Ask HN: What do you think will be “the next big thing”?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23959836

by Biba89 • 6 years ago

23 47 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I found some interesting articles on this topic, but HN always gave me great insights regarding technology and business.

I would like to hear your opinion about the potential next big thing(s).

caryd• 6 years ago

A free speech service that is serverless and unable to be shut down. That will truly give power to individual people.

PaulHoule• 6 years ago

A paid listening service that I control that stops the harassment, electronic warfare and spamming and propaganda. My phone rings off the hook with people who want to rip me off or hurt me or my community.

That cancels the guy who staged riots at small schools, got sleepwalking boomers who never heard him speak think that he had something to say, staged riots at big schools, then tried to stage a riot at CPAC and got canceled by conservatives because he was planning to stage a riot there.

Many people today think "free speech" means having the right to destroy the fire alarm in a burning theater, to tell people there is no fire, to force people back into their seats. Let's make them go away, as well as the people who spam the political agenda with crap (e.g. rich people are hurting so bad out here man i know you cut our taxes five minutes ago but we need a tax cut again right here and now...)

That will truly give power to individuals.

silentsea90• 6 years ago

Both of you want freedom - to speak and to choose what to hear, so you're more alike than one might think :)

arkanciscan3• 6 years ago

What kind of power are you hoping to gain? Power to say anything you want, or power to prevent abuse. I don't think you can have both.

h0p32• 6 years ago

I appreciate your willingness to reason carefully about this problem. I may not understand your point, so please walk me through it, if you have the time and energy to teach a young man. At the very least, would you agree it is possible to have a context where anyone can say what they want (perhaps something we all infrastructurally support and protect) while also having other contexts in which each user controls who their moderators and search/feed signalers will be? Isn't it worthwhile to work for both?

CMCDragonkai• 6 years ago

A free speech service that is serverless and unable to be shut down. That will truly give power to individual people.

When speech is free, speech becomes worthless. Worthy things cost.

mbrodersen• 6 years ago

The history of "total freedom" free speech services show that it will never work. Total anarchy doesn't give you freedom.

ArtWomb• 6 years ago

PCoIP. Zero clients. Workflows for teams in virtual environments. It's analogous to netflix, zoom, and stadia. But for distributed remote-first enterprises.

Imagine a big budget Hollywood movie production, shooting in locations around the world, with post-production all working from a single data source, editing in a single multiplexed workstation.

o1lab• 6 years ago

XgeneCloud: writing APIs will never be simpler.

With just one command you can generate REST/Graphql on 5 different types of databases instantly.

https://github.com/xgenecloud/xgenecloud/

Has GUI for dB design and API debugging.

And APIs generated can be deployed as even AWS lambda function too.

And this is our MVP :)

Disclaimer: I'm the founder.

randomlurking• 6 years ago

since you’re here: I didn’t find anything about pricing, what’s your model?

verdverm3• 6 years ago

Augmented Reality, which is really the merging of our physical and digital worlds

Bioengineering / Genetics, this will probably change the way we make many materials in addition to health applications. Nano materials are pretty interesting too

Something to deal with a hyper-connected world and all the issues therein. This is probably about rule making. "Rules for a Flat World" is a good read on how humans have made and used rules and laws.

I hope for something in the social network space akin to the FHIR standard in healthcare in US. This could enable the separation of the network from it's presentation and thus (fingers crossed) encourage competition.

Pessimistically, the second cold war

verdverm3• 6 years ago

This is likely a relevant topic too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23956961

dakiol• 6 years ago

Microrobots. Each robot the size of a grain of salt; disposable (and hence, cheap). They'll be able to: clean your teeth (goodbye toothbrush), cut your hair (you'll have exactly the haircut you want), cut your nails, shave your beard. Clean your face, your ears.

Probably more usages, but all of them related to human hygiene. I just can't imagine a future with: toiler papers, toothbrushes, nail clippers, hair scissors...

verdverm3• 6 years ago

We will be the Borg!

This is the one I couldn't remember for my own comment, actually robotics generally, was thinking farms, self driving, android companions... tiny bots is another good call. I think there will be a lot more uses outside of humans, probably first for safety reasons.

joegibbs• 6 years ago

Even better: they’re in your bloodstream, fighting disease. Say there’s some cancer, they’ll destroy it before you even think about it. If there’s plaque in your arteries they’d be able to remove it, they could repair damage from injuries, etc.

helph67• 6 years ago

Physical alteration of your finger prints instead of tattoos. Could be used for commercial gain?

ukdeveloper• 6 years ago

Decentralized peer to peer internet, powered by a network of cell phones and other devices. For this to work it likely needs to use middle-out compression.

ta17711771• 6 years ago

Nice.

swiley• 6 years ago

The internet is already decentralized and cell carriers don’t want consumers with control over the modems (for many reasons including avoiding this particular scenario.)

Look at what’s happened with the TV whitespace ISPs. There’s just no way unless something radical happens with the FCC.

Jugurtha• 6 years ago

Git for genes.

Revert, bisect, blame, cherry-pick, merge, rebase, commit. On genes.

Of course, there could be porcelain on that plumbing. You could point at a trait, like a tumor, and revert it. Remission will last a second or so.

CI/CD for humans, with integration tests and unit tests updated glibally. If there's mutation and we know that mutation isn't good, it doesn't get merged.

tagami• 6 years ago

https://igem.org/Main_Page https://genelab.nasa.gov/

muzani3• 6 years ago

I feel like this might not be the next big thing, but it might happen in the next generation.

kk58• 6 years ago

AI + science leading to acceleration of discoveries

yen223• 6 years ago

Smart glasses.

Apple is rumoured to be announcing their version of the Google Glass some time this year. Their recent efforts around augmented reality seems to confirm that. If the rumour is true, and if it succeeds, then it will be interesting times for wearable tech.

giantg26• 6 years ago

Can't wait to see what they bring out. I loved HoloLens, but they aren't practical for long duration use or in cost.

nefitty• 6 years ago

I think there is a big shift toward “self-improvement” tech. The first big wave has been nootropics, although the hype around that stuff has subsided it seems. There are researchers still actively looking at ways to improve standard bearers such as modafinil.

A second push toward wearable devices is probably coming. I think Snapchat’s glasses probably cracked some of the stigma around that, at least for younger millennials. We won’t see the same type of stigma that Google Glass had, especially once Apple gets in the game. This will necessitate new conversations around privacy in the public space, although this time around the conversation will be led by people who might not necessarily have grown up expecting that luxury anyway.

Another big movement is Neuralink and similar physical brain enhancement. The degree to which these could change an individual’s lived experience is probably hard to imagine. I somewhat expect something like having a Dropbox-memory with Wikipedia-levels of factual knowledge. The ability to synthesize and digest this amount of data will become the new ground on which individuals differentiate themselves. Knowledge and social management applications will become essential, ie things similar to Roam or CRM-style apps for your social life.

I am curious about how the near future will impact pop culture. Maybe our tech will be able to sense what music we want to listen to in the moment? Maybe algorithms will start proactively incorporating the preferences of groups of people, instead of individuals, to make suggestions? Will music and film become shorter to fit into tinier and tinier slices of attention?

For what it’s worth, futurism is one of my passions. I predicted services like Stadia 6 years ago. I’m still a little salty about how badly it has turned out...

invalidOrTaken• 6 years ago

Children---the conceiving, raising, and educating of.

Smart people aren't having kids. Many of those who do, pass off their care to strangers or government schools. When they get out of high school, we're not sure what to do with them---higher education is riddled with problems, but so is entry-level hiring.

Will we have self-driving cars in 2038? Because we will have 18-yr-olds.

giantg26• 6 years ago

There are too many people.

muzani3• 6 years ago

People aren't the problem. The problem is people who have negative value.

A person can grow more food, build more homes, improve the environment, improve energy usage, staff schools and hospitals. Every negative issue with overpopulation can be countered with a person.

But there aren't enough useful people. And I think this is an issue with the system. We do not need more people whose life goal is "financial freedom/FU money", minimizing taxes paid, and becoming parasites to society. We need more people creating wealth, but most people are obsessed with trying to get a larger slice of wealth while contributing as little as possible.

We need to stop trapping people in poverty, where they're useful only for minimum wage labor, but become a burden on the welfare system. Nobody wants to live like this, but poverty means they have no choice.

A hack might be only letting people who want children and want to take care of children have kids, and have multiple kids. While those who don't like kids get improved access to birth control.

simonebrunozzi• 6 years ago

So simple, and yet so powerful. You're right. This is going to be a big thing.

tmaly• 6 years ago

I agree education of children could be the next big thing. Could being the word here.

Yes the internet gives us more of an ability to communicate and share idea. But how do you translate those into practical application in public education?

giantg26• 6 years ago

I'm surprised nobody has said quantum computing.

solveit• 6 years ago

QC seems more like the next, next, next big thing. We've only just got a POC for quantum supremacy. It'll be a while until QC outperforms classical in any practical problem, and longer until it becomes useful enough to get big.

giantg26• 6 years ago

Yeah, I guess I was looking at the biggest next thing. Many of the other comments seem like they won't transform our lives or that they are already here but just need to grow more.

alexmingoia• 6 years ago

Biotech (gene therapy).

thedevindevops• 6 years ago

Smart(er) Cities - publicly available APIs for each city providing real-time access to what's happening where, from traffic numbers to park occupancy, requests for planning permission to refuse collection times for the area, cities produce tons of data and harnessing it would be incredible.

quickthrower2• 6 years ago

Cryptocurrency might still have its day.

decasteve• 6 years ago

Flying cars. It’s always flying cars.

cblconfederate• 6 years ago

OnlyFans

Ask HN: What do you think will be “the next big thing”?

Related Stories