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Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

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Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#61

Post by nategraves »

dpcan wrote: post #59

The Home. It should be "standard" to have a single web interface for control over everything in my house. 1) Real-Time monitoring of water, electric and gas consumption. 2) Entertainment. I should be able to login to a website and click "TV's". Then I can see if they are on, what channel is being watched, what is scheduled to be recorded. 3) Security. Doors and Windows. Automation of opening, closing and locking. Plu…

I used to hear a lot more about "smart" appliances than I do now. I know there have been some companies that have worked on developing outlet adapters that allow you to control some basic functionality over a network, but the smart appliance craze seems to have died down as of late.

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#62

Post by dankjaergaard »

baran wrote: post #21

Healthcare, plan and simple.

more specifically: clinical trials. This is where most money spent on drug development goes. The sooner big pharma figures out if a drug works or not the better. Its still a very paper based industry, which I think is an FDA requirement. So I believe lots can be innovated here

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#63

Post by alexdonners »

nategraves wrote: post #61
dpcan wrote: post #59

The Home. It should be "standard" to have a single web interface for control over everything in my house. 1) Real-Time monitoring of water, electric and gas consumption. 2) Entertainment. I should be able to login to a website and click "TV's". Then I can see if they are on, what channel is being watched, what is scheduled to be recorded. 3) Security. Doors and Windows. Automation of opening, closing and locking. Plu…

I used to hear a lot more about "smart" appliances than I do now. I know there have been some companies that have worked on developing outlet adapters that allow you to control some basic functionality over a network, but the smart appliance craze seems to have died down as of late.

could you give any examples with names of companies that are doing the outlet adapters that you mention? I'd like to view them further.

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#64

Post by paulbaumgart »

callmeed wrote: post #58
paulbaumgart wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he means Blackboard, Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc . They have probably the worst UX I've seen in a web-app; their discussion board software I've had to use for a few classes- and it's abysmally pathetic. phpBB beats it by light-years. But apparently they have a monopoly thanks to some dubious patents.

No, I think he's referring to digital whiteboards that capture what is written on them. They've been around for a while (I remember seeing them at Tech/Edu conferences in the web 1.0 days).

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, unless jasonlbaptiste would like to weigh in and clarify? :-)

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#65

Post by vgurgov »

Energy. All kind of. More efficient using of existing sources and new sources. Think of it this way: How much worth ALL IT industry- all bright stars- Google, apple, MS, ibm? Something around $1T, right? Now Petrochina alone(!) is around 800B and its just about producing and selling gas in China!

So if you would be able to make technological innovation that would make my car engine say 10% more effective or produce just few %% that my home consumes - that will be HUGE!!!

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#66

Post by PieSquared »

grinich wrote: post #44
PieSquared wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our county got smartboards in every school, and, the thing is, about a third of the teachers can actually use them effectively. And they cost 6000 dollars to lease . And our county is short on money anyways, so all in all people aren't really too happy about them... But at least it's a step towards progress.

At MIT we still use chalkboards. They seem to work pretty well, even with new curriculum.

I've seen the MIT OCW courses, and yeah, professors seem to be pretty efficient with them.

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#67

Post by PieSquared »

paulbaumgart wrote: post #64
callmeed wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think he's referring to digital whiteboards that capture what is written on them. They've been around for a while (I remember seeing them at Tech/Edu conferences in the web 1.0 days).

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, unless jasonlbaptiste would like to weigh in and clarify? :-)

I meant these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promethean_Ltd

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#69

Post by gord »

Kaizyn wrote: post #46
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Software development. And no, that's not a joke. We really are roughly where we were in the 70's, we have not been able to make good use of the increase in machine power. It would be nice to see something really fresh. I'm holding out for 'fleet', or something like it. A radical departure from what we think is 'best practice' and the ways to do things. Something that will turn software development into a true enginee…

Alan Kay with the Viewpoints Research Institute is doing some interesting work. If you have a chance, you should check out their released papers: "STEPS Toward The Reinvention of Programming" http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf "STEPS Toward The Reinvention of Programming, 2008 Progress Report Submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF), October 2008" http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf The i…

sounds like lisp.

Re: Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation?

#70

Post by YuriNiyazov »

pg wrote: post #13

Presumably the fields that need innovation most are those that have some artificial constraint suppressing it. E.g. the music business, because anything good is ipso facto sued out of existence. Or the nuclear power industry, because the level of regulation becomes a barrier to entry to all but companies so bureaucratic they fit the government like a mold. So oddly enough, you're most likely to be able to achieve inn…

Can you give an example of a young company that managed to legally sidestep that sort of regulation?
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