491–500 of 1001 posts
The converse is possibly even more interesting: what tech were you convinced would fail but took the world by storm?
Alexa and amazon.com
I don't know if this has a name, but... ICQ-like "searchable" instant messaging. Let me explain myself. In the late 90s, there was an IM client called ICQ. For starters, its UI was leaps and bounds ahead of anything to be seen in the next decade, and it had functionality like bots or groups, that has again become widespread a few years ago. But what I'm talking about is the fact that I could look for "female, age bet…
I am certain we could easily create this using websockets and p2p browser data streams... whos coming with me? Crowd fund me and i will release a prototype
Just kidding. I would definitely support such a crowdfunding within my modest means. The problem is that I don't think the tech is the main issue (after all, ICQ did it with 90s tehc). Obtaining an userbase is the main issue, and network effects go against new contenders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
XHTML5 works today, and my site is live proof. It helps catch dumb typos when typing HTML code by hand. It also means the CSS is more likely to be applied to the correct DOM tree.
I had a look at your site and it looks like normal HTML to me, except at the top. How does that help anything?
To create client-side web apps, rather than writing Javascript, write Java and have it transpiled to Javascript. Java has IDEs, isn't a new language to learn (like Dart), has static type checking, support for refactoring in the IDEs, etc.
GWT could do tree shaking, obfuscation, etc.
You could write your server code in Java, and "call" remote server methods from your client code, "passing" Java objects transparently back and forth between the client and the server.
It was released in around 2006, it was not without issues but seemed to be a much better way to develop complex client code than the Javascript options available in 2006, as far as I could see.
It never really took off.
Google moved their team over to Dart at some point. I guess the Oracle Java lawsuit meant Google were unenthusiastic about continuing to have anything to do with Java where they didn't need to.
The compile times were slow. Not all Java compiled so you had to have a mental model in your head not only of Java but also the Javascript that was going to be generated which was mental overhead.
Peer-to-peer file sharing. There was a time when Napster, Kazaa, eMule were king. The content industry fought against it, but developers came up with decentralized solutions like DHTs or supernodes. I was convinced the next step would be friend-of-a-friend sharing. You only share files with your direct friends. But they can pass on these files automatically, so their friends can get the files, too. The friends of you…
I don't know if this has a name, but... ICQ-like "searchable" instant messaging. Let me explain myself. In the late 90s, there was an IM client called ICQ. For starters, its UI was leaps and bounds ahead of anything to be seen in the next decade, and it had functionality like bots or groups, that has again become widespread a few years ago. But what I'm talking about is the fact that I could look for "female, age bet…
I met a guy to play Dota 2 with in 2012 and we've been friends since.
I'm not sure I expected it to take the world "by storm", but I expected more from Google Wave. It was a great concept, by a major company, but it was too slow on release and the rollout killed it. In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have lasted anyways. Google was in the process of minimizing their federated communication services by that point, and that was another major selling point of Google Wave's initial propos…
I agree. Looking back though, I think that platforms such as Slack, have incorporated many of the key things that made Google Wave a great concept.
E-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.
I'm out of date. Does E-ink still have ~500ms latency of refreshing the screen? If so, that's the #1 reason I believed it wouldn't be successful when I used them 6 years ago.
3D printing. Turns out making little plastic shapes isn't all that useful. Seems obvious in hindsight.
little plastic shapes? no. but big metal industrial parts that were impossible to machine might be a thing? I confess no knowledge as to their real commercial success so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a feeling that the right timing of English-speaking political dominance in 19th and 20th century combined with global information technology boom has contributed a lot here. It could have been French (and in a sense was) if they had had movies and Internet earlier. To me English doesn't feel logical at times (maybe a subjective observation) but at least we all can agree that the ortography with its historical…
It could have been French (and in a sense was) if they had had movies and Internet earlier. Earlier? The French invented the movie theater.