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Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

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Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#21

Post by XorNot »

IsaacL wrote: post #14
damnusername wrote: post #6

I submitted this to slashdot a few weeks ago, but it got declined: "For some time now, I have been following the "startup scene" and frankly, I am left with a sense of dismay. How many of the startups actually do anything of any real value to mankind? It seems to me that the startup ideas just keep getting more ridiculous and stupid by the day and I think I would go as far as to call the whole thing deeply broken. I…

A few ideas below. You mention startups trying "to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible" - I personally quite strongly believe that companies that focus on long-term profitability also happen to do a lot of good for mankind. - cure for cancer - cure for malaria - cure for aging - cheap fossil fuel extraction from low-quality deposits - safer nuclear fission - nuclear fusion - lower-cost space travel…

Of these, fission/fusion/fossil fuels are the only ones start ups might touch. And even there, it depends on a lot of physics turning out favorably.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#22

Post by yen223 »

zeit_geist wrote: post #9

A super incomplete list: Databases: - PipelineDB - Snowflake (Computing) Internet of Things / Communications: - Helium Robotics: - Pneubotics - Kuka, namely the research department Autonomous Systems / "Self Driving Car" et al.: - Kiva - Anki Computer-Vision / VR based: - Jaunt - Oculus VR (especially the 'research' department) Agriculture: - Blueriver http://www.bluerivert.com (there are many more super-interesting…

Is Kuka really a 'startup'? They are very well established among the industrial robotics scene.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#23

Post by saboot »

XorNot wrote: post #21
IsaacL wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few ideas below. You mention startups trying "to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible" - I personally quite strongly believe that companies that focus on long-term profitability also happen to do a lot of good for mankind. - cure for cancer - cure for malaria - cure for aging - cheap fossil fuel extraction from low-quality deposits - safer nuclear fission - nuclear fusion - lower-cost space travel…

Of these, fission/fusion/fossil fuels are the only ones start ups might touch. And even there, it depends on a lot of physics turning out favorably.

At least the Helion guys believe they have a good shot at it http://www.helionenergy.com/

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#24

Post by sspiff »

zeit_geist wrote: post #9

A super incomplete list: Databases: - PipelineDB - Snowflake (Computing) Internet of Things / Communications: - Helium Robotics: - Pneubotics - Kuka, namely the research department Autonomous Systems / "Self Driving Car" et al.: - Kiva - Anki Computer-Vision / VR based: - Jaunt - Oculus VR (especially the 'research' department) Agriculture: - Blueriver http://www.bluerivert.com (there are many more super-interesting…

I'd say D-wave is at least as dubious as Mill Computing.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#25

Post by bshimmin »

gwulf wrote: post #4

nvidia is doing amazing work, and many of their employees are in the bay area. 3072 cores for $999 - http://www.geforce.com/.../geforce-gtx.../specifications The number of companies using this device to solve real problems is growing. Jeremy Howard just started an interesting one - http://www.enlitic.com

How is Nvidia a startup? They were founded in 1993 and have 8,800 employees and revenue over $4B.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#26

Post by higherpurpose »

zeit_geist wrote: post #9

A super incomplete list: Databases: - PipelineDB - Snowflake (Computing) Internet of Things / Communications: - Helium Robotics: - Pneubotics - Kuka, namely the research department Autonomous Systems / "Self Driving Car" et al.: - Kiva - Anki Computer-Vision / VR based: - Jaunt - Oculus VR (especially the 'research' department) Agriculture: - Blueriver http://www.bluerivert.com (there are many more super-interesting…

Oculus isn't a start-up anymore. It's a division of a $100 billion company.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#27

Post by higherpurpose »

gwulf wrote: post #4

nvidia is doing amazing work, and many of their employees are in the bay area. 3072 cores for $999 - http://www.geforce.com/.../geforce-gtx.../specifications The number of companies using this device to solve real problems is growing. Jeremy Howard just started an interesting one - http://www.enlitic.com

Nvidia has done great work with CUDA, but I wonder if AMD/ARM's HSA will make the work of the people using CUDA now much easier in the future - compute with a high-level language that you already know. That's got to be some kind of paradigm change there. I just hope they end up supporting Rust, too.

Re: Ask HN: What startups are working on hard, technically challenging problems?

#28

Post by higherpurpose »

Kryptnostic seems to be working on bringing usable fully homomorphic encryption to market. If they actually have something real there, that could be game-changing for cloud privacy:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/kryptnostic/

It's a shame Google isn't focused more on this, too. They should be having a Google X lab just for that, and invest at least as much as they currently invest in quantum computing. They have a lot to gain from it. Infringing on people's privacy is currently Google's biggest PR issue, and it's not going to go away. It will only become a bigger issue in the future. Without this, Google could perhaps return to being almost as liked as it used to be (there's still the issue of bullying others in the search engine, of course).

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