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Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#191

Post by phillc73 »

nikanj wrote: post #174
phillc73 wrote: post #142

UDP for fast file transfer. Working in the television industry at the time and a few companies were making tools based on UDP, for sending large files across public networks. Smartjog, Aspera, Signiant. The companies are still around, but only operating in the B2B space as far as I know. I thought this technology was going to replace FTP. People wanting to punt bigger and bigger files around, they needed better tools…

The #1 most used file transfer tool seems to be Dropbox. I put stuff into mine, give you a link and everything magically works.

Yes, that's a nice workflow for non-technical users. However, if you're transfering 50GB files, this takes some time. UDP behind the scenes could fix that.

I guess consumers just aren't punting 50GB of data around all that much, so there's not enough wait time pain to justify it.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#192

Post by swyx »

michaelchisari wrote: post #14

The blockchain. A strange thing to say when Bitcoin is nearing $8k each, but I'm not interested in cryptocurrencies as an abstract store of value based on the fever of the market. By now, however, I really thought someone would have found a use for the blockchain as the underpinning of some kind of new app or tech that would be able to create real value for bitcoin or whichever crypto they built it on. However, we ju…

have you looked into IPFS/Filecoin and still view distributed storage as overhyped? or just havent looked that hard into the different ideas that are out there?

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#193

Post by mszcz »

Simulacra wrote: post #175

Google Glass. I thought this would become standard, miniaturized, and used in all aspects of life. Perhaps I read Daemon too much, but I was sure Glass would fly

Yeah, that would have been so awesome. I told everyone I would wear one even despite the fact that I would look like a total dork. I got super excited when they said it would be available around the end of 2013...

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#194

Post by abecedarius »

closeparen wrote: post #112
kobeya wrote: post #39

The general-purpose computer. It's a dinosaur on the verge of extinction at the hands of walled-garden app stores on phones and tablets. I never, ever expected that to happen.

Did people really think the arms race of heuristic malware detection in bolt-on security software would be be sustainable? Sandboxing applications and ending the free-for-all over the user’s entire file system were a long time coming. Then spammy software download websites and “Download Now” banner ads bigger than the official download buttons for popular software made it obvious that we needed a trustworthy distribu…

False dichotomy. A user-in-control sandboxing model is perfectly possible, e.g. https://sandstorm.io/

I agree that mainstream desktop OSes have failed to give us this yet. Fuchsia sounds like an opportunity to do better.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#195

Post by phillc73 »

swyx wrote: post #187
phillc73 wrote: post #142

UDP for fast file transfer. Working in the television industry at the time and a few companies were making tools based on UDP, for sending large files across public networks. Smartjog, Aspera, Signiant. The companies are still around, but only operating in the B2B space as far as I know. I thought this technology was going to replace FTP. People wanting to punt bigger and bigger files around, they needed better tools…

that's interesting. Isn't UDP still in use today? (honestly i'm not too clear in what context, i just know that its used in some webapps)

Maybe it is and I'm just not aware of it. I left TV about four years ago, so not sure if the technology has made it to consumer file transfer tools, but as far as I know clients for services like Dropbox (mentioned below) don't use UDP.

If they do, and I just don't know about it, then the future is here!

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#197

Post by examancer »

j45 wrote: post #23

Palm/HP/LG WebOS - JavaScript based os a few years ahead of it's time in mobile form.

Came here to vote for this. I even published an app to their store during the ~2 weeks it looked like HP was going to throw their weight behind the TouchPad.

It was really ahead of its time and most of its major metaphors can be found in the surviving mobile OSes. Just wish the web-centric development model survived as well.

I have WebOS on my LG TV now. It sucks.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#200

Post by vortico »

kobeya wrote: post #53
bitwarrior wrote: post #21

Nanotubes. Seemed like it was all upside, the stuff we were going to be making starships out of.

It will be. When we're able to manufacture them in large quantities and with few imperfections. Give it time.

Yup, it hasn't gone away or stopped growing. It might be taking too long for journalists to find interest in it right now, but that has low correlation to the research effort.
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