places in north america, I can tell you that shades are very valuable by themselves. In dry and hot places being under a shades makes a big difference. A shade for your car, a shade for your house, a shade for people in the street. These shades can have the double purpose of capturing solar energy. I bet a lot of people in AZ will be very happy to use their roofs to install solar panels.
mikecane 14y ago
If those are the Big Ideas, then we are bankrupt of ideas. Also, didn't anyone read Stephenson's The Diamond Age? Must have, to come up with skyscrapers out of diamonds. Gee, can diamond buildings be heated and cooled and ventilated efficiently? What about ambient sound control? By the way, where's my damn jetpack?
- yannis 14y ago
  A diamond building will be easier to cool or to heat (most skyscrapers at the moment are glass houses). The Fire Chief will probably fail them as construction materials--besides all the other problems with strength--as diamonds are combustible materials.
ekianjo 14y ago
Sahara as a power plant? This has already been assessed as a ridiculous assumption several times. Because energy is not just about electrical production, but transportation as well. You cannot transport low voltage power very far, unless you start building transformers, rendering the energy output almost nil in the long run. Unless someone has found a new way to solve the problem.
- radicalbyte 14y ago
  And whatever you make would have to survive desert conditions. If Dune has taught me anything, it's that sandstorms really cut the workin life expectancy of tech. Ironically a shielding made of diamond might solve that problem..
- tuxidomasx 14y ago
  Exactly. Improved battery storage capacity and efficiency might be a solution though. Also, I've never liked the idea of sending solar power generated in the Sahara to Europe. I never hear this concept in terms of helping deliver power to African countries. The exploitative exportation of natural resources from Africa is something that needs to stop in order for the region to rebound economically, politically, and socially.
- Udo 14y ago
  Couldn't you just electrolyze water locally at small substations and then transport the gases through pipelines? They could be reassembled later near population centers by using fuel cells. Not only would that be a pretty efficient way to transport this energy, it's also a good strategy to make it available during the night.
  - zem 14y ago
    what water?
    - Udo 14y ago
      I assume by your minimal "what water" comment you mean the Sahara couldn't support this concept because it lacks water? Considering the fact that you don't need a lot of water for this to work, there are several things that could be done easily and without a lot of additional cost (in relation to the value of the energy output). 1) Drill wells. There is subterranean water in many places, including otherwise arid landscapes. 2) Transporting water in a pipeline is also pretty easy, especially if you need pipes to transport the gaseous products anyway. 3) Considering the energy density, you could even carry it by truck over a dirt road once in a while.
lolcraft 14y ago
Yeah, yeah, cool stuff, but those aren't ideas. Those are technologies. Evolution theory, universal democracy, organized labour, atheism, those were massive ideas. The Internet was a massive technology. Well, to be fair, that was a bad example. You will tell me that the Internet was a great technology that enabled great ideas, and I will agree with you [1]. But tell me, do you believe any of these ideas here could do that? I doubt it. Real ideas that could change the world? I would put Big Data there, or my understanding of what Big Data could be: instead of focusing on thinking the best, fanciest hypothesis you can, focus on getting a lot of the best data you can find. Pure thinking from principia won't bring understanding to the human genome, but smart data crunching might. Do you people have any thoughts on more ideas that could be like that? I'm actually interested. [1] Technology provide the material/economic substrate from which philosophies and understanding comes. Automation, division of labour and credit brought capitalism, that brought bourgeois values: democracy, meritocracy, disdain for aristocracy, disdain for the disdain of "usury"... So it's given that technological progress becomes more than just "technological".
- level09 14y ago
  I kind of agree with you .. skyscrapers out of diamonds !? give us a break here :)
- gbog 14y ago
  one idea that could change the world: stop causalism. let independent facts be independent. replace "because" for "at the same time". that would kill almost all journalism, which is never tired of telling us the why, when there is no why. that would narrow a lot most social science researches. we, humans, are still not adults, we need reasons, we need good stories, those that make sense. but the probable truth is that there are no reasons. could be called correlationism.
  - zem 14y ago
    i believe (without proof) that this is too deeply embedded in basic human psychology ever to change.
- 14y ago
elorant 14y ago
Idea #9. Build a device that can verbalize our thoughts. Something like a helmet that captures brain activity and translates it into spoken language. Next time I'm having an epiphany I don't need to rush to an input device (pen and paper or touch screen or keyboard) and lose half of it on the way there. Not to mention the potential of having our dreams recorded for our pleasure. Plus we could communicate with disabled people, from mutes to those in comas.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  Not exactly what you're looking for, but it's a start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition
ksec 14y ago
Something ( Plant? ) That could take Solar Energy within the desert and turn into a Liquid Fuel ( Diesel ? ), that could be refined ( using the electricity from the Desert ) into usable fuel in today's Diesel or Patrol Engine, without emitting any ( or most ) of the harmful substance that we current do. That would be the best of best Fuel type, require no change of Engine in Planes and Cars. But still as clean. Of Coz i am only dreaming of one.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  I've imagined it would be kelp, where the pods fill with alcohol or paraffin. Harvest by milking or reaping the plants. Kelp grows meters per day; shallow seas to cultivate kelp abound in nature.
rohamg 14y ago
im surprised this is only now making it to HN front page, it was published a while ago and is quite underwhelming in my opinion. it's an entertainment fluff piece, which i guess shouldnt surprise anyone. the ideas are not ideas, they're technologies - or inventions - and most of them are blindingly obvious and already being worked on. even as far as technologies go, there is very little imagination here.

63 points by kevbam 14y ago

twiceaday 14y ago

On five massive pages.

3rd3 14y ago
It’s ridiculous. 10 seconds loading, as if they don’t care at all about performance. Ghostery goes nuts too: Brighteeve, ChartBeat, Disqus, DoubleClick, Facebook Connect, Google +1, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Widgets, Lotame, Mobify, Omniture, SooreCard Research Beacon, Twitter Badge, Twitter Button…

ColinWright 14y ago

Unpaginated: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-seven-big-ideas/all/ http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-seven-big-ideas/all...

kijin 14y ago

Diamond buildings, bones, and mechanical parts don't sound like a particularly good idea. Just because diamond is hard doesn't mean that it will be better than steel or titanium as a structural material. Diamond is very brittle. It doesn't bend well. If the Twin Towers were made of diamond, they probably would have shattered into a billion pieces the moment the planes flew into them. No time to evacuate.

delinka 14y ago
Indeed, hardness does not equal strength. "Strong enough to bend" is a phrase that comes to mind.
gambiting 14y ago
Not to mention the fact that diamond is very flammable, being 100% pure coal. Any fire in such a building would devour it within minutes.
- c1u 14y ago
  Coal is made of carbon. Diamonds are made of carbon. But diamonds are NOT made of coal.
  - networkjester 14y ago
    Huh, learned some new things: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_diamonds_flammable http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_diamonds_flammable Says diamonds are combustible around 1520 degrees. But temperatures were 1000 degrees at the high-point in the 9/11 events (page 10 end of first paragrah): http://eagar.mit.edu/EagarPapers/Eagar185.pdf http://eagar.mit.edu/EagarPapers/Eagar185.pdf Interesting enough. The bigger issue would have certainly been the buildings crumbling before they ever burst into flames/disintegrated.

eksith 14y ago

Idea #8: No matter what your browser's or your ability, you're still be able to reach and consume the content of the web. Make the web accessible (not in an empty gesture of what some people think that means). Make someone who is actually differently abled sit in front of their computer and see if they can use your website, read and enjoy its content. Read: Make layouts that don't suck :/ Once upon a time, there was a movement called "Any Browser". Oh sure, it's still around, but no where near the adoption it once had. In this movement, people of all capacities, browsers and disabilities were unaffected by the layout of a webpage, because all of it can gracefully degrade to its most basic elements. Content was king. The layout was subservient to it and, if necessary, the king may cut off its head and still be king. Isn't it sad that in our rush to make multi-page content, and other glitter that's 50% advertizing, 30% style and just 20% content, my neighbor still can't read sites like Wired properly? Here's a handy rule of thumb: If I can't get to your content in Lynx, you've failed.

mikecane 14y ago
I submit that should have been Big Idea #1. It's better than the other 7.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nvr219 14y ago
Not only is it better it's also easiest to implement.
- zanny 14y ago
  The implementation requires you to shift a snails pace internet advertising industry away from total page hits counting so much when planning an add supported website. I'd argue moving an inertial beast like that in any industry is almost certainly harder than building a custom solar panel with synthetic molecules or building a diamond skyscraper, because the latter two don't require the cooperation and manipulation of an entire market.
javajosh 14y ago

Luff 14y ago

I'd bet that the next big technological revolution will occur when the next generation of batteries hit the market: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/129299-silicon-nanotube-lithium-ion-battery-stores-10-times-more-power-lasts-6000-charges http://www.extremetech.com/computing/129299-silicon-nanotube... Electric quadrocopters today have pretty limited range, with a flight time of about 30 minutes. You could do some pretty neat stuff if they lasted 5 hours. Not to mention what it will mean to regular airplanes, cars and mobile technology. We'd might even start to see some futuristic weaponry, not that it would be particularly positive.

Ingon 14y ago

Random thoughts: - One of the biggest problems we have is how to produce and preserve energy in large quantities in environmentally efficient way. If we are able to do that then 1, 2 and 4 are just nothing special. We will be able to tackle on the space! - Wi-fi spots on everything? That is missing the point - I would argue that not the one-time cost is the problem but rather the cost of service associated with it. - Idea 5 is so wrong that we must try in every way to protect from it. I can see the benefit of having the weather always in your sight, but I'm afraid that we as society will deep dive into it and never come out. - War on asteroids? Better war on cockroaches. That is just wasting money on nothing. Now if we are endangered by some concrete asteroid, then we have to shoot it down of course. - And building skyscrapers for me is missing the point. We have enough of these. Better spend money on preserving the environment and species on our planet then trying to squeeze more people on a square meter. Or just build the damn space elevator. I have a dream - my son to take me on a space trip :)

rohamg 14y ago
spot on. especially with your first point about energy.
Retric 14y ago
Skyscrapers are by far the most ecologically sound way to store people. Finding ways to build them larger and more cheaply is Great for the enviorment.
- droidist2 14y ago
  Very true. http://freakonomics.com/freakonomics-radio-why-cities-rock/ http://freakonomics.com/freakonomics-radio-why-cities-rock/

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Sorta interesting, better than average for these lists, but not Earth shattering. The more substantially disruptive technologies are going to be things like memristors, cheap e-ink displays, or configurable manufacturing. In the next few decades the developing world is going to get online and get rich, probably in that order. Also, honest to goodness sentient machines are likely in this century due merely to the increases in brute force computing power available. Meanwhile, thousands and perhaps even millions of humans are going to end up living off Earth and manufacturing is going to change so dramatically it'll transform our concepts of wealth. 2100 is going to look as alien from our perspective of 2013 as 2000 did from 1913.

mctx 14y ago

The solar panel idea is interesting, but the problem of storage still remains. What about a global grid that spans the globe, with large solar arrays in the deserts of Australia, North America and South Africa? This way there's always an array producing power at any time during the day, although each array has to be large enough to sustain the world's power needs. Transmission would be interesting as well - anyone know how to build a TW transmission line? Global insolation map: http://imgur.com/1p4KIMb http://imgur.com/1p4KIMb

huherto 14y ago
As someone who lived in one of the dark orange places in north america, I can tell you that shades are very valuable by themselves. In dry and hot places being under a shades makes a big difference. A shade for your car, a shade for your house, a shade for people in the street. These shades can have the double purpose of capturing solar energy. I bet a lot of people in AZ will be very happy to use their roofs to install solar panels.

mikecane 14y ago

If those are the Big Ideas, then we are bankrupt of ideas. Also, didn't anyone read Stephenson's The Diamond Age? Must have, to come up with skyscrapers out of diamonds. Gee, can diamond buildings be heated and cooled and ventilated efficiently? What about ambient sound control? By the way, where's my damn jetpack?

yannis 14y ago
A diamond building will be easier to cool or to heat (most skyscrapers at the moment are glass houses). The Fire Chief will probably fail them as construction materials--besides all the other problems with strength--as diamonds are combustible materials.

ekianjo 14y ago

Sahara as a power plant? This has already been assessed as a ridiculous assumption several times. Because energy is not just about electrical production, but transportation as well. You cannot transport low voltage power very far, unless you start building transformers, rendering the energy output almost nil in the long run. Unless someone has found a new way to solve the problem.

radicalbyte 14y ago
And whatever you make would have to survive desert conditions. If Dune has taught me anything, it's that sandstorms really cut the workin life expectancy of tech. Ironically a shielding made of diamond might solve that problem..
tuxidomasx 14y ago
Exactly. Improved battery storage capacity and efficiency might be a solution though. Also, I've never liked the idea of sending solar power generated in the Sahara to Europe. I never hear this concept in terms of helping deliver power to African countries. The exploitative exportation of natural resources from Africa is something that needs to stop in order for the region to rebound economically, politically, and socially.
Udo 14y ago
Couldn't you just electrolyze water locally at small substations and then transport the gases through pipelines? They could be reassembled later near population centers by using fuel cells. Not only would that be a pretty efficient way to transport this energy, it's also a good strategy to make it available during the night.
- zem 14y ago
  what water?
  - Udo 14y ago
    I assume by your minimal "what water" comment you mean the Sahara couldn't support this concept because it lacks water? Considering the fact that you don't need a lot of water for this to work, there are several things that could be done easily and without a lot of additional cost (in relation to the value of the energy output). 1) Drill wells. There is subterranean water in many places, including otherwise arid landscapes. 2) Transporting water in a pipeline is also pretty easy, especially if you need pipes to transport the gaseous products anyway. 3) Considering the energy density, you could even carry it by truck over a dirt road once in a while.

lolcraft 14y ago

Yeah, yeah, cool stuff, but those aren't ideas. Those are technologies. Evolution theory, universal democracy, organized labour, atheism, those were massive ideas. The Internet was a massive technology. Well, to be fair, that was a bad example. You will tell me that the Internet was a great technology that enabled great ideas, and I will agree with you [1]. But tell me, do you believe any of these ideas here could do that? I doubt it. Real ideas that could change the world? I would put Big Data there, or my understanding of what Big Data could be: instead of focusing on thinking the best, fanciest hypothesis you can, focus on getting a lot of the best data you can find. Pure thinking from principia won't bring understanding to the human genome, but smart data crunching might. Do you people have any thoughts on more ideas that could be like that? I'm actually interested. [1] Technology provide the material/economic substrate from which philosophies and understanding comes. Automation, division of labour and credit brought capitalism, that brought bourgeois values: democracy, meritocracy, disdain for aristocracy, disdain for the disdain of "usury"... So it's given that technological progress becomes more than just "technological".

level09 14y ago
I kind of agree with you .. skyscrapers out of diamonds !? give us a break here :)
gbog 14y ago
one idea that could change the world: stop causalism. let independent facts be independent. replace "because" for "at the same time". that would kill almost all journalism, which is never tired of telling us the why, when there is no why. that would narrow a lot most social science researches. we, humans, are still not adults, we need reasons, we need good stories, those that make sense. but the probable truth is that there are no reasons. could be called correlationism.
- zem 14y ago
  i believe (without proof) that this is too deeply embedded in basic human psychology ever to change.
14y ago

elorant 14y ago

Idea #9. Build a device that can verbalize our thoughts. Something like a helmet that captures brain activity and translates it into spoken language. Next time I'm having an epiphany I don't need to rush to an input device (pen and paper or touch screen or keyboard) and lose half of it on the way there. Not to mention the potential of having our dreams recorded for our pleasure. Plus we could communicate with disabled people, from mutes to those in comas.

unimpressive 14y ago
Not exactly what you're looking for, but it's a start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition

ksec 14y ago

Something ( Plant? ) That could take Solar Energy within the desert and turn into a Liquid Fuel ( Diesel ? ), that could be refined ( using the electricity from the Desert ) into usable fuel in today's Diesel or Patrol Engine, without emitting any ( or most ) of the harmful substance that we current do. That would be the best of best Fuel type, require no change of Engine in Planes and Cars. But still as clean. Of Coz i am only dreaming of one.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
I've imagined it would be kelp, where the pods fill with alcohol or paraffin. Harvest by milking or reaping the plants. Kelp grows meters per day; shallow seas to cultivate kelp abound in nature.

rohamg 14y ago

im surprised this is only now making it to HN front page, it was published a while ago and is quite underwhelming in my opinion. it's an entertainment fluff piece, which i guess shouldnt surprise anyone. the ideas are not ideas, they're technologies - or inventions - and most of them are blindingly obvious and already being worked on. even as far as technologies go, there is very little imagination here.