Mobile/Micro payments. There is still no friction free solution, where I would be sure, my mother could use it.
This problem is solved in China. Blame your local incumbents.
Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
261–270 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
mind explaining a little more in terms of how far away we might be able to mass produce these things?
I'm not in the field so I don't want to try to guess how long it will be. But of course it will be in gradual increments of cost, quality, and size. There won't be an exact point in time where we transition to being able to mass produce this material on a large scale.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#263BeOS . That was the best os at the time by far, stellar performance, fantastic C++ api usable by a newbie, i still haven’t found a GUI as responsive as this one.
DVD-audio. Great multi channel, high rate, high resolution audio. But it required the whole production chain to upgrade as well as new consumer equipement, and they competed with sony own format ( which was also a failure)... But it would have given the record industry a few more years of revenue before the bandwidth would have been sufficient to download or stream music with this resolution.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#2643D printing. Turns out making little plastic shapes isn't all that useful. Seems obvious in hindsight.
I believe the problem is the sort of plastic used. You need structural strength in most things and filament pieces melted together is just not cutting it.
Absolutely. One area that they have revolutionized is casting. Hell, even Jay Leno's crew used a 3d printer to create prototype parts that were no longer made and then cast the plastic printed part into a sand mold using aluminum.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#265The famo.us frontend framework. The initial demos and vision seemed impressive and i fell for it. Unfortunately they got over ambitious and failed to get something solid enough out fast enough.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#266E-Ink. It is the "correct" choice for display technology, and with enough research money put into it, it could replace these abominable light-emitting displays. But what we already have is "good enough", despite all of the hidden costs, and so we're stuck with it.
The Kindle and it's e-reader kin are pretty successful?
I think the problem is that a device with an e-ink display is necessarily single purpose. General purpose devices can't use e-ink, they need to support video playback and browsers with full colour.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a good point, but PayPal and other services don't need to use cards at all (PayPal balance, attached to a bank routing number), so I don't think it's the reason micro-payments are not the norm. A credit card alternative from Amazon would be fantastic competitor to VISA / MasterCard to break the lack of innovation in the personal finance industry.
To use PayPal - you have to have your money in PayPal, or it will use an underlying credit card. So, it's really just like using a bank account to pay directly. Most people don't like having to keep a separate current amount in PayPal to buy stuff. Also - I'm not sure if the merchant fees that PayPal charges are any less, i.e. they didn't take the 'no fees' angle for the merchants. And of course there is the consumer…
You can connect PayPal to your bank without a credit or debit card, so yes, they can be out of the equation if the consumer wants to.
I don't think PayPal or card fees are significant in this discussion of micropayments. The issue of micropayments is getting people to pay at all, either 0% or 100%. A 3% detail doesn't have a huge effect on why they aren't commonly used.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I knew about Bitcoin quite early, but I was convinced the government would shut it down. I am mystified as to why they didn't.
They cannot--coordinating enforcement is impossible for nation state actors, at least not yet.
Shutting it completely down is impossible, but making possession illegal is not.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#269Google 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
I was hoping that Google Glass will be the next de-facto device/platform which everyone will be using. Feeling so sad a great idea didn't work well. Maybe it was way ahead of time and can be relaunched again.
Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?
#270QR Codes . . . although they are BIG IN JAPAN
IMO the biggest issue with them is that the average consumer doesn't know what to do with them. Neither iPhone or Android (that I'm aware of at least) expose an easy way to read a QR code which would be intuitive to even a large minority of users.