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Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#481

Post by gfxgirl »

imgabe wrote: post #284

The phone system. It seems like it's an unholy mess. I moved from the US to Hong Kong this year. I have a US number that I want to keep, and of course I need a local Hong Kong number. So, the US number is on my Google Fi account that I pay to keep active and I get a prepaid SIM card for Hong Kong. I can switch the SIM cards if I travel back. But why? We have two semi-independent networks, one for voice and one for da…

I would add to this, why even have "phone service" anymore. I call my family via Facebook Messenger or Zoom etc... I'm surprised that more more companies don't let me call them via these services or that some new startup hasn't starting selling the intergration so a customer can click "connect via Whatsapp" to our customer service.

I'm also somewhat surprised there isn't a standard for this (maybe one is being worked on) so that all services and register for the standard to let me connect.

Further, I'm surprised there isn't work to let me register some contact info in a global way. As it is, when I move, I have to contact 15-30 companies and update my address. Why I can't I just do that in one place and the companies can use the info live?

Yes, I get here are all kinds of privacy issues. Still, there must be some solution. For example, id service providers let me login, change my address, and then select which companies that I've registered to that id get my new address, etc.... I'm going to tell them anyway, just make it less tedious to do it.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#482

Post by burlesona »

Building new cities - actual cities, not suburbs - in the western world. This seems especially relevant in the US West Coast, where there’s both tremendous demand for development and population growth and vast amounts of undeveloped land, yet simultaneously, a housing shortage and general affordability crisis.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#483

Post by swsieber »

glandium wrote: post #449
ineptech wrote: post #437

Personal server. If there were an open source project that made running server applications (personal blog, email, game server, file backups, mastodon, etc) easy for non-technical people, it would open up whole new use cases (in the same sense there are kinds of software now that wouldn't have made sense before everyone carried around a phone). It would also be a whalefall for the hosted vm industry if it caught on,…

There is the Freedombox project.

And sandstorm.io ... sort of. A similar problem space.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#485

Post by 10000truths »

tonymet wrote: post #228

User authentication using client-side (aka mutual) TLS certificates. This was promoted with netscape navigator and then never came to be. Be authenticated everywhere, without ever having to log in.

Perhaps that's a good thing, because I'm almost certain that would be abused as a user fingerprint.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#486

Post by maccard »

gangstertim wrote: post #317

Battery-operated household items. I have a cordless dewalt drill that I can use all day on my jobsite, but every single appliance in my kitchen needs a cord. Hand mixer? Immersion blender? Regular blender? Stand mixer? Everything has a cord. Why isn't there a kitchen battery system yet? Similarly: I'd love to have a little reading sconce on my wall next to my bed, but running a circuit through the existing walls with…

> I have a cordless dewalt drill that I can use all day on my jobsite, but every single appliance in my kitchen needs a cord. Hand mixer? Immersion blender? Regular blender? Stand mixer? Everything has a cord. Why isn't there a kitchen battery system yet?

My cordless dewalt drill cost more than my mixer, immersion blendar, and food processor combined.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#487

Post by jitl »

Klonoar wrote: post #403
acd wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Lenovo would ship Coreboot Linux laptops that would fit the bill as premium and good laptop with open boot loader.

This comes close, but I don't find the build to be as nice as a MacBook, and trackpad is the same issue. I do often look at a ThinkPad and wonder, though.

Microsoft and Lenovo both offer full-metal laptops with good rigidity and build quality. The Surface Book is weird but feels great in-hand. Trackpad is quite good, but, the whole thing is a giant gimmick. Lenovo X1 line has an all-metal option. I haven’t handled the 2019 version but previous iterations were quite nice - in a totally un-Apple-like way.

Unfortunately, there’s no retailer out there that I trust to actually display these high-end laptops so you can go actually get a feel for them. The Microsoft Stores was the best bet, but those are all closing. I shopped for an all-metal laptop 2 years ago after leaving Airbnb and was wholly disappointed with this $600-$1400 lineup at BestBuy. I ended up getting a Huawei Matebook Pro X (sic) from the Microsoft Store in San Francisco. I put Linux on it, but were I to do it again I’d just spend 2x more on an actual MacBook.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#488

Post by ilaksh »

baron816 wrote: post #243

In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have…

I think that people will be surprised in the near future how realistic (and similar to in-person) VR and AR interactions will be. Especially with eye tracking that will enable virtually looking the other people in the eyes.

Think about as optical waveguide technology becomes more affordable enabling very lightweight comfortable headsets that actually are close to normal glasses in comfort. Combined with pose detection from cameras with fast AI.

Things like VR Chat are already pretty good.

And actually I think the potential to create perfectly tailored 3d workspaces in VR could make those spaces preferred in some cases over real ones. To me the biggest issue is the size and comfort of the headsets and new technologies are coming to mass deployment in the next couple of years to address that.

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#489

Post by flubert »

aphroz wrote: post #287

Smartphone Keyboard I cannot type a single sentence without making a typo and I have been using a smartphone for 12 years. I miss Blackberry's keyboard. At the moment I even cannot use my natural keyboard layout with a fast and responsive keyboard. I type 3 times slower on my phone than on a computer keyboard.

Has anyone tried to improve upon the Dasher eye-tracking thing for text composition? Seems like there could be more ideas here that haven't really been explored.

http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/DasherSummary2.html

Re: Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?

#490

Post by alexchamberlain »

kevin_nisbet wrote: post #309

Maybe not so much surprised but more disappointed that sustainable public infrastructure isn't more in focus. Things like road surfaces that don't need to be replaced every couple of years, or better consideration when large infrastructure spending comes around how those bridges, dams, water works, etc, etc will be monitored, maintained and expanded over time.

Or simply a road design that doesn't involve ripping it up every few weeks for another set of cables or pipes. Some sort of conduit that runs parallel or, where appropriate, roads that have a large tunnel underneath for running utilities?
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