WebAssembly.
Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
51–60 of 362 posts
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#52WebGPU. Granted, "right around the corner" is a bit of a stretch. https://webkit.org/blog/7380/next-generation-3d-graphics-on-...
Do you have a 15 seconds explanation on how that's going to be much better than WebGL?
Sure. WebGL is a sandboxed subset of OpenGL ES 2.0, and WebGL 2 is similarly a derivative of OpenGL ES 3.0.
While both of those APIs offer nearly full programmability, they do so with an API structure that retains a ton of legacy cruft from the days of fixed-function pipelines. Neither are low-level graphics APIs; many assumptions are made. This makes doing general purpose compute tasks on WebGL extremely hacky at best.
Think of WebGPU as Vulkan or Metal for the web. Lower level with much more work, but ultimately cleaner with superior performance and capability.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#53VR Gaming. We're a few years away from some incredible experiences in the space.
Amazing VR gaming experiences have already arrived.
The last two months have seen a flood of incredible VR gaming experiences for the Oculus Rift. I highly suggest you give the current generation of consumer VR another try:
* Lone Echo - Amazing space story line, one of the highest ranked PC games on Metacritic right now: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/lone-echo
* Echo Arena - Basically the Enders Game zero-g arena in space, multiplayer. Really addictive: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/echo-arena
* The Unspoken - You're a wizard, with magic, and you use your hands in different combinations with the Oculus Touch controllers to battle other mages, including real people via multiplayer gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVD1O853aSw
* Robo Recall - Battle robots, grab them with your hands, tear them apart, grab bullets from the air. Epic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIK4D0kVlIs
* Star Trek Bridge Command - You are literally on the bridge of a Star Trek spaceship.
* Mages Tale - VR RPG from the creator of the classic Bards Tale, makes me feel like I'm embedded into a classic AD&D dungeon crawl.
Anyway, that's just a small selection! I picked up an Oculus Rift + Touch Controllers the last two months and have been blown away at the developments lately.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think it's "ideal to move first and apologize later" when rolling out a socially transformative technology in a democratic society?
Because I occasionally don't respect the restraints that tend to exist in democratic societies when it comes to entrenched regulation & interests vs innovation (or really anything new or different), which frequently dramatically slow down progress (see: zoning law abuse, or the FDA's countless abuses or otherwise slow & meandering approach (what I call backwards), or the present US healthcare system (vast entrenched…
Maybe, just maybe, a reference to Chesterton's Fence is needed:
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#55Textblade: https://waytools.com/ Single row keyboard that has minimal finger movement. It was to be delivered March 2015 or so, but it has yet to be released. They have testers who rave about it and it looks incredible, but it is perpetually around the corner. Originally designed as an ultra-portable phone keyboard, those who have used it tend to use it for all their machines. It has jump slots to quickly switch from…
Wow, that is brilliant! But it's not on the market, you say? Well, it looks like something I can draft and print. I won't be competing with them, that would be rude, but I must have this for myself.
They should remove the unresponsive Buy button, that just looks bad.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#56Ethereum's Casper https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/pap... It aims for more economically secure public blockchains with shorter confirmation times and less cost (electricity/hardware/inflation). I haven't delved deep enough into it to be fully convinced, but what I've gotten through so far is promising. AFAIK its the only proof of stake algorithm thats been formally documented.
For me it is Raiden, I believe Ethereum should be able to beat Bitcoin in their lightening network implementation, and for the cryptocurrency of future, Raiden is very important for Ethereum. PS: So you don't support Ethereum Classic anymore?
I prefer the laissez-faire philosophy of classic, but the innovation is happening on the main chain.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It has so much economic potential that it hurts not being in the space already (working on that though) As someone not familiar with the area, could you elaborate on some examples of what you think the economic potential is? To an outsider like me, being able to overlay virtual objects on a scene seems like a nice curiosity, not particularly an engine for commerce. Edit: specifically, I was curious about areas wher…
To me the benefit of AR is not just overlaying virtual objects on the physical world but specifically highlighting real objects in your field of view. Granted, this does just come down to placing a virtual object on the physical world. I can give a specific example that is perhaps of not so great financial advantage, but I think this kind of thing will be useful - using AR to give you directions to build IKEA furnitu…
I feel the key AR advantage will be that we don't have to spend half our time glancing down on tiny rectangles anymore.
The Oculus is already less than an order of magnitude away from competing with regular LCD panels. Google glass and maybe that magic leap thing give us hints that it will eventually happen for mobile.
No more displays, now that's something I would pay for.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It has so much economic potential that it hurts not being in the space already (working on that though) As someone not familiar with the area, could you elaborate on some examples of what you think the economic potential is? To an outsider like me, being able to overlay virtual objects on a scene seems like a nice curiosity, not particularly an engine for commerce. Edit: specifically, I was curious about areas wher…
To me the benefit of AR is not just overlaying virtual objects on the physical world but specifically highlighting real objects in your field of view. Granted, this does just come down to placing a virtual object on the physical world. I can give a specific example that is perhaps of not so great financial advantage, but I think this kind of thing will be useful - using AR to give you directions to build IKEA furnitu…
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Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#59Excited may be too strong a word, but I'm interested in seeing how the world of decentralised apps evolve. I like the idea of decentralising the web using plug and play home servers. There are a few projects in this space already (such as Sandstorm) and there are some existing projects that aren't strictly limited to dapps but could play a key role in the future (a few unikernel and meshnet projects spring to mind).
IMHO the real bottle neck here is NAT, so I'd throw universal static ipv6 consumer adoption in with this.
Yeah, greater IPv6 rollout would be very useful.
Re: Ask HN: What tech that's right around the corner are you most excited about?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
? I get at least 10 hours out of my Pixel on a daily basis, what rumor are you talking about?
can't tell if you're being serious or not...
Are you guys for real? This is ridiculous! I've been on the old Nexus 5 for ages. I think, if we aren't going to get Android 7, then maybe it will be time for me to switch to one of the fringe mobile operating systems.
I get about 20 - 40 hours between charges, depending on whether or not I need to use Google Maps that day, and I often stay in airplane mode when I am working.